The Great Sage Sun harboured a discordant heart; Bajie and Sha Monk too had thoughts of jealousy; and master and disciples were all fair to the face and false behind the back.

面是背非 — right to the face, wrong behind the back — takes 背 as bèi, the 胸背 reading, not the bēi of carrying. The narrator states the condition of the party flatly and in his own voice, which he has not done since the chapter opened.

They went along the high road westward, and of a sudden saw, off to the north of the road, a farmstead.

莊院 is a walled farm compound. The reprieve arrives one sentence after the quarrel is named.

Tripitaka pointed at it with his whip and said, “Let us go over there and beg a night’s lodging.”

指定 fixes 那裡 as the deictic nà — he is pointing at the place — against the indefinite nǎ of the previous passage. 借宿 is 宿 as sù.

Bajie said, “Just so.”

Five graphs, a complete attribution and quote, so it stands alone. It is also the only thing anybody agrees about in this passage.

So they went as far as the farm buildings and dismounted.

莊舍 takes 舍 at its standing invariant shè, a dwelling, not the shě of giving up.

Looking at it, they found it a fine place to stop.

住場 is a place to stay. The eight graphs turn the party from travellers into guests, which is what makes the rhapsody that follows possible.

Behold:

但見 — the sixth of the chapter’s seven tag-formulae, and the last of its three landscape rhapsodies.

Wild flowers fill the path; mingled trees screen the gate.

A four-and-four opening. 扉 is the leaf of a door, and screening it with trees is the conventional first mark of a retired dwelling.

On the far bank a hill stream runs; in the level beds are sown wheat and mallow.

種 is verbal here — to sow — so zhòng and not the zhǒng of seed that pypinyin returns. 葵 is the mallow, an ordinary kitchen crop, and its presence beside the wheat is what marks this as a working farm rather than a hermitage.

Reed and rush are moist with dew, and the light gull roosts; the willows stir in a slight wind, and the tired birds settle.

輕鷗宿 is 宿 in its verbal sense, to roost, so sù — the third of the chapter’s three readings of this graph. 蒹葭 is from the 秦風 of the 詩經 and brings its dew with it.

Green cypress among the pines contends in emerald; red bulrush against the smartweed vies in fragrance.

間 is verbal — to be interspersed among — so jiàn, not the jiān of an interval. 爭 and 鬥 are the matched verbs, and both are verbs of fighting, used here of plants.

The village dogs bark, the evening cocks crow; the cattle and sheep have eaten their fill, and the herd-boys are coming home.

A three-and-three-and-seven line. The rhapsody moves from plants to animals to people in the space of thirteen graphs.

Hearth-smoke gathers into mist, the yellow millet is done: this is the hour when a hill household comes to dusk.

爨 is the cooking hearth. 黃粱 is the yellow millet of the proverbial dream, and here it is simply supper. The closing line names the time of day rather than the place, which is unusual for this form and is the whole effect.