切不可下跪 Do Not Kneel When You Go Up
刺史又大驚失色，即叫刑房吏火速寫牌提出。當時開了監門提出。八戒愁道：「今日又不知怎的打哩。」行者笑道：「管你一下兒也不敢打，老孫俱已幹辦停當。上堂切不可下跪，他還要下來請我們上坐。卻等我問他要行李、要馬匹，少了一些兒，等我打他你看。」刺史又大惊失色，即叫刑房吏火速写牌提出。当时开了监门提出。八戒愁道：「今日又不知怎的打哩。」行者笑道：「管你一下儿也不敢打，老孙俱已干办停当。上堂切不可下跪，他还要下来请我们上坐。却等我问他要行李、要马匹，少了一些儿，等我打他你看。」
逐句解 Line by line
The prefect changed colour with alarm again, and at once told the clerk of the punishments office to write out a warrant with all speed and have them brought out. And the prison gate was opened there and then and they were brought out.
大驚失色 — changed colour with alarm. A four-character phrase, still current, and the second time in two days this man has had to be frightened into doing the right thing. 火速寫牌 — write out a warrant with all speed. ⚠ Even in a panic, the release goes through paper. There is a document to be drawn up before the gate can be opened, and this chapter has never once let anything happen without one.
Bajie said gloomily, "Today they'll be beating us again, and no telling how." Monkey said with a laugh, "I guarantee they won't dare give you a single stroke. Old Monkey has it all arranged and settled."
⚠ 停當 — arranged and settled. The second character is the settled-and-in-order reading, not the everyday one meaning at the time. ⚠ The word appears thirty-two times across the novel and the chain gives the wrong reading at every single one of them. 幹辦停當 — has it all arranged. Monkey is enjoying himself. He has not told his brothers a word about the night and is not about to. Bajie's gloom is the running joke closing: he has been wrong about every prediction in the chapter and is wrong again.
"When we go up into the hall, on no account kneel. He will come down himself and invite us to take the upper seats. And just let me ask him for our luggage and our horse — and if there is one thing short, watch me thrash him."
⚠ 切不可下跪 — on no account kneel. This is the whole reversal in five characters. Yesterday they were dragged in trussed on poles; today Monkey is briefing them on how to receive an apology. 請我們上坐 — invite us to take the upper seats. The same seat of honour Monkey put his master in on the roadside when they interrogated the robbers, and the same one the prefect occupied to convict them. ⚠ 等我打他你看 — watch me thrash him. Monkey is proposing to beat a prefect of the empire over some missing luggage, and he means it. The chapter's comedy has come all the way back round.
The release happens on paper. A god has threatened to level the city and the prefect's response is to have a clerk write out a warrant with all speed. Nothing in this chapter has ever moved without a document, and the thing that convicted four men on a sworn complaint now frees them on a written order.
Monkey's briefing is the best sign of how completely the situation has turned. He is not telling his brothers to be careful; he is telling them not to kneel, because the prefect will come down off his own bench to receive them. He knows exactly what is about to happen because he arranged it.
And he tells them nothing about how. He spent the night out of his shackles impersonating two dead men and a god, climbed back in before dawn, and now announces only that he has it all arranged. Bajie, who has been wrong about everything for four thousand characters, is still expecting a beating.