原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
不干鐘成精 It Was Not the Bell
那道人趕上前，一把攙住道：「老爺請起。不干鐘成精之事，卻才是我打得鐘響。」那道人赶上前，一把搀住道：「老爷请起。不干钟成精之事，却才是我打得钟响。」
逐句解 Line by line
那道人趕上前，一把攙住道：「老爺請起。
那道人赶上前，一把搀住道：「老爷请起。
The attendant hurried up and took hold of him with one hand. "Get up, sir."
攙住 is to catch somebody under the arm and hold them steady — what you do for an old man who has fallen over.
不干鐘成精之事，卻才是我打得鐘響。」
不干钟成精之事，却才是我打得钟响。」
"The bell had nothing to do with turning into a spirit. It was I just now, striking the bell and making it sound."
The 干 in 不干 is gān, to concern or have to do with, not the gàn of doing a thing. Because that reading is a first tone where the base was a fourth, the 不 in front of it falls from bú to bù. In 打得鐘響 the 得 is the unstressed de, hanging the result on the verb: struck it so that it rang.
The mystery is dismantled in fifteen characters by the man who caused it. No bell, no spirit, just a caretaker with a brick.
This is the chapter's one clean case of a frightening thing turning out to have an ordinary explanation, and the book puts it here on purpose. Everything else in chapter 80 runs the other way: the harmless-looking thing is the monster, and the man who says so is not believed.