輪迴瓊液 One Day Here Is A Year
天尊道：「那酒是太上老君送的，喚做輪迴瓊液，你吃了該醉三日不醒。那獅獸今走幾日了？」大聖道：「據土地說，他前年下降，到今二三年矣。」天尊笑道：「是了，是了，天宮裡一日，在凡世就是一年。」叫獅奴道：「你且起來，饒你死罪，跟我與大聖下方去收他來。汝眾仙都回去，不用跟隨。」天尊道：「那酒是太上老君送的，唤做轮回琼液，你吃了该醉三日不醒。那狮兽今走几日了？」大圣道：「据土地说，他前年下降，到今二三年矣。」天尊笑道：「是了，是了，天宫里一日，在凡世就是一年。」叫狮奴道：「你且起来，饶你死罪，跟我与大圣下方去收他来。汝众仙都回去，不用跟随。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Heavenly Worthy said: "That wine was a gift from the Most High Lord Lao. It is called Wheel-of-Rebirth Jade Liquor, and drinking it should have kept you drunk three days without waking.
太上老君 is Laozi in his divine form, the alchemist of this book's heaven - the same god whose furnace Pilgrim was cooked in. 輪迴瓊液, Wheel-of-Rebirth Jade Liquor, names the wine after the cycle of rebirth itself. A drink named for the turning of lives, and it puts a stable lad to sleep for three days.
"How many days is it now since that lion beast got out?"
The question that sets up the joke, and the god asks it as a matter of housekeeping - how long has the animal been loose?
The Great Sage said: "According to what the local god says, he came down the year before last, so by now it is two or three years."
Pilgrim answers with the earth-god's figure rather than his own, and is careful to attribute it. 據土地說 - according to what the local god says - is a citation, and this book is more punctilious about who said a number than most readers expect.
The Heavenly Worthy laughed and said: "That is it, that is it. One day in the heavenly palace is a year down in the mortal world."
The arithmetic closes with a click. Three days of drunken sleep in heaven is three years on earth, and the earth god said two or three. 天宮裡一日，在凡世就是一年 states the rule outright, and it is one the novel has used since its early chapters - Pilgrim's half-year as a stable hand in heaven cost him a good deal longer below. The lad has not been negligent for two years. He has been asleep for a long weekend.
He called to the lion-keeper: "Get up now. I remit the death you have earned. Come down with me and the Great Sage to the world below and take him back.
饒你死罪 - I let off the capital offence - is a formal remission, the language a magistrate uses. He is not saying it does not matter; he is saying the sentence is set aside.
"The rest of you immortals go back; there is no need to come along."
He takes the guilty stable hand and leaves the escort behind. Whatever is about to happen at Bamboo Node Mountain, the god has decided it needs a keeper rather than an army.
The chapter's arithmetic problem is solved in four lines, and the solution is a joke that has been running since the book's opening chapters. The keeper drank wine that should have put him out for three days. The lion has been loose for two or three years. Both figures are correct, because a day up there is a year down here.
It is worth pausing on what that means for the blame. The lad has not neglected his post for years on end; he had a very long lie-in. Meanwhile a mountain acquired a monster, six lions acquired a grandfather, a kingdom lost its heirs and a monk was carried off in a mouth. The proportion between the offence and the damage is the passage's real subject.
And the god handles it exactly as he has handled everything: quietly. He states the remission in the formal language of a court, tells the lad to get up, and sends his attendants home. Two chapters of escalating violence are about to be settled by a man walking down to collect his animal, with the groom who lost it in tow.