遠遠的站定 Stand Well Back And Wait
行者吩咐八戒:「你且遠遠的站定,待我叫開門,尋著那怪,趕將出來,你卻接應。」八戒聞命,即離樹有半里遠近立下。行者吩咐八戒:「你且远远的站定,待我叫开门,寻着那怪,赶将出来,你却接应。」八戒闻命,即离树有半里远近立下。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim gave Bajie his orders: "Stand well back and wait. Let me call the door open, find the creature and drive him out, and you take him as he comes."
尋著 takes zháo, the reading for a search that succeeds — find-and-get, not looking-about. The proof is in the negative: this novel says 尋不著, "cannot manage to find," nine times, and a form like that exists only when the second character is a result rather than a running action. 接應 is a military word — to receive and support an ally driving an enemy toward you — so Wukong is giving Bajie a battle position, not a place to wait. 接應 takes yìng, the answering reading.
Bajie heard the order and went off to stand about half a lǐ from the tree.
Half a Ming 里 is roughly 290 metres. Bajie has been told to stand well back and has interpreted it generously, which the novel reports without comment and the reader may draw their own conclusions from.
The plan is sound and Wukong states it in one breath: I go in, I drive him out, you catch him. Every element of it will happen, and none of it in the order he intends.
Bajie's distance is the detail to keep hold of. Two hundred and ninety metres is far enough that he cannot see what is going on, which is precisely why he will spend the fight taking his rake to a tree.