覆奏無闕,敕選天將 The Report Comes Back Empty, and Heaven Orders Him to Choose
那可韓司丈人真君歷歷查勘,回奏玉帝道:「滿天星宿不少,各方神將皆存,並無思凡下界者。」玉帝聞奏:「著孫悟空挑選幾員天將,下界擒魔去也。」那可韩司丈人真君历历查勘,回奏玉帝道:「满天星宿不少,各方神将皆存,并无思凡下界者。」玉帝闻奏:「着孙悟空挑选几员天将,下界擒魔去也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The True Lord, the Elder of the Han Office, having made his inquiry point by point, reported back to the Jade Emperor: "The stars and mansions of the whole sky are not one short, the divine generals of every quarter are all present, and none has gone down to the world out of a longing for ordinary life."
星宿 takes xiù. 歷歷 is item by item, the manner of the audit itself. 神將 takes jiàng, rank. 不少 is bù by mechanical sandhi and 少 takes shǎo — "not short by one", the register's own phrase.
The Jade Emperor heard the report and said, "Let Sun Wukong pick out a few heavenly generals and go down to the world to seize the fiend."
著 takes zhuó, the dispatching reading — "have him do it" — not the durative zhe or the resultative zháo. 挑選 takes tiāo. The reply is a small masterpiece of administration: the inquiry found nothing, so the complainant is handed the work and dismissed.
Two segments, and the chapter turns on them. Wukong came to lodge a charge of slack discipline; the audit clears Heaven entirely; and Heaven, having been cleared, gives him troops anyway. From here every force sent against the ring will be swallowed by it, and the reader already knows the roster came out clean.
著 takes zhuó here and again in the next passage when the Celestial Masters repeat the order to Wukong's face. It is the dispatching reading throughout.