Canonical Classics ← 第八十三回
第八十三回
xīnyuánshídāntóu
chàháiguīběnxìng

The Mind-Ape Knows the Elixir Head · The Fair Girl Returns to Her Original Nature

女兒在下界
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

女兒在下界 There Is A Daughter Below

quèhuíshǒuxiàngzuòshànglehuángjīnbǎotuōzàishǒujiānwènzhādào:「háiérjiànjiàzhùdāoyǒuhuàshuō?」zhājiànkòutóudào:「wángshìyǒuérzàixiàjièli。」quèhuíshǒuxiàngzuòshànglehuángjīnbǎotuōzàishǒujiānwènzhādào:「háiérjiànjiàzhùdāoyǒuhuàshuō?」zhājiànkòutóudào:「wángshìyǒuérzàixiàjièli。」


逐句解 Line by line

quèhuíshǒuxiàngzuòshànglehuángjīnbǎotuōzàishǒujiānwènzhādào:「háiérjiànjiàzhùdāoyǒuhuàshuō?」 quèhuíshǒuxiàngzuòshànglehuángjīnbǎotuōzàishǒujiānwènzhādào:「háiérjiànjiàzhùdāoyǒuhuàshuō?」

So he turned his hand at once, took the yellow-gold pagoda from its stand, held it in his hand, and asked Nezha, "Child, you have blocked my blade with your sword. What have you to say?"

He picks up the pagoda before he asks the question, and the order of operations is the characterisation. 孩兒 is child, and it is the affectionate form — he arms himself against his son and addresses him fondly in the same breath.

zhājiànkòutóudào:「wángshìyǒuérzàixiàjièli。」 zhājiànkòutóudào:「wángshìyǒuérzàixiàjièli。」

Nezha threw down his sword, knocked his head on the ground, and said, "Father, there is a daughter of ours in the world below."

棄劍叩頭 — drops the weapon, then kowtows. Nezha disarms before he speaks, which answers his father's fear without a word of reassurance in it. And then, having been silent through the whole quarrel, he says the one sentence that decides the case.


總評 Commentary

The confrontation ends the instant the pagoda is in hand. Nezha never wanted a fight; he wanted the blade stopped long enough to say something.

What he says is the last thing his father expects and the exact thing Pilgrim needs. The accusation everybody in heaven has spent this chapter calling false turns out to be very nearly true.