述說水厄 The Emperor Tells of the Water
唐王方才開眼道：「朕適才好苦：躲過陰司惡鬼難，又遭水面喪身災。」眾臣道：「陛下寬心勿懼，有甚水災來？」唐王道：「朕騎著馬，正行至渭水河邊，見雙頭魚戲。被朱太尉欺心，將朕推下馬來，跌落河中，幾乎渰死。」魏徵道：「陛下鬼氣尚未解。」急著太醫院進安神定魄湯藥，又安排粥膳。連服一二次，方才反本還原，知得人事。一計唐王死去，已三晝夜，復回陽間為君。有詩為證：唐王方才开眼道：「朕适才好苦：躲过阴司恶鬼难，又遭水面丧身灾。」众臣道：「陛下宽心勿惧，有甚水灾来？」唐王道：「朕骑着马，正行至渭水河边，见双头鱼戏。被朱太尉欺心，将朕推下马来，跌落河中，几乎渰死。」魏征道：「陛下鬼气尚未解。」急着太医院进安神定魄汤药，又安排粥膳。连服一二次，方才反本还原，知得人事。一计唐王死去，已三昼夜，复回阳间为君。有诗为证：
逐句解 Line by line
Only then did the Tang king open his eyes and say, 'What I have just suffered! I dodged the peril of the evil ghosts of the shadow-world, only to meet the disaster of drowning on the water's face.'
惡鬼難 is the calamity of evil ghosts; 難 here is nàn, a disaster, not nán, difficult. It pairs with 喪身災, the disaster of losing one's life. The emperor is totting up his misfortunes in the balanced phrasing of a memorial to the throne.
The ministers said, 'Let Your Majesty be at ease and have no fear — what water-disaster could there be?'
有甚 uses shén, "what." The ministers can see a bedchamber; he can still see a river.
The Tang king said, 'I was riding my horse, and just as I came to the bank of the River Wei, I saw a two-headed fish at play.'
騎著 uses zhe. 雙頭魚, the "two-headed fish," is his recollection of the pair of golden carp — an omen at the boundary of the worlds, remembered slightly wrong by a man who has just been through a great deal. 行 is xíng.
'Then Marshal Zhu, with malice in his heart, pushed me off my horse, and I fell into the river and all but drowned.'
欺心 is to act against your own conscience — the emperor is accusing Marshal Zhu of treachery, when the shove was in fact the rescue. 將 is jiāng, fronting the object. 渰死 is to drown, with 渰 for 淹. 中 is zhōng.
Wei Zheng said, 'Your Majesty's ghost-vapors are not yet dispelled.'
鬼氣 is the "ghost-vapour" that clings to anyone back from the dead — a diagnosis, delivered in the tone of a doctor noting a lingering fever.
Urgently he had the Imperial Medical Academy bring a decoction to calm the spirit and settle the soul, and further arranged gruel and food.
急著 uses zhuó, urgently directed. 安神定魄, "settle the spirit and fix the soul," is a real category of Chinese medicine, prescribed for insomnia, palpitations and fright. The 太醫院 is the Imperial Medical Academy. Resurrection is being treated as a nervous complaint.
After taking it once or twice, he at last returned to his root and original self, and regained his awareness of the world.
一二次, once or twice, with 一 as yī. 反本還原 is "back to the root, back to the origin"; 還 is huán. 知得 uses de: came to know. 人事 is the business of the human world, and to 知人事 is simply to be conscious.
All told, the Tang king had been dead three full days and nights, and now returned to the world of light to be its sovereign.
一計 is "reckoning it up." Three days and nights dead — the traditional interval, and a detail the novel is careful to state plainly. 為君 uses wéi, to be sovereign.
There is a poem in witness:
為證 uses wéi, "as proof." The formula introduces the closing quatrain.
Back in his senses, the emperor describes his own death from the inside — the dodged perils of hell, the treacherous shove into the Wei — while his ministers, who can hear only a story about a flood that did not happen, humour him.
Wei Zheng's diagnosis, that the ghost-vapour has not cleared, and his prescription of soul-settling medicine, treat coming back from the dead as a convalescence. The passage marries the marvellous to the mundane and closes the account of the three-day death, just before the verse that sums it up.