我來吃齋 I Came to Eat Your Alms
八戒道：「不要扯，等我一家家吃將來。」群妖道：「和尚，你要吃甚的？」八戒道：「你們這裡齋僧，我來吃齋的。」八戒道：「不要扯，等我一家家吃将来。」群妖道：「和尚，你要吃甚的？」八戒道：「你们这里斋僧，我来吃斋的。」
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie said, "Stop pulling. Let me eat my way through, one household at a time."
He has not understood a thing. Being seized by forty creatures on a mountain road reads to him as an over-eager welcome, and his objection is to the queueing. In 吃將來 the 將 is the bleached jiāng that sits between a verb and its direction — eat my way toward here — and not the jiàng of a general.
The imps said, "Monk, what is it you want to eat?"
甚 is shén, the question word, with the second character of the pair dropped — the everyday clipping this novel uses constantly. The imps are genuinely puzzled, which is the funniest reading of the line.
Bajie said, "You feed monks here. I have come to eat."
He states his brother's lie back to a band of demons as though it were public information. 齋僧 and 吃齋 put the same word on both sides of the transaction: they give the meal, he eats the meal.
Three exchanges and neither side has any idea what the other is talking about. He thinks he is at a charity kitchen; they think he is asking for the menu.
The misunderstanding is exact and symmetrical, and it turns on one word. He came because monks get fed here. They are about to explain what gets fed to whom.