降手兒 He Has Fetched a Subduer
小的們都要用心圍繞，休放他走了。」那夥精不知死活，一個個各執槍刀，搖旗擂鼓，走出洞來，對行者喝道：「你個不怕打的猢猻兒，你又來了。」行者最惱得是這「猢猻」二字，咬牙發狠，舉鐵棒就打。三個妖王調小妖，跑個圈子陣，把行者圈在垓心。那壁廂四木禽星一個個各掄兵刃道：「孽畜！休動手。」那三個妖王看他四星，自然害怕，俱道：「不好了，不好了，他尋將降手兒來了。小的们都要用心围绕，休放他走了。」那伙精不知死活，一个个各执枪刀，摇旗擂鼓，走出洞来，对行者喝道：「你个不怕打的猢狲儿，你又来了。」行者最恼得是这「猢狲」二字，咬牙发狠，举铁棒就打。三个妖王调小妖，跑个圈子阵，把行者圈在垓心。那壁厢四木禽星一个个各抡兵刃道：「孽畜！休动手。」那三个妖王看他四星，自然害怕，俱道：「不好了，不好了，他寻将降手儿来了。
逐句解 Line by line
Little ones, every one of you take care to ring him round, and do not let him get away."
用心圍繞 — put your minds to surrounding him. The order that lost them the first fight is the order they give again.
That pack of sprites, not knowing whether they were alive or dead, each took spear and sabre in hand, shook out the banners and beat the drums, came out of the cave and shouted at Pilgrim: "You monkey who is not afraid of a beating — here you are again!"
不知死活 — not knowing dead from alive, that is, with no sense of the danger they are in. And 不怕打的猢猻兒 has 的 as the light de, the one that hooks a description onto a noun: the monkey who-is-not-afraid-of-a-beating. The same character was dì a few passages back inside 端的, and it means something else again there.
What Pilgrim hates most in the world is those two words, "monkey" — he ground his teeth, worked himself into a fury, and struck with his iron rod.
The chapter's best character note, and it is thrown away in one line. 猢猻 is a real word for a macaque and an insult when aimed at a person, and after ninety-two chapters the novel simply states that this is the thing he cannot bear. Not the fighting, not the losing. The word. 最惱得是 puts the light de after the verb, in the shape that links a feeling to what causes it.
The three demon kings deployed their little demons to run a ring formation, and shut Pilgrim inside the middle of it.
圈子陣 is a circle formation — the simplest tactic there is, and it works. 垓心 is the dead centre of an encirclement, a word from military writing that carries the memory of a famous siege. For the second time in the chapter Pilgrim is not beaten by a demon king but hemmed in by a crowd.
Over on that side the Four Wood Beast Stars, each one swinging his weapon out, called, "Cursed beasts!
孽畜 — cursed beast, sinful creature. It is the word a superior uses to an animal that has got above itself, and it is doing the whole job of establishing rank before a blow is struck.
Stay your hands."
Three characters, and the fight is over. Not "fight us" — 休動手, stop moving your hands. An order, given to subordinates.
Those three demon kings looked at the four stars and were naturally terrified, and all cried, "It has gone badly, it has gone badly — he has gone and fetched a subduer!"
And Venus was right: see the face and submit on sight. 降手兒 is a subduer, a hand that subdues, and 降 is xiáng — the reading this chapter has been building all the way through. Fifteen of its nineteen uses take it. The demons say it themselves at the moment it comes true.
The fight the chapter's first title-line promised does not happen twice. The first time, in batch one, the three monks and three kings were evenly matched for ten lines of poetry and then the little demons swarmed them. This time Pilgrim is boxed in by exactly the same tactic, and then four constellations walk out and tell everybody to stop, and everybody stops.
That is the point the novel has been making since Venus first laughed at Pilgrim outside the heavenly gate. Force did not work; it was never going to. What works is jurisdiction. The Four Wood Beast Stars do not defeat the rhinoceroses — they outrank them, and the rhinoceroses know it before a blow lands.
Buried in the middle is the one line that is purely about character. Pilgrim hates the word for monkey. He has been called a great many things across ninety-two chapters and taken most of them cheerfully; this one goes in every time, and the novel mentions it here, in passing, in the middle of an encirclement, as though everyone already knew.