留幾件衣物 Leave Me Something to Be Buried In
那員外割捨不得，拚了命，走出門來，對眾強人哀告道：「列位大王，夠你用的便罷，還留幾件衣物與我老漢送終。」那眾強人哪容分說，趕上前，把寇員外撩陰一腳，踢翻在地。可憐三魂渺渺歸陰府，七魄悠悠別世人！那员外割舍不得，拚了命，走出门来，对众强人哀告道：「列位大王，够你用的便罢，还留几件衣物与我老汉送终。」那众强人哪容分说，赶上前，把寇员外撩阴一脚，踢翻在地。可怜三魂渺渺归阴府，七魄悠悠别世人！
逐句解 Line by line
The squire could not bring himself to let it go. Staking his life on it, he came out of the door and pleaded with the crowd of strong men. "Your worships, take what will serve your turn and let that be enough. Leave an old man a few clothes to be buried in."
割捨不得 — could not bear to give it up. The last two characters are worth care. 不得 is two completely different things depending on where it sits: put it in front of a verb and it means may not, put it after one and it simply closes the verb off, the way cannot bear to closes bear in English. Here it comes after, so it is the light one. That is why no rule can ever settle this phrase, and why a reader has to weigh it every time. 列位大王, your worships — he is addressing armed robbers as great kings. Politeness under threat, and it does him no good at all.
The crowd of strong men would not hear a word of it. They rushed forward, landed a kick in the squire's groin, and knocked him sprawling.
哪容分說 — would not allow a word of explanation. There is that question word again, written 哪, which in this edition is never the same character as the 那 that means that. 撩陰一腳 is blunt and specific: a kick up into the groin. The book does not soften it, and the medical detail matters later — Kou Hong dies of one kick from one man, which is the fact the whole legal tangle turns on.
Pity it — his three souls drifted away to the shades below, and his seven spirits floated off, parted from the world of men.
The formula the book uses whenever a named character dies. 可憐, pity it, marks the line as the narrator's own comment rather than part of the scene. The three-and-seven count is standard: a person was held to have three cloud-souls, which survive and go on, and seven white-souls, which belong to the body and disperse. Roughly, the three are what goes to the underworld and the seven are what stops working. Both halves have to leave for a death to be complete — which is exactly why Monkey will be able to fetch him back.
Kou Hong dies for a few clothes. He has just given away enough food for ten thousand monks, without counting, over twenty-four years; he cannot bring himself to let go of a bundle of garments, and he goes out to argue about it. The book puts those two facts next to each other and does not comment.
The death-formula that closes the passage is doing something practical as well as decorative. By splitting Kou Hong into a part that departs and a part that disperses, it opens the door the rest of the chapter walks through: there is now something of him in the underworld to go and find. Readers who knew the formula knew, the moment they read it, that this death was reversible.
It is also the last we hear of him as a person for four thousand characters. What follows is about other people arguing over what his death means — his widow, his sons, a prefect, a gaoler. Kou Hong himself does not speak again until Monkey is standing on his coffin.