借屍還魂 A Borrowed Body
那閻王卻檢生死簿子看時，他夫妻們都有登仙之壽，急差鬼使送回。鬼使啟上道：「李翠蓮歸陰日久，屍首無存，魂將何附？」閻王道：「唐御妹李玉英今該促死，你可借他屍首，教他還魂去也。」那鬼使領命，即將劉全夫妻二人還魂，同出陰司而去。那阎王却检生死簿子看时，他夫妻们都有登仙之寿，急差鬼使送回。鬼使启上道：「李翠莲归阴日久，尸首无存，魂将何附？」阎王道：「唐御妹李玉英今该促死，你可借他尸首，教他还魂去也。」那鬼使领命，即将刘全夫妻二人还魂，同出阴司而去。
逐句解 Line by line
When King Yama examined the register of life and death, he found that this husband and wife both had years yet due them for ascending to immortality, and quickly dispatched a demon to send them back.
登仙之壽 'a life-span leading to immortality,' years still allotted. 差 chāi, to dispatch.
The demon reported, 'Li Cuilian has dwelt in the shades a long while; her corpse no longer survives — to what shall her soul attach?'
歸陰日久 'long since gone to the shadow-world.' 魂將何附 'to what will the soul cleave?' — a body being required for the return.
King Yama said, 'The Tang emperor's sister, Li Yuying, is due to die untimely this very day — you may borrow her body, and have Cuilian's soul return to life in it.'
御妹 the emperor's younger sister — Li Yuying, whose short life the Ten Kings foretold in an earlier passage. 促死 to die before one's time. 借屍還魂 'to return to life by borrowing a corpse'; 教 jiào, 還 huán.
The demon received the command, and at once restored Liu Quan and his wife to life, and together they went out of the shadow-world.
即將…還魂 'thereupon had [them] return to life'; 還魂 huán hún. The device of the borrowed body ties Li Cuilian's return to the imperial sister foretold to die.
The chapter's last device is 借屍還魂 — return to life through a borrowed corpse. Li Cuilian's own body long gone, King Yama assigns her soul the body of the emperor's sister, Li Yuying, whose untimely death the Kings had foretold to Taizong at the tribunal. The two loose threads — the sister's short life and the reunited couple's return — are knotted together, and the melon-errand is set to end, in the neighboring chapter, in a tangle of mistaken identity within the palace itself.