不識好歹 They Knew No Better
拿盤的小怪道：「你師父被我大王拿進洞來，洞裡小妖村頑，不識好歹，這個來吞，那個來啃，抓的抓，咬的咬，把你師父吃了，只剩了一個頭在這裡也。」拿盘的小怪道：「你师父被我大王拿进洞来，洞里小妖村顽，不识好歹，这个来吞，那个来啃，抓的抓，咬的咬，把你师父吃了，只剩了一个头在这里也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The little fiend with the tray said, "Your master was carried into the cave by our Great King. The lesser fiends inside are coarse and stupid and know no better — this one came to gulp, that one came to gnaw, some scratching, some biting, and they ate your master up. All that is left is this one head here."
The story is told with a shrug and it is a masterpiece of deniability: the king brought him in, but the staff got at him, and nobody in particular is to blame. 不識好歹, to know neither good from bad, is still the standard phrase for somebody with no judgement. The paired verbs — 抓的抓, 咬的咬 — are a distributive pattern meaning some did this and some did that, and the rhythm makes a crowd out of it.
The speech is constructed to be believed. It explains the absence of a body, accounts for the presence of a head, and shifts responsibility onto subordinates who are conveniently not present. It even includes a small apology in its tone.
The distributive phrasing is doing quiet work here. By describing the eating as a scrum of unnamed underlings rather than an act by anyone specific, the messenger makes it sound like weather — something that happened rather than something anyone did. Wukong will weep at this in a few passages, and he will be weeping at a story that was designed to produce exactly that response.