"If the princess does not take you, then let it be — have the rescript exchanged and go on. If she must have you, then say to the king, 'Summon my disciples here; I have a word to give them.'"

便罷 — then let it be. Here the character is the full word meaning to have done with a thing, not the light sentence-ending sound. The chapter uses it both ways within a few hundred characters.

倒換了關文就行 — have the rescript exchanged and go on. Even now, with his master engaged to a demon, Pilgrim's first branch is the paperwork.

The instruction is precise: not ask for help, not raise the alarm — ask to give your disciples a word. It sounds like a monk settling his affairs before marriage, and it is a way of getting three demons into a throne room.

"When they summon the three of us into court, I shall be able to tell the true from the false. This is the plan of leaning on the marriage to subdue the fiend." The Tang Monk, having no choice, followed his words, and Pilgrim turned back to the hostel.

辨別真假 — tell the true from the false. The third time in this chapter the job has been described that way: the old abbot asked for it, Pilgrim repeated it at the tower, and here he names it as the object of the plan.

降怪 — to subdue the fiend. The first character is read xiáng here, to subdue or bring to submission, not the everyday reading that means to descend.

倚婚降怪之計 — the plan of leaning on the marriage to subdue the fiend. Pilgrim gives his own scheme a name, which he does when he is pleased with it.

That elder was hustled by the palace women to the front of the tower. The princess came down, took him by the hand with her jade fingers, and they mounted the treasure carriage together; the retinue was drawn up in order and they turned back toward the palace gate.

玉手相攙 — jade hands taking his. The first character of the pair means mutually and is read xiāng, not the reading that means a face or an appearance. The word describes two people supporting each other.

This is the first physical contact between them and the novel gives it the vocabulary of courtly romance — jade hands, a treasure carriage, a retinue in order. Everything is beautiful and everything is wrong.

撮擁 — hustled along. Tripitaka is not walking. A crowd of women is carrying him toward a wedding.

Early on, a Yellow Gate officer had already reported ahead: "Your Majesty, the princess is leading a monk by the hand. It seems the embroidered ball struck him. They are now outside the Meridian Gate awaiting your command."

黃門官 — a Yellow Gate officer, the palace official who carried word between the inner and outer courts. The name is old and comes from the colour of the gate itself.

攙著 — leading by the hand, with the busy character marking a hold that goes on. She has not let go of him since the tower.

午門 — the Meridian Gate, the great south entrance of a palace. The officer's report is beautifully judged bureaucratic prose: here are the facts, here is my inference, and here is where they are standing.