傳信約戰 Word Passed, Battle Arranged
急回頭，跳將出去，到門外現了原身，叫：「八戒。」那獃子與沙僧近前道：「哥哥，如何？」行者道：「正是此怪騙了師父。師父未曾傷損，被怪物蓋在石匣之下。你兩個快早挑戰，讓老孫先出水面。你若擒得他就擒；擒不得，做個佯輸，引他出水，等我打他。」沙僧道：「哥哥放心先去，待小弟們鑒貌辨色。」這行者捻著避水訣，鑽出河中，停立岸邊等候不題。急回头，跳将出去，到门外现了原身，叫：「八戒。」那呆子与沙僧近前道：「哥哥，如何？」行者道：「正是此怪骗了师父。师父未曾伤损，被怪物盖在石匣之下。你两个快早挑战，让老孙先出水面。你若擒得他就擒；擒不得，做个佯输，引他出水，等我打他。」沙僧道：「哥哥放心先去，待小弟们鉴貌辨色。」这行者捻着避水诀，钻出河中，停立岸边等候不题。
逐句解 Line by line
He turned back quickly, sprang out, resumed his own body outside the gate, and called: "Eight Rules!"
跳將出去: 將 jiāng, the directional coverb. 現了原身 — Wukong drops the shrimp form only once he is clear of the hall.
The blockhead and Sha Monk came up to him: "Brother, how goes it?"
那獃子 deictic 那 nà. The clipped 如何 keeps the exchange at the pace of a reconnaissance report.
Pilgrim said: "It is this fiend, sure enough, who has tricked our master.
正是 here is the ordinary predicate, "it is precisely" — not the verse-tag 正是 that elsewhere in the novel introduces a couplet. No verse follows, and the block stays prose.
The master is unhurt, but the monster has him shut under a stone chest.
蓋在石匣之下 — 蓋 "to cover over," the lid rather than the box being what holds him. 石 shí.
You two go at once and give him challenge, and let old Sun get out to the surface first.
挑戰 is read tiǎo zhàn, "to provoke to battle" — 挑 in its tiǎo sense ("to raise, to stir up"), not the tiāo of carrying on a pole. The plan reverses the usual order: Wukong withdraws from the field before the fighting starts.
If you can take him, take him;
擒得: 得 dé, the potential — "if you are able to seize him."
if you cannot, put on a feigned rout, draw him out of the water, and leave the striking to me."
佯輸 (yáng shū), the feigned defeat: the standard device whenever Wukong's power is bounded by the element the enemy holds. 擒不得 得 dé.
Sha Monk said: "Go on ahead and set your mind at rest, brother. Your younger brothers will read his face and judge the moment."
鑒貌辨色, "to examine the countenance and distinguish the colour" — a set phrase for reading a situation and acting on it.
So Pilgrim held the water-repelling sign, bored up out of the river, and stood on the bank waiting — of which no more for the present.
捻著 durative 著 zhe; 河中 中 zhōng. 不題 is the narrator's suspension formula, setting one thread aside to take up another.
The block is entirely tactical, and it is worth noticing how much of the chapter's shape is decided in it. Wukong reports three things — the demon is the culprit, the master is alive, the master is under a stone lid — and then removes himself from the battle. The plan he leaves behind, 佯輸, is the same one the pilgrims use whenever an enemy holds an element that Wukong does not: draw the fight onto ground where he can act. Everything through the next two blocks is the working out of that instruction.
The 正是 in the third segment is a small trap for the editor. Elsewhere in the novel 正是 is one of the standard verse-tags, and a scan for it will flag this block; but here it is the ordinary copula-plus-adverb, "it is precisely," and no couplet follows. The block has no verse lines at all, and stands as a plain prose passage. Sha Monk's closing 鑒貌辨色 is characteristic of him — where Bajie would promise a victory, he promises attention.