Canonical Classics ← 第八十一回
第八十一回
zhènhǎixīnyuánzhīguài
hēisōnglínsānzhòngxúnshī

At the Sea-Calming Monastery the Mind-Ape Knows the Fiend · In the Black Pine Wood the Three Seek Their Master

千里之遙
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

千里之遙 A Thousand Li To The South

xíngzhědào:「zhīshuōlái。」dào:「yāojīngshèshīzàizhèngnánxiàyǒuqiānzhīyáoxiāngyǒuzuòshānhuànzuòxiànkōngshānxíngzhědào:「zhīshuōlái。」dào:「yāojīngshèshīzàizhèngnánxiàyǒuqiānzhīyáoxiāngyǒuzuòshānhuànzuòxiànkōngshān


逐句解 Line by line

xíngzhědào:「zhīshuōlái。」 xíngzhědào:「zhīshuōlái。」

Pilgrim said, "Since you know, then out with it, every bit."

一一, one by one, is a fixed adverbial phrase, and both characters keep the citation tone rather than shifting as a running numeral would. Chapters 66 and 74 read it the same way.

dào:「yāojīngshèshīzàizhèngnánxiàyǒuqiānzhīyáo dào:「yāojīngshèshīzàizhèngnánxiàyǒuqiānzhīyáo

The earth god said, "That fiend who carried off your master went away to the due south of here, a thousand distant.

is at both appearances, pointing. A Ming is about 576 metres, so a thousand of them is some 576 kilometres — and Pilgrim covers that in a fraction of one somersault.

xiāngyǒuzuòshānhuànzuòxiànkōngshān xiāngyǒuzuòshānhuànzuòxiànkōngshān

There is a mountain over there, called the Mountain of Hollow Emptiness.

陷空山 — the mountain that sinks away into nothing. The name is the answer to the riddle-verse's earthen passage.


總評 Commentary

The intelligence arrives, and it is precise: due south, a thousand , a named mountain. Two minor gods have the answer the whole company lacked.

The distance is worth doing the arithmetic on. A thousand Ming is around 576 kilometres — a serious journey on foot and nothing at all to a creature whose single somersault covers a hundred and eight thousand of them.

The mountain's name is the chapter's last piece of foreshadowing paying off. The riddle-verse said she made an earthen passage her door and house. The place is called Hollow Emptiness, and what is in it has no bottom.