原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
一肚餐之 Bajie Finishes What Is Left
唐僧只吃得半碗兒米湯，行者、沙僧止用了一席，其餘的都是八戒一肚餐之。家火收去，點起燈來，眾僧各散。唐僧只吃得半碗儿米汤，行者、沙僧止用了一席，其余的都是八戒一肚餐之。家火收去，点起灯来，众僧各散。
逐句解 Line by line
唐僧只吃得半碗兒米湯，行者、沙僧止用了一席，其餘的都是八戒一肚餐之。
唐僧只吃得半碗儿米汤，行者、沙僧止用了一席，其余的都是八戒一肚餐之。
The Tang Monk could manage only half a bowl of rice gruel; Pilgrim and Sha Monk used up no more than one setting between them; and all the rest went into Bajie's belly at a sitting.
得 is the unstressed de of a can-manage-it construction. 兒 is ér in the word for a half bowl. The last clause is four characters doing the work of a paragraph.
家火收去，點起燈來，眾僧各散。
家火收去，点起灯来，众僧各散。
The dishes were cleared away, the lamps were lit, and the monks all dispersed.
The same three actions that closed the opening scene of the chapter, in the same order — a deliberate echo, and the second night is about to go very differently from the first.
Four or five tables are laid and the invalid manages half a bowl. Everything else goes into Bajie, and the narrator reports it in four characters without comment.
It is a good joke and a piece of careful bookkeeping. The novel has now established that Bajie eats prodigiously, which is exactly what Pilgrim accused the monks of weeping about, and the accusation was wrong anyway.
The closing line is a deliberate repeat. Dishes cleared, lamps lit, everyone disperses — the identical sequence that ended the first evening. The reader is meant to feel the pattern and then watch it break.