齋僧二十四 Twenty-Four Years of Feeding Monks
寇梁等磕頭道：「爺爺，小的父親寇洪，齋僧二十四年。因這四僧遠來，恰足萬僧之數，因此做了圓滿，留他住了半月。他就將路道、門窗都看熟了。當日送出，當晚復回，乘黑夜風雨，遂明火執杖，殺進房來，劫去金銀財寶、衣服首飾，又將父打死在地。望爺爺與小民做主。」寇梁等磕头道：「爷爷，小的父亲寇洪，斋僧二十四年。因这四僧远来，恰足万僧之数，因此做了圆满，留他住了半月。他就将路道、门窗都看熟了。当日送出，当晚复回，乘黑夜风雨，遂明火执杖，杀进房来，劫去金银财宝、衣服首饰，又将父打死在地。望爷爷与小民做主。」
逐句解 Line by line
Kou Liang and the rest knocked their heads on the floor and said, "Your honour, our father Kou Hong fed monks for twenty-four years. Because these four monks came from far off, they made his ten thousand exactly, and so he held the completion ceremony, and kept them lodging with him half a month."
The son's account of the vow is accurate, and the accuracy is what makes the rest so dangerous. Everything he says here is true and checkable. 恰足萬僧之數 — made up the count of ten thousand monks exactly. Kou Hong had pledged to feed ten thousand and these four were the last four. In Chapter 96 that arithmetic was the happy ending. Here it is offered as the reason four strangers had the run of a rich house.
"In that time they came to know our roads and passages, our doors and windows, all by heart."
Eleven characters, and this is the whole case. The son is not accusing them of anything they were seen doing; he is arguing from opportunity. It is also the third time the reader has met this idea. The widow said it first, the son repeated it in her words, and now it is sworn testimony in a prefect's hall. Each retelling loses a little more of its origin, until what began as a guess at four in the morning arrives in court as a fact about what the accused did.
"They were sent off in the daytime and came back that same night. Under cover of the dark and the storm they came with torches lit and staves in hand, forced their way into the rooms, carried off the gold and silver and valuables, the clothes and the jewellery, and beat our father to death on the floor besides. We beg your honour to see justice done for us common people."
明火執杖 — torches lit, staves in hand — is a set phrase and it carries a specific charge. It describes a robbery committed openly and with weapons rather than by stealth, which under the law of the period was the aggravated form, and it is still the ordinary way of saying brazen wrongdoing today. And it is TRUE. Seven hundred and seventy characters back, the narrator described the real robbers doing precisely this — knives held, torches burning, breaking the gate. The son has reached for the correct legal formula to describe something he did not see, and applied it to the wrong men. 與小民做主 — see justice done for us common people. The formula asks the magistrate to be their advocate, not merely their judge.
The son's case is now complete, and laid out in the right order: motive, opportunity, method, and a request for redress. Twenty-four years of piety establish the family's good character. The fortnight's lodging establishes access. The set phrase for aggravated robbery establishes the charge. Any magistrate would find it a well-made complaint.
What is unsettling is how much of it is true. The vow, the count, the fortnight, the send-off, the torches, the staves, the killing — every fact in this speech is a fact. The only false thing in it is the identity of the men who did it, and that single substitution is carried along by everything around it that checks out.
The book has been quietly building this since the first sentence. It showed us the real robbery in detail so that we would recognise every element of it in the son's mouth. He is describing what happened. He simply cannot know who did it, and nobody in the hall is in a position to tell him.