脫胎換骨 Bone Changed and Womb Exchanged
這番造化了八戒，便宜了沙僧。佛祖處正壽長生，脫胎換骨之饌，儘著他受用。二尊者陪奉四眾餐畢，卻入寶閣，開門登看。那廂有霞光瑞氣，籠罩千重；彩霧祥雲，遮漫萬道。經櫃上，寶篋外，都貼了紅簽，楷書著經卷名目。这番造化了八戒，便宜了沙僧。佛祖处正寿长生，脱胎换骨之馔，尽着他受用。二尊者陪奉四众餐毕，却入宝阁，开门登看。那厢有霞光瑞气，笼罩千重；彩雾祥云，遮漫万道。经柜上，宝箧外，都贴了红签，楷书着经卷名目。
逐句解 Line by line
This time it was Pigsy's good fortune, and Sha Monk got the bargain of it.
⚠ 造化 — good fortune, a lucky break. The two characters literally mean making and transforming, and they name the creative work of heaven; used of a person they mean a windfall. The book is being wry. ⚠ 便宜 — a bargain, something got cheap. Both characters are read differently from their usual selves here, and the pair is the ordinary spoken word for getting more than you paid for. After ninety-eight chapters the narrator finally says out loud what everybody has known: Pigsy and Sha Monk have had a very good journey out of somebody else's errand.
In the Buddha's own place there was food that sets the span right and gives long life, that changes the womb and exchanges the bone; and they were left to have their fill of it.
⚠⚠ 脫胎換骨 — to slough the womb-born body and exchange the bone. This is a DAOIST ALCHEMICAL TERM, the phrase for what happens when the elixir works and the adept's ordinary flesh is replaced. It is still in daily use for a complete transformation. ⚠ And it is being used of the buffet. The dish that does what a lifetime of alchemy is supposed to do is being handed round at a Buddhist lunch, and the person eating most of it is the pig. ⚠ 儘著他受用 — left to eat their fill. The character after the first is the light one that marks something going on, and the whole phrase is a shrug: nobody stopped them. 正壽長生 — sets the lifespan right and lengthens life. cháng again, and Daoist again.
The two venerables kept the four company until the meal was done, and then went into the treasure-pavilion, opened the door and went up to look.
陪奉 — kept them company and waited on them. The two disciples do the whole duty of a host, correctly, and do not eat. ⚠ 開門登看 — opened the door and climbed up to look. Three actions in four characters, and the last of them is the one that matters: they go up first and the pilgrims follow. Everything from here is happening on the custodians' ground.
Over that way were rosy light and lucky vapours, wrapping it round in a thousand layers;
⚠ 千重 — a thousand LAYERS. chóng, a fold, exactly as at the auspicious haze the Great Immortal pointed to from his back door two thousand characters ago. The chain of ordinary readings gives the zhòng of weight at all five of this word's sites in the novel. 籠罩 — to cage and to cover, both characters about enclosing something. The light is not shining on the loft; it is wrapped round it.
coloured mist and auspicious cloud, spreading over and hiding it in ten thousand streams.
⚠ 遮漫 — to screen and to flood. The mist is doing two contradictory things at once: covering the treasure and spilling out of it. ⚠ And note what all this fine weather is FOR. The book spends twenty characters wrapping the scripture loft in light and cloud, immediately before two men inside it ask for a bribe.
On the scripture cabinets and outside the treasure-cases, red labels were pasted, with the names of the scrolls written out in the formal hand.
⚠ 紅簽 — red labels. After all the mist and the golden light, the thing that actually gets described is the filing system. ⚠ 楷書 — the standard script, the upright regular hand that Chinese uses for anything that must be read without effort. Somebody wrote these labels carefully so that a visitor could find things. It is the most ordinary detail in the chapter and it is in the Buddha's own library. 著 after the verb marks the writing as standing written, a state rather than an act — the third of four jobs this one character does in the chapter.
The narrator finally says out loud what a hundred chapters have implied: this was Pigsy's lucky break and Sha Monk got a bargain. The dish they are eating their fill of is described with a Daoist alchemical phrase — sloughing the womb-born body and exchanging the bone — which is what a lifetime of the elixir is supposed to achieve, handed round at a buffet.
Then the two disciples take them up into the loft, and the book wraps it in rosy light, lucky vapour, coloured mist and auspicious cloud, a thousand layers deep. Twenty characters of atmosphere, immediately before two men standing inside it ask a penniless monk what he has brought them.
And the last thing described is not the light. It is red labels, pasted on the cabinets, with the titles written out in the plain upright hand so that a visitor can read them. The Buddha's library has a filing system, and somebody took trouble over the labels.