The Great Sage set his auspicious light going and caught up with Sha Monk.

縱著 is durative zhe. 祥光 is the coloured radiance the novel gives to well-disposed flight, as against the 雲霧 of a demon's.

Having got the true water, in high good humour, they returned to their own place.

得了 takes 得 as dé; 本處 takes 處 as chù. 真水 is the poem's own term carried into the prose — the water is now the alchemical reagent, not just well-water.

They pressed the cloud down and came straight to the village cottage.

村舍 takes 舍 as shè. Eight graphs, matching the eight that brought them out.

There they saw Pig with his belly thrust out, propped against the door-frame and groaning.

腆著 is durative zhe; 肚 is dù; 哩 is li. The novel returns to Bajie in exactly the posture it left him in.

Pilgrim crept up and said, "Idiot — when did you take to your confinement?"

占房 takes 占 as zhàn. The phrase means to occupy the lying-in chamber, and Wukong is asking a heavily pregnant man when he went into labour. It is the third joke he has made at Bajie's expense on this subject.

The idiot said in a fluster, "Brother, no jokes. Have you brought any water?"

A J2 join of the speech-opener onto its continuation. 莫取笑 is a plea rather than a rebuke — he is in no position to argue.

Pilgrim was for teasing him further, but Sha Monk came up behind and said with a laugh, "The water's here! The water's here!"

還要 takes 還 as hái, still. Sha Monk ends the joke by answering the question, which is his function in the party as reliably as teasing is Wukong's.

Tripitaka raised himself against the pain and said, "Disciples! I have put you to great trouble."

累了你們 is the first thanks he has offered since the mountain god's rice at the chapter's opening.

The old woman too was delighted; the several of the household came out and bowed, saying, "Bodhisattva! It is a hard thing, a hard thing."

幾口兒 takes 兒 as the suffix er. Both 難得 take 難 as nán and 得 as dé — hard to come by, and said twice.

She hurriedly fetched a flowered porcelain cup, ladled out half a cupful and handed it to Tripitaka, saying, "Venerable master, drink it slowly — one mouthful is all that is needed, and the fetal humour will be dissolved."

半盞兒 takes 兒 as the suffix er; 解了 takes 解 as jiě. 只消一口 sets the dose, which is what makes the next two segments a joke and a warning.

Eight Rules said, "I don't want a cup — let me drink the whole bucket and have done."

喝 is hē, to drink. This is the first occurrence of that reading in the corpus: 喝 has been hè, to shout, at every prior site, and the standing note that it is 'never hē in this corpus' is falsified here (flag A4). 罷 is the hortative ba.

The old woman said, "Venerable sir! You would frighten a person to death. If you drank this bucketful of water, I dare say your bowels and belly would be dissolved away altogether."

A J2 join. 諕 is invariantly xià; 罷了 here takes 罷 as bà, exclamatory. The three 子 are all the suffix zi — 婆子, 腸子, 肚子 — and take positional fixspecs, as do the three 了.

That frightened the idiot out of any nonsense, and he too drank only half a cup.

嚇得 is a complement, so 得 is de; 胡為 takes 為 as wéi. The chapter's second great act of drinking is thus a matched pair with the first, and this time the doses are equal.