你變化了去 Go Back and Change Shape
行者道：「你還去問他個端的。」八戒道：「這去他認得我了。」行者道：「你變化了去。」八戒道：「哥啊，且如我變了，卻怎麼問麼？」行者道：「你还去问他个端的。」八戒道：「这去他认得我了。」行者道：「你变化了去。」八戒道：「哥啊，且如我变了，却怎么问么？」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "You are to go back and get the truth of it out of them."
The last two characters are a set phrase. In 端的, the character 的 is dì rather than the ordinary light de, and the pair means the real facts, the whole of it, the straight story. It is one of the most characteristic phrases of Ming vernacular fiction and it usually signals that somebody is being sent to find something out.
Bajie said, "If I go now they will recognise me."
A practical objection, and a rare flash of forethought. 認得 is a verb of recognising in which 得 is dé, the full reading — this is not the light linking syllable but a fused ending on a verb of perception.
Pilgrim said, "Then transform yourself before you go."
The solution is so obvious to Pilgrim that it takes eight characters. Transformation is the working tool of this entire novel, and here it is deployed for what amounts to door-to-door enquiries.
Bajie said, "Brother! Suppose I do change — how am I to put the question?"
And now the real anxiety surfaces. He can change his body easily enough; what he cannot do is work out what to say. Given how the last conversation went, the worry is well founded.
The plan takes shape in four short exchanges, and each one is an objection answered. Bajie is not refusing; he is asking for instructions, which after the events at the well is exactly the right response.
What he is really asking for is a script, and Pilgrim is about to give him one, down to the forms of address. It is a small piece of tradecraft in a book full of them, and it is being conducted between a monkey and a pig on a hillside.