He called to his men, "Fetch the head-band! Put one turn of it round this bald thief's shaven skull, and then beat him."

⚠ 腦箍 — the head-band. A cord looped round the skull and twisted tight with a stick until it crushed. It was a real instrument of judicial torture and the book names it three times, all in this chapter and nowhere else in the novel. ⚠ And the resonance is unmissable. Monkey already wears a band round his head that a word from his master can tighten until he rolls on the ground. A bodhisattva put that one there to make him obey. A magistrate is ordering this one to make him confess. The book does not point at it once. 禿賊 — bald thief. The prefect's contempt is aimed at the shaven head, which is to say at the fact of his being a monk at all.

Monkey was alarmed, and thought privately, "Though it is fated that my master should suffer this ordeal, I still cannot let him be badly hurt."

⚠ 此難 — this ordeal. A calamity you undergo takes a different tone from a task that is hard to do, and this is the first kind. Of this chapter's five uses of the character, two are ordeals and three are difficulties, and the book gives no help in telling them apart beyond what the sentence is about. 該有此難 — is fated to suffer this ordeal. Monkey does not think the arrest is unjust in the way the reader does. He thinks it is scheduled. The pilgrims are working through a fixed count of tribulations and he takes this for one of them. 還不可教他十分受苦 — still cannot let him be badly hurt. His loyalty is not to justice but to the man. That is entirely characteristic.

Seeing the bailiffs getting the cords ready and knotting up a head-band, he spoke up at once. "Your honour, do not band that monk."

皂隸 — the court bailiffs, so called from the black uniform they wore. They are the men who did the beating in a Ming court, and they reappear all through this chapter. The intervention is quiet and immediate. Monkey does not object to the torture. He objects to which of them gets it.

"Last night at the robbery of the Kou house, the one who lit the lamps was me. The one who held the knife was me. The one who took the money was me. The one who killed the man was me."

⚠ Four clauses, built identically, each ending in the same two characters. The reader has heard this shape before. ⚠ The widow said it first, in her bedroom, at four in the morning: 點火的是唐僧, and three more like it, one crime to each pilgrim. Monkey now says the same four clauses back with a single name in every one of them, and the name is his. ⚠ And he changes the words as he goes. Her lamp was a fire; his is a lamp. Her theft was carrying off gold and silver; his is taking money. Her killing was beating a man to death; his is simply killing. The accusation has now been through three mouths and come out different every time.

"I am the head of the gang. If you want to beat somebody, beat me. It has nothing to do with the others — only do not let me go, and that will do."

⚠ 與他們無干 — it has nothing to do with them. The last character here is the one meaning connection or concern, not the one meaning to do or to manage, and the two are written alike. 但只不放我便是 — only do not let me go, and that will do. He is asking to be kept in custody. It is the only request any of the four makes in the whole trial and it is a request to be imprisoned. The false confession is complete: he has claimed the leadership, all four crimes, and sole responsibility, and asked to be held for it.