白米乾飯 Rice and Steamed Bread for Monks
村上人家好善，蒸的白米乾飯、白麵饝饝齋僧哩。這些霧，想是那些人家蒸籠之氣，也是積善之應。」村上人家好善，蒸的白米干饭、白面饝饝斋僧哩。这些雾，想是那些人家蒸笼之气，也是积善之应。」
逐句解 Line by line
The households in that village love doing good, and they are steaming white rice and white-flour buns to feed monks.
乾 is gān in 乾飯, dry-cooked rice as against gruel — not the qián of the first trigram. 饝饝 is a steamed wheat bun. 齋僧 is to give a meal to monks as an act of merit, and it is a real institution, not a courtesy. Bajie is listening.
This fog is most likely the steam off those households' steamer baskets, and a response to their accumulated good deeds as well."
應 is yìng, a response — the answering return that good conduct draws down, a thoroughly conventional piece of moral physics. He has now explained the demon's breath as cookery and added a theological gloss to it.
The lie acquires detail, and the detail is food. White rice, white buns, steamer baskets, and the fog itself recruited as evidence. Pilgrim is not inventing a village so much as cooking one.
The pious framing is the finishing touch. Good people, merit accumulating, heaven answering — it is exactly the kind of explanation Tripitaka would want to be true, and it is aimed past him at his brother.