原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
下回分解 To Be Continued
畢竟不知此去還有幾日方見如來，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知此去还有几日方见如来，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
畢竟不知此去還有幾日方見如來，且聽下回分解。
毕竟不知此去还有几日方见如来，且听下回分解。
In the end there is no telling how many days lie between this departure and the sight of the Tathagata. Listen to the next instalment, and it will be explained.
The fixed closing formula of every chapter of this novel, and of the whole storytelling tradition it grew out of. 分解 is to break something down and explain it, and 且聽, just listen, is addressed to an audience sitting in front of a storyteller rather than to a reader holding a book.
The chapter closes on the same question it opened with. Tripitaka asked, in the second passage, whether the city ahead might be India; Pilgrim told him there was no telling how much road lay between India and Spirit Mountain. Eighty-odd passages later the formula asks it again, and still nobody knows.
But something has been settled in between. This chapter had no monster in it, no kidnapping and no transformation to speak of — only a drought, a prefect, a bad afternoon three years old, and the discovery that what heaven wanted was not force but a change of mind. The pilgrims leave behind a temple named for rain that falls on everyone alike, and thirteen chapters still to walk.