御井遭讒 Betrayed at the Palace Well
朕與那全真攜手緩步，至御花園裡，忽行到八角琉璃井邊，不知他拋下些甚麼物件，井中有萬道金光。哄朕到井邊看甚麼寶貝，他陡起兇心，撲通的把寡人推下井內，將石板蓋住井口，擁上泥土，移一株芭蕉栽在上面。可憐我啊，已死去三年，是一個落井傷生的冤屈之鬼也。」朕与那全真携手缓步，至御花园里，忽行到八角琉璃井边，不知他抛下些甚么物件，井中有万道金光。哄朕到井边看甚么宝贝，他陡起凶心，扑通的把寡人推下井内，将石板盖住井口，拥上泥土，移一株芭蕉栽在上面。可怜我啊，已死去三年，是一个落井伤生的冤屈之鬼也。」
逐句解 Line by line
I and that Quanzhen adept walked hand in hand at a slow pace, until we came to the garden, and of a sudden reached the eight-cornered glazed-tile well; I know not what he cast down into it, but within the well there rose ten thousand shafts of golden light.
Hand in hand, walking slowly, and then the lure. The 八角琉璃井 — the eight-cornered well with glazed tiling — is the image the whole chapter is built around, and it appears exactly twice in these pages: here, and again when Wukong repeats the story back to the prince at the end. The gold light rising out of it is the adept's first display of what he actually is. 行 is xíng, to walk or proceed; 井中 takes the locative zhōng; 甚麼 is shén me, "what"; 那 is the pointing nà.
He coaxed me to the well’s edge to look at some treasure; then, his cruel heart rising, with a splash he pushed me, the solitary one, down into the well, laid a stone slab over its mouth, heaped earth upon it, and moved a plantain to plant above.
The murder itself, told in one breath with no adjectives at all: coaxed him over, pushed, slab, earth, tree. 撲通 is the sound of the body hitting water. The plantain moved on top, 芭蕉 bā jiāo, is the detail that matters later — a transplanted tree marks the spot as surely as it hides it. 將 jiāng is the word that puts the slab before the verb: "took the stone slab and covered."
Pity me — three years already dead, a wronged ghost drowned in a well, my life cut short.”
Only now does he say what he is. 冤屈之鬼 is a ghost of wrong and injustice — not a malevolent spirit but a plaintiff, one of a recognised class with a grievance the cosmos is supposed to hear. 傷生 is to have one's life destroyed.
The murder is told with terrible economy. The false brother draws the king to the well with a golden radiance rising out of it — a lure that is also the first real glimpse of what the adept can do — and drowns him at the exact moment of his trust. The eight-cornered glazed-tile well is now the chapter's central image: crime scene and unmarked grave at once.
The covering up is methodical: stone slab over the mouth, earth heaped on, and a plantain dug up and replanted on top. That last touch is the one to hold on to — a tree moved to hide a place also marks it, and the plot will come back to it. The king ends his account by naming himself a wronged ghost three years drowned, which turns everything he has said from lament into something closer to a legal petition.