Now see how Eight Rules played the ruffian: he charged up to the gate and shouted in a harsh voice, "Foul monster!

你看那 is the storyteller's presentational, turning the audience toward the action. 行兇: 行 xíng, "to act, to commit."

Send my master out!"

Six characters and no argument. Bajie opens every negotiation of this kind as a demand rather than a question.

The little demons within the gate were so alarmed that they ran to report: "Great King, there is someone outside asking for a master."

慌得: 得 the complement particle de, "so alarmed that…" 哩 the vernacular final particle li — the small demon reports in the same colloquial register the pilgrims use.

The fiend said: "This will surely be that rascally monk come back again."

妖邪 is the chapter's standing term for the demon, alternating with 妖怪 and 怪物. 那潑和尚 deictic 那 nà.

He ordered: "Bring my armour and my weapon, and be quick."

教 jiào, the causative "to order, to have done" — not jiāo, "to teach." 披掛, armour, from the verb "to drape and hang on."

The little demons hurried to fetch them out.

A single line of stage business between the order and the arming — the narrative gives the demon's household the efficiency of a real court.

The fiend girded himself, took his weapon in hand, gave the order to open the gate, and came striding out.

結束 here has its older sense, "to gird, to accoutre oneself," not the modern "to conclude." 走將出來: 將 jiāng, directional.

Eight Rules and Sha Monk drew up to left and right. And how was the fiend accoutred?

怎生, vernacular "in what manner." The rhetorical question is the fixed frame that opens a descriptive verse: the narrator asks, and the poem answers.

A fine monster — look at him:

你看他 followed by the colon is the verse-tag proper. The eight couplets that follow form a single descriptive 詩, and prose and verse are taken together as one passage.

A golden helm on his head, flashing bright; / golden mail on his body, trailing a rainbow.

掣虹霓, "drawing out a rainbow" — the mail throws light as it moves. The arming-description is a courtesy the novel extends to antagonists it means to take seriously.

About his waist a jewelled belt clustered with pearl and kingfisher; / on his feet smoke-yellow boots of curious make.

團珠翠: 團 "gathered in a round," clustered. 珠翠, pearls and kingfisher-feather work, the standard pairing for costly ornament.

The bridge of his nose high-arched as a peak upthrust; / his brow broad as a dragon's bearing.

鼻準 and 天庭 are both technical terms of physiognomy — the nose-bridge and the upper forehead. The portrait is also a face-reading, and it reads noble.

His eyes glitter and flash, round and fierce besides; / his teeth are edges of steel, pointed and even.

圓還暴: 還 hái, "and moreover." Here the physiognomy turns: the noble brow is set over a predator's eyes and teeth.

Short hair, tangled and loose, streams out like flame; / a long beard, free and unbound, juts like awls of gold.

長鬚: 長 cháng, dimension. 髮 fà. 瀟灑 of a beard means unconstrained rather than elegant.

In his mouth he bites a sprig of green tender waterweed; / in his hand he grips a nine-petalled mallet of red copper.

青嫩藻 — the waterweed in the mouth is the one detail that betrays a river creature under the royal accoutrement. The mallet gets its own verse two blocks later.

One creaking cry, and where the gate swings wide / the sound is the thunder of Waking Insects in the third month of spring.

驚蟄 is the solar term of Waking Insects, when the first thunder is held to rouse hibernating creatures — apt for a thing coming up out of the water. 門開處: 處 chù. 似 sì.

Such a figure is rare in the world of men: / well may he claim the style and majesty of a Numinous King.

The verse names him 靈顯, "Numinous Manifestation," where the prose of the chapter calls him 靈感大王, "Great King Numinous Response" — the epithets are parallel but not identical, and the 世德堂本 form is kept in each place. 稱 chēng.