頃刻立臺 The Terraces Raised in a Trice
那長老果然合掌當胸道：「貧僧會坐禪。」國王教傳旨，立禪臺。國家有倒山之力，不消半個時辰，就設起兩座臺，在金鑾殿左右。那长老果然合掌当胸道：「贫僧会坐禅。」国王教传旨，立禅台。国家有倒山之力，不消半个时辰，就设起两座台，在金銮殿左右。
逐句解 Line by line
The elder, sure enough, pressed his palms together at his breast and said: "This poor monk can sit in meditation."
合掌當胸 is the standing gesture of a monk accepting something: palms together, held at the breast. 當 here is dāng, "against, at." 貧僧, "this poor monk," is the humble first person a monk uses of himself, the way a Ming official said "your servant." 那長老: 那 = nà, 長 = zhǎng.
The king issued a decree to raise the meditation-terraces.
教 is jiào, "gave the order." 立禪臺 — set up the meditation platform.
The realm had strength to topple mountains: in less than half a watch two terraces were set up, to the left and right of the Hall of Golden Chimes.
Two towers, fifty tables each, up in under an hour. 倒山之力, strength to topple mountains, is the storyteller's shorthand for what a state can do when it stops asking why: 倒 = dǎo, the toppling sound again. 不消半個時辰 is under half a double hour. 金鑾殿, the Hall of Golden Chimes, is the throne hall — the name borrowed from the Tang palace, as Ming fiction habitually does when it wants a court to sound imperial.
A short hinge between challenge and contest, and the exaggeration in it is doing real work. 國家有倒山之力, the realm had strength to topple mountains, is how a storyteller describes the labour a court can throw at a whim — two towers, a hundred tables, up inside half a double hour, because the king said so.
It is also a quiet accusation. A state that can raise mountains of furniture overnight to settle a bet between clerics has lost the plot, and that is exactly the disorder the chapter's title names in its first line: 外道弄強欺正法. 外道 means literally the outside way — the people standing outside the true teaching — so the line reads: the outsiders throwing their weight about and bullying the true teaching. The pilgrims are only passing through, but the reader is invited to notice what they are passing through.