Monkey said with a laugh, "Master, do not be afraid. Brothers, do not worry. Let old Monkey go and put a question to them."

Three short reassurances and a plan, all in one breath. He is not worried, and the reader is not meant to be either. 去問他一問 — go and put a question to them. The doubled verb makes the action light and brief: just a quick word, nothing serious. It is the same shrug you hear in let me have a little look.

The Great Sage — and a fine sight he was — hitched up his tiger-skin kilt, gave his brocade tunic a shake, walked up close, folded his hands against his chest and said, "Gentlemen, what line of work would you be in?"

⚠ Watch the staging. 束一束 … 抖一抖 — a hitch of the kilt, a shake of the tunic. He is smoothing himself down like a shopkeeper coming out from behind a counter, and it is entirely for show. 叉手當胸 is a formal salute, hands folded in front of the chest. He is being scrupulously polite to a line of armed men who have just threatened to kill him. 列位是做甚麼的？ — gentlemen, what line of work would you be in? The joke is that he can see perfectly well what line of work they are in. He is opening a negotiation by pretending not to.

The robbers barked at him, "This fellow doesn't know whether he's alive or dead, daring to question us. Have you no eyes under that forehead of yours? Don't you know me for a great king?"

喝道 — barked. The character has two completely separate lives: one is the everyday word for drinking, the other is this, a shout. Here it is plainly the shout, and the little frame it sits in is common enough that the reading comes out right. 額顱下沒眼 — have you no eyes under your forehead — is splendid abuse, and very physical: not are you blind but is there nothing in the sockets. ⚠ 不認得 — don't you know me. Here the verb and the character after it have fused into a single word meaning to know somebody by sight, and the second half keeps its full weight — the same shape as the words for knowing, hearing and remembering. That is different from a verb followed by this character and then a description, as in saw it clearly earlier in the chapter, where it goes weightless. Position decides, and it decides differently here.

"Hand over the road money at once, and we will let you pass."

The demand, repeated from the shout that opened the hold-up. 買路錢 — road money — is the toll a bandit charges for the use of a road he does not own. The robbers have now said this twice in about a hundred and fifty characters. They are not interested in the monks; they want the bundle. That single-mindedness is exactly what Monkey is about to work with.