In an instant they reached the bounds of the River That Reaches to Heaven.

頃刻間 間 jiān; 到了 了 the aspect particle le. The flight back is dispatched in a single clause — the novel's habitual economy for Wukong's travel.

Eight Rules and Sha Monk, seeing them, said: "Our elder brother is a hasty one — no telling what shouting and bawling he did in the Southern Sea, to force an unadorned Bodhisattva to come like this."

看見 看 kàn; 逼將來: 將 the directional coverb jiāng. The disciples read the goddess's undress as evidence that Wukong hectored her out of her cave — comic, and not entirely wrong about his manner.

Before they had finished, she reached the riverbank. The two of them bowed low: "Bodhisattva, we acted presumptuously — our fault, our fault."

說不了 了 liǎo, "to finish." 擅干, to presume, to overstep. The apology is for having troubled her; the disciples do not yet know what she has brought.

The Bodhisattva at once loosed the silk cord that sashed her jacket, made the basket fast to it, and holding the cord, half-astride her cloud, cast the basket into the river; then, drawing it upstream, she recited a verse-charm: "The dead, be gone; the living, remain. The dead, be gone; the living, remain!"

Two occurrences each of 絲絛 and 著, fixed positionally: 絲絛 (sī tāo), the silk sash from her own jacket — the same undress the verse described now become the tool; 拴定 and 扯著 durative 著 zhe; 籃兒 兒 suffix er; 河中 中 zhōng; 頌子 子 suffix zi. The charm's two halves are split by 。 and ！ in the source and are taken as one segment; it is a spell of separation — living fish from dead.

When she had recited it seven times, she lifted the basket — and behold, within it, gleaming bright, a single golden fish, its scales still stirring, its eyes still blinking.

念了七遍 了 le; 籃兒 兒 suffix er; 那籃裡 deictic nà; 還斬眼: 還 hái, "still," and 斬眼 = 眨眼, to blink. The demon, lifted from the water, is simply a fish in a basket.

The Bodhisattva called: "Wukong, quick, go down into the water and save your master."

救你師父耶: the sentence-final 耶 of vernacular urging. With the demon in the basket the river is emptied of its power, and the rescue is now a simple matter.

Pilgrim said: "But the fiend is not yet caught — how are we to save our master?"

拿住, to seize and hold. 救得 得 dé, potential. Wukong has not understood that the fish in the basket is the fiend — the miracle is a step ahead of him.

The Bodhisattva said: "Is he not here in the basket?"

這籃兒裡不是 兒 suffix er. The rhetorical question is the reveal: the demon and the golden fish are one, and the whole battle of the chapter is undone by a bamboo basket dipped once in the river.

Eight Rules and Sha Monk bowed and asked: "How does this fish come to have such powers?"

魚兒 兒 suffix er; 那等手段 deictic 那 nà, "such." The disciples ask the question the reader is asking, and the Bodhisattva's answer supplies the demon's whole origin.

The Bodhisattva said: "He was originally a golden fish reared in my lotus pool. Each day he floated up to hear the scriptures, and so cultivated his powers.

蓮花池裡養大, reared in the lotus pool; 浮頭聽經, floating up to hear the sūtras. The demon is the Bodhisattva's own creature, escaped — a fish that overheard the Dharma and grew strong on it.

That nine-petalled copper mallet was an unopened lotus-bud, which he wrought and tempered into a weapon.

那一柄 deictic 那 nà; 菡萏 (hàn dàn), the classical word for an unopened lotus flower. The mallet's lotus nature, boasted of in the weapon-verse, is now explained: it is a bud from Guanyin's own pool.

I do not know on what day a sea-tide swelled and he made his way to this place.

那一日 deictic 那 nà; 海潮泛漲: 漲 read zhǎng, "to rise, to swell" (of water); 此間 間 jiān. Even the Bodhisattva does not know exactly how her fish escaped — a rare admission of a limit.

This morning I leaned on my railing to look at the flowers and did not see this creature come to make his bow. I reckoned on my fingers, tracing the lines, and worked out that he had turned sprite here and was harming your master; and so, before I could dress my hair, I worked my divine power and wove a bamboo basket to catch him."

看花 看 kàn; 掐指巡紋: 掐 read qiā, to press with the fingernail — the gesture of finger-reckoning divination; 算著 durative 著 zhe; 竹籃兒 兒 suffix er. The undress is finally explained: she divined the emergency at her morning flowers and wove the basket on the instant, without stopping to dress.