The Great Sage rode his cloud-somersault the whole way, straight to the borders of the shades, and burst in upon the Hall of Judgement. Which threw into a flutter:

⚠ 觔斗雲 — the cloud-somersault. Monkey's signature means of travel, one leap of a hundred and eight thousand li. The middle character is the dipper-shaped measure, the same one as in the constellation, and read the other way it means fighting. ⚠ The novel uses this word a hundred and four times across fifty-one chapters and the reading comes out right at exactly one of them. 森羅殿 — the Hall of Judgement, where the kings of the dead sit. Monkey has been here before, in an early chapter, to strike his own name out of the rolls of the dead. ⚠ 慌得那 — which threw into a flutter. This is the cue for the verse, and it is the only one of its kind in the novel. The first two characters are also a set frame this chapter uses four times, so the cue and an ordinary phrase are the same shape — which is exactly why a rule built to spot verse introductions would walk past it.

The Ten Kings of the dead clasped their hands and received him; / the ghost judges of the five quarters bowed their heads in welcome.

十代閻君 — the Ten Kings, who preside over the ten courts of the underworld. Each has jurisdiction over a stage of judgement, and between them they run the whole system. ⚠ They come out to meet him. Monkey is not being received as a petitioner; he is being received as somebody they would rather not annoy, which is a consequence of what he did to their ledgers ninety-odd chapters ago.

A thousand trunks of the sword-forest all leaned aside; / ten thousand ridges of the knife-mountain lay level and flat.

劍樹 and 刀山 — the sword-forest and the knife-mountain, two of the standard hells, where the damned are driven up blades. The picture is that the instruments of torment themselves flinch out of Monkey's way. 攲側 — leaned aside. The word is rare and precise: tilted off the vertical. It is a compliment paid to a visitor by the landscape, and it is doing the same job as the coloured cloud over the Kou house a moment ago.

In the City of the Wrongly Dead the goblins were transformed; / under the Bridge of the River Nai the ghosts were reborn.

⚠ 枉死城 — the City of the Wrongly Dead, where those who died out of their proper span are held. ⚠ THE CHAPTER HAS BEEN WALKING TOWARDS THIS PHRASE FOR SIX THOUSAND CHARACTERS: it is where Kou Hong ought to be, and the same first character is the one used all through this chapter for the wrongful accusation against the pilgrims. 奈河橋 — the Bridge of the River Nai, which the dead must cross. The name is old and its etymology is disputed, but by the Ming it was simply the last crossing before rebirth. Monkey's arrival empties both. The wrongly dead are released and the ghosts at the bridge go on to be born again.

Truly that divine light shone like a pardon from heaven, / and the dark offices of the shades were bright in every corner.

如天赦 — like a pardon from heaven. An amnesty: the sort of general release a new emperor proclaims. The image is legal, like everything else in this chapter. ⚠ 黑暗陰司 — the dark offices of the shades. The underworld is an administration and the poem calls it one. Monkey has spent the night working through three earthly bureaucracies and has now arrived at the fourth.