pí fū zhuó
Also rendered: the skin sticks (Literal, and keeps 著 as adhesion) · the skin adheres to the bone (Spell it out; the text leaves the bone implied) · the skin is attached (Too mild — it is always attached) · pi fu zhuo (Bare transliteration)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The last of the chapter’s signs of death, and the most physical. Three verdicts are given in a row: a swift pulse is not disease; a slow pulse is disease; a pulse that does not come and go is death. Then, without a pulse at all, the skin sticks — 皮膚著者死 — the flesh is gone and the skin has adhered to what is left. The chapter has spent its length on numbers, sectors and hours; it ends by asking a finger to test whether there is anything left under the skin.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| Wiseman & Feng | the skin sticks [to the bone] | 著 read zhuó is rendered as sticking or adhering in their usage. |
| Unschuld | the skin adheres [to the bones] | Same, with the object supplied. |
| This site | the skin sticks | 著 read zhuó is 附著 — to be stuck fast to something — and the chapter is describing a failure of a surface to have anything beneath it. The text does not say bone; it says skin, and it leaves the reader to notice what skin has to stick to once the flesh is gone. Supplying the bone makes the sentence easier and the sign smaller; leaving it out makes the reader look, which is what the sign is for. |
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