Canonical Classics ← 第三十五回
第三十五回
wàidàoshīwēizhèngxìng
xīnyuánhuòbǎoxié

The Heretic Way plies its might to cow the upright nature · The Mind-Monkey wins the treasures and quells the vile fiend

壓龍聚眾
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

壓龍聚眾 Rallying at Coiled-Dragon

quèshuōlǎojìngtóulóngshānhuìlexiǎoguàibèiyánshāqīnzhuānglexiōngjuémièyāobīngtōupiànbǎobèizhīshìzhòngguàiāitòngduōshídào:「děngqiěxiūcǎnshēnbiānháiyǒuzhèkǒuxīngjiànhuìděngbīngdōulóngshānhòuhuìjièwàijiāqīnduànyàozhùsūnxíngzhěbàochóu。」quèshuōlǎojìngtóulóngshānhuìlexiǎoguàibèiyánshāqīnzhuānglexiōngjuémièyāobīngtōupiànbǎobèizhīshìzhòngguàiāitòngduōshídào:「děngqiěxiūcǎnshēnbiānháiyǒuzhèkǒuxīngjiànhuìděngbīngdōulóngshānhòuhuìjièwàijiāqīnduànyàozhùsūnxíngzhěbàochóu。」


逐句解 Line by line

quèshuōlǎojìngtóulóngshānhuìlexiǎoguàibèiyánshāqīnzhuānglexiōngjuémièyāobīngtōupiànbǎobèizhīshì quèshuōlǎojìngtóulóngshānhuìlexiǎoguàibèiyánshāqīnzhuānglexiōngjuémièyāobīngtōupiànbǎobèizhīshì

Now the old fiend made straight for Coiled-Dragon Mountain, gathered the she-demons great and small, and told them the whole tale — how his mother had been beaten to death, his brother bottled, his imps wiped out, and his treasures filched.

壓龍山 is Coiled-Dragon Mountain. 備言 is "told in full" — and the catalogue that follows is worth counting: mother beaten to death, brother bottled, imps wiped out, treasures stolen. Four losses, which is the whole two-chapter arc stated as a grievance.

zhòngguàiāitòngduōshídào:「děngqiěxiūcǎn zhòngguàiāitòngduōshídào:「děngqiěxiūcǎn

The she-demons all wept together, and mourned a long while; then the old fiend said: "You and the rest, cease your grieving.

一齊大哭 is "wept all together"; 哀痛多時 is "mourned a good while." The collective weeping echoes the demons' own lament earlier in the chapter. On who speaks the words that follow, see the note below.

shēnbiānháiyǒuzhèkǒuxīngjiànhuìděngbīngdōulóngshānhòuhuìjièwàijiāqīnduànyàozhùsūnxíngzhěbàochóu。」 shēnbiānháiyǒuzhèkǒuxīngjiànhuìděngbīngdōulóngshānhòuhuìjièwàijiāqīnduànyàozhùsūnxíngzhěbàochóu。」

I have still this Seven-Star Sword at my side. I mean to gather you she-soldiers, go all of you behind Coiled-Dragon Mountain, and call in the help of our maternal kinsfolk, and we shall surely take that Sun Xingzhe and be avenged."

The speaker here is the old fiend, though the sentence above attaches its loosely to the she-demons — a topic-chain of the kind Ming vernacular handles by letting the subject revert to whoever the passage is about. The internal evidence is decisive: the 七星劍 is his, taken up when he armed and dropped only when he is finally bottled, and in the next passage his uncle orders him to take it up again. 外家親戚 is the kin on the mother's side; 斷要 is "must, are bound to"; 那孫行者 points ().


總評 Commentary

The scene shifts to Coiled-Dragon Mountain, where the fleeing fiend gathers a fresh company of she-demons and recites, for their benefit and the reader's, the full ledger of what he has lost: mother slain, brother bottled, host destroyed, treasures stolen. The recapitulation packs the whole chapter into a single grievance.

Grief turns immediately into logistics. Still holding the Seven-Star Sword, he proposes to muster the she-soldiers and — the consequential part — to call in the kin on his mother's side, which widens a household quarrel into a clan war. It is the standard escalation of the vernacular novel: a beaten villain does not surrender, he sends for relatives.