旌旗蔽日 Banners Blot Out The Sun
行者笑道：「都放心，都放心。這是虎口洞妖精昨日敗陣，往東南方去夥了那甚麼九靈元聖兒來也。等我同兄弟們出去。吩咐教關了四門，汝等點人夫看守城池。」那王子果傳令把四門閉了，點起人夫上城，他父子並唐僧在城樓上點劄，旌旗蔽日，炮火連天。行者三人，卻半雲半霧，出城迎敵。行者笑道：「都放心，都放心。这是虎口洞妖精昨日败阵，往东南方去伙了那甚么九灵元圣儿来也。等我同兄弟们出去。吩咐教关了四门，汝等点人夫看守城池。」那王子果传令把四门闭了，点起人夫上城，他父子并唐僧在城楼上点札，旌旗蔽日，炮火连天。行者三人，却半云半雾，出城迎敌。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim laughed and said, "Set your minds at rest, all of you, set your minds at rest.
He laughs, as he has laughed at every crisis in this chapter, and doubles the reassurance the way everyone else doubles their panic.
"This is the Tiger-Mouth Cave fiend, who lost the field yesterday and went off south-east to fall in with that Nine-Spirit Primal Sage or whatever he is called.
The dismissive little tag he hangs on the name is the whole of his mistake. He read the invitation, quoted the title twice to the prince, and still treats it as a name of no importance.
"Let me go out with my brothers.
Eight graphs, and no plan beyond going outside. After a chapter of disguises and forged accounts, he proposes to walk out and fight.
"Give the order to shut the four gates, and let your people be told off to guard the walls."
Sound advice, briskly given. Whatever else he has got wrong, he knows how to put a town on a war footing.
The prince did indeed give the order and had the four gates shut, called up the levies onto the walls, and he and his sons and Tripitaka mustered them from the gate tower, with banners blotting out the sun and cannon and fire filling the sky.
劄 is zhá here — the graph is a variant of the one used for a written roster, and the two of them share this reading, not the level tone a machine will offer. 點劄 is to call the muster and review the men. 旌旗蔽日 is a set phrase for an army large enough to darken the ground, and putting Tripitaka on a gate tower under it is a strange and rather good image.
Pilgrim and his two brothers, half in cloud and half in mist, went out from the city to meet the enemy.
半雲半霧 — half cloud, half mist — is how the novel puts its heroes into the air without quite lifting them off the ground. They are visible from the walls, which is the point.
The chapter ends where it has been heading since the invitation was read: everyone in place, gates shut, banners up, and three monks walking out into the air to meet an army. It is staged for the people on the wall, and the novel makes sure we notice them watching.
Pilgrim's one careless phrase is the seed of the next chapter. He calls the Nine-Spirit Primal Sage that whatever he is called — and he has had the creature's full title in his hands since yesterday noon, and repeated it twice. Sha Monk asked what sort of thing it was and nobody answered. They are about to find out.
The image to keep is Tripitaka on the gate tower. A monk who faints at the sight of a tiger is standing on a wall under war banners, mustering levies with a prince, while his three disciples go up into the mist. Eighty-nine chapters have brought him a long way from the man who set out from Chang'an.