玄英洞 The Three Kings of the Dark Cave
功曹道：「正是，正是。此山名青龍山，內有洞，名玄英洞。洞中有三個妖精：大的個名辟寒大王，第二個號辟暑大王，第三個號辟塵大王。這妖精在此有千年了。他自幼兒愛食酥合香油，當年成精，到此假裝佛像，哄了金平府官員人等，設立金燈，燈油用酥合香油。他年年到正月半，變佛像收油。今年見你師父，他認得是聖僧之身，連你師父都攝在洞內，不日要割剮你師之肉，使酥合香油煎吃哩。功曹道：「正是，正是。此山名青龙山，内有洞，名玄英洞。洞中有三个妖精：大的个名辟寒大王，第二个号辟暑大王，第三个号辟尘大王。这妖精在此有千年了。他自幼儿爱食酥合香油，当年成精，到此假装佛像，哄了金平府官员人等，设立金灯，灯油用酥合香油。他年年到正月半，变佛像收油。今年见你师父，他认得是圣僧之身，连你师父都摄在洞内，不日要割剐你师之肉，使酥合香油煎吃哩。
逐句解 Line by line
The Sentinel said, "It is, it is.
Four characters of confirmation, and then the briefing begins. The Sentinels' whole function in this novel is to hand Pilgrim an address and a dossier.
"This mountain is called Green Dragon Mountain, and in it is a cave called the Dark-Blossom Cave.
玄英洞 — the Dark-Blossom Cave — is the second half of the chapter's own title. 玄 is dark, and dark in the specifically northern, wintry sense; 英 is a flower or the finest part of a thing. The name is cold, which fits three demons who spend the chapter being associated with cold.
"In the cave are three demons. The eldest is called Great King Cold-Averting, the second is styled Great King Heat-Averting, and the third Great King Dust-Averting.
The three names, and they are built on one character. 辟 here is bì, to ward off or keep away — so they are the Cold-Averter, the Heat-Averter and the Dust-Averter. The names come from a real class of legendary treasures: Chinese lore is full of 辟寒 and 辟塵 objects — a pearl that keeps a room warm, a hairpin that sheds dust. These demons are named after amulets, which for creatures who make their living selling counterfeit blessings is a very good joke. The reading is one the bare machinery gets wrong at all thirteen sites in this chapter.
"These demons have been here a thousand years.
A thousand years, and the town's custom is 上古傳留, handed down from high antiquity. The two timescales are the same one. The fraud is as old as the tradition because the fraud is the tradition.
"From their youth they have loved to eat butter-and-storax fragrant oil. In the year they became spirits they came here, counterfeited buddha-images, and deceived the officials and people of Jinping Prefecture into setting up the golden lamps, with butter-and-storax oil for the lamp-oil.
The whole history in one sentence, and the motive is appetite. They liked the oil. Everything else — the buddha-images, the lamps, the levy on two hundred and forty households, a thousand years of civic tradition — is infrastructure built to keep three monsters supplied with something they enjoy eating.
"Every year, at the middle of the first month, they change into buddha-images and collect the oil.
Twelve characters, and they turn the festival inside out. The town believes the buddhas come to receive an offering. What actually happens is a collection round, on a fixed date, once a year.
"This year they saw your master, knew him for a holy monk's body, and carried him off into the cave along with everything else; and in a day or two they mean to carve up your master's flesh and fry it in butter-and-storax oil to eat.
The plan, stated flatly, and it is the chapter's grimmest line — and its most logically consistent. They have been eating the oil for a thousand years. Now they have the one meat in the cosmos said to confer immortality, and they propose to cook it in the same oil. A reading: 著 in 使酥合香油煎吃 does not appear, but the parallel construction elsewhere in the chapter uses 著 as zhuó, meaning "by means of." Here the plain 使 does that work.
The briefing takes seven short units and answers everything. The mountain is Green Dragon; the cave is 玄英洞, the Dark-Blossom Cave of the chapter's title; and in it are three demon kings named 辟寒、辟暑、辟塵 — Cold-Averting, Heat-Averting, Dust-Averting.
Those names are a joke worth unpacking. Chinese lore is full of 辟 objects: a pearl that wards off cold, a hairpin that sheds dust, a charm against heat — treasures whose whole virtue is keeping something unpleasant away. Three monsters who make their living by selling a town counterfeit protection have named themselves after amulets.
And the motive turns out to be the least mystical thing imaginable. They like the taste of the oil. A thousand years ago they came to this mountain, put on buddha-shapes, and persuaded a prefecture to build them a delivery system: the lamps, the bridge, the levy on two hundred and forty households, fifty thousand taels a year, and a theology to explain why the jars are empty in the morning. The whole machinery of the festival is a standing order. Now they have the Tang Monk, and they intend to fry him in the same oil — which is horrible, and entirely in character.