正法祭奠 Execution and Sacrifice
丞相拭淚道：「你二人且休煩惱；我今已擒捉仇賊，且去發落去來。」即起身到法場。恰好江州同知亦差哨兵拿獲水賊李彪解到。丞相大喜，就令軍牢押過劉洪、李彪，每人痛打一百大棍，取了供狀，招了先年不合謀死陳光蕊情由，先將李彪釘在木驢上，推去市曹，剮了千刀，梟首示眾訖。把劉洪拿到洪江渡口，先年打死陳光蕊處。丞相與小姐、玄奘三人親到江邊，望空祭奠，活剜取劉洪心肝，祭了光蕊，燒了祭文一道。丞相拭泪道：「你二人且休烦恼；我今已擒捉仇贼，且去发落去来。」即起身到法场。恰好江州同知亦差哨兵拿获水贼李彪解到。丞相大喜，就令军牢押过刘洪、李彪，每人痛打一百大棍，取了供状，招了先年不合谋死陈光蕊情由，先将李彪钉在木驴上，推去市曹，剐了千刀，枭首示众讫。把刘洪拿到洪江渡口，先年打死陈光蕊处。丞相与小姐、玄奘三人亲到江边，望空祭奠，活剜取刘洪心肝，祭了光蕊，烧了祭文一道。
逐句解 Line by line
The Chancellor wiped his tears and said, 'You two, grieve no more;'
拭淚, wiping his eyes, and then straight back to business. 且休煩惱, that is enough grieving for now. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.
'I have now taken the enemy villain — let us go and deal with him.'
發落, to send down and let fall, is the administrative verb for disposing of a case — and in this instance of a man. The 去來 at the end is a colloquial let's be off, the kind of tag that gets edited out of formal prose and kept in speech.
And he rose and went to the execution ground.
法場, the law-ground. Passing sentence and carrying it out happen at the same address.
As it happened, the Jiangzhou vice-administrator had also sent scouts who seized the water-bandit Li Biao and brought him in.
恰好, as luck would have it, which is this chapter's favourite way of moving a plot along. 差, to send somebody out on official business, is read chāi here rather than the chā of difference. 解到, delivered in under escort. Li Biao, the second man in the boat, has been picked up the same night: the chapter is closing every account it opened.
The Chancellor, greatly pleased, had the guards bring forth Liu Hong and Li Biao,
軍牢, the army's gaolers; 押過, marched across under guard. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.
gave each a hundred heavy blows, and took their confessions,
A hundred strokes each, and then the paperwork. 供狀 is a written deposition, and the order of operations is not something the text is embarrassed about: a capital case wanted a confession on file, and a beating was how you obtained one.
which acknowledged the wrongful murder of Chen Guangrui years before.
招, to confess; 情由, the facts and the reasons, the whole account of how it came about. 不合 is a formula lifted straight out of the legal codes meaning contrary to law, so 不合謀死 is something like the unlawful compassing of a death — the language of a charge sheet, dropped into the middle of a novel.
Li Biao was first nailed to a wooden donkey, pushed to the marketplace, sliced by a thousand cuts, and his head exposed to the crowd.
This is the chapter at its least comfortable, and every term in it is technical. 木驢, the wooden donkey, was a wheeled frame the condemned were fixed to and pushed through the streets, with 釘, to nail, read dìng. 市曹 is the market quarter, because being seen was the whole point. 剮了千刀 is death by slicing, líng chí — the heaviest penalty the imperial code allowed, kept for treason and the killing of parents. 梟首示眾, the head set up for the crowd; and 訖, completed, which is a clerk's word for closing an entry.
Liu Hong was taken to the Hong River ferry, the very place where Chen Guangrui had been killed years before.
渡口, the ferry mouth. They do not execute him at the law-ground. They walk him back to the water and kill him on the spot where he did it, which is no longer law but something a great deal older.
The Chancellor, the lady, and Xuanzang, three of them, went in person to the riverside and made sacrifice toward the empty air,
望空, facing empty air, because there is no grave and no body to address. 祭奠 is the offering made to the dead. 親到, going in person, is the word that carries weight in a culture where a deputy could always have been sent. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.
cut out Liu Hong's heart and liver alive, sacrificed them to Guangrui, and burned a funeral address.
活剜, gouged out while living. The heart and liver go onto the altar as the offering itself. 祭文 is a composed address to the dead, and burning it is how you post a letter downward — the smoke carries it. Keep that in mind, because in the next passage somebody reads it.
There is no softening this, and the edition will not pretend otherwise. Li Biao is nailed to a wheeled frame, paraded through the market, put to death by slicing — líng chí, the heaviest sentence in the imperial code, reserved for treason and the killing of parents — and his head set up for the crowd to look at. Liu Hong is not executed at the law-ground at all. He is walked back to the ferry crossing and cut open alive on the exact spot where he swung the club.
Two systems are running side by side here, and the passage shows both. One is the state: a warrant, an arrest, a beating, a signed confession, the correct penalty for the correct offence, the whole thing closed off with 訖, the clerk's word for done. The other is far older than any code — the killing avenged where the killing happened, the murderer's heart and liver laid out as the offering to the man he murdered. The Chancellor's army enforces the first. The riverbank belongs to the second.
Then a written address to the dead is burned at the water's edge. Burning is how you send a document downward. It works, and the next passage is what happens when it arrives.