Xuanzang wept his way back to the temple, took leave of his master, and set out at once for Hongzhou.

告過, having reported to: he tells the abbot before he goes, which is the last courtesy the plot lets him pay. And 哭回 — he cries the whole way back to the temple.

Coming to the Myriad Flowers Inn, he asked the innkeeper Liu the Second:

那店主, that innkeeper, with 那 as the pointing nà. Liu the Second is still running the place eighteen years on, the one fixed point in the chapter.

'In years past, the traveller Chen, an official of Jiangzhou, had a mother lodging at your inn — how does she fare now?'

客官 is a guest of standing, the word an innkeeper uses to a customer. He asks after her the way anyone would ask after anyone: how is she doing?

Liu the Second said, 'She was indeed at my inn.'

原在, was there originally. That 原 is doing the work of a whole sentence — was, and is no longer.

'Later she went blind in the eyes, and for three or four years paid me no rent.'

昏了眼, her eyes went dim. Then the innkeeper's own grievance, delivered without malice and without pity: three or four years and no rent, with 還, to pay back, as huán. He is not a villain. He is a man running a business who could not carry her forever.

'Now she is in a ruined tile-kiln by the south gate, going out each day to beg her bread.'

破瓦窰, a broken tile-kiln: an abandoned brick oven by the south gate, which is where you sleep when there is nowhere. 叫化度日, begging your way through the days. Guangrui left her money and a rented room; this is what eighteen years of nobody coming looks like.

'That gentleman has been gone so long — to this day not a word of him; I cannot tell why.'

杳 is dark and out of sight, and 杳無信息 is the standard phrase for a person who has vanished without trace. 為何, for what reason, takes 為 as wèi. The innkeeper has been wondering for eighteen years, and he is about to find out.

When Xuanzang had heard him out, he went straight to the ruined kiln by the south gate and found the grandmother.

尋著, sought and found, with 著 as zháo — the reading that turns looking into finding. He does not stop to react to what he has just been told. He asks the way and goes.

The grandmother said, 'Your voice is much like my son Chen Guangrui's.'

She is blind, so this recognition has to work by ear. 好似, very like, with 似 as sì. His mother knew him by how he moved; his grandmother knows him by how he sounds.

Xuanzang said, 'I am not Chen Guangrui; I am Chen Guangrui's son.'

He corrects her gently and completely, in one line. 兒子 keeps 子 unstressed as zi.

'The lady Wenjiao is my mother.'

娘, mum. The warm domestic word again, the one he only began using once he had found her.

The grandmother said, 'Why have your father and mother not come?'

爹娘, dad and mum. It is the first question any grandmother would ask, and the worst one available, and she asks it without knowing.

Xuanzang said, 'My father was beaten to death by a brigand, and my mother seized by force as his wife.'

He gives her both halves flat, with no cushioning at all. 強盜, a bandit, takes 強 as qiáng, strong or forceful — a different reading from the qiǎng of 勉強, forcing oneself, that described his mother's compliance. 霸占為妻, seized by force as a wife, takes 為 as wéi.