The Great Sage had no sooner dragged his rod back than the celestial spirits on the bluff were offering congratulations, all of them saying: "There is a Great Sage Equal to Heaven with ability and with strength, and a true prowess measureless and boundless."

拽棍: 拽 = zhuài ("to drag, to haul"); pypinyin gives zhuāi every time, and the reading is now guarded as an invariant. 都道: 都 = dōu. 無量: 量 = liàng (the noun, "measure").

Pilgrim laughed and said: "Too kind, too kind."

承過獎 — literally "I receive excessive praise" — is the standard deprecating formula for accepting a compliment; the doubling is polite, not ironic.

Devarāja Li came forward and said: "This is no mere compliment; you are truly a fine fellow. This bout of yours was in no way inferior to that time of the net that veiled the earth and the snare that covered the sky."

好漢子: suffix 子 = zi. 當時: 當 = dāng (temporal). 瞞地網罩天羅 inverts the fixed phrase 天羅地網, the sky-and-earth snare thrown round Flower Fruit Mountain in Chapter 5 — an operation Li Jing himself commanded, and which failed.

Pilgrim said: "Let old talk rest. That fiend has had a bout from Old Monkey and must be worn out.

夙話 = "talk of former days." Deictic 那妖魔: 那 = nà; 打了: 了 = le.

"I will not speak of my own weariness either. Sit at your ease, all of you, and let me go into the cave once more and find out about that ring of his. I am determined to steal it, take the monster, recover the weapons, and give them back to you for your return to Heaven."

說不得: potential complement, 得 = de ("cannot speak of"). 都 = dōu; 圈子: suffix 子 = zi; 偷了: 了 = le; deictic 那怪: 那 = nà. 奉還: 還 = huán ("to give back").

The Prince said: "It is late in the day now. Better to sleep the night through and go early in the morning."

太子 is Nezha, third son of Devarāja Li: 子 = zǐ, the noun-morpheme, not the suffix zi. 一宿: 宿 = xiǔ, the measure for a night's sleep — new at this chapter; the cumulative table carried only sù. 去罷: sentence-final 罷 = ba, hortative, not the verb bà.

Pilgrim laughed: "This young gentleman knows nothing of the world. Where have you ever seen a thief who found broad daylight good for the work?

那見 is rhetorical: 那 = nǎ ("where —?"). 小郎 is familiar address to a young man, and faintly condescending here. 做賊的 = "one who does thieving."

"For filching of this kind you must go by night and come by night, unknown and unnoticed — that is what makes a trade of it."

似這等: 似 = sì (GLOBAL_PY). 掏摸 = "to fish out and filch," thieves' cant. 不知不覺: 覺 = jué ("to be aware"), not the jiào of sleep. 買賣 = "business, the trade" — Pilgrim is claiming burglary as a profession with its own hours. Sentence-final 哩 = li.

The Fire Virtue and the Thunder Squire said: "Say no more, Third Prince — this matter is beyond us.

三太子: 子 = zǐ. 這件事我們不知 = "this business we do not know," i.e. it lies outside their competence; the two gods are deferring to a specialist.

"The Great Sage is an old hand and knows the tricks of it. He should be let take this hour: for one thing the fiend is worn out, for another the night is dark and unwatched. Go quickly, then, go quickly."

慣家熟套 = "a practised hand, well up in the tricks." 須教他: 教 = jiào, causative. 一則 … 二來 is the enumerative pair ("for one thing … for another"); 一 is lexicalized here and stays yī against the mechanical yì — registered as a §2(b) override.