抵換八戒 Two Lions For One Pig
孫大聖收了法毛，同沙僧徑至城樓上，見了唐僧。唐僧道：「這場事甚是利害呀。悟能性命，不知有無？」行者道：「沒事，我們把這兩個妖精拿了，他那裡斷不敢傷。且將二精牢拴緊縛，待明早抵換八戒也。」三個小王子對行者叩頭道：「師父先前賭鬥，只見一身；及後佯輸而回，卻怎麼就有百十位師身？及至拿住妖精，近城來還是一身。此是甚麼法力？」孙大圣收了法毛，同沙僧径至城楼上，见了唐僧。唐僧道：「这场事甚是利害呀。悟能性命，不知有无？」行者道：「没事，我们把这两个妖精拿了，他那里断不敢伤。且将二精牢拴紧缚，待明早抵换八戒也。」三个小王子对行者叩头道：「师父先前赌斗，只见一身；及后佯输而回，却怎么就有百十位师身？及至拿住妖精，近城来还是一身。此是甚么法力？」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage gathered his magic hairs back in and went straight up to the tower on the wall with Sha Monk, where he saw the Tang Monk.
收了法毛 - gathered in the magic hairs - is the undoing of the trick, and the novel always bothers to show it. The hundred duplicates are not left standing about; they go back onto his arm.
The Tang Monk said: "This affair has turned out very badly indeed.
場 is cháng here, the reading it takes when it counts an event - one round of trouble, one bout of it - rather than the chǎng that means an actual place. English does the same thing with "a spell of bad weather", where a word for duration ends up counting episodes. And 呀 on the end is a sigh rather than a word.
"Wuneng's life - is there any left in him or not?"
Tripitaka calls Eight Rules by his religious name at the moment he fears he is dead, which is a small piece of characterisation the novel never comments on. 不知有無 - not knowing whether there is or is not - is as close as he gets to saying the word.
Pilgrim said: "It is nothing. We have taken these two spirits of theirs, so on their side they will certainly not dare to harm him.
Worth pausing on 那 here, because this chapter uses the same character both ways. In the combat challenges it is nǎ, the asking reading. In 他那裡 it is nà, the pointing one - over on their side, where they are. The reading turns entirely on whether the speaker wants to know something or is indicating somewhere.
"Just have the two spirits tied fast and bound tight, and tomorrow at dawn we will trade them for Eight Rules."
牢拴緊縛 stacks two two-character phrases that mean nearly the same thing - fastened firm, bound tight - which is how vernacular Chinese leans on an instruction. 抵換 is straightforwardly to swap one thing against another, the language of a trade rather than a rescue.
The three young princes bowed their heads to Pilgrim and said: "Master, earlier when you fought we saw only one body of you;
The princes have been on the wall watching all of this, and what has struck them is not the danger but the multiplication. Their question is the reason the passage exists.
"and afterwards, when you feigned defeat and came back, how did there come to be a hundred-odd bodies of our master?
佯輸 is to lose on purpose - a feint made with the whole body rather than the weapon. The princes have correctly read a retreat as a tactic, which is more than Eight Rules managed.
"And when it came to seizing the spirits and nearing the city, you were one body again.
The princes lay the sequence out like witnesses: one, then a hundred, then one. They are not asking what happened - they are asking how.
"What power is this?"
Four characters, and the whole passage has been built to arrive at them. 法力 is the standard term for spiritual power gained through cultivation, so the question is technical, not childish: they are asking what class of attainment they have just watched.
This passage does something the novel is quietly good at: it stops the battle to let somebody ask a question. The princes have spent the fight on the wall banging drums, and what they want explained is not the danger they are in but the trick they saw.
Meanwhile the plot has become an exchange. Pilgrim's reassurance to Tripitaka is not moral but commercial - we hold two of theirs, so ours is safe - and the word he uses for the plan is the ordinary one for swapping goods. Both sides have now independently arrived at the same arrangement, and neither has spoken to the other.
Tripitaka's line is the emotional centre and it is only nine characters long. He asks whether Wuneng is alive using a formula that avoids the word for dying, and gets an answer about tactics. The novel lets that mismatch stand without remarking on it, which is why it works.