陽春遊苑 The Spring Outing in the Garden
三藏道：「此陛下萬千之喜也。」那人道：「喜自何來？」三藏道：「那全真既有這等本事，若要雨時，就教他下雨；若要金時，就教他點金。還有那些不足，卻離了城闕來此？」那人道：「朕與他同寢食者，只得二年。又遇著陽春天氣，紅杏夭桃，開花綻蕊。家家士女，處處王孫，俱去遊春賞玩。那時節，文武歸衙，嬪妃轉院。三藏道：「此陛下万千之喜也。」那人道：「喜自何来？」三藏道：「那全真既有这等本事，若要雨时，就教他下雨；若要金时，就教他点金。还有那些不足，却离了城阙来此？」那人道：「朕与他同寝食者，只得二年。又遇着阳春天气，红杏夭桃，开花绽蕊。家家士女，处处王孙，俱去游春赏玩。那时节，文武归衙，嫔妃转院。
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka said, “This, Your Majesty, is cause for a thousand, ten thousand congratulations.”
Tripitaka congratulates him, which is the last thing the story needs. 萬千之喜 is joy past counting.
The man said, “Whence should any joy come?”
The king's four-character reply — 喜自何來, "joy from where?" — is as flat as grief gets.
Tripitaka said, “Since that Quanzhen adept had such powers — when you wanted rain, you had only to bid him send rain;
The monk's worldly logic, laid out with perfect confidence and pointing entirely the wrong way: a man who can produce rain on demand is an asset. 教 here is jiào, the causative — have him, make him, get him to. 那 is the pointing nà.
when you wanted gold, you had only to bid him make gold.
The same construction again for gold: 就教他點金, "just have him make gold." The repetition is the joke — Tripitaka is itemising the benefits of the man who murdered his host.
What was still wanting, that you should leave your city walls and come to this?”
"What could you still be short of?" 城闕 chéng què are the gate-towers, standing for the capital a king is not supposed to leave. 那些 takes the pointing nà; 還有 is "what else."
The man said, “I shared bed and board with him for a bare two years.
Two years of bed and board together, and the reckoning is bitter: 只得二年, "it came to only two years." 得 is dé, to amount to; 寢食 qǐn shí is sleeping and eating — the whole texture of a shared life in two characters.
Then, meeting the balmy weather of spring — red apricots and tender peaches bursting into flower —
The register lifts into a spring tableau just before the murder. 夭桃 yāo táo is the young peach in flower, an image that goes back to the Book of Songs and carries wedding and fertility with it. 遇著 has 著 as zháo — the reading for a verb that has landed on its object, as in 撞著 or 碰著 — not the zhe of an action held open.
family upon family with its ladies and gentlemen, and everywhere the sons of nobility, all went out to roam the spring and take their pleasure.
The whole city is out of doors. 士女 are gentlemen and ladies; 王孫 wáng sūn, "grandsons of kings," is the standard phrase for young nobles at their leisure; 賞玩 is to enjoy and amuse oneself.
At that season, the civil and military officers returned to their offices, and the palace consorts withdrew to their courts.
And here is the sentence that does the murder's work for it: the court empties. Officers back to their offices, consorts back to their quarters — the king left with one companion in a garden. 那時節 takes the pointing nà; 歸衙 is to return to the yamen, the official's own bureau; 嬪妃 are the palace consorts.
Tripitaka's misreading reaches its peak here. He congratulates the king on possessing a man who can conjure both rain and gold, itemises the benefits, and cannot understand why anyone so served would abandon his walls. The monk's reasoning is sound and useless: he is applying worldly logic to a crime he has no category for.
The "bare two years" turns the tale toward its catastrophe, and the passage stages the turn as a spring outing — red apricots, peach trees in flower, the whole capital out roaming. Then, in one quiet clause, the officers go back to their offices and the consorts to their courts, and the king is alone with his sworn brother. The loveliest moment of the year is what the murder was waiting for.