原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
盡是些妖怪 Now It Is All Demons
他五百年前吃了這城國王及文武官僚，滿城大小男女也盡被他吃了乾淨，因此上奪了他的江山。如今盡是些妖怪。他五百年前吃了这城国王及文武官僚，满城大小男女也尽被他吃了干净，因此上夺了他的江山。如今尽是些妖怪。
逐句解 Line by line
他五百年前吃了這城國王及文武官僚，滿城大小男女也盡被他吃了乾淨，因此上奪了他的江山。
他五百年前吃了这城国王及文武官僚，满城大小男女也尽被他吃了干净，因此上夺了他的江山。
Five hundred years ago he ate the king of that city and all his officials, civil and military, and every man, woman and child in the place was eaten clean up as well, and that is how he took their realm from them.
吃了乾淨 has 乾 as gān, clean — the base offers the first trigram instead, as it did at 乾乾淨淨. 江山 is rivers and mountains, the standard word for a realm or a dynasty's possession. He did not conquer the kingdom; he ate it.
如今盡是些妖怪。
如今尽是些妖怪。
So now the whole place is nothing but demons."
Seven characters, and they are the most frightening in the chapter. Not a monster in a city but a city that is entirely monsters, with the population replaced.
The Kingdom of Lion Camel is a city with nobody left in it. The king, the administration and every inhabitant were eaten five hundred years ago, and what walks about in it now is demons.
The detail that makes it work is the officials. Not warriors, not defenders — civil and military officers, listed as a category, which tells you this was a functioning state with a bureaucracy before it was eaten.
And five hundred years is the same span Pilgrim spent under the mountain. While he was pinned, this creature was taking a country.