神思恍惚 Two Years of Uneasy Mind
這兩年憶念在心，神思恍惚，無處可以解釋。不知上天見罪，遺害黎民。今遇老師降臨，萬望明示，上界怎麼樣計較？」这两年忆念在心，神思恍惚，无处可以解释。不知上天见罪，遗害黎民。今遇老师降临，万望明示，上界怎么样计较？」
逐句解 Line by line
"These two years past it has stayed on my mind. My thoughts have been unsettled, and there has been nowhere I could set it right.
恍惚 is the ordinary word for a mind that will not settle — vague, distracted, not quite present. It is still current. 解釋 here means to undo or dissolve rather than to explain, the same sense the Preceptors used when they said only goodness could undo it.
"I did not know that Heaven had found me guilty, and that the harm was falling on the common people.
遺害 is to leave harm behind, the way a spill leaves a stain. The prefect has just learned that his temper has been killing people for three years.
"Now that you have come down to us, master, I beg you to make it plain — how does the world above reckon the account?"
計較 is to reckon or settle a score, a bookkeeping word. He is asking what is owed. It is the natural question for a career administrator to ask, and it is about to get an answer he cannot pay.
Two years, he says, it has stayed on his mind — and there was nowhere he could set it right. That is the sentence that turns this from a crime into something sadder.
He knew. Not the cosmic consequence, but the act itself: he has been carrying it since it happened, with his thoughts unsettled, and no way to undo it. The incense we saw him burning alone in his office at the start of the chapter was not routine piety. He has been apologising for two years to a heaven that never told him what for.
And note the arithmetic. Three years of drought, two years of remorse. The guilt started late.