不敢答應 He Dares Not Answer
他師徒兩個商量未了，早是那妖精安排停當，走近東廊外，開了門鎖，叫聲：「長老。」唐僧不敢答應。又叫一聲，又不敢答應。他师徒两个商量未了，早是那妖精安排停当，走近东廊外，开了门锁，叫声：「长老。」唐僧不敢答应。又叫一声，又不敢答应。
逐句解 Line by line
Master and disciple had not finished their conference when the fiend, having everything ready, came up outside the east corridor, opened the door lock and called, "Elder!"
The timing is the point: she arrives mid-sentence. Two readings to mark. 了 is liǎo here, the full verb meaning to finish, not the light le that marks a completed action. And in the word for having everything in order, 當 is dàng rather than dāng — the settled-and-fitting reading.
The Tang Monk dared not answer.
Six characters of silence. Here 應 is yìng, to respond or answer back, not the yīng of ought or should. The whole of the next passage is about this refusal.
She called a second time, and again he dared not answer.
The repetition is deliberate and the narrator is counting. Again 應 is yìng, answering.
A door opening and a woman calling a name, twice, and no reply. The novel has spent two thousand characters on caves and transformations and now gets its best tension out of a man deciding whether to speak.
The setting is worth remembering. He is behind a red paper lattice with light above and dark below; she can see a shape and he can see nothing. Neither of them knows what the other is doing, and there is a fly on his head giving instructions.