The Heavenly King said: "You do not walk the road to the Western Heaven - so what brings you to the Eastern Heaven instead?"

甚 is shén here, the interrogative reading meaning what, and not the shèn of very that the same character carries at most of its other sites in this chapter. 做甚 is a blunt everyday what-for.

Pilgrim said: "It is because we came to Yuhua Prefecture, where the king of the prefecture treated us handsomely and sent his three sons to bow to us brothers as their masters and study the martial arts - and quite unexpectedly we ran into a pack of lion fiends.

為 is wéi inside 拜我等弟兄為師, the reading for being or acting as - the bowing made them masters. It is the same construction the local god used of six lions adopting a grandfather, two passages ago. 相 is xiāng in 相款 - the reading meaning towards one another, so the king treated them well rather than merely entertaining. It is easy to lose, because the two characters before it end in a word for king and modern Chinese has a word for a royal minister that spans the join. And 著 is zháo inside 遇著: running into something, not looking for it.

"I have now learned that the Heavenly Worthy Taiyi Who Relieves Suffering, of the Palace of Wondrous Crags, is the fiend's master, and I want to ask him to come and subdue the fiend and rescue my master."

降 is xiáng, subduing rather than descending - the same split this chapter keeps working. 訪得 is to find something out by asking around, which is exactly how he found it out.

The Heavenly King said: "That is what comes of your wanting to be somebody's teacher - it is what stirred up this whole nest of lions."

The sharpest line in the chapter, and it is delivered by a bystander in passing. 為 is wéi once more inside 欲為人師: wanting to stand as a master to people. 惹出 is to provoke something into coming out, the word for stirring up trouble you did not have. The Heavenly King has heard about thirty characters of the story and diagnosed the whole chapter.

Pilgrim laughed and said: "Just so, just so."

He agrees, twice, and does not defend himself. It is the only moment in the chapter where anyone on the pilgrims' side concedes that the disaster is their own doing, and it takes six characters and a laugh.

The heavenly soldiers and strongmen each folded their hands and made way for him to pass.

讓道而行 - yielding the road so he may go - is the courtesy shown to a superior. Five hundred years ago this character fought his way through this gate; now it opens for him.

The Great Sage went in at the Eastern Gate of Heaven, and in no long time came before the Palace of Wondrous Crags.

The travelling is dispatched in one clause, as it always is once he is inside heaven. The novel spends its description on places, not on getting to them.

And this is what he saw:

The same cue as the mountain earlier in the chapter, and the same form to come - a rhapsody, long and unrhymed, built by piling up balanced descriptive phrases. The novel is deliberately setting this heavenly palace beside that demon-haunted mountain.

Coloured clouds layered on clouds, purple vapours thick and green.

重 is chóng here, the reading for one thing lying on another, and not the zhòng of weight that the same character carries later in this chapter when the smiths weigh the weapons. Purple vapour is the standard sign of a divine presence in Daoist writing - the colour arrives before the god does.

Roof-tiles rippling flames of golden waves, the gate ranged with jade beasts in majesty.

Four and four again, and both halves put a material against a motion - tiles that ripple, stone beasts that stand tall. 玉獸 are the carved guardian animals set either side of a great gateway, which any visitor to a Chinese palace has walked between.

Flowers fill the paired towers, red mists wreathing; sunlight strikes the soaring grove, wrapped in kingfisher haze.

The lines stretch to seven characters a side, the rhapsody breathing out. 騫林 is a grove of the heavens whose trees rise up - the word for soaring is the same one used of a horse lifting its head.

Truly ten thousand perfected ones stand in a ring, a thousand sages flourish here.

興 is xīng inside 興隆, the reading for thriving and rising - not the xìng of pleasure and interest. 萬真, the ten thousand perfected, are Daoist adepts who have completed the work; the numbers are the usual conventional very-many rather than a census.

Hall upon hall of brocade, windows and casements open on every side.

處處通 - open everywhere, connecting at every point - is the architectural opposite of the cave the pilgrims are being held in, which had two stone doors and was shut fast.

A blue dragon coils in guard, divine light softly glowing; the yellow path shines out, auspicious vapours dense.

黃道 is the ecliptic, the sun's yearly track through the sky, and in everyday usage the phrase for an auspicious day. Putting it in a description of a palace makes the building sit on the path of the sun.

This is the Realm of Blue-Green Eternal Joy, the Palace of Wondrous Crags at the Eastern Pole.

The poem closes by naming what it has been describing, which is how these set-pieces always end. 長 is cháng inside 長樂, lasting joy - the reading for extent and duration, not the zhǎng of seniority.