蒜泥鹽醋 Garlic Paste Salt And Vinegar
到五更天色將明，必然爛了，可安排下蒜泥鹽醋，請我們起來，空心受用。」眾妖各各遵命。三個魔頭，卻各轉寢宮而去。到五更天色将明，必然烂了，可安排下蒜泥盐醋，请我们起来，空心受用。」众妖各各遵命。三个魔头，却各转寝宫而去。
逐句解 Line by line
By the fifth watch, when the sky is about to lighten, they will certainly have gone tender. Have garlic paste, salt and vinegar set out ready, and call us up to enjoy them on an empty stomach."
The condiments are the horror. 蒜泥鹽醋 is a real dipping sauce, the ordinary accompaniment to plain steamed meat in Chinese cooking, and it is still what you would set beside a dish of white-cut pork. 空心, on an empty heart, means on an empty stomach — before breakfast, the way you take medicine.
The demons all received their orders.
Six characters, and the formula is that of a court receiving an imperial decree. The household runs on protocol to the last.
And the three fiend chiefs went off, each to his own bedchamber.
寢宮 is specifically a ruler's sleeping quarters. They are not going to their dens. They are going to the royal bedrooms of the kingdom they ate.
The dipping sauce is the most disturbing detail in the chapter and it works because it is completely ordinary. Garlic, salt and vinegar. Anyone who has eaten Chinese food has had that sauce, and it is being ordered for the Tang Monk.
Eating them before breakfast is the second turn of the screw. There is a folk belief that medicine and tonics work best taken on an empty stomach, and the fiends have been told the flesh confers long life. They are treating a person as a supplement and timing the dose.
Then everyone goes to bed, in the bedrooms of the kings they replaced. The last three sentences of the passage move from a recipe to a decree to a palace, and each step makes the monsters look more like a government.