原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
惜命之心 A Heart That Loves Its Life
那怪精沒及奈何，只是惜命之心。急掙起來，把唐僧背在身上，拽開步，往外就走。那怪精没及奈何，只是惜命之心。急挣起来，把唐僧背在身上，拽开步，往外就走。
逐句解 Line by line
那怪精沒及奈何，只是惜命之心。
那怪精没及奈何，只是惜命之心。
That fiend had no way out of it; there was only the heart that clings to life.
沒及奈何 is a variant of the no-help-for-it phrase this chapter has used at every turning point, and 惜命 is to grudge one's life, to want to keep it. The narrator gives her no better motive and no worse one.
急掙起來，把唐僧背在身上，拽開步，往外就走。
急挣起来，把唐僧背在身上，拽开步，往外就走。
She struggled up in haste, took the Tang Monk on her back, strode out and went straight for the entrance.
Two readings. 背 is bēi, the verb meaning to carry on the back, not the bèi of the back as a thing — the shaded side of the peach tree took that one a few passages ago. And 拽 is yè, to drag or pull, not the zhuāi of throwing: 拽開步 is to open out one's stride, to set off at a pace.
The image is the chapter's last and best inversion. She kidnapped him, carried him underground, dressed for him and laid on a feast, and she leaves carrying him on her back to get him out of her house as fast as she can.
The narrator's account of her motive is unsentimental and, for this novel, unusually flat. No cunning, no second plan. She wants to stay alive.