大鬧天宮 When He Wrecked Heaven
「若我老孫，方五百年前大鬧天宮之時，雲遊海角，放蕩天涯；聚群精，自稱齊天大聖；降龍伏虎，消了死籍。「若我老孙，方五百年前大闹天宫之时，云游海角，放荡天涯；聚群精，自称齐天大圣；降龙伏虎，消了死籍。
逐句解 Line by line
"As for Old Monkey, five hundred years ago at the time I made havoc in Heaven, I roamed the corners of the sea as a cloud roams and ranged loose to the ends of the sky;
大鬧天宮, making havoc in Heaven, is the title Chinese gives the whole opening arc of the novel, and it has long since escaped the book. It is the name of operas, films and cartoons, and most people who use it have never read chapter 7.
I gathered the host of spirits about me and styled myself Great Sage Equal to Heaven;
The title 齊天大聖 is a demand as much as a name — level with Heaven, and therefore owed a seat at its table. Heaven eventually granted it, on the reasoning that a title costs nothing.
I subdued dragons and tamed tigers, and struck my name off the register of the dead.
Here 降 is xiáng, to make submit, not the jiàng of coming down. The register of the dead is the underworld ledger of everyone's allotted span; Pilgrim once went down and crossed his own name out of it by hand, which is the most characteristic thing he has ever done.
Pilgrim has been alone in the sky for about three sentences and he is already reminiscing. The speech has no listener and no purpose beyond pleasure, which is what makes it endearing rather than boastful.
It also does necessary work for a reader who has come this far. Chapters 1 to 7 are a different book — a monkey against the whole apparatus of Heaven — and the seventy-three chapters since have been about a servant with a headache-inducing band on his skull. Letting him tell the old story to nobody in particular keeps both versions of him in view at once.