九曲盤桓洞 Ten Characters On The Lintel
他兩個正在山頭上看景，忽見那青臉兒手拿一條短棍，徑跑出崖谷之間。行者喝道：「那裡走，老孫來也。」諕得那小妖一翻一滾的跑下崖谷。他兩個一直追來，又不見蹤跡。向前又轉幾步，卻是一座洞府，兩扇花斑石門，緊緊關閉。門楟上橫嵌著一塊石版，楷鐫了十個大字，乃是「萬靈竹節山，九曲盤桓洞」。那小妖原來跑進洞去，即把洞門閉了。到中間對老妖道：「爺爺，外面又有兩個和尚來了。」他两个正在山头上看景，忽见那青脸儿手拿一条短棍，径跑出崖谷之间。行者喝道：「那里走，老孙来也。」諕得那小妖一翻一滚的跑下崖谷。他两个一直追来，又不见踪迹。向前又转几步，却是一座洞府，两扇花斑石门，紧紧关闭。门楟上横嵌着一块石版，楷镌了十个大字，乃是「万灵竹节山，九曲盘桓洞」。那小妖原来跑进洞去，即把洞门闭了。到中间对老妖道：「爷爷，外面又有两个和尚来了。」
逐句解 Line by line
The two of them were up on the peak taking in the view when all at once they saw that Blue-Faced Fiend, a short cudgel in his hand, come running out from among the cliffs and gullies.
The poem ends and the plot walks straight into it. The novel gives the reader nine lines of cranes and blossom and then has a demon run out of a ditch, which is a joke about landscape poetry as much as it is a plot movement.
Pilgrim shouted at him: "Where do you think you are going? Old Monkey is here!"
The combat challenge again, and 那 is nǎ again - the asking reading, used rhetorically. This is the third time in the chapter somebody has flung this exact phrase at a fleeing enemy, and it has yet to stop anyone.
It so terrified the little fiend that he went tumbling and rolling down into the gullies.
諕 is xià, to terrify - the character looks as though it ought to be a shout and is not. 得 is de, linking the fright to what it made him do. And 一翻一滾 - one flip, one roll - is a fixed way of saying somebody went down a slope without any dignity at all.
The two of them gave chase straight after him, and then could see no trace of him at all.
跡 is jì in 蹤跡, a track or trail, which is the reading this word carries everywhere else in the book.
Going forward and turning a few paces more, they came upon a cave dwelling, with two leaves of mottled stone door shut fast.
花斑石 is stone with a figured, blotched pattern - marble, more or less. Every demon lair in this book gets one architectural detail and this one gets a pair of stone doors, which is grander than most.
Set crosswise into the lintel was a stone tablet, on which ten large characters had been carved in the regular hand, reading: Ten Thousand Spirits Bamboo Node Mountain, Nine-Bends Coiling Cave.
The novel counts the characters for us, and the count is exact - five characters in each half of the name. 楷 is the regular script, the upright formal hand still used for anything official, so this is a carved signboard rather than a scrawl. 著 is zhe here, the held-in-place reading: the tablet was set in and stayed set in.
That little fiend had in fact run into the cave, and shut the cave door behind him at once.
The chase is resolved in a throwaway clause. He was never going to be caught; he was a door-knocker, and the novel used him to walk the pilgrims to an address.
Reaching the middle hall he said to the old fiend: "Grandfather, there are two more monks outside!"
爺爺 is the grandfather word, and the small fiends use it for this creature every time. Between that and 祖爺 when Eight Rules was carried in, the whole lion establishment addresses its leader as a family elder rather than a commander.
The passage exists to get two monks to a door, and it does the job with a small piece of misdirection. A demon bolts out of a gully, they chase him, they lose him - and while they are looking for him they walk into the front of the cave. He was never the point.
The stone tablet is the passage's real object, and the novel treats it the way it treats a weapon or a robe: it tells you the material, the workmanship and the exact number of characters. This is a book that likes inventories, and a carved signboard in the regular hand is a demon lair with a certain amount of standing.
Both names on that board are about segments and turns - the nodes of a bamboo, the nine bends of a cave - and behind the door there is something with nine heads. The chapter has now told the reader its central number three separate ways without once explaining it.