年方十六 A Daughter Just Sixteen
國丈年老無兒，止後妻生一女，年方十六，不曾配人，願進與朕。朕因愛那女，遂納了，寵幸在宮。不期得疾，太醫屢藥無功。国丈年老无儿，止后妻生一女，年方十六，不曾配人，愿进与朕。朕因爱那女，遂纳了，宠幸在宫。不期得疾，太医屡药无功。
逐句解 Line by line
He said the Royal Father-in-Law was old and had no son, that his second wife had borne him one daughter only, just sixteen and not yet given to anyone, and that he wished to present her to me.
The cover story is carefully built out of ordinary sorrows. An old man with no son, a late second marriage, one daughter — every element is a real family shape, and the whole thing is designed to make presenting her sound like a father's prudence rather than a gift with a hook in it. 年方十六 is a set formula, roughly "aged just sixteen."
Because I loved the girl I took her, and kept her in the palace as my favourite.
Eleven characters for the decision that cost a thousand children their cages. The king does not dress it up, and the flatness is the most honest thing in his speech.
Unexpectedly I fell ill, and the court physicians dosed me repeatedly to no effect.
屢藥無功 — dosed repeatedly, no result — is medical shorthand, and it is doing quiet plot work: it explains why an outsider's prescription got a hearing at all. A court that has exhausted its own physicians will listen to anybody.
The confession has the shape of every account of being taken in: each step was reasonable, and the sum of them is catastrophic. An old man offers a daughter; the king likes her; he falls ill; the doctors fail. Nothing in that chain looks like a plot until you already know it is one.
The novel is also making a point it makes repeatedly about this king. He is not cruel by nature, and he is not stupid. He is a man whose appetite was found and then used, and the book is more interested in how that works than in condemning him for it.