何先到此 How Did You Get Here First
國王到於山門之外，只見那眾僧齊齊整整，俯伏接拜；又見孫行者立在中間。國王道：「神僧何先到此？」行者笑道：「老孫把腰略扭一扭兒，就到了。你們怎麼就走這半日？」隨後唐僧等俱到。長老引駕，到於後面房邊，那公主還裝風胡說。老僧跪指道：「此房內就是舊年風吹來的公主娘娘。」國王即令開門。隨即打開鐵鎖，開了門。国王到于山门之外，只见那众僧齐齐整整，俯伏接拜；又见孙行者立在中间。国王道：「神僧何先到此？」行者笑道：「老孙把腰略扭一扭儿，就到了。你们怎么就走这半日？」随后唐僧等俱到。长老引驾，到于后面房边，那公主还装风胡说。老僧跪指道：「此房内就是旧年风吹来的公主娘娘。」国王即令开门。随即打开铁锁，开了门。
逐句解 Line by line
The king came to the outside of the mountain gate and saw the monks all drawn up in good order, prostrate to receive him; and he saw Sun Pilgrim standing among them. The king said: "Holy monk, how is it you got here first?"
The king has been on the road half a day and finds the monkey already there, standing in the line of monks. 齊齊整整 — all neat and in order — is another doubled pair. The monastery has had perhaps an hour's notice and has managed a creditable reception. ⚠ 中間 — in the middle, among them — takes 中 at zhōng. All seventeen of this character in the chapter take that reading; the one for striking a target does not occur.
Pilgrim laughed and said: "Old Monkey gave his waist just a bit of a twist and here he was. How is it you people have taken half a day over it?" After him the Tang monk and the rest all arrived.
He needles a king about his travelling speed, in front of the king's own court, and gets away with it. ⚠ 一扭兒 — just a bit of a twist — carries the little tag that makes a word small and familiar, and this project reads 兒 at the full tone throughout, one of eighteen sites in this chapter. Chapter one reads its diminutives light, and the disagreement is flagged rather than settled. The joke has a cruel edge he does not intend. The king has taken half a day to cover the sixty li to his own daughter, and Wukong is teasing him about it.
The elder led the carriage round to the side of the room at the back, where the princess was still playing the madwoman and talking nonsense. The old monk knelt and pointed: "Inside this room is the princess her ladyship, who was blown here by the wind last year."
She is still doing it. Nobody has told her. That is the detail to hold. The demon has been unmasked, the moon has come and gone, the king is standing outside the door — and behind it a girl is keeping up a performance she has given every day for a year because as far as she knows nothing has changed. ⚠ 還 is hái, still — not the huán of giving back, which Wukong used last night when he promised this very thing. Same character, two hundred characters apart, and the chapter needs both.
The king gave the order at once to open the door. They struck off the iron lock and opened it.
Fifteen characters, and the book slows right down to spend them on a lock and a door. 鐵鎖, the iron lock, is the last of this chapter's several barriers — the two boulders across a rabbit hole, the jade barrier and golden lock of the Moon Palace, and now this. Every one of them has had something shut behind it that the person outside had the wrong idea about. The sentence has no adjectives and no feeling in it at all, which is exactly right for the half-second before the next one.
Everything in this passage is arranged around a closed door, and the storyteller takes his time getting to it. The reception line, the king's question, Wukong's joke, the walk round to the back of the building, the old monk kneeling to point.
And then the detail that does the work: she is still playing mad. She has no idea. The whole machinery of the chapter — the hare, the moon, the king, the monks, the sixty li — has assembled itself outside a locked room in which a girl is talking nonsense on schedule because that is what has kept her safe every day for a year.
The last sentence is fifteen characters with nothing in it. Open the door. Strike off the lock. The book knows what is on the other side and refuses to hurry.