巧語花言 A Tale in Honeyed Words
那妖精巧語花言，虛情假意，忙忙的答應道：「師父，我家住在貧婆國，離此有二百餘里。父母在堂，十分好善，一生的和親愛友。那妖精巧语花言，虚情假意，忙忙的答应道：「师父，我家住在贫婆国，离此有二百余里。父母在堂，十分好善，一生的和亲爱友。
逐句解 Line by line
That fiend, with cunning words and flowery speech, all counterfeit feeling and false sentiment, answered hurriedly, "Master, my family lives in the Kingdom of the Poor Woman, some two hundred lǐ and more from here.
巧語花言 is the ancestor of the modern set phrase for sweet talk, which flips the two halves round. The novel is using the older order. And 應 in 答應 is yìng, to answer, not the yīng of ought.
My father and mother are living, they are exceedingly given to good works, and all their lives they have been kind to kin and loving to friends.
Every detail is chosen to reassure a monk. Parents alive, family charitable, a reputation for kindness — she is building the most respectable household she can and putting herself inside it.
The narrator flags the lie in advance and in the strongest terms, then lets her speak for nine straight passages without interruption. The reader knows. Tripitaka does not. The technique is as old as storytelling and it still works.
The kingdom she names is not a real place in this book's geography, and the name is faintly absurd — a Poor Woman Kingdom, invented on the spot by somebody who needs a home town. Two hundred lǐ is about a hundred and fifteen kilometres, far enough that nobody will check and near enough to be plausible.