Bajie and Sha Monk heard him out and were delighted. "Brother, the accusation is sound. You are bound to have the better of it.

必得上風 — you will surely get the upper hand. 得 is dé, to obtain, standing after the adverb 必. It is not the děi of obligation, which this edition has met exactly once so far, at chapter 74. 十分 is ten parts out of ten, still the everyday word for very.

But you must come back quickly.

Three characters. The novel drops the sentence length to almost nothing at the point where the worry starts.

Any delay and I fear the fiend will do the master a fatal injury."

The disciples are right to worry, and for a reason none of them can guess yet: the trouble will not be the fiend's knife but the difference between how time runs in heaven and how it runs down here.

Pilgrim said, "I shall be quick, I shall be quick. As long as it takes rice to cook, or tea to come to the boil, and I am back."

多時飯熟 and 少時茶滾 make a lovely pair of kitchen clocks: at longest, the time to cook rice; at shortest, the time to boil tea. A clockless world measured its short intervals by what was on the stove, and English does the same when it says in two shakes.