獨少奎星 The Missing Star
天師聞言，即進靈霄殿上啟奏。蒙差查勘九曜星官、十二元辰、東西南北中央五斗、河漢群辰、五岳四瀆、普天神聖都在天上，更無一個敢離方位。又查那斗牛宮外二十八宿，顛倒只有二十七位，內獨少了奎星。天師回奏道：「奎木狼下界了。」玉帝道：「多少時不在天了？」天師道：「四卯不到，三日點卯一次，今已十三日了。」玉帝道：「天上十三日，下界已是十三年。」即命本部收他上界。天师闻言，即进灵霄殿上启奏。蒙差查勘九曜星官、十二元辰、东西南北中央五斗、河汉群辰、五岳四渎、普天神圣都在天上，更无一个敢离方位。又查那斗牛宫外二十八宿，颠倒只有二十七位，内独少了奎星。天师回奏道：「奎木狼下界了。」玉帝道：「多少时不在天了？」天师道：「四卯不到，三日点卯一次，今已十三日了。」玉帝道：「天上十三日，下界已是十三年。」即命本部收他上界。
逐句解 Line by line
The Celestial Masters, hearing this, went in at once to the Hall of Numinous Empyrean to make report.
靈霄殿 (Língxiāo Diàn), the Hall of Numinous Empyrean, the Jade Emperor’s throne-hall. 啟奏 (qǐ zòu), to submit a memorial to the throne.
Being commissioned to inquire, they found the Nine Luminary Star-officers, the Twelve Cyclical Spirits, the Five Dippers of the four quarters and the centre, the host of the River of Heaven, the Five Peaks and Four Rivers, and all the gods and sages under the sky present in Heaven, not one daring to quit his station.
蒙差 (méng chāi), being commissioned, sent on a charge; 差 read chāi. 九曜 (jiǔ yào), the Nine Luminaries. 五斗 (wǔ dǒu), the Five Dippers; 斗 read dǒu. 五岳四瀆 (wǔ yuè sì dú), the Five Peaks and Four Rivers. 中央 with 中 as zhōng; 都 read dōu.
Checking again the Twenty-eight Lodges beyond the Palace of the Dipper and Ox, they found, counting them over, only twenty-seven in place — and lacking, alone, the Kui star.
斗牛宮 (Dǒu Niú Gōng), the Palace of the Dipper and Ox mansions; 斗 read dǒu. 二十八宿 (èrshíbā xiù), the Twenty-eight Lodges (lunar mansions); 宿 read xiù. 顛倒 (diāndǎo), counting over and over; 倒 read dǎo. 那 read nà.
The Celestial Masters reported back, “Kui the Wood-Wolf has gone down to the world below.”
奎木狼 (Kuí Mù Láng), “Kui the Wood-Wolf,” the star-lord of the Kui lodge — the demon’s true identity.
The Jade Emperor said, “How long has he been absent from Heaven?”
多少時 (duōshǎo shí), how long a time.
The Celestial Masters said, “He has missed four roll-calls; the roll is called once in three days, and it is now thirteen days.”
點卯 (diǎn mǎo), to call the roll at the mao hour (dawn); to answer the attendance-muster. 四卯不到 (sì mǎo bù dào), absent for four musters.
The Jade Emperor said, “Thirteen days in Heaven — in the world below that is thirteen years.”
天上十三日，下界十三年, the celestial-mortal time ratio: a day above is a year below.
He at once ordered the star’s own bureau to fetch him back to Heaven.
本部 (běn bù), his own bureau or department — the office of the Twenty-eight Lodges. 收上界 (shōu shàng jiè), to recall to the heavens.
The roster-check is conducted with the deadpan thoroughness of a celestial audit: the whole apparatus of the heavens — luminaries, cyclical spirits, dippers, river-stars, peaks and rivers — is polled and found present, until the count of the Twenty-eight Lodges comes up one short, and the absconded Kui is named. The novel’s comic genius here lies in imagining the cosmos as a bureaucracy with attendance-rolls, where a demon’s rampage on earth registers above as an unexcused absence.
The Jade Emperor’s calculation — thirteen days in Heaven, thirteen years below — fixes the celestial-mortal time ratio that governs so much of the novel’s cosmology, and retroactively explains the demon’s thirteen-year marriage to the princess as the earthly span of a brief heavenly truancy. The recall he orders converts the martial problem into an administrative one: the star is not to be slain but summoned home, his crime to be judged in the courts above.