方得脫網 When Shall We Slip the Net
行者覺道難為，縱觔斗雲，脫身而去。當時把八戒、沙僧拖至唐僧前。唐僧見了，滿眼垂淚道：「可憐你二人也遭了毒手。悟空何在？」沙僧道：「師兄見捉住我們，他就走了。」唐僧道：「他既走了，必然那裡去求救。但我等不知何日方得脫網。」師徒們悽悽慘慘不題。行者觉道难为，纵觔斗云，脱身而去。当时把八戒、沙僧拖至唐僧前。唐僧见了，满眼垂泪道：「可怜你二人也遭了毒手。悟空何在？」沙僧道：「师兄见捉住我们，他就走了。」唐僧道：「他既走了，必然那里去求救。但我等不知何日方得脱网。」师徒们凄凄惨惨不题。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim saw that things had gone hard, leapt on his somersault cloud and got himself away.
難為 — hard going, an awkward business. He does not flee in panic; he makes an assessment and acts on it, which is the whole difference between this monkey and the one from the early chapters. 觔斗雲 is the somersault cloud, and the middle character is read dǒu — it is the somersault, not the fighting sound the automatic reading takes.
They dragged Eight Rules and Sha Monk in front of the Tang Monk.
Twelve characters of staging. The demons put the captured disciples where their master can see them, which is a choice, and a cruel one.
The Tang Monk saw them, and with his eyes brimming over said, "Poor creatures — the two of you have fallen into their vicious hands as well.
滿眼垂淚 — eyes full, tears coming down. He weeps at the sight of them, which is the third time he has wept in this chapter and the first time it has been for somebody else.
Where is Wukong?"
Four characters, and the question the whole passage exists for.
Sha Monk said, "When elder brother saw us taken, he went off."
Flat, unadorned reporting, and it lands like an accusation without being one. Sha Monk says what happened and nothing about what it meant.
The Tang Monk said, "If he has gone, he must have gone somewhere to fetch help.
And this is the moment the chapter has been building to. Tripitaka — who could not tell a false Buddha from a real one, who gave up his disciple's secrets under a single threat — hears that Wukong has run, and does not doubt him for a heartbeat. 那 here is nǎ, the question word used loosely for "somewhere or other": off to some place, he could not say where.
But there is no telling what day we shall slip the net."
脫網 — to get out of the net. A fishing and fowling word, and the picture is of three of them caught in the same mesh. 方得 keeps that character as the full verb dé, to manage or attain: what day shall we manage to get free.
Master and disciples were left in wretched misery, and of them we say no more.
悽悽慘慘 doubles two words for grief and lays them side by side — a sound as much as a meaning, and impossible to carry into English without losing half of it. 不題 is the storyteller closing a thread: we leave them there. He will pick them up when he is ready, and not before.
Batch one ends with the rescue in ruins. Tripitaka is chained where he started, Eight Rules and Sha Monk are tied up beside him, and Pilgrim has left alone. Everything attempted since the chapter opened has failed, and the party is worse off than before it began.
What survives is the thing the chapter has been quietly testing. Told that Wukong has gone, Tripitaka does not accuse him of desertion — he assumes at once that the monkey has gone for help. Set that beside the opening of this batch, where Pilgrim's first words to his rescued master were a reproach, and against the interrogation, where Tripitaka gave away everything he knew. Neither of them is admirable under pressure. Both of them, in the end, trust the other.
He is also right. The second half of the chapter is Pilgrim going up to heaven to fetch four star-gods, which is what 四星挾捉犀牛怪 has been promising since the first page. The storyteller's last three characters put the pilgrims aside mid-scene, chained in a cave in the dark, and leave them there — which is how a serial keeps an audience coming back, and has been for a very long time.