心有秘方 A Secret Method To Heal Kingdoms
行者別了唐僧，隨著近侍入宮看病。正是那：行者别了唐僧，随着近侍入宫看病。正是那：
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim took his leave of the Tang Monk and followed the attendant into the palace to look at the sickness.
著 is the weak zhe in 隨著, and it is the last occurrence in the chapter. Across the whole chapter this character has taken three of its four readings — the weak zhe, the zhuó of setting somebody to a task, and the zháo of a result achieved — and never the fourth, zhù, which belongs to composing and authorship.
It was just as the verse says:
Three characters, a bare tag with no bracket and nothing predicated after it, standing alone to open the closing couplet. Only the 正是 of the summer couplet was shorter.
A secret method in the heart, that can heal a kingdom; a subtle art stored within, that writes down long life.
藏 is cáng, to store away — the reading that has run against the zàng of the master's name all through the chapter. 長 is cháng in 長生, long life, the second of this passage's two readings of that character.
A two-line couplet, and the rhyme has almost nothing to work on: the two line-endings sit in different tone classes, which is the standard shape of a matched pair rather than of a rhyme.
The two lines are exactly parallel and both are ironic. 秘方, a secret prescription, is precisely what Pilgrim does not have; 妙訣 is the subtle art he has just claimed and cannot read. What he does have is three hairs and a great deal of nerve.
治國 is the phrase that has been circling the whole chapter. The crowd at the drum tower called it 醫國之手, the king raised it to 醫國之能, and the couplet settles on healing a kingdom as the thing at stake — which is what the proclamation offered half a realm for.