同窗之雅 The Bond Of Old Schoolfellows
若不是我們有些見識，幾乎遭他毒手，故此戰兢兢逃生。又著你愚外甥與他敵鬥，不知存亡如何。我們特來投兄長，望兄長念昔日同窗之雅，與我今日做個報冤之人。」若不是我们有些见识，几乎遭他毒手，故此战兢兢逃生。又着你愚外甥与他敌斗，不知存亡如何。我们特来投兄长，望兄长念昔日同窗之雅，与我今日做个报冤之人。」
逐句解 Line by line
"If we had not had some wits about us we should have died at his hands, and so we fled, trembling, for our lives."
毒手 is a poisoned hand — a murderous blow — and it is a phrase the chapter is going to make very uncomfortable indeed within a few hundred characters. 戰兢兢 is shaking with fear, a doubled intensifier of exactly the kind the opening rhapsody used for trees and flowers, here doing the opposite job.
"We also sent your foolish nephews to fight him, and we do not know whether they are alive or dead."
著 is zhuó, the dispatching band — to set someone on to a task, to send them. Of the character's four readings this is the one that means causing, not the zhe that keeps an action running. And 外甥 is wài sheng, a sister's son: Chinese kinship terms are precise about which side of the family a nephew comes from, where English makes do with one word. 愚, foolish, is a humble prefix a speaker attaches to her own relatives, like calling your own work "my poor effort".
"We have come expressly to throw ourselves on you, elder brother, and we hope that for the sake of our old fellowship at the same window you will be the one to avenge us today."
同窗 is the loveliest word in the passage: same window. Students shared a schoolroom and therefore a window, and the term became the standard word for a classmate — it is still what a Chinese speaker calls a school friend. 之雅 means the good feeling arising from it. 兄長 keeps 長 as zhǎng, senior, which is the opposite of the two cháng readings two passages back. Same character, three occurrences, two different words.
The plea is beautifully constructed and entirely calculated. It moves from physical danger, to family — your own nephews, possibly dead — to the one claim that a man of his position cannot easily refuse: we were at school together. Each step is a stronger obligation than the last.
同窗之雅 is the closing argument, and in Ming society it was a real one. Fellow students of a master formed a network that outlasted the schooling: they addressed each other as siblings, recommended each other, and were expected to answer when called. Calling on it is not sentiment. It is presenting an invoice.
What the women are asking for is stated plainly: 報冤之人, a person to avenge the wrong. They have not asked him to mediate, or to shelter them, or to see the monks off the premises. They have asked him to kill four people, and he has already said he will deal with it before hearing this part.