Wukong, seeing his master's face change, seized hold of Bajie, aimed at his head and gave him a round of punches, cursing: "Idiot, you don't know good from bad. Now you've got the master blaming the rest of us too."

⚠⚠ 著頭 is the reading this project had to settle for the whole book, and this site is where the answer came from. The word can mean a blow that has landed, or it can point at where a blow is aimed — and here the striking comes afterwards, in the words for punching. You cannot say a blow has landed before you say it was thrown. ⚠ The same frame appears sixteen times in thirteen chapters and the striking always follows. That gives a plain test: the word means a blow landed when it comes after its verb, and it points at a target when it comes before. On that test the previous chapter had one of its sites wrong, and its own English had already read it correctly while the sound beside the character said something else. That has now been put right. ⚠ 惹得 hands the verb off to what followed: he provoked, and the result was the master blaming everybody. Nine sites in this chapter want the light word here and the plain reading gives the full one at all nine.

Shaseng laughed. "Well hit! Well hit! Even when he says nothing at all he's a nuisance, and now he butts in as well." The idiot stood at the side, puffing with temper, and did not dare say another word.

⚠ This is the least kind thing Shaseng says in the chapter and it is worth noticing that he says it while laughing. His brother has just been beaten about the head for taking their host's side, and Shaseng's contribution is that he is annoying even when silent. ⚠ 打得好 comes out light without any help, from a stock pairing already in the tables. It appears twice here, back to back, which is how it is said. ⚠ 傍邊 is the everyday word for at the side — the character standing in for its more usual twin. The plain reading gives the verb meaning to lean against, and both of the sites in this chapter go the same way. 氣呼呼 is the sound of somebody breathing hard in a temper, three characters, entirely onomatopoeic.

The squire, seeing master and disciples growing angry, could only put on a smiling face and say: "Teacher, do not be vexed. Bear with us just for today. Tomorrow I shall get up some flags and drums and invite a few neighbours and relations, and see you on your way."

⚠ Look at what he does with a fight. Four guests have just had a violent quarrel in his house, one of them has been punched about the head, and his response is to offer a bigger send-off — flags, drums, neighbours, relations. ⚠ That is the engine of the whole chapter. Every difficulty Kou Hong meets he answers with more hospitality, and each answer is generous, and each one makes leaving harder. He is not manipulating anybody. He genuinely does not have another move. 滿面陪笑 — a smile put on all over the face — is the phrase for a host smoothing something over, and it carries no suggestion of falseness. It is what a good host's face does when the guests are shouting.