原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
無底洞 The Cave Without A Bottom
山中有個洞，叫做無底洞。是那山裡妖精，到此變化攝去也。」山中有个洞，叫做无底洞。是那山里妖精，到此变化摄去也。」
逐句解 Line by line
山中有個洞，叫做無底洞。
山中有个洞，叫做无底洞。
"In the mountain there is a cave, called the Bottomless Cave.
中 is plain zhōng, within. 無底洞 is still a live Chinese expression for something that swallows whatever you put into it and never fills.
是那山裡妖精，到此變化攝去也。」
是那山里妖精，到此变化摄去也。」
It is the fiend of that mountain who came here, worked her transformations and carried him off."
那 is nà. 變化, transformation, is the word for exactly what she did with the shoe and what Pilgrim did with himself.
The name lands, and it is the title of everything that follows. A cave with no bottom is the setting for the next two chapters and the place Tripitaka now is.
It is a name with real weight in Chinese. A bottomless hole is what you call a debt that can never be paid or an appetite that cannot be satisfied, and both senses will turn out to apply.
And it closes the loop with the riddle-verse from the fight. An earthen passage serves her for door and house — a rat's burrow, described as architecture, and now given a name and a location.