原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
下回分解 To Be Continued
畢竟不知還有幾日得到西天，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知还有几日得到西天，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
畢竟不知還有幾日得到西天，且聽下回分解。
毕竟不知还有几日得到西天，且听下回分解。
As to how many days more it would take to reach the Western Heaven — listen to the explanation in the next chapter.
The standing closing formula of every chapter in the novel. 畢竟 is after all is said, 下回分解 is the next round's unravelling, and 得到 takes 得 as dé, the attaining reading — the last of forty-eight in this chapter, and it means simply to get there. Eighteen characters, the shortest passage in the chapter.
The formula is a survival from the storyteller's platform, where a chapter ended when the teller wanted his audience back tomorrow. The written novel kept it, and it still does the same work — it promises there is more and declines to say what.
The question it leaves hanging is the one the woodcutter answered a page ago: how many days to the Western Heaven. He said under a thousand lǐ. The narrator says he does not know, which is the more honest answer and the one the next chapter will bear out.