那個敢吃 Who Would Dare Eat It
三藏在樓上聽見道:「孫二官,怎好?他去宰雞鵝,殺豬羊,倘送將來,我們都是長齋,那個敢吃?」行者道:「我有主張。」三藏在楼上听见道:「孙二官,怎好?他去宰鸡鹅,杀猪羊,倘送将来,我们都是长斋,那个敢吃?」行者道:「我有主张。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka heard it from upstairs and said: "Sun the Second — what are we to do?
He uses the false name even in a panic, and even to complain. Whatever else Tripitaka is, he does as he is told.
She has gone off to kill chickens and geese and pigs and sheep. If it is sent up, we are all on a lifelong fast — who would dare eat it?"
長 is cháng in 長齋, a fast kept without end, for life — not the zhǎng of seniority that the same character takes in 長老 a dozen times in this chapter. And 那 is nǎ, the questioning reading: which of us, expecting the answer none.
Pilgrim said: "I have a plan."
Seven characters, and it is the shortest answer he gives anybody in the chapter.
The crisis is a dinner. Four monks who have lied their way into a city, stolen clothes and invented a trading firm — and a landlady being generous with meat has undone the lot of them.
And it is a real problem, not a comic one. Eating it breaks a vow that Tripitaka has kept for the whole journey; refusing it exposes them as monks. There is no version of the evening where they simply eat what is put in front of them.