公主諫阻 The Princess's Warning
公主道：「我父王不是馬掙力戰的江山，他本是祖宗遺留的社稷。自幼兒是太子登基，城門也不曾遠出，沒有見你這等兇漢。你這嘴臉相貌，生得這等醜陋，若見了他，恐怕嚇了他，反為不美。卻不如不去認的還好。」老妖道：「既如此說，我變個俊的兒去便罷。」公主道：「你試變來我看看。」公主道：「我父王不是马挣力战的江山，他本是祖宗遗留的社稷。自幼儿是太子登基，城门也不曾远出，没有见你这等凶汉。你这嘴脸相貌，生得这等丑陋，若见了他，恐怕吓了他，反为不美。却不如不去认的还好。」老妖道：「既如此说，我变个俊的儿去便罢。」公主道：「你试变来我看看。」
逐句解 Line by line
The princess said: "My royal father’s realm was not won by warhorse and force of arms; his is a domain and altar handed down from the ancestors.
馬掙力戰 ("struggling on horseback, fighting by main strength") is the winning of a throne by conquest; 社稷 — the altars of soil and grain — is the standard metonym for the dynastic state. Her father is a hereditary, not a martial, sovereign.
From his childhood he came to the throne as crown prince; never once has he ventured far beyond the city gates, and he has looked upon no such fearsome brute as you.
太子 takes 子 as zǐ (the noun "crown prince"). In the colloquial adverbial 自幼兒 ("from his young years") the 兒 is read er. The sheltered king has no experience of monsters.
With a face and features like yours, born so hideous, should he set eyes on you I fear you would frighten him — and that would turn out ill.
相貌 ("features, physiognomy") takes 相 as xiàng; 生得 ("born, formed so") takes the structural 得 as de; and 反為不美 ("would on the contrary be unseemly") takes 為 as wéi ("to be, to turn out"). The danger she names is purely one of appearance.
Better, then, not to go and claim kin at all."
不如 ("it would be better not to"); 還好 takes 還 as hái ("rather, all the same better").
The old fiend said: "If that is how it stands, I shall simply change into a handsome fellow and go."
In 俊的兒 ("a handsome one") the nominalizing 兒 is read er. The demon treats disguise as a trifle.
The princess said: "Then try the change, and let me see."
Her prompt — "try it, and let me look" — cues the descriptive set-piece that follows; the vernacular novel commonly frames a transformation-賦 with just such an invitation.
The princess’s warning is politically exact: her father’s throne is a hereditary 社稷 and not a conquest, and the sheltered king has never seen a creature like the demon. The peril is exposure by sheer ugliness — a physical tell rather than a moral one.
The demon’s airy remedy — 變個俊的兒, "change into a handsome one" — treats transformation as effortless, and the princess’s "try it and let me see" is the conventional cue for the portrait-賦 that follows. The plot and its ornament are neatly stitched: her request is the reader’s, too.