諸天候接 The Attendants at Potalaka
好大聖，急縱祥光，躲離河口，徑赴南海。那裡消半個時辰，早望見落伽山不遠。低下雲頭，徑至普陀崖上。只見那二十四路諸天與守山大神、木叉行者、善財童子、捧珠龍女，一齊上前，迎著施禮道：「大聖何來？」行者道：「有事要見菩薩。」眾神道：「菩薩今早出洞，不許人隨，自入竹林裡觀玩。知大聖今日必來，吩咐我等在此候接大聖，不可就見。請在翠巖前聊坐片時，待菩薩出來。」好大圣，急纵祥光，躲离河口，径赴南海。那里消半个时辰，早望见落伽山不远。低下云头，径至普陀崖上。只见那二十四路诸天与守山大神、木叉行者、善财童子、捧珠龙女，一齐上前，迎着施礼道：「大圣何来？」行者道：「有事要见菩萨。」众神道：「菩萨今早出洞，不许人随，自入竹林里观玩。知大圣今日必来，吩咐我等在此候接大圣，不可就见。请在翠岩前聊坐片时，待菩萨出来。」
逐句解 Line by line
The fine Great Sage swiftly gathered his auspicious light, left the river-mouth behind, and made straight for the Southern Sea.
祥光, auspicious radiance — Wukong's travelling cloud. 躲離, to slip away from. The transition to the Southern Sea is given the brisk economy the novel reserves for Wukong's flights.
In less than half a double-hour he sighted Potalaka Mountain not far off.
那裡 here is adverbial, "thereabouts," read with the interrogative series 那 nǎ. 落伽山: 落 luò, "Potalaka" (Mount Luojia) — the graph is on the silent-error watch for the colloquial là. 消, to take (of time).
He brought his cloud low and came straight up onto Potalaka Cliff.
普陀崖, the same cliff written with 崖 where the previous block had 巖 — the 世德堂本 alternates the graphs, and each is kept as it stands.
There he saw the Devas of the Twenty-Four Ways, with the Great Mountain-Guarding Spirit, Moksha the Acolyte, the Boy of Good Wealth, and the Pearl-Bearing Dragon Girl, all come forward together, greeting him and making their bows: "Why has the Great Sage come?"
那二十四路諸天 deictic nà. 木叉行者 (Moksha) 行 xíng; 善財童子 子 the suffix zi; 迎著 durative 著 zhe. The full roster of Guanyin's court is named, a mark of the destination's rank.
Pilgrim said: "There is a matter on which I must see the Bodhisattva."
行者 行 xíng. The reply is curt with urgency — his master is boxed under a river while he pays this call.
The gods said: "The Bodhisattva came out of her cave early this morning, allowing no one to attend her, and went alone into the bamboo grove to look about her.
觀玩: 觀 guān, "to view, to look about." The detail is deliberately domestic — the Bodhisattva at leisure in her grove — and prepares the surprise of the next block, where the leisure turns out to be the weaving of the fish-basket.
She knew the Great Sage would surely come today, and charged us to wait here and receive you, but not to bring you in at once.
知大聖今日必來 — the Bodhisattva's foreknowledge is the block's real content: Wukong's errand was expected before he set out, which retroactively answers Bajie's complaint about wasted hours.
Be pleased to sit a little while before the kingfisher cliff, and wait for the Bodhisattva to come out."
翠巖, the kingfisher-green cliff. 聊坐片時, to sit a short while. The instruction to wait is not a delay but a piece of stage-management: Guanyin will come in her own time, and in an unexpected guise.
The flight to Potalaka is brief, and its whole weight falls on one sentence: 知大聖今日必來, she knew the Great Sage would come today. Wukong has told Bajie he will be back as soon as he goes, and the reason is now supplied from the other end — the Bodhisattva rose early, went into her bamboo grove, and left word for her attendants to receive a visitor she was already expecting. The novel likes this shape, in which Wukong's confidence and Guanyin's foreknowledge meet in the middle, and it uses it to make the coming rescue feel ordained rather than contrived.
The block also does the work of establishing rank by roster. Guanyin's court is named in full — the Devas of the Twenty-Four Ways, the Mountain-Guarding Spirit, Moksha, the Boy of Good Wealth, the Pearl-Bearing Dragon Girl — the whole retinue turning out to meet a single caller. Against this ceremony the one discordant note is carefully planted: the Bodhisattva herself is not on her throne but off alone in the grove, 觀玩, looking about her, having forbidden anyone to follow. The reader is meant to wonder what she is doing there, and the next block will answer: she is sitting on a bamboo stool, her hair undressed, weaving.