原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
金睛眼 Golden Eyes And Iron Cudgel
睜著一雙不白不黑的金睛眼，天慘淡，月朦朧；拿著一條不短不長的金箍棒，來無影，去無蹤。睁着一双不白不黑的金睛眼，天惨淡，月朦胧；拿着一条不短不长的金箍棒，来无影，去无踪。
逐句解 Line by line
睜著一雙不白不黑的金睛眼，天慘淡，月朦朧；
睁着一双不白不黑的金睛眼，天惨淡，月朦胧；
"Glaring with a pair of golden pupils neither white nor black, the sky goes dull and the moon goes dim;
著 is the sustained zhe, the glare held open. The golden eyes were burnt into him in Laozi's furnace, and they are the reason he could see through the woman's disguise in the wood when nobody else could.
拿著一條不短不長的金箍棒，來無影，去無蹤。
拿着一条不短不长的金箍棒，来无影，去无踪。
gripping a single rod neither short nor long, the gold-banded cudgel, it comes without a shadow and goes without a trace."
著 is zhe again. 長 is cháng, length, standing against 短 — and neither short nor long is literally true, since the cudgel changes size at command.
Two matched lines of self-description, each built the same way: a body part or weapon, a pair of negations, and a consequence.
Neither white nor black and neither short nor long are not evasions. The eyes really are gold, and the cudgel really does run from a needle behind his ear to a pillar holding up the sky. The negations are accurate.
And the golden eyes are the chapter's own irony sitting in the middle of a boast. They are the faculty that identified the fiend on the first morning, and the reason they failed is that his master overruled them.