When the blockhead heard they were being invited, he said to Sha Monk, 'Brother — and you were against delivering the letter! Now you see the good of delivering a letter. I'll wager the master delivered it, and the king said a letter-bearer must not be slighted, and has certainly laid on a banquet to entertain him; and since the master's own appetite is poor, out of regard for you and me he named our names — and so a golden tablet has been sent to invite us. We'll all eat a good meal, and be off tomorrow in fine fettle.'

Eight Rules hears "royal summons" and thinks "dinner." His whole reconstruction of events is wrong in every particular and perfectly logical given his priorities. 你還不教下書哩 (還 = hái, 哩 = li) is "and you were the one against delivering the letter!", with 教 as jiào, to have someone do something. 食腸不濟, "his food-gut is not up to much," is how he explains why the master would have named them — somebody has to eat the banquet. 著金牌 (著 = zhuó) is to send the golden tablet. He has invented an entire chain of reasoning to arrive at a free meal.

Said Sha Monk, 'Brother, who knows the reason for it? Let us just go and see.'

甚緣故 (甚 = shén) is "what reason." Sha Monk declines to guess, which is his whole character in one line, and the correct instinct besides.

So they handed over the baggage and the horse to the post-master, and each taking his own weapon, followed the golden tablet into court. Coming early to the foot of the white-jade steps, they took their places to left and right, gave a single shout of salute toward the throne, and then stirred no further.

Here is the breach of etiquette that the court is about to have collective hysterics over. A 唱喏 — 喏 is rě — was a bow made with a spoken greeting, a respectful but everyday salute, roughly the nod you give a superior in a corridor. It is not the full prostration owed to a throne, and the two of them do that and then 再也不動, "moved no further." 將 (jiāng) carries the baggage over to the 驛丞, the post-station warden; 朝上 (朝 = cháo) is "toward the throne." Note also that they came in armed.

The many officials, civil and military, were every one of them afraid. They all said, 'That these two monks are ugly may pass — but they are excessively coarse and rude. How is it that, on seeing our king, they did not so much as bow, but, their salute done, stood straight upright, stiff and unmoving? Most strange, most strange!'

The officials' complaint sorts itself into two grievances, and the second is the real one. 貌醜也罷 — being ugly can be forgiven; 粗俗太甚 (甚 = shèn), being this coarse, cannot. 更不下拜 is "did not even go down and bow"; 喏畢 (喏 = rě) 平身，挺然而立 is "salute done, straightened up, stood there stiff as a post." 無人不怕 is "not one of them was unafraid" and 都 is dōu, all of them. The doubled 可怪，可怪 — how strange, how strange — is the sound of a room that has no procedure for this.

Eight Rules, overhearing, said, 'Gentlemen, no need to gossip. We are simply made this way: at first glance we are indeed a bit ugly, but look a while longer, and you'll find us quite easy on the eye.'

And Eight Rules, who has been listening, answers the wrong complaint entirely. 列位 is "you gentlemen"; 莫要議論 is "no need to discuss us." 耐看 — still ordinary Chinese — is said of a face that wears well, that grows on you the longer you look. He is offering the court reassurance about his appearance while they are complaining about his manners.