Pilgrim said, "That king — I have already made him out to have something unlucky on him, but it has not touched his body yet and is no great harm. The only trouble is that I have not been able to get sight of the princess. If she will come out, one look from Old Monkey and I shall know true from false, and then I can act.

識得 is to make something out, to recognise it — a small compound the novel uses constantly and one this project has not yet registered in its tables, though it sits beside 認得 and 聽得, which are registered. And here is the whole plot in one clause: he needs to see her. He has needed to see her since the last chapter. What he does not know is that a hundred and seventy-five characters ago she asked her father to make sure he never does.

"Set your mind at rest. He will certainly send for us presently and pack us out of the city. Just agree to it and have no fear — I shall slip back in a flash and keep close beside you."

Pilgrim predicts the next scene exactly, and gets it right, and the novel gives him no credit for it because it happens four characters later. 應承 is to agree to a thing, to undertake it, and 應 is yìng there — answering — not the yīng of ought to. All four uses in this chapter are the answering one. 閃閃身兒 — a flick of the body — is the ordinary way this book describes a transformation starting.

Master and disciples were still talking when sure enough they saw the duty officer and the Bureau of Ceremonies come to fetch them. Pilgrim laughed and said, "Let's go, let's go. This will certainly be to see us off, so as to leave the master behind for the wedding."

The knock at the door arrives inside the same sentence as the prediction, which is the novel enjoying itself: 正講, still talking, and 果見, sure enough they saw. And Pilgrim reads the summons correctly on the spot, including the reason for it. He knows he is being removed. He goes anyway, because he already has a way round it.