Yin Yang Diviner

The next morning, my second grandfather opened the booklet and spread it out on the stone table.

"Drawing talismans is not the same as drawing pictures. Drawing pictures is about making them look good, while drawing talismans is about bringing them to life."

This was the first thing my second grandfather told me.

The first page of the book features a talisman for warding off evil spirits, drawn with cinnabar. Over time, the cinnabar has faded from bright red to dark red, resembling congealed blood.

The talisman's head has three hooks, and its tail is a single vertical stroke. The middle is densely filled with characters I don't recognize—not Chinese characters, but cloud seal script, a secret script used by Taoists to communicate with heaven and earth.

Every stroke carries an uncompromising decisiveness, like carving on bone with a knife, not drawing on paper.

"The talisman is divided into three parts: the head, the body, and the tail." Second Grandfather's fingertip touched the three hooks on the head of the talisman.

"The talisman's head is an invitation. Invite the Three Pure Ones, invite the Ancestral Master, invite the True Gods of Heaven and Earth. When you make this stroke, your heart must be sincere and your thoughts must be clear."

Whoever you invite, they will be watching from above. If your heart is not sincere, the talisman's head is lifeless; no matter how many strokes follow, it's useless.

The fingertip moves to the talisman. "The talisman represents the 'matter'. What this talisman is meant to do—to ward off evil spirits, soothe the home, calm the mind, exorcise evil, or protect the body—is all written in the cloud-like seal script on the talisman."

The cloud script is not written for humans to see, but for the gods. Every stroke must be perfect; if it is, the gods will not understand it, and the talisman will be ineffective.

Move your fingertip to the tail of the symbol. "The tail of the symbol represents 'stillness'. Once the task is done, it should be settled."

Like the last beam in a building, like the last stroke in writing.

If the tail of the talisman cannot be fixed, its energy will dissipate—and once dissipated, the talisman is nothing but a piece of waste paper.

He closed the booklet.

"Today we won't learn to draw. We'll learn to observe."

Take out an old oil lamp from the house; the wick is new, but the oil is old.

He placed the oil lamp on the stone table, struck a match to light it, and the flame flickered a few times before settling down and burning straight up.

He then took out three sheets of yellow paper from the cloth bag and laid them next to the oil lamp. The first sheet was blank.

The second one is a drawn talisman—not the old kind from the booklet, but a new one, the cinnabar still fresh, drawn as a calming talisman.

The third one is a poorly drawn talisman; the head of the talisman is missing a hook, and the vertical stroke at the tail is crooked.

"Whether a talisman is effective or not depends on its core." Second Grandfather arranged the three talismans side by side.

"The heart of the talisman is its core. The head of the talisman represents the request, the body represents the matter, and the tail represents the determination. But whether the talisman is alive or not does not depend on the head or the tail, but on the core."

He told me to hold Zhenyuan in my palm and face the mirror towards the three talismans.

Golden light spread upwards. The first sheet of yellow paper was blank, with nothing on it—only a very faint, misty gray-white layer, which was the paper's own vapor.

Paper is made from pulp from plants, and its aroma is woody, warm and without character.

The second calming talisman.

In the mirror, the strokes of cinnabar are not lying flat on the paper—they are standing upright.

Each stroke of vermilion rises slightly from the paper, like an embossed sculpture, like blood vessels.

The red of cinnabar spread outwards from the edges of the strokes, forming a very faint red glow that enveloped the entire talisman. But the brightest part was not the strokes—it was a tiny circle right in the center of the talisman.

The circle was empty, devoid of cinnabar, but as the golden light spread outwards, an extremely bright light slowly rotated within it, like a small lantern wrapped in yellow paper.

"That circle is the talisman's core." Second Grandfather pointed his finger at the empty circle.

"The talisman's core is left blank. It's not that it's not drawn, but rather that it's 'emptied' out."

The core of this calming talisman is a circle.

The circle represents 'completeness' and 'peace'. The talisman calms the turmoil in people's hearts; turmoil is uncertainty, and uncertainty is deficiency.

The circle fills in the missing part, and the heart is at peace; this is the essence of this talisman.

The fingertip moved to the third illegible talisman.

In the mirror, the strokes of the cinnabar are also raised, and the edges are also diffused with red light.

But the spot where the talisman's core should have been—the circle that should have been empty—was filled with cinnabar.

The person drawing the talisman noticed that the talisman was missing a hook. In a panic, the tip of the pen fell and filled the talisman with the missing hook.

The circle disappeared, and the red light spread out from the edge of the stroke, reaching the gallbladder area. There was nowhere for it to gather, so it scattered into a patch.

The entire talisman resembled an oil lamp with its wick extinguished; the oil was still there, but the flame was gone.

"The heart of a talisman is its core. If the core dies, the talisman is nothing more than a piece of paper coated with cinnabar."

Second Grandfather blew out the oil lamp. A wisp of smoke rose from the wick, swirling and ascending in the morning light, reaching the height of the bamboo tip before dissipating.

"Starting today, don't draw any talismans. Look at the talismans first." He pushed the thin booklet in front of me.

"Each talisman in this booklet has a 'core' (or 'coffin'). Use the Zhenyuan (a magical artifact) to shine on each talisman one by one and memorize the shape of each core."

A circle represents peace, a square represents stability, a triangle represents pacification, and a pentagon represents destruction. The shape of the talisman determines its nature.

Once you've memorized the courage, then learn to draw. When drawing, the hardest part isn't the strokes—it's creating the "courage" within. Only when you have courage in your heart will your brush tip have courage.

When the heart is full, the gallbladder dies.

He left the booklet with me, then took his teacup and went inside. The door was ajar, and a sliver of light shone through the crack, casting a flickering shadow on the blue brick floor before settling.

The courtyard fell silent. The bamboo leaves rustled.

I opened the booklet; the first page was about talismans for warding off evil spirits.

The core of the talisman is located in the very center of the talisman body; it is a tiny triangle.

It's not a drawn triangle—it's an empty space enclosed by three strokes of cinnabar.

The three strokes resemble the character "山" (mountain), and the empty space in the middle represents courage.

It's triangular, with the apex pointing upwards, like a small, upside-down mountain.

The core of a house-protecting talisman is a triangle. A triangle represents a mountain, stability, and protection.

If the mountain is firmly planted, the house will be secure. I've memorized this triangle.

Turn to the second page. The talisman for calming the mind has a circle around the gallbladder.

On the third page, the exorcism talisman features a vertical, extremely thin spindle-shaped line resembling an upright eye.

Exorcising evil spirits is about "seeing" them—revealing the hidden evil spirits so that they have nowhere to hide.

The spindle shape represents the eye, and the eye represents seeing.

Only by seeing it can it be driven away.

Page 4, Five Thunder Talismans.

The gallbladder is not a shape, but five tiny dots arranged in a plum blossom pattern.

The five points correspond to the five directions, and the five thunder gods each occupy their respective positions. Thunder is the most righteous energy in the world; anything wicked is trapped by the five thunders and cannot escape.

The character for "gallbladder" (胆) is composed of five dots, not empty—it represents "gathering" (聚). Five thunderbolts converge at one point, strike down, and evil spirits dissipate.

Page 5, amulet.

The gallbladder is a curved arc, like a crescent moon, or like a clasped hand.

The protection is not about suppressing or driving away, but about "covering".

Like a mother's hand gently cupping the baby's head, neither pressing down nor leaving.

An arc represents a gathering or containment; it gathers things in, preventing those outside from getting in and keeping those inside safe and secure.

I memorized each of the five talismans.

Triangle, circle, shuttle, five points, arc. Town, peace, drive away, break, protect.

Five skills, five kinds of courage.

The bamboo shadows moved from one end of the stone table to the other.

The leaves of the old locust tree fluttered in the wind, sifting sunlight into fragments of gold that fell onto the pages of the book.

The strokes of vermilion rose slightly in the golden light, as if they had come to life.

I closed the booklet. Seven old items, six historical records, and five talismans.

Zhenyuan felt slightly warm in his palm, and the golden light deep within his yang membrane shone steadily, like a lamp that would never go out.

In the evening, my second grandfather came out of the house, carrying two cups of tea, amber in color, bittersweet.

He pushed a glass in front of me and sat down opposite me.

"Did you remember that?"

"I've got it."

"Starting tomorrow, we'll use pens."

I picked up my teacup and took a sip.

The bitterness spread from the tip of the tongue, slid down the throat, and turned into a warm feeling in the stomach.

Just then, there was a knock on the courtyard gate.

It wasn't done with hands—it was done with fists.

Three knocks, urgent and deep, as if something outside was chasing after the person knocking on the door.

Second Grandfather put down his teacup. "Come in."

The door opened. Old Liu stood in the doorway, his face as white as a sheet.

His shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to his body; one button was missing from the collar, which was askew and open.

He leaned against the door frame, his lips trembling several times before he could finally get his words out.

"Qin Yiheng, something happened to me...something happened to me."

I have never seen Lao Liu look like this before.

He stood at the doorway, his eyes bloodshot, the whites of his eyes filled with tiny red dots, as if he hadn't slept for three days and three nights, or as if something was staring at him from the inside out.

His second grandfather let him in. As Old Liu stepped over the threshold, he tripped and almost fell on the blue brick floor.

I reached out to support him; his arm was icy cold, not a normal cold—it was the kind of cold that comes from being pulled out of an ice cellar, so cold it was almost painful to the touch.

I helped him sit down on the stone bench. After he sat down, his hands were still shaking, and his ten fingers tapped on his knees like he was playing a piano.

"Take your time," said the second grandfather, pushing the teacup in front of him.

Old Liu picked up his teacup, but his hand trembled so much that the tea spilled onto the back of his hand. He didn't drink it and put the cup down again.

Something happened in my house...

"That man called me last night, and his voice sounded off." Old Liu's Adam's apple bobbed.

He said his wife was missing. Not because she went out—it was around 2 a.m. when he got up to use the bathroom and found the bed next to him empty. He assumed his wife had also gone to the bathroom and didn't think much of it.

When I woke up the next morning, my wife still hadn't returned. Her phone was on the bedside table, her wallet was in her bag, her shoes were in the shoe cabinet, but she was gone.

"Did you call the police?"

"It's been reported. Captain Wang and his men went to check, and the doors and windows were all locked from the inside; there were no signs of forced entry."

"We checked the hallway security camera footage. From 2 a.m. to 7 a.m., no one went in or out of that door." Old Liu's voice was extremely low, almost drowned out by the rustling of the bamboo leaves.

"Captain Wang told me that they searched the entire house and found a row of handprints on one wall."

"Handprint?" I asked, puzzled.

"It's not a handprint from the outside. It's a handprint pressed from inside the wall outwards."

The bamboo leaves rustled, and the courtyard suddenly grew cold—not in terms of temperature, but as if something had been sucked out of the air.

The copper coin on my wrist felt slightly warm, and it bounced against my skin.

The lightning-struck wood pressed against my chest, the lightning energy within sending warmth into my chest cavity, overlapping with the heat of the copper coin, like two invisible barriers, blocking me from that coldness.

"Where is the handprint?" Second Grandfather asked.

"The bedroom. On the wall above the bed. Right in front of the pillow." Old Liu's voice sounded like it was being squeezed out of his throat.

"Captain Wang said that the size of those handprints is exactly the same as the handprints of the missing woman."

The courtyard was so quiet that only the sound of bamboo leaves rustling could be heard.

The shadow of the old locust tree peeked over the wall and landed on Old Liu's back, pressing his shadow into a curled-up black ball.

Second Grandfather stood up, took out a cloth bag from the house, and put the ink line, peach wood sword, and Bagua seal into it one by one.

"Let's go," he said.

Old Liu sprang up from the stone bench, as if he had been pricked by something.

I picked up the cloth bag, and Zhenyuan felt slightly warm in my palm. The golden light deep within the Yang membrane shone steadily, like a lantern just lit in the dark night.