相良拒金 The Almsgiver Refuses
他戰兢兢的答道：「小的沒有甚麼金銀放債，如何敢受這不明之財？」尉遲恭道：「我也訪得你是個窮漢，只是你齋僧布施，儘其所用，就買辦金銀紙錠，燒記陰司，陰司裡有你積下的錢鈔。是我太宗皇帝死去三日，還魂復生，曾在那陰司裡借了你一庫金銀，今此照數送還與你。你可一一收下，等我好去回旨。」他战兢兢的答道：「小的没有甚么金银放债，如何敢受这不明之财？」尉迟恭道：「我也访得你是个穷汉，只是你斋僧布施，尽其所用，就买办金银纸锭，烧记阴司，阴司里有你积下的钱钞。是我太宗皇帝死去三日，还魂复生，曾在那阴司里借了你一库金银，今此照数送还与你。你可一一收下，等我好去回旨。」
逐句解 Line by line
Trembling, he answered: 'This humble one has lent out no gold or silver at all — how should I dare accept wealth of such unclear provenance?'
小的, 'this small one,' is how a commoner speaks of himself in front of authority. 甚麼 is the question-word shén me; the 不 of 不明 keeps its base tone bù. His objection is the sound instinct of a poor man: money with no explanation is not luck, it is trouble.
Yuchi Gong said: 'I have indeed learned that you are a poor man; only, you gave alms to monks and practiced charity to the very limit of your means, and bought paper ingots of gold and silver to burn as offerings recorded below — so that in the shades you have a store of cash laid by.'
得 in 訪得, learned by asking around, is the outcome de. 儘其所用, to the very limit of his means, reads 儘 as jǐn — this is the character promised earlier, the one the 世德堂 text writes when it wants the jǐn sense that would elsewhere be carried by 盡.
'When our Emperor Taizong died for three days and then returned to life, he borrowed in those shades a treasury of your gold and silver; and now, in that same amount, it is sent back to you.'
The Chapter 11 loan, set out plainly for a man who was not there to see it. 還 is huán in both 還魂, to return to life, and 送還, to send back — the same giving-back running in two directions. 那陰司 uses the pointing nà; 照數, by the same count, reads 數 as shù.
'Take it all in, item by item, that I may go and report the errand done.'
一一, one by one and item by item, is a doubled 一 read yī yī, holding its level tone instead of shifting as it usually would.
Yuchi Gong's explanation lays the machinery bare for the reader as much as for Xiang Liang: the paper offerings burned in devotion became, in the underworld's accounting, a real deposit, and the emperor drew against it during his three days among the dead.
The transaction is imagined with complete bureaucratic concreteness — a treasury borrowed, a sum recorded, a repayment made by the same count. Against that, the almsgiver's instinctive recoil tells all the more. To a poor and honest man, wealth arriving without explanation is not fortune but danger, and he can see no earthly warrant for a debt contracted in the dark.