三尸呻咋 The Three Worms Cried Out
皇后道：「主公亦如此也。」那皇帝摸摸頭，諕得三尸呻咋，七魄飛空，道：「朕當怎的來耶？」皇后道：「主公亦如此也。」那皇帝摸摸头，諕得三尸呻咋，七魄飞空，道：「朕当怎的来耶？」
逐句解 Line by line
The empress said: "Your Majesty is the same."
Nine characters, and it is the whole reply. 主公 is my lord, the form a consort or a retainer uses.
The emperor felt at his head, and the fright sent the three worms crying out and the seven souls flying into the air, and he said: "What am I to do?"
Two things worth knowing here. 三尸 are the three corpse-worms of Daoist belief that live in the body and climb out on a gengshen night to report your sins to heaven — the very observance Pilgrim invented as his fast at the inn, and here they are again at the other end of the chapter. And the second character of the crying-out is rare: the old rime books give it a band meaning a loud noise or many voices, read zé, and it is the same reading modern Chinese keeps in the phrase for being struck dumb. It is not the everyday zǎ that means how, which is a modern spoken word.
The three worms are the chapter closing a circle it opened eighty passages ago. Pilgrim invented a gengshen fast to get out of eating meat, choosing the observance whose whole point is that these creatures leave the body on that night to report your sins. The king now has them screaming inside him.
Whether the novel intends the connection or the storyteller reached twice for the same piece of folklore, the effect is the same. A king who has murdered nearly ten thousand monks feels his bare scalp and his sins start shouting.