The fiend king, hearing this, called at once, "You lads, fetch five taels of silver and send him on his way."

He pays without hesitating, which is the first thing we learn about his character: he is careless with money and wants the stranger gone. Both instincts will cost him.

Pilgrim said, "This guest has come firstly to collect his silver, and secondly to have a look at the goodly gathering."

A completely unnecessary sentence, and it nearly ruins everything. Pilgrim has been paid and could leave; instead he pushes, because the plan needs the party to have a mention.

The fiend flew into a rage and cursed, "You lazy little wretch of a Sly-Devious!

憊懶 is a good Ming insult — slack, shameless, good for nothing. Note that he curses the servant by name, and the name is one of the two on the tablets, so the disguise is holding even while the wearer is being shouted at.

"You bought the goods and that is that — what business have you telling people about gatherings or no gatherings?"

罷了 is a fixed expression meaning and there is an end of it, and its first graph keeps the full reading rather than the light one it takes as a sentence-final softener. 會不會 — gathering or no gathering — is the dismissive doubling of a word, the Chinese equivalent of parties and such.

Eight Rules stepped up and said, "The master of the house has got himself treasures, the true wonders of the world. What harm in letting him have a look?"

Eight Rules saves the plan, and he does it by flattery. He has read the monster correctly in a way Pilgrim did not: this is a creature who cannot resist being told his loot is remarkable.

The fiend gave a snort and said, "And you, Odd-Queer, are as bad!

咄 is a bark of contempt written straight into the text as a sound — the graph exists for very little else.

"These treasures of mine came out of the city of Jade-Flower Prefecture. If this guest sees them and goes off spreading it about the prefecture, and it gets known, and those princes come looking for them one day — what then?"

Two readings of the same graph in one line. 得來 keeps dé, the full verb: they were come by, obtained. But in 說得人知 the same graph is the light de, linking the telling to its result — said so that people come to know. The monster's fear is also, note, entirely accurate. He has correctly predicted the plot of the chapter he is in.

Pilgrim said, "Master, this guest comes from beyond the Qián-Quarter Market, a good way from the prefecture, and he is no city man either. Where would he go to spread it about?

那 is nǎ here, the asking reading — where, not there. The question is rhetorical, and the whole rebuttal is a lie built on the one true fact Pilgrim happens to hold: he really did hear the market named, out on the road.

"Besides, his belly is empty, and we two have not eaten either. There is food and wine ready in the house — give him some, and send him off."

罷 takes the light ba here, the sentence-final softener that turns an instruction into a suggestion. And this is the sentence that wins: the request has stopped being about seeing the treasure and become about feeding a hungry man.

Before he had finished, a little fiend had fetched five taels of silver and handed it to Pilgrim.

The staff have gone on obeying the first order while the argument raged. The novel does not comment on it, and it is very funny.

Pilgrim passed the silver to Sha Monk and said, "Guest, take your silver, and I will bring you in to the back for something to eat."

The line that gets all three of them inside. Every word of it is addressed to Sha Monk and meant for the monster, and it works because being paid and being fed are the two most ordinary things in the world.