議出黃榜 Drafting The Yellow Proclamation
管事的道：「我萬歲爺爺久不上朝，今日乃黃道良辰，正與文武多官議出黃榜。你若要倒換關文，趁此急去，還趕上；到明日，就不能夠了，不知還有多少時伺候哩。」管事的道：「我万岁爷爷久不上朝，今日乃黄道良辰，正与文武多官议出黄榜。你若要倒换关文，趁此急去，还赶上；到明日，就不能够了，不知还有多少时伺候哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
The steward said, "His Majesty has not held court this long while. Today is an auspicious day, and he is in council with his civil and military officers, drawing up a yellow proclamation.
爺爺 takes a weak second syllable, as all the doubled terms of address do. Two different yellows stand a few characters apart: 黃道 is the lucky path of the almanac, an auspicious day, while 黃榜 is the yellow paper reserved for a royal notice. They have nothing to do with each other.
"If you want your rescript endorsed, go now while you may and you will still be in time;
倒 is dǎo, as at every mention of the rescript. 還 is hái, still — not the huán of giving something back.
"but by tomorrow it will not be possible, and there is no telling how long you would have to wait in attendance."
The source cuts this from the clause before it at a semicolon, and they stay apart. They are not matched halves of one thought but a condition and its reverse: 到明日 turns against 趁此 rather than continuing it.
This is the hinge of the chapter and it arrives as gossip from a steward. A king who has not held court in a long while, an auspicious day chosen, a proclamation being drafted — every element of the plot is in that one sentence, and none of it is offered as anything the pilgrims should want to know.
What the steward is actually giving is scheduling advice: go today or wait indefinitely. He has no idea he is describing a sick kingdom. To him the king's absence from court is a fact about office hours.
伺候 does quiet work at the end. It means to wait upon, to dance attendance, and it tells us what the alternative to hurrying looks like — not a delay but a subjection.