狐蹤兔跡 Fox Tracks And Hare Tracks
三人急急到於林內，只見那：三人急急到于林内，只见那：
逐句解 Line by line
The three of them came in haste into the wood, and saw only this:
那 is nà, and the tag introduces a set-piece description. A tag is never parted from its verse.
Clouds thick and low, mist wide and drifting;
Six characters, each pair a noun and a doubled adjective. The verse opens as compressed as it can be and will loosen as it goes.
rocks in layer on layer, the path winding and winding.
The same shape again, so the two lines lock together. Doubling an adjective in Chinese makes it vivid rather than emphatic — layered, coiling.
Fox tracks and hare tracks run criss-cross together; tigers, leopards, jackals and wolves come burrowing back and forth.
跡 is jì here, a trace or track left behind, not the jī the base reading offers. The line is a list of animals — and the thing they are hunting is one.
Within the wood there is no shadow of a fiend at all, and no knowing where Tripitaka may be.
更 is gèng, even or still more, and 藏 is zàng in the master's name. The verse ends by admitting the search has failed.
A landscape poem that turns out to be a report of nothing found. Four lines of clouds, rocks, paths and animal tracks, and the last line says there is no trace of what they came for.
The animal tracks are quietly pointed. Fox and hare, tiger and wolf, criss-crossing the ground — a wood full of the spoor of creatures, and the one they want is an animal too, and has left nothing.
It is also the first time in the chapter that Pilgrim's plan does not work. Going back to the pine wood was good reasoning and the wood is empty.