二三年就到 She Said Two or Three Years
大仙笑道：「聖僧今年才到，我被觀音菩薩哄了。他十年前領佛金旨，向東土尋取經人，原說二三年就到我處。我年年等候，渺無消息，不意今年才相逢也。」三藏合掌道：「有勞大仙盛意，感激，感激。」大仙笑道：「圣僧今年才到，我被观音菩萨哄了。他十年前领佛金旨，向东土寻取经人，原说二三年就到我处。我年年等候，渺无消息，不意今年才相逢也。」三藏合掌道：「有劳大仙盛意，感激，感激。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Immortal said with a laugh, "Holy monk, you have only got here this year. Guanyin has had me on."
⚠ 我被觀音菩薩哄了 — Guanyin has had me on. A Daoist immortal is complaining, cheerfully, that a bodhisattva misled him. Nobody in the scene finds this remarkable. 哄 is the everyday word for stringing somebody along — not fraud, the kind of thing you accuse a friend of. The tone of the whole meeting is set by this one word: two old acquaintances, one of whom has been kept waiting.
"Ten years ago she took the Buddha's golden decree and went east to look for a scripture-seeker, and she said at the time it would be two or three years before he reached me."
⚠⚠ THIS IS A NINETY-CHAPTER CALLBACK AND IT IS EXACT. Turn back to Chapter 8 and the scene is there: Guanyin, carrying the Buddha's commission east, stops at this very abbey and is met by this very Immortal at his own gate. He asks her when the scripture-seeker will come. She says — and the words match — 二三年, two or three years. He has been standing at that gate ever since. ⚠ And his arithmetic does not work. He says 十年前, ten years ago. This chapter states elsewhere, in the Bodhisattva's own report to the Buddha, that the journey took 一十四年 — fourteen years — and that is the only place in the whole novel that figure appears. Either the Immortal has lost count, or the book has. Given what he is complaining about, losing count is the better joke.
"Year after year I have waited, and not a word of news; and now, past all expectation, we meet only this year."
⚠ 年年等候 — waited year after year. The doubled word again, the same device the towers used for their flowers, and here it carries a decade of someone standing about. 渺無消息 — not a trace of news. It is a set phrase and it is still the ordinary way to say somebody has vanished off the face of the earth. The Great Immortal has now spoken three sentences and all three are complaints. He is the last person to greet the pilgrims before the Buddha's mountain, and what he wants to talk about is how long he has been kept hanging around.
Tripitaka pressed his palms together and said, "You have gone to great trouble, Great Immortal, and shown us much kindness. I am grateful, grateful."
Tripitaka answers a decade of grumbling with formula, and doubles the last word: 感激，感激. Saying a courtesy twice is the spoken equivalent of shaking somebody's hand with both of yours. 盛意 — abundant kindness. The first character is the full one, flourishing rather than merely holding. He does not apologise for being eleven years late. He has no idea he is.
This is one of the longest-range callbacks in the novel and it is played entirely for comedy. In Chapter 8, on the outward leg of the whole story, Guanyin passed this abbey and was met at the gate by this Immortal, who asked when the scripture-seeker would arrive and was told two or three years. He has been waiting at that gate for the rest of the book.
What makes it land is the register. He does not greet Tripitaka as a holy pilgrim at the threshold of paradise; he greets him as a man who has been stood up, and he blames the bodhisattva who made the appointment. Then he laughs about it. A hundred chapters of demons and thunderbolts, and the last figure before the Buddha's mountain is a neighbour who has been kept waiting and wants you to know.
The figures do not add up, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than smoothing it over. He says ten years; the chapter's own closing accounts say the journey took fourteen. Somebody has miscounted — and since the man miscounting has spent that time staring down an empty road, the error is in character.