幾個冤家 Several Old Enemies
急喚仙童看茶。當有兩個小童，即入裡邊，尋茶盤，洗茶盞，擦茶匙，辦茶果，忙忙的亂走，早驚動那幾個冤家。急唤仙童看茶。当有两个小童，即入里边，寻茶盘，洗茶盏，擦茶匙，办茶果，忙忙的乱走，早惊动那几个冤家。
逐句解 Line by line
He called hurriedly for the immortal lads to bring tea.
看茶 is not looking at tea — 看 here carries the sense of seeing to something, and the phrase is the standing call to a servant to serve it, like calling for the bill. 仙童, immortal lads, is what an abbey calls its boy attendants. And note 急, hurriedly. He is in more of a rush than tea requires.
There were two young lads on hand, and in they went to the back — hunting out the tea tray, washing the cups, wiping the spoons, laying out the sweetmeats — bustling about in such a hurry that they roused those several old enemies.
Four clauses of three characters each, all built the same way — verb plus 茶 plus object: 尋茶盤, 洗茶盞, 擦茶匙, 辦茶果. It reads like a camera moving down a counter, and the repetition of 茶 four times in twelve characters is the sound of a kitchen in a hurry. Then the sentence turns on its last five characters. 冤家 is a wonderfully double-edged word: it means a foe, someone you have a grievance with — and it is also what Chinese lovers call each other, the way English says "you awful man" and means the opposite. Here it is being used straight, and the reader knows who they are before anyone in the room does.
The single best sentence-turn in the chapter so far. Twenty-seven characters of tea service — trays, cups, spoons, sweets, boys running about — and then, in the last eight, the floor drops out. The bustle is not incidental; it is the cause. The lads make a noise, the noise carries to the back of the house, and somebody at the back of the house looks up.
This is how the book most often does dread. Not a monster leaping out, but a domestic detail that turns out to have been a tripwire. The pilgrims are sitting in the guest seats being brought refreshments, which is the safest thing that has happened to them in two chapters, and it is the refreshments that give them away.
The word 冤家 earns its place, too. Modern Chinese still uses it both ways — the person you owe a grudge to, and the person you are besotted with — and given who is at the back of this house, and what happened to Eight Rules at a bathing pool in the last chapter, both senses are in play at once. The narrator does not name them. He does not have to.