原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
洞內有精 Mountains Caves and Monsters
三藏道：「我是老實話。」和尚道：「那東土到西天，有多少路程？路上有山，山中有洞，洞內有精。三藏道：「我是老实话。」和尚道：「那东土到西天，有多少路程？路上有山，山中有洞，洞内有精。
逐句解 Line by line
三藏道：「我是老實話。」
三藏道：「我是老实话。」
Tripitaka said, "I am telling the honest truth."
Eight characters, and no elaboration. It is all he has.
和尚道：「那東土到西天，有多少路程？
和尚道：「那东土到西天，有多少路程？
The monk said, "From that Land of the East to the Western Heaven, how much road is there?
He asks the one question nobody in the party can answer. Tripitaka put almost exactly this to Pilgrim at the foot of the mountain this morning and got a proverb back.
路上有山，山中有洞，洞內有精。
路上有山，山中有洞，洞内有精。
There are mountains on the road, and caves in the mountains, and spirits in the caves.
Twelve characters in three linked clauses, each one climbing inside the last. It is the whole geography of this novel stated as a nesting doll, and it is entirely accurate.
The lama's argument is not that the journey is impossible but that it is famously lethal, and he sets out why in the tidiest sentence anybody manages in the chapter.
Mountains, caves, spirits. Eighty chapters of this book have consisted of very little else, and a monk who has never left this valley has just summarised the whole of it for the man who has walked it.