莫大之功 Father a Great Thing Has Happened
那三個小王子急回宮裡，告奏老王道：「父王萬千之喜，今有莫大之功也。適才可曾看見半空中舞弄麼？」那三个小王子急回宫里，告奏老王道：「父王万千之喜，今有莫大之功也。适才可曾看见半空中舞弄么？」
逐句解 Line by line
The three young princes hurried back to the inner apartments and reported to the old prince: "Father, ten thousand joys! Today there has been a merit beyond all measure.
老王, the old prince, is how the chapter names him from here on — eight times in all, and the form without the little word for small that keeps the father apart from his three sons. 萬千之喜, ten thousand and a thousand joys, is the pairing of large numbers the chapter has used since Sha Monk's opening speech about lives saved. 莫大之功 is a merit than which none is greater.
Did you happen to see the display in mid-air just now?"
可曾 is the have-you-ever question form, and its second character is céng — the base reading sends it to a surname, which is one of the two most reliable traps in this chapter. The boys are so full of it that they cannot get to the point without checking their father was watching.
The scene shifts back to the private apartments, exactly where it went the last time somebody had news about the pilgrims. The chapter is running the same route twice: alarm the first time, delight the second.
The princes' opening is all breath and no information — ten thousand joys, a merit beyond measure, did you see it? Nobody has said what happened yet. It is precisely how anyone under twenty reports something remarkable.