定身法 Two Wolves Fixed In Place
行者聽得要慶釘鈀會，心中暗喜。欲要打殺他，爭奈不干他事，況手中又無兵器。他即飛向前邊，現了本相，在路口上立定。那怪看看走到身邊，被他一口法唾噴將去，念一聲「唵吽吒唎」，即使個定身法，把兩個狼頭精定住。眼睜睜，口也難開；直挺挺，雙腳站住。又將他扳翻倒，揭衣搜檢，果是有二十兩銀子，著一條搭包兒打在腰間裙帶上；又各掛著一個粉漆牌兒，一個上寫著「刁鑽古怪」，一個上寫著「古怪刁鑽」。行者听得要庆钉钯会，心中暗喜。欲要打杀他，争奈不干他事，况手中又无兵器。他即飞向前边，现了本相，在路口上立定。那怪看看走到身边，被他一口法唾喷将去，念一声「唵吽咤唎」，即使个定身法，把两个狼头精定住。眼睁睁，口也难开；直挺挺，双脚站住。又将他扳翻倒，揭衣搜检，果是有二十两银子，着一条搭包儿打在腰间裙带上；又各挂着一个粉漆牌儿，一个上写着「刁钻古怪」，一个上写着「古怪刁钻」。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim heard that they meant to hold a Rake Banquet, and rejoiced secretly in his heart.
The secret delight is the tell. He has not merely found the weapons — he has found a plan with a door in it.
He would have liked to beat them to death, but as it happened the business was no concern of theirs, and besides he had no weapon in his hands.
干 takes gān here, the reading for a thing being one's concern — so the sense is that the theft is nothing to do with these two, not that anybody is doing anything. The preceding 不 keeps its full bù against that levelled tone. Two reasons for restraint are given and the second one is the honest one: he is unarmed.
So he flew on ahead, resumed his true form, and took his stand at the crossroads.
He gets in front of them and simply waits in the road. After a butterfly and a rhapsody, the plainness of it is almost funny.
When the fiends had walked right up to him, he blew a mouthful of magic spittle at them, recited the words "Oṃ hūṃ ṭa ri", worked a body-fixing spell, and held the two wolf-headed spirits fast.
The syllables are a spell in the Indian manner, written out in Chinese graphs for their sound alone — the graphs carry no meaning here, only noise, and the mouth-radical on several of them is the scribe's way of flagging that. The 定身法, the body-fixing spell, is a standing item in Pilgrim's repertoire and one of the few he uses without theatrics.
Their eyes stared and stared, and their mouths could not open;
The doubling makes the stare go on. What is horrible about the spell is that it leaves the eyes working.
stiff and straight they stood, both feet planted fast.
Two seven-graph lines in a row, balanced against each other, in the middle of plain narrative. The prose tightens into near-verse exactly where the bodies lock.
Then he turned them over, opened their clothes and searched them, and sure enough there were twenty taels of silver, packed into a belt-purse and tied at the waist over their skirts.
著 is zhe here, the reading for a state that stays put — the silver is not being packed, it is sitting packed. 搭包兒 is the long cloth money-belt a traveller wound about himself, the Ming equivalent of a hidden wallet.
Each of them also had a powder-lacquered tablet hung on him: one was inscribed "Sly-Devious Odd-Queer", and the other "Odd-Queer Sly-Devious".
Here is the detail the rest of the chapter runs on. The two guards wear name tablets, and their names are the same two words in opposite order — 刁鑽古怪 and 古怪刁鑽, both meaning something like crafty and peculiar. It is a servant-naming joke: the great king could not be bothered to think of two names. All three 著 in this line are zhe, the reading for a state held — hung there, written there.
Pilgrim's restraint here is worth pausing on, because it is not in character for the early chapters of this book. He wants to kill the two wolves, and stops on the ground that the theft is not their doing. Eighty-odd chapters of Tripitaka's nagging have left a mark, even if the second reason he gives — no weapon to hand — is the one he probably believes.
The body-fixing spell is the ideal solution and he reaches it instantly: the guards are neutralised, alive, and will not be missed for a day. It also leaves him two intact disguises, complete with the name tablets that make the disguises work. Everything in the second half of the chapter is set up in these eight lines.
The name tablets are the chapter's best small joke. Sly-Devious and Odd-Queer are not names at all but a pair of adjectives, issued in one order to the first servant and the reverse order to the second. The yellow lion, who is about to send out engraved invitations and hold a formal banquet, could not manage two names for his own staff.