第七縷紅絲 The Seventh Strand of Red Silk
羅剎酒陶真性，無忌憚，就說出方法道：「大王，與你別了二載，你想是晝夜貪歡，被那玉面公主弄傷了神思，怎麼自家的寶貝事情，也都忘了？只將左手大指頭捻著那柄兒上第七縷紅絲，念一聲『𠲛噓啊吸嘻吹呼』，即長一丈二尺長短。這寶貝變化無窮！那怕他八萬里火焰，可一扇而消也。」罗刹酒陶真性，无忌惮，就说出方法道：「大王，与你别了二载，你想是昼夜贪欢，被那玉面公主弄伤了神思，怎么自家的宝贝事情，也都忘了？只将左手大指头捻着那柄儿上第七缕红丝，念一声『𠲛嘘啊吸嘻吹呼』，即长一丈二尺长短。这宝贝变化无穷！那怕他八万里火焰，可一扇而消也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Rākṣasī, her true nature drawn out by the wine and past all caution, spoke out the method: "My lord, I have been parted from you two years. I suppose you have been indulging night and day, and the Jade-Faced Princess has damaged your wits. How is it you have forgotten even the working of your own treasure?"
載 is zǎi, a year. 都 is dōu. And 酒陶真性 — the wine draws out the true nature — is the phrase the narration uses to license everything that follows.
"You have only to pinch the seventh strand of red silk on the handle with the thumb of your left hand and say once the words huí xū a xī xī chuī hū -- and it grows at once to a zhàng and two chǐ in length."
Two readings of one character inside six: 即長 is the verb zhǎng, to grow, and 長短 the noun cháng, length. 捻著 takes the continuous zhe and 兒 in 柄兒 the suffix er. The character that opens the incantation, 𠲛, is absent from the 康熙 dictionary and occurs nowhere else in the project outside this chapter; it is built from a mouth beside 回, which is what gives the reading. The seven syllables are breath-sounds of the kind used in Daoist practice — closer to a breathing exercise than to a magic word. A 丈 is ten 尺, so the fan opens to something under four metres.
"The treasure's transformations are without end!"
Seven characters of pure boasting, dropped into the middle of a set of operating instructions.
"Though the flames ran to eighty thousand lǐ, one fanning could put them out."
那怕 is the "even if" idiom, so 那 is nǎ and not the pointing reading. She has just raised the figure from the eight hundred 里 the Great Sage named a moment ago to eighty thousand — boasting about the fan in the act of giving it away. 一扇 is an ordinary number with its counting word and takes the regular shift to yí.
This is the passage the whole chapter has been arranged to produce. Two chapters of siege, combat, extortion, impersonation and theft have failed to yield the fan in working order; four cups of wine yield the operating instructions unasked. The narration marks the moment with 酒陶真性 — the wine drew out her true nature — and declines to say anything further.
Her reproach is what makes the disclosure plausible. She does not explain the method because she is asked; she explains it because she is offended that he has forgotten it, and she blames the forgetting on the other woman. Every step of the instruction is delivered as a wife's complaint about a husband gone soft, which is exactly why it never crosses her mind to wonder why he needs telling.
The method itself is beautifully specific. Not any strand but the seventh; not any finger but the thumb of the left hand; and a formula of seven breath-syllables. The novel gives its magic the texture of a craft — something with a procedure that can be got right or wrong — and the next chapter will turn entirely on the fact that the Great Sage has been told how to make the fan large and not how to make it small again.