降龍伏虎 Tamers of Dragons and Tigers
那八戒低了頭，沙僧掩著臉，惟孫行者攙著師父。兩邊人都來爭看，齊聲叫道：「我這裡只有降龍伏虎的高僧，不曾見降豬伏猴的和尚。」那八戒低了头，沙僧掩着脸，惟孙行者搀着师父。两边人都来争看，齐声叫道：「我这里只有降龙伏虎的高僧，不曾见降猪伏猴的和尚。」
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie hung his head, Sha Monk covered his face, and only Sun Pilgrim went on supporting his master.
Three disciples, three responses to being told to behave, and the ranking is exact. 著 is zhe in both places, marking the action as ongoing — Sha Monk keeping his face covered, Pilgrim keeping hold of the master's arm. Bajie hides his head, Sha Monk hides his face, and Wukong hides nothing and does the work. 攙 is the particular verb for supporting someone by the elbow, the way you help an older person along.
People on both sides came crowding to look, and cried out with one voice, "In our parts we have eminent monks who tame dragons and subdue tigers. We have never seen monks who tame pigs and subdue monkeys."
The best joke in the chapter, and it turns on one four-character phrase. 降龍伏虎 — taming dragons, subduing tigers — is the standard formula for a monk of miraculous power, and it is still a living idiom in Chinese for mastering anything formidable. 降 is xiáng in both halves of the crowd's joke, to subdue, not the jiàng that means to descend, and the base reading of the character goes the wrong way here. The crowd swaps the noble animals for a pig and a monkey and keeps the grammar identical, which is exactly how you build this kind of insult.
The townspeople are not frightened. They are amused, and their joke is a good one, which tells you a great deal about Yuhua before the pilgrims have met anybody official.
The formula they are parodying describes what an eminent monk is supposed to be able to do. The crowd looks at Tripitaka's escort and points out that the animals have not been subdued at all — they are walking down the street with him, holding his arm.
There is a genuine theological joke buried in it too. Wukong and Bajie were tamed, by a bodhisattva and by a monk, and the taming is the entire premise of the pilgrimage. The crowd has stumbled onto the truth and thinks it is being witty.