該我拷較 My Turn to Examine You
行者近前努目睜看，厲聲高叫道：「我的白馬是堂上人得了，行李是獄中人得了，快快還我。今日卻該我拷較你們了：枉拿平人做賊，你們該個甚罪？」府縣官見他作惡，無一個不怕，即便叫收馬的牽馬來，收行李的取行李來，一一交付明白。行者近前努目睁看，厉声高叫道：「我的白马是堂上人得了，行李是狱中人得了，快快还我。今日却该我拷较你们了：枉拿平人做贼，你们该个甚罪？」府县官见他作恶，无一个不怕，即便叫收马的牵马来，收行李的取行李来，一一交付明白。
逐句解 Line by line
Monkey came forward, glared with bulging eyes and shouted in a hard voice, "My white horse was taken by somebody in this hall, and my luggage by somebody in the gaol. Give them back to me at once."
⚠ 快快還我 — give them back to me at once. The first character here is the give-back word, not the everyday one meaning still that this chapter uses eleven other times. It is a large and settled word in this novel — sixty-two demands of exactly this shape, from give me back my master to give me back my life — and the chain reads all sixty-two the other way. 努目睜看，厲聲高叫 — glared with bulging eyes and shouted hard. Monkey has done nothing but wait for two days and is now enjoying himself. ⚠ He names where each thing went: the horse to somebody in the hall, the luggage to somebody in the gaol. He knows, because he spent the night as a gnat.
"And today it falls to me to put you to the question. Seizing innocent men and making them out to be thieves — what punishment do you deserve for that?"
⚠ 該我拷較你們 — it falls to me to put you to the question. The word is the court's own for examination under torture, and Monkey turns it round on the bench. Yesterday it was the prefect who said he would examine them further; today Monkey is using his word. 枉拿平人做賊 — seizing innocent men and making them out thieves. 平人 is a legal term: a person of no criminal standing, an ordinary subject. He is charging them in their own vocabulary. 該個甚罪 — what punishment do you deserve. He is asking a room full of magistrates to sentence themselves.
The prefecture and county officers, seeing him turn nasty, were every one of them afraid, and at once called for whoever had taken the horse to bring the horse, and whoever had taken the luggage to fetch the luggage, and handed everything over one by one, all correct.
無一個不怕 — not one of them was unafraid. A double negative for emphasis, and the whole administration of a prefecture is frightened of a monk who was in its cells an hour ago. ⚠ 一一交付明白 — handed over one by one, all correct. The doubled numeral is the adverb meaning each in turn, and it is the third of this chapter's five. Its reading has been an open question for five chapters; this one is authored as the chain gives it, so that it moves with the rest if the ruling lands. ⚠ Nobody is punished. Monkey asks what sentence they deserve and the answer is that they hand back the luggage.
Monkey's revenge is entirely verbal and entirely satisfying. He glares, he shouts, he demands his property, and then he asks a hall full of magistrates what sentence they think they deserve for arresting innocent men — using the court's own word for interrogation under torture, which is what they were doing to him yesterday.
And nothing happens. They are frightened, they produce the horse and the luggage, and the question about punishment is simply not answered. That is realistic and it is also the chapter's steady position: the machinery that convicted four innocent men has no mechanism at all for being sorry.
The detail that gives Monkey away is that he knows exactly where his things went — the horse to somebody in the hall, the luggage to somebody in the gaol. He was a gnat in both buildings last night. He is not guessing, and none of the men in front of him will ever work out how he knows.