行者的衣服 They Changed Clothes With Each Other
脫了他的衣服，以行者的衣服穿上。行者卻將師父的衣服穿了，捻著訣，念個咒語，搖身變作唐僧的嘴臉。八戒、沙僧也難識認。脱了他的衣服，以行者的衣服穿上。行者却将师父的衣服穿了，捻着诀，念个咒语，摇身变作唐僧的嘴脸。八戒、沙僧也难识认。
逐句解 Line by line
They stripped off his clothes, and he put on Pilgrim's instead.
Fourteen characters, and the reversal is complete in the one way that matters to everybody who will look at them. The brief for this chapter warned that 行 bases wrong here; measured at the size of unit the work actually uses, it does not — it reads xíng unaided, because the unit begins at 脫 and the character before 行 is 以.
Pilgrim then put on the master's clothes, made the sign with his fingers, recited a spell, shook himself and changed into the very features of the Tang Monk.
著 is zhe, the running marker, and this is the last of the chapter's eight — every one of which is zhe, with the zhù the base keeps reaching for occurring nowhere at all, for the fourth chapter running.
Bajie and Sha Monk could not tell them apart either.
難 is nán, hard to — four of the chapter's five take this reading. Eight characters, and they are the guarantee that the disguise will hold: the two who have travelled with both men for years cannot see the join.
The swap is finished and the novel certifies it with the only witnesses whose opinion is worth anything. Bajie and Sha Monk have been on the road with these two for the length of the journey, and they cannot tell which is which.
There is a nice symmetry in the exchange of clothes. Tripitaka arrived at this court a few hours ago in the brocade cassock and the Vairocana cap that a Bodhisattva gave him, and a poem said he had the look of a living Buddha. He is now standing in a monkey's cast-offs with a mask of urine and dirt on his face, and it is going to save his life.