人也非怪也 A Man and Not a Monster
諕得三藏面容失色，丟下飯碗，躬著身道：「貧僧乃唐朝來取經者，人也，非怪也。」小王子道：「你便還像個人，那三個醜的斷然是怪。」諕得三藏面容失色，丢下饭碗，躬着身道：「贫僧乃唐朝来取经者，人也，非怪也。」小王子道：「你便还像个人，那三个丑的断然是怪。」
逐句解 Line by line
It so frightened Tripitaka that the colour left his face. He put down his rice bowl, bent his body and said, "This poor monk has come from the Tang court to seek scriptures. A man, and not a monster."
諕 is xià, to frighten, and 得 is de, the hinge that ties the fright to what it produced — the same construction the novel used for the whole street stumbling away from Bajie's snout. 著 is zhe, marking the bow as held. The last clause is deliberately formal, two little classical phrases balanced against each other: a man, indeed; not a monster, indeed. Under pressure Tripitaka retreats into grammar.
The young princes said, "You do at least look like a man. Those three ugly ones are monsters for certain."
斷然, decidedly, absolutely, is the sound of somebody who has made up his mind on the evidence of his eyes. The concession in the first half makes the second half worse: they are willing to be reasonable, they have examined the case, and they have concluded that faces are proof.
Tripitaka, confronted by three armed teenagers, drops his bowl and starts speaking classical Chinese. It is entirely in character and rather touching.
The princes' verdict is the chapter's argument in its bluntest form. He looks human, so he is human. They do not, so they are not. Nobody in Yuhua has yet suggested any other way of telling.
Bajie's response, in the very next line, is to go on eating, which is either the wisest thing anyone does in this scene or simply the most characteristic.