未曾見 Nobody Has Seen Them
當殿官隨出外相請，都道：「未曾見，未曾見。」有跟隨的人道：「待客館中坐著三個醜貌和尚，想必是也。」当殿官随出外相请，都道：「未曾见，未曾见。」有跟随的人道：「待客馆中坐着三个丑貌和尚，想必是也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The officer of the hall went straight out to invite them, and everyone said, "Never seen them, never seen them."
相 is xiāng here, the little word that turns a verb outward toward someone else — to go and invite them. It was read the other way, appearance, when the pilgrims looked at the townspeople's faces a few passages back. The doubled 未曾見 is how spoken Chinese does a chorus: everyone asked gives the same answer twice.
One of the attendants said, "There are three hideous-looking monks sitting in the Guest House. It must surely be them."
The word 醜貌, ugly of face, arrives here and then will not go away — it becomes the running description of the disciples for the whole of the next two scenes. 著 is zhe, marking the sitting as a state they are in. The attendant's reasoning is impeccable and entirely unkind: nobody has seen any disciples, but there are three frightful monks in the guest house, so those will be the ones.
The comedy machinery starts here, and it starts with a bureaucratic failure. The officer is sent to invite three people and cannot find anybody who has seen them.
The reason nobody has seen them is that they went indoors, which the guest-house keeper arranged out of terror at the end of the last scene. The chapter has been laying this trap for two pages.