捻手捻腳 He Pinches His Hands and Feet
他走上前扯住，滿面笑唏唏的與他捻手捻腳，摸他鼻子，揪他耳朵，以示親近之意。攜至方丈中，行禮畢，卻問：「老師父何來？」他走上前扯住，满面笑唏唏的与他捻手捻脚，摸他鼻子，揪他耳朵，以示亲近之意。携至方丈中，行礼毕，却问：「老师父何来？」
逐句解 Line by line
He came up and took hold of him, and all over smiles pinched his hands and pinched his feet, felt his nose and tugged his ears, by way of showing friendliness.
捻手捻腳 and the rest are a real form of greeting, and the narrator says so outright at the end of the line — this is what welcome looks like here. To a Chinese reader it would be startling; a Chinese greeting keeps both parties at arm's length and bows.
He led him into the abbot's room, and when the courtesies were done he asked, "Where have you come from, venerable master?"
In 行禮 the 行 is xíng, to perform — this is the one place in the chapter where the character needed correcting, because the machine read 中行 straight across the comma before it and took it for the name of a bank.
The greeting is the warmest thing that happens to Tripitaka in the whole chapter, and it is delivered by pinching. The book reports it without a flicker of mockery, which given how it treats most foreigners is worth noticing.
There is also a quiet joke in the sequencing. Every character who has touched Tripitaka today has wanted something from him. This one squeezes his hands and pulls his ears and then asks him where he has come from, and means nothing by it at all.