原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
百十眾和尚 A Hundred Monks Could Feed You
眾僧道：「老爺，我這荒山，大大小小也有百十眾和尚，每一人養老爺一日，也養得起百十日。怎麼敢欺心，計較甚麼食用？」众僧道：「老爷，我这荒山，大大小小也有百十众和尚，每一人养老爷一日，也养得起百十日。怎么敢欺心，计较甚么食用？」
逐句解 Line by line
眾僧道：「老爺，我這荒山，大大小小也有百十眾和尚，每一人養老爺一日，也養得起百十日。
众僧道：「老爷，我这荒山，大大小小也有百十众和尚，每一人养老爷一日，也养得起百十日。
The monks said, "Your reverence, on this barren mountain of ours, great and small, we number a hundred-odd monks. If each one of us kept your reverence for a day, we could keep you a hundred days and more.
得 is the unstressed de here, in a can-manage-it construction — keep you, and manage the keeping. 荒山, barren mountain, is self-deprecation for one's own monastery, the mirror of the treasured mountain Tripitaka used earlier.
怎麼敢欺心，計較甚麼食用？」
怎么敢欺心，计较甚么食用？」
How should we dare be so mean-hearted as to reckon up what you eat?"
甚 is shén, the question word. 欺心, to cheat one's own heart, is to act against conscience.
The rebuttal is dignified and it is also a piece of arithmetic. A hundred monks times one day each is a hundred days of hospitality, freely offered, and they have kept these guests three.
The self-deprecating name for their own mountain answers Tripitaka's flattering name for it in the opening scene. Chinese politeness runs on this exchange — your mountain is treasured, mine is barren — and the novel has now shown both halves of it.
They still have not said what is wrong. Two more exchanges will pass before anyone mentions the six missing men, and the delay is the monks being courteous to a guest who has just insulted them.