錯惹了他 You Have Picked The Wrong Man
老妖聞言，默想片時，笑道：「原來是他。我賢孫，你錯惹了他也。」妖精道：「祖爺知他是誰？」老妖道：「那長嘴大耳者，乃豬八戒；晦氣色臉者，乃沙和尚：這兩個猶可。那毛臉雷公嘴者，叫做孫行者。這個人其實神通廣大：五百年前曾大鬧天宮，十萬天兵也不曾拿得住。他專意尋人的，他便就是個搜山揭海、破洞攻城、闖禍的個都頭，你怎麼惹他？也罷，等我和你去，把那廝連玉華王子，都擒來替你出氣。」那妖精聽說，即叩頭而謝。老妖闻言，默想片时，笑道：「原来是他。我贤孙，你错惹了他也。」妖精道：「祖爷知他是谁？」老妖道：「那长嘴大耳者，乃猪八戒；晦气色脸者，乃沙和尚：这两个犹可。那毛脸雷公嘴者，叫做孙行者。这个人其实神通广大：五百年前曾大闹天宫，十万天兵也不曾拿得住。他专意寻人的，他便就是个搜山揭海、破洞攻城、闯祸的个都头，你怎么惹他？也罢，等我和你去，把那厮连玉华王子，都擒来替你出气。」那妖精听说，即叩头而谢。
逐句解 Line by line
The old fiend heard him out, thought silently for a while, then laughed and said, "So it is he.
The pause before the laugh is the passage. He has recognised somebody from a description and needs a moment to be sure, and the laugh is not a kind one.
"My worthy grandson, you have picked the wrong man to meddle with."
惹 is to provoke or stir up trouble with somebody, and it is still the ordinary word for it. He does not say the boy was wrong to steal. He says he chose badly.
The fiend said, "Does my grandsire know who he is?"
The question a young creature asks when an old one has gone quiet.
The old fiend said, "The one with the long snout and big ears is Zhū Bājiè;
長 is cháng, length again, and the old creature is working down the list in the same order it was given to him. He names them by name, which is how we learn he has been keeping up.
"the one with the ill-luck-coloured face is Sha the monk. Those two will do.
猶可 — still passable, tolerable — is a dismissal. Two of the three he considers manageable, and the novel lets that stand without comment.
"The one with the hairy face and the thunder-god's beak is called Sūn Xíngzhě.
The name is held back to the end of the list and given its own line. Eighty-nine chapters in, the novel still stages the moment somebody works out who they are dealing with.
"That one really has vast magic powers: five hundred years ago he made great havoc in the Palace of Heaven, and a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers could not take him.
大鬧天宮 — great havoc in the Palace of Heaven — is the most famous phrase in the book, the seven chapters of rebellion the whole novel begins with. 得 is de, the light syllable that makes a can or cannot of the verb: they could not manage to hold him.
"He goes out of his way to seek people out. He is the very chieftain of searching mountains and lifting seas, of breaking caves and storming cities and stirring up trouble. How came you to meddle with him?"
都 is dū here, and it is the only place in the chapter where this graph is a rank rather than the little word meaning all. 都頭 is a captaincy, a real Song and Ming title, and the old creature awards it to Pilgrim as a job description: chief officer for wrecking things.
"Well, no matter — let me come with you, and we will take that fellow and the Jade-Flower princes with him, and get your anger out for you."
也罷 is a fixed expression meaning very well then, and its first graph keeps the full reading rather than the light one it takes as a sentence-final softener. He has just explained at length why this is a terrible idea and agrees to it anyway.
The fiend, hearing this, knocked his head at once and gave thanks.
Ten graphs to close the scene, and the boy is happy again. Nothing has been solved.
The old creature gives the correct assessment and then does the opposite of what it implies. He knows who Pilgrim is, knows what he did to heaven, knows that a hundred thousand soldiers failed to hold him, and says all of it out loud. Then he says very well then, and agrees to fight him.
The reason is in the previous passage, not this one. His grandson asked him to prove that a grandsire loves his grandson, and this is the proof. The novel is quite clear that the coming disaster is an act of affection.
There is a joke inside the assessment, too. The old fiend describes Pilgrim as a chieftain of searching mountains, lifting seas, breaking caves, storming cities and stirring up trouble — an official title for a professional wrecker. It is the most accurate thing anybody says about him in the whole chapter, and it comes from the enemy.