Difficulty with a 是...的... sentence

I'm translating a contemporary Taiwanese book into Dutch, story takes place in Taiwan in 1938. Main character loves to eat, real foodie, always hungry, she says she has a 'little monster in her stomach'. Now she's mostly through with the biggest meal in the book.

與此同時，我感到肚裡的妖怪獲得前所未有的饜足。

飽足是理所當然的事情，因為我與小千已經吃了十人份的宴席菜，十二道當中的十道菜色。
可是我所說的並非分量，而是滋味與情感交織的感動。是躲藏肚子深處的小小妖怪受到珍視善待，終於解開執念束縛的自由與酣暢之感。

I'm struggling with that last sentence. Grammatically, it seems to say:

是 [躲藏肚子深處的小小妖怪受到珍視善待，終於解開執念束縛] 的自由與酣暢之感。

The liberated feeling of [the little monster getting real care and finally losing its obsessions and restraints].

But it makes more sense to me that 我, and not so much the 小妖怪, is finally being let go from her obsessions and restraints.

The English translation has 'It was a feeling of emancipation and satisfaction that arose from the little hidden monster finally receiving the kindness and regard that it had longed for.', neatly sidestepping my problem by omitting a few words. I'd prefer to stay as close to the original Mandarin as I can.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? And don't mind my bad English translation, I'll take care of making it look good in Dutch once I understand more of what's going on.

On 2/4/2026 at 10:59 AM, Lu said:

是 [躲藏肚子深處的小小妖怪受到珍視善待，終於解開執念束縛] 的自由與酣暢之感。

couldn’t it be 是 [躲藏肚子深處的小小妖怪受到珍視善待，終於解開執念束縛的自由與酣暢] 之感。?

so rather a 是…之

and indeed I would interpret it as 躲藏肚子深處的小小妖怪受到珍視善待—>[我]終於解開執念束縛[而感到]自由與酣暢

I think all of it does apply to the 小小妖怪—in my reading, the 之感 at the very end is really referring back to 饜足 at the end of the first line. The 小小妖怪 has finally received real care and been free of its restraints, allowing it to finally feel satisfied.

The second part seems to parse to me more like: at long last released a sense of freedom and delight that had been restrained by her obsessions. 

I think that's slightly different from your version, but maybe just nit-picking.

So overall it's something like (loosely), "the treat that the little monster in her belly had enjoyed now finally unbound a sense of freedom and delight once trammelled by obsessions." So I agree with you that it's the protagonists' obsessions, and their removal that has brought the good feeling.

Thanks everyone! I've just circled back to this chapter and I think I've managed to figure something out that works with the underlying meaning and doesn't stray too far from the grammatical meaning.