一則不知 The Old Soldier Knew Nothing Anyway
唐僧道：「無此理，無此理。我們且進去，到街坊上再問。」沙僧道：「正是。那老軍一則不知，二則被大哥諕得胡說。且入城去詢問。」又入三層門裡，到通衢大市觀看，倒也衣冠濟楚，人物清秀。唐僧道：「无此理，无此理。我们且进去，到街坊上再问。」沙僧道：「正是。那老军一则不知，二则被大哥諕得胡说。且入城去询问。」又入三层门里，到通衢大市观看，倒也衣冠济楚，人物清秀。
逐句解 Line by line
The Tang Monk said, "There is no sense in that, no sense in that.
無此理 wú cǐ lǐ, said twice. Tripitaka is not usually the one who spots a bad argument, and the doubling is him being firm for once.
Let us go in, and ask again when we reach the streets."
The practical decision, and the one that walks them into the coops.
Sha Monk said, "Quite so. That old soldier for one thing knew nothing, and for another had been frightened into babbling by our eldest brother. Let us go into the city and enquire."
Sha Monk gets the last word and the only accurate reading of the scene. In 一則, 一 is yī — held at its full tone rather than shifted down, because here it is not counting anything but listing: for one thing, for another. 諕 is xià, to frighten. Inside 諕得, 得 is de, the little joint that hooks a verb to its result — frightened so far that he babbled.
They passed inward through three tiers of gates to the great thoroughfare and looked about them, and found the dress and caps decent enough and the people handsome.
通衆大市 tōng qú dà shì is the main commercial street. 倒 is dào, used here as the little adverb of surprise — "actually," "rather" — which tells you the pilgrims had been expecting worse. Three tiers of gates, and the city inside them looks prosperous. Hold that thought.
Sha Monk speaks about once a chapter, and when he does he is usually right. Here he gives the reader the correct account of the gate scene in two clauses: the sentry did not know, and Wukong terrified him into saying anything. It is also the closest the novel comes to admitting that shaking a sleeping man awake was not good information-gathering.
The last sentence is the trap. Everything the pilgrims can see is reassuring — three sets of gates, a proper commercial street, well-dressed people. The novel is deliberately showing them a functioning city, because the horror it is about to reveal is not a ruin or a wasteland. It is a prosperous capital where eleven hundred and eleven children are sitting in baskets by the front doors while everyone goes on trading.