一場血雨 A Rain Of Blood Fell
只是三年之前，孟秋朔日，夜半子時，下了一場血雨。天明時，家家害怕，戶戶生悲。眾公卿奏上國王，不知天公甚事見責。當時延請道士打醮，和尚看經，答天謝地。只是三年之前，孟秋朔日，夜半子时，下了一场血雨。天明时，家家害怕，户户生悲。众公卿奏上国王，不知天公甚事见责。当时延请道士打醮，和尚看经，答天谢地。
逐句解 Line by line
"But three years ago, on the first day of the first month of autumn, at the hour of zǐ in the middle of the night, there fell a rain of blood.
The dating is exact to the hour, and nothing else in the monks' story is dated at all. 孟秋 is the first of the three months of autumn and 朔日 the first day of a lunar month; the hour of 子 zǐ is the double-hour straddling midnight, first of the twelve. 子 keeps the full zǐ as one of the cyclical branch-names rather than going light, and 血 keeps its dictionary xuè.
"When day broke, every family was afraid and every household grieved.
家家 and 戶戶 are doubled frames — house-house, door-door — and both keep full tones at each syllable, unlike the doubled address terms, whose second syllable goes light. The pairing is stock for a whole population.
"The great officers memorialised the king, not knowing for what matter the Lord of Heaven was reproving them.
見責 is being on the receiving end of a reproach, with 見 marking who it lands on. The court reads the blood rain as a message addressed to itself, which is the orthodox way to read an anomaly and, in this case, wrong about its object: something had been taken, not sent.
"At that time Daoists were invited in to hold their rites and monks to read the scriptures, in answer to heaven and in thanks to earth.
打醮 is the Daoist 醮 offering. Both establishments were called in at once, Daoist and Buddhist, which is exactly how a Ming court did respond to a portent — and it makes what happens to these monks afterwards a reversal of policy rather than standing hostility.
The rain of blood is the hinge of the whole account, and the novel places it with a precision it rarely bothers with: three years back, the first day of autumn, the double-hour around midnight. Nothing else in the monks' story carries a date at all.
The court's response is entirely correct by its own lights. An anomaly appears, the officers send up a memorial, rites are held, both religions are called in. What nobody does is walk over and look at the pagoda, which is where the actual event happened and where the loss could have been found out that morning.
The phrase 答天謝地 is worth stopping on. It means answering heaven and thanking earth, and it describes a ritual reply to something read as a message. The blood rain was not a message. It was cover.