剝了皮蒸 Skin Him And Steam Him
八戒歡喜道：「阿彌陀佛！是那個積陰騭的說我不好蒸？」三怪道：「不好蒸，剝了皮蒸。」八戒慌了，厲聲喊道：「不要剝皮，粗自粗，湯響就爛了。」八戒欢喜道：「阿弥陀佛！是那个积阴骘的说我不好蒸？」三怪道：「不好蒸，剥了皮蒸。」八戒慌了，厉声喊道：「不要剥皮，粗自粗，汤响就烂了。」
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie said in delight, "Amitabha Buddha!
The Buddha of Infinite Light, whose name is what a Chinese Buddhist says the way an English speaker says thank God. Bajie is not praying; he is expressing relief, and doing it in the middle of a conversation about being cooked.
Which of you good souls said I am not easy to steam?"
積陰騭 is a lovely thing to find here. 陰騭 is hidden merit, the good you do that nobody sees and that heaven keeps a note of, and to accumulate it is the standard phrase for building up moral credit. Bajie is thanking a demon for its spiritual bookkeeping.
The third fiend said, "Not easy to steam — then skin him and steam him."
Ten characters, and the sentence turns on repeating the objection before dismissing it. The rhythm is that of a man solving a small problem at work.
Bajie panicked and shouted at the top of his voice, "Don't skin me! Tough I may be, but once the water boils I shall soften up!"
粗自粗 is a colloquial concession — coarse it may be coarse, granted. Bajie has switched sides in the argument in the space of one line, and is now making the case for his own cookability.
This is the funniest exchange in the chapter and it works on a single mechanism: Bajie keeps forgetting what the conversation is about. Told he is hard to steam, he hears a compliment. Told the solution is to skin him, he remembers.
The hidden-merit joke deserves its moment. Accumulating unseen virtue is a serious idea in Chinese religion, the whole basis of the ledgers of merit and demerit that people actually kept. Bajie applies it to a monster who has just raised a difficulty with the recipe.
And then he argues himself into the pot. Rather than be flayed he volunteers that he will go tender with enough boiling, which is a genuinely brave thing to say and a genuinely stupid one, and the book declines to tell you which. Bajie is at his most human exactly when he is at his most ridiculous.