帝患沉痾 The Emperor Falls Sick
不覺五更三點，那滿朝文武多官，都在朝門外候朝。等到天明，猶不見臨朝，諕得一個個驚懼躊躇。及日上三竿，方有旨意出來道：「朕心不快，眾官免朝。」不覺倏五七日，眾官憂惶，都正要撞門見駕問安，只見太后有旨，召醫官入宮用藥。眾人在朝門外等候討信。少時，醫官出來，眾問何疾。醫官道：「皇上脈氣不正，虛而又數，狂言見鬼。又診得十動一代，五臟無氣，恐不諱只在七日之內矣。」眾官聞言，大驚失色。不觉五更三点，那满朝文武多官，都在朝门外候朝。等到天明，犹不见临朝，諕得一个个惊惧踌躇。及日上三竿，方有旨意出来道：「朕心不快，众官免朝。」不觉倏五七日，众官忧惶，都正要撞门见驾问安，只见太后有旨，召医官入宫用药。众人在朝门外等候讨信。少时，医官出来，众问何疾。医官道：「皇上脉气不正，虚而又数，狂言见鬼。又诊得十动一代，五脏无气，恐不讳只在七日之内矣。」众官闻言，大惊失色。
逐句解 Line by line
Before they knew it, it was the third point of the fifth watch, and the many civil and military officials of the whole court were waiting outside the court gate for the audience. They waited until daybreak, and still there was no morning court; and this alarmed them, every one hesitant and afraid.
A court standing about outside a gate that does not open. The missing dawn audience is the first public sign that something is badly wrong, and the officials' hesitation — nobody willing to knock, nobody willing to leave — is exactly observed. 諕, 'to alarm,' is xià, and 得 in 諕得 is the unstressed de; all four 朝 here (滿朝, 朝門, 候朝, 臨朝) are cháo, and 那 is nà.
Only when the sun was three poles high did a decree come out: 'Our heart is unwell; the officials are excused from court.'
日上三竿, the sun three poles high, is well into the morning — the same phrase the fisherman used a few pages back to boast about his lie-in, put now to a very different use. 心不快, 'the heart unwell,' is the emperor's euphemism for his sickness, and 免朝 is the formal excusing of the court.
In no time some five to seven days had slipped by, and the officials, anxious and fearful, were just about to force their way in to attend upon the emperor and ask after his health, when a decree came from the Empress Dowager summoning the court physician into the palace to administer medicine. The assembled officials waited outside the court gate for word.
倏 is 'suddenly, in a flash,' and five to seven days go by in it. 太后 is the Empress Dowager, the emperor's mother, and it is she rather than he who now issues the decrees. That, and the summoning of the physician, tell the court how bad things are.
After a while the physician came out, and the officials asked what the illness was. The physician said: 'His Majesty's pulse is disordered — weak and yet racing — and he raves of seeing ghosts. Moreover I find one skipped beat in every ten, and no breath in the five viscera; I fear the unspeakable may come within seven days.' At these words the officials were struck pale with dismay.
The diagnosis comes in the technical language of pulse-taking, and it is grim. 數 in 虛而又數, weak and yet racing, is the medical reading shuò; 十動一代 is one skipped beat in every ten and 五臟無氣 no breath in the five viscera. 不諱, 'the unmentionable,' is a euphemism for death — even the physician will not say the word in front of the court. 得 in 診得, 'to diagnose,' is the unstressed de.
The consequences of the haunting now become a matter of state. The emperor misses the dawn audience, then excuses the court for days together, and the officials' mounting alarm — waiting outside the gate for word — conveys the disturbance rippling outward from the palace. A private terror in the night has become a public crisis about the succession.
The physician's verdict is precise and bleak, couched in the technical language of pulse diagnosis: the pulse weak and yet racing, one beat skipped in ten, no breath in the five viscera, and death feared within seven days. The clinical exactness — like the diviner's earlier forecast of rain down to forty-eight drops — lends the supernatural a documentary flatness. The dragon's revenge is working not as sudden horror but as a wasting illness, and the emperor whom no army could touch is being brought down from the inside by a broken promise.