不叫更巡邏 Why Is No Watch Called
領著師父往前正走，忽聽得妖王在中廳內房裡叫道：「小的們，緊閉門戶，小心火燭。這會怎麼不叫更巡邏，梆鈴都不響了？」原來那夥小妖征戰一日，俱辛辛苦苦睡著，聽見叫喚，卻才醒了，梆鈴響處，有幾個執器械的敲著鑼，從後而走，可可的撞著他師徒兩個。眾小妖一齊喊道：「好和尚啊，扭開鎖往那裡去？」行者不容分說，掣出棒幌一幌，碗來粗細，就打，棒起處，打死兩個。领着师父往前正走，忽听得妖王在中厅内房里叫道：「小的们，紧闭门户，小心火烛。这会怎么不叫更巡逻，梆铃都不响了？」原来那伙小妖征战一日，俱辛辛苦苦睡着，听见叫唤，却才醒了，梆铃响处，有几个执器械的敲着锣，从后而走，可可的撞着他师徒两个。众小妖一齐喊道：「好和尚啊，扭开锁往那里去？」行者不容分说，掣出棒幌一幌，碗来粗细，就打，棒起处，打死两个。
逐句解 Line by line
He was leading his master forward when he suddenly heard the demon king calling from an inner room off the central hall, "You little ones! Shut the doors tight and mind the lamps and fires.
The whole rescue turns on this sentence, and on nothing more sinister than a light sleeper. 小心火燭 — mind the lamps and fires — is what a householder says last thing at night, then and now. The demon king is doing the fire round.
Why has no watch been called this while, and why have the clappers and bells fallen silent?"
Here is the character that gives the game away, and it is the one the automatic reading gets wrong. 更 is gēng here, the night-watch — one of the five two-hour spans a Chinese night was divided into, called out through the dark by a man with a wooden clapper — not the gèng that means "still more". The demon is not complaining that nobody shouts; he is noticing that the hours have stopped being announced. 梆鈴 is that clapper and its bell. He has woken because a sound he expects is missing, which is the oldest way in the world to wake up.
The fact was that the pack of little fiends, worn out from a whole day's fighting, had fallen dead asleep; hearing the shout they woke at last, and as the clappers and bells sounded, several of them carrying weapons came beating a gong from the rear — and ran slap into the master and disciple.
The longest sentence in the passage and the one that undoes everything, and look at what causes it: the guards are asleep because Pilgrim fought them all day. His own success this morning is the reason the alarm was not raised sooner — and the reason it is being raised now. 可可的 is a small word for a large moment: just so, exactly then, as luck would have it. Three of this passage's four uses of 著 sit in this one sentence and take three different readings: 睡著 is the achieved zháo, 敲著鑼 is the sustained zhe with the gong being beaten as they walk, and 撞著 is the achieved zháo again — contact made.
The little fiends all shouted together, "A fine monk you are! Where do you think you are going with that lock forced open?"
那 is nǎ here, the question word — where — not the nà that points at something. And 好和尚啊 is pure sarcasm: "a fine monk", said exactly as an English speaker would say it, and meaning the opposite.
Pilgrim gave them no chance to argue. Out came the rod with a flourish and a flourish, thick as a rice-bowl, and he struck; and where the rod fell, two of them died.
不容分說 — allowing no explaining — is still the ordinary phrase for cutting somebody off. The rod's expansion gets its usual measure, 碗來粗細, about as thick as a bowl, which is the novel's standard-issue image for it. And the tactically careful Pilgrim of two passages ago is gone. He said a night fight would go badly. He is now in one.
This is the hinge of the whole first half, and the novel builds it out of household noises. Not a spell, not a sentry, not a demon's supernatural sense — a wakeful householder wondering why the clock has stopped chiming. The demon king raises the alarm because the night has gone too quiet.
And the quiet is Pilgrim's own doing. The guards are unconscious because he beat them senseless all day. The novel sets this up without comment and lets the reader find it: the success of the afternoon is the exact cause of the failure at midnight. It is a better piece of plotting than the genre usually bothers with.
The one word to carry forward is 更, the night-watch. This chapter is going to keep telling the time in watches — the fight ahead starts at the third watch, and the next morning's rising is at the fifth — and every one of those is this character, not the commoner one that means "more". A reader who takes the wrong one hears the demon shouting for extra patrols rather than noticing that nobody has called the hour.