肚腹之內 Inside Her Belly
那羅剎渴極,接過茶,兩三氣都吃了。行者已到他肚腹之內,現原身,厲聲高叫道:「嫂嫂,借扇子我使使。」羅剎大驚失色,叫:「小的們,關了前門否?」俱說:「關了。」他又說:「既關了門,孫行者如何在家裡叫喚?」女童道:「在你身上叫哩。」那罗刹渴极,接过茶,两三气都吃了。行者已到他肚腹之内,现原身,厉声高叫道:「嫂嫂,借扇子我使使。」罗刹大惊失色,叫:「小的们,关了前门否?」俱说:「关了。」他又说:「既关了门,孙行者如何在家里叫唤?」女童道:「在你身上叫哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Rākṣasī was parched. She took the tea and drank it off in two or three breaths.
都 is the adverb dōu here — she drank the whole of it — against the dū of 骨都都 in the arming scene six blocks back. 渴極 'thirsty in the extreme'.
Pilgrim was already inside her belly. He resumed his own shape and shouted at the top of his voice, 'Sister-in-law! Lend me that fan of yours!'
厲聲 'in a harsh, raised voice'. He asks for the fan in the same words he has used at the door twice already — 借扇子我使使 — which is the joke: the request has not changed at all, only its location.
The Rākṣasī went pale with terror and cried, 'Little ones! Is the front door shut?' They all said, 'It is shut.'
小的們 'the little ones', the household servants, as at the old man's farmstead. 俱說 'they all said' — the four-graph answer is folded back onto her question, which is where the source's own punctuation leaves it hanging.
Then she said, 'If the door is shut, how is Sun the Pilgrim calling out from inside the house?'
在家裡叫喚 'calling from inside the house' — she reasons from a shut door to an intruder, which is correct and useless. The novel lets her work through the possibilities in the right order and arrive nowhere.
The maid said, 'He's calling from inside you.'
在你身上叫哩 — nine graphs, and the servant girl solves in one line what her mistress could not. 哩 is the toneless particle. It is the maid's second good moment in the chapter, after her reduction of Pilgrim to 借扇子的.
The comedy is built on a shut door. She drinks the tea, hears her enemy's voice, and her first thought is entirely reasonable: is the front door barred? It is, they tell her. Then how is he calling from inside the house?
Her reasoning is correct at every step and arrives nowhere, because the possibility she needs is not in the space she is searching. The novel gives her the full sequence — the question, the confirmation, the puzzled follow-up — before letting it collapse.
And it collapses in nine graphs from the servant. 在你身上叫哩, he is calling from inside you. It is the maid's second good line in the chapter, after her report that the fan-borrowing one was back again, and both times she gets to the point faster than anyone above her.
Pilgrim's own line is the joke underneath. 借扇子我使使 — lend me the fan to use — is word for word what he shouted at the door on his second visit. The request has not altered in the smallest particular; only its position has.