送行的和尚 Is That Not Yesterday's Farewell Party
分還未了，忽見唐僧四眾順路而來，眾賊心猶不歇，指定唐僧道：「那不是昨日送行的和尚來了？」眾賊笑道：「來得好，來得好。我們也是幹這般沒天理的買賣，這些和尚緣路來，又在寇家許久，不知身邊有多少東西，我們索性去截住他，奪了盤纏，搶了白馬湊分，卻不是遂心滿意之事？」分还未了，忽见唐僧四众顺路而来，众贼心犹不歇，指定唐僧道：「那不是昨日送行的和尚来了？」众贼笑道：「来得好，来得好。我们也是干这般没天理的买卖，这些和尚缘路来，又在寇家许久，不知身边有多少东西，我们索性去截住他，夺了盘缠，抢了白马凑分，却不是遂心满意之事？」
逐句解 Line by line
The division was not yet finished when they suddenly caught sight of the Tang monk and his three coming along the road. The gang, whose appetite was still not satisfied, pointed the Tang monk out and said, "Is that not the monks who were seen off yesterday, coming this way?"
分還未了 — the sharing-out was not yet done. The last character here means finished rather than serving as the ordinary marker of a completed action, and the difference is the difference between had not finished and had not divided. 心猶不歇 — their hearts were still not at rest. They have just robbed the richest house in the county and killed a man, and they want more. The book is unsentimental about them. They recognise the pilgrims from the send-off — the same procession that told them the house was worth robbing in the first place. That parade is now responsible for three separate disasters.
The gang laughed. "Well come, well come!"
⚠ 來得好 — well come, said twice, with delight. It is what you say when something you wanted walks in the door. The 得 in the middle is the light one: it comes after the verb and hands off to the word that says how the coming was. This little frame turns up forty-one times across the novel and it is light at every one of them.
"We too are in this line of business, this trade with no heaven's law in it. These monks have come along the road, and they were at the Kou house a good while; there is no telling how much they have about them. Let us go the whole way and cut them off, take their travelling money and seize the white horse to put in the pot as well. Would that not be a thing to satisfy the heart and content the mind?"
⚠ 湊分 — to put in the pot. The last character here means a share, a portion, one of the things being handed out, and it takes the reading that goes with that sense. Contrast the sharing-out twenty-odd characters earlier, where the same character is the verb for dividing and reads the other way. The word appears exactly once in the whole novel. 沒天理的買賣 — this trade with no heaven's law in it. They call their own robbery a trade, and they know it is wicked, and they say both things in one breath. It is the second time in the chapter they have reached for merchants' vocabulary. Their reasoning is a mirror of the son's, and just as sound: the monks stayed at the Kou house a long while, therefore they are probably carrying something worth taking.
The robbers work out that the pilgrims are worth robbing by exactly the reasoning the son used to work out that the pilgrims did the robbing. Both arguments start from the fortnight at the Kou house. Both are entirely reasonable. One of them is about to come true.
There is a bleak joke running underneath this passage. A hundred and fifty men are at this moment chasing the pilgrims down this road on suspicion of robbing the Kou house, and what actually happens to the pilgrims on it is that the real robbers rob them. The false charge and the real crime are about to meet in the same place at the same minute.
Notice how the gang talk about themselves. They call it a trade, they admit it has no heaven's law in it, and they cheerfully plan the next one. The book has given them a settled, unbothered criminal vocabulary — no bravado, no self-justification, just business. It will take that away from them in about six hundred characters, when they are tied up on the ground and asked to explain themselves.