冒犯天地 An Offence Against Heaven and Earth
天王道：「那壁廂敢是不該下雨哩。我向時聞得說：那郡侯撒潑，冒犯天地，上帝見罪，立有米山、麵山、黃金大鎖，直等此三事倒斷，才該下雨。」天王道：「那壁厢敢是不该下雨哩。我向时闻得说：那郡侯撒泼，冒犯天地，上帝见罪，立有米山、面山、黄金大锁，直等此三事倒断，才该下雨。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Heavenly King said, "Over in that quarter, I rather think rain is not supposed to fall.
那 is nà here, pointing rather than asking — over there. 壁廂 is an old word for a side or quarter, and 哩 at the end is a neutral flourish, softening the whole thing into something like I believe. The Heavenly King is being tactful.
"I heard some time back that the prefect there behaved outrageously and offended Heaven and Earth. The Supreme Emperor found him guilty and set up a mountain of rice, a mountain of flour and a great golden lock. Only when those three things fall and break is rain to fall there."
倒 is dǎo, to topple — not the dào that means to pour. All twelve in this chapter are the toppling reading. 聞得 takes dé, the reading used after a verb of perception. 撒潑 is to fly into an ugly, unrestrained rage — a word for tantrums, not for crimes.
The gatekeeper delivers the whole plot in one sentence of gossip, and the reader learns the cause of the famine before Pilgrim can ask a question.
The word chosen for what the prefect did is the striking thing. Not treason, not blasphemy — a word for throwing a tantrum. Whatever happened three years ago, heaven's own doorkeeper files it as bad behaviour rather than wickedness. That will matter enormously when we finally hear what it was.
And the three conditions arrive: two mountains and a lock. They sound like a riddle, and they are meant to. Heaven has not said never. It has said not until, and set the bar at something that looks like never.