是哪個收了 Who Took the Ghost of Kou Hong
十閻王接下大聖，相見了，問及何來何幹。行者道：「銅臺府地靈縣齋僧的寇洪之鬼，是哪個收了？快點查來與我。」十閻王道：「寇洪善士，也不曾有鬼使勾他，他自家到此，遇著地藏王的金衣童子，他引見地藏也。」行者即別了，徑至翠雲宮見地藏王菩薩。菩薩與他禮畢，具言前事。十阎王接下大圣，相见了，问及何来何干。行者道：「铜台府地灵县斋僧的寇洪之鬼，是哪个收了？快点查来与我。」十阎王道：「寇洪善士，也不曾有鬼使勾他，他自家到此，遇着地藏王的金衣童子，他引见地藏也。」行者即别了，径至翠云宫见地藏王菩萨。菩萨与他礼毕，具言前事。
逐句解 Line by line
The Ten Kings received the Great Sage below, and when the greetings were done they asked what had brought him and what his business was. Monkey said, "The ghost of Kou Hong of Diling county in the prefecture of Tongtai, who feeds monks — which of you has taken him in? Look him up quickly and hand him over to me."
何來何幹 — what had brought him and what his business was. The kings are being formally polite and they are also being careful. 齋僧的寇洪 — Kou Hong who feeds monks. Monkey identifies him by his one distinguishing act. That is how the underworld files people, and Monkey knows it. 快點查來 — look him up quickly. He is asking for a record search, in a hall of ten courts, in the tone of a man at a counter.
The Ten Kings said, "Kou Hong is a good man; no ghost-runner was ever sent to fetch him. He came here of his own accord, fell in with Dizang's golden-robed boy, and the boy took him in to see Dizang."
也不曾有鬼使勾他 — no ghost-runner was ever sent to fetch him. This quietly demolishes everything Monkey has been telling people all night. He claimed three times that Yama had dispatched a runner over this case; the Ten Kings say no runner was ever sent for Kou Hong at all. The whole chain of command was an invention, and here is the office that would have issued it saying so. 遇著 — fell in with. The character after the verb marks a meeting that came off, which is a different job from the light one this chapter uses thirty-odd times. 他自家到此 — he came here of his own accord. A good man walks into the underworld unescorted. It is a small piece of theology dropped in passing.
Monkey took his leave at once and went straight to the Palace of Kingfisher Cloud to see the Bodhisattva Dizang. When the Bodhisattva had exchanged courtesies with him, he laid the whole matter out.
地藏王菩薩 — Dizang, the bodhisattva who vowed not to enter buddhahood until the hells are empty. He is the highest authority in this place and he is not one of its officials — which is why a good man ends up with him rather than in a court. 翠雲宮 — the Palace of Kingfisher Cloud. A green-and-blue name in the middle of the dark offices. 具言前事 — laid the whole matter out. Four characters for the entire story: robbery, perjury, arrest, gaol. The book has told it to us at seven thousand characters' length and lets Monkey summarise it in four.
The Ten Kings pull the file and the answer takes the ground out from under everything Monkey has said all night. No runner was ever dispatched for Kou Hong. He was not summoned, not fetched, not processed — he walked in by himself, was met by a bodhisattva's attendant, and taken to the bodhisattva.
So the whole machinery Monkey invented — the unquiet local gods, the report passed upward, King Yama's warrant, the escorting officer — never existed. He made it up on the coffin lid, repeated it at a prefect's portrait, and both audiences acted on it. And now the office that would have had to issue it says, without being asked, that it issued nothing.
What is true instead is stranger and gentler. A man who fed ten thousand monks arrives in the underworld with no escort at all, is recognised on sight by a bodhisattva's servant, and is taken straight past the courts. The system Monkey spent the night impersonating turns out not to have been involved.