你的女兒麼 Is This Your Daughter
八戒將個死狐狸摜在鹿的面前道：「這可是你的女兒麼？」那鹿點頭幌腦，伸著嘴，聞他幾聞，呦呦發聲，似有眷戀不捨之意。八戒将个死狐狸掼在鹿的面前道：「这可是你的女儿么？」那鹿点头幌脑，伸着嘴，闻他几闻，呦呦发声，似有眷恋不舍之意。
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie flung the dead fox down in front of the deer and said, "I suppose this would be your daughter?"
摜 is to fling something down hard. Bajie is making a joke, and the joke is the cover story: the Royal Father-in-Law presented her at court as his own daughter. He is asking the deer to confirm the paperwork.
The deer nodded its head and shook it, stretched out its muzzle, sniffed at her several times, and gave a bleating cry, as though it had some clinging attachment it could not let go of.
伸著嘴 — 著 as zhe again, the muzzle held out while it sniffs. 呦呦 is the sound a deer makes, and it is a famous one: it opens a poem in the Book of Songs about deer calling to each other over a field, which for three thousand years has stood for a host welcoming his guests. Here it is a bereavement noise. 眷戀不捨, clinging attachment that cannot let go, is a phrase for parting from someone you love.
This is the strangest and best moment in the chapter, and the novel gives it twenty-five characters and no comment. A creature that has lost the power of speech nods, shakes its head, sniffs the body and cries.
Everything the deer can no longer say has to go through the body, and what comes out is grief. The book has spent a whole chapter establishing that this pair murdered children for a fraudulent medicine, and it now shows one of them mourning the other, without asking the reader to feel anything in particular about it.
The bleat is the detail that does the damage. Of all the noises available, the novel picks the one from the Book of Songs, where deer calling in a field means welcome and good company — and puts it over a corpse.