原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
搠個窟窿 A Hole Punched Through the Mountain
他若曉得是我們吃了，他也不來和我們廝打，他只把那金箍棒往山腰裡一搠，搠個窟窿，連山都掬倒了，我們安身之處也無之矣。」他若晓得是我们吃了，他也不来和我们厮打，他只把那金箍棒往山腰里一搠，搠个窟窿，连山都掬倒了，我们安身之处也无之矣。」
逐句解 Line by line
他若曉得是我們吃了，他也不來和我們廝打，他只把那金箍棒往山腰裡一搠，搠個窟窿，連山都掬倒了，我們安身之處也無之矣。」
他若晓得是我们吃了，他也不来和我们厮打，他只把那金箍棒往山腰里一搠，搠个窟窿，连山都掬倒了，我们安身之处也无之矣。」
If he learns that we were the ones who ate him, he will not even come and fight us. He will simply drive that gold-hooped rod into the waist of the mountain, punch a hole through it, scoop the whole mountain over, and we shall have nowhere left to live."
倒 is dǎo, knocked over — the falling reading, not the dào of contrariness. 搠 is to jab or thrust something in, said twice, and 掬 is to scoop up with both hands. The vision is not of a fight but of a landscape being removed. 也無之矣 ends the speech in literary particles, which is the imp reaching for grandeur at the worst possible moment.
Fifty-one characters, the longest single segment in the chapter's closing run, and every clause of it makes the threat worse. He will not fight us. He will take the mountain away.
What the imp is describing is a creature who does not distinguish between an enemy and the ground the enemy stands on. Nothing in this chapter has shown Pilgrim doing that. Everything in the last chapter did.