誰人稱孤 Who Now Calls Himself King
行者道：「後三年不見全真，稱孤的卻是誰？」太子道：「果是有個全真，父王與他拜為兄弟，食則同食，寢則同寢。三年前在御花園裡玩景，被他一陣神風，把父王手中金廂白玉珪攝回鍾南山去了。至今父王還思慕他。因不見他，遂無心賞玩，把花園緊閉了，已三年矣。做皇帝的，非我父王而何？」行者道：「后三年不见全真，称孤的却是谁？」太子道：「果是有个全真，父王与他拜为兄弟，食则同食，寝则同寝。三年前在御花园里玩景，被他一阵神风，把父王手中金厢白玉珪摄回钟南山去了。至今父王还思慕他。因不见他，遂无心赏玩，把花园紧闭了，已三年矣。做皇帝的，非我父王而何？」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, “In the three years after, the Quanzhen adept was seen no more — then who is it that calls himself the Solitary One?”
One question, and it is the hinge of the entire scene: the adept vanished three years ago, so who is on the throne? 稱孤 is to call oneself 孤, "the orphaned one" — a sovereign's formal self-abasement, like the 寡人 the ghost used, and here doing double work, since the man using it made the prince an orphan. 不見 takes 不 as bú.
The prince said, “There was indeed a Quanzhen adept; my royal father bowed with him to be sworn brothers, ate when he ate, and slept when he slept.
The boy answers freely, and every detail he offers convicts the man he is defending. 食則同食 and 寢則同寢 — ate when he ate, slept when he slept — is the language of total intimacy, and it is the ghost's own account coming back through an innocent mouth. 拜為兄弟 has 為 as wéi.
Three years ago, taking his pleasure in the royal garden, my father was caught by a gust of that one’s divine wind, and the gold-mounted white-jade tablet in his hand was carried off back to Mount Zhongnan.
And here is the cover story, believed and repeated: a divine wind carried the tablet off to Mount Zhongnan. The prince is unknowingly reciting the lie the impostor told to explain the one thing he could not counterfeit. 攝回 is to seize and carry back; 手中 takes the locative zhōng.
To this day my father still longs for him.
The saddest line in the chapter, and the boy does not know it: his father still misses the man. 思慕 is to long for; 還 is hái, still.
Because he saw him no more, he lost all heart for pleasure, shut the garden fast, and so it has been for three years.
The shut garden — which the reader knows is a grave with a plantain over it. The prince reads it as grief for a lost friend; it is the fiend keeping people away from the well. 緊閉了 takes the completive le; 不見 takes 不 as bú.
And he who is emperor — who should he be, if not my royal father?”
And the confident close, one step from the drop. 非我父王而何 — who if not my royal father? — in literary Chinese, the register of a boy certain of his ground.
Wukong turns the question on its edge: if the rain-making adept disappeared three years ago, who is it that now calls himself king? The prince answers helpfully, and every fact he volunteers works against him — the sworn brotherhood, the shared bed and board, the tablet carried off by a divine wind, which is the impostor's own cover story faithfully repeated.
The pathos is in the details he does not understand. A father who "still longs" for the vanished brother; a garden shut for three years out of grief. The reader knows the longing is a performance and the garden is a grave. His closing certainty — who else but my royal father? — stands exactly one line away from the answer.