Yin Yang Diviner

The mirror of Zhenyuan hung directly above the dark bead, about two inches away.

Golden light from deep within the diaphragm emanated from the mirror surface, enveloping the entire bead. Purple

The seventeen intact beads on the sandalwood bracelet revealed their true nature in the golden light—a very thick and smooth purplish-brown layer, like aged amber, warm and deep, the kind of worldly aura that old objects accumulate over decades of being nurtured by human hands.

But that one was different.

The moment the golden light fell on its surface, something inside the bead seemed to be disturbed.

The dark surface doesn't reflect golden light; it absorbs light into itself.

What was reflected in the mirror was not a bead, but a swirling, extremely thick, grayish-white mist.

The shape of the fog kept changing, like something trapped inside a bead trying to find an exit.

With each change, the mist pushes outward a little, and the dark film on the surface of the bead tightens a bit.

"There's something sealed inside this bead." I slightly adjusted the angle of Zhenyuan, allowing the golden light to shine in at an angle from the side of the bead.

"It wasn't something that got there later; it was sealed in when the beads were made."

Mr. Zheng stood by the window, his face expressionless in the backlight. "What's being sealed off?"

I did not answer immediately.

The golden light of Zhenyuan swept back and forth within the grayish-white mist inside the bead, forcing the mist to the edge and causing it to slowly circulate along the inner wall of the sandalwood.

In the gaps between the currents, I saw the core of the mist—an extremely thin, grayish-white thread. It wasn't hair; it was thinner and more resilient than hair, like a tendon drawn from some living creature.

One end of the silk thread is embedded in the inner wall of the bead, while the other end hangs in the air, trembling slightly in the mist, like a plucked string with lingering vibrations.

"A single thread. Not hair, but like a tendon." I retrieved Zhenyuan, and the golden light retreated into the depths of Yangmu.

"This thread has been sealed inside the bead for decades. The worldly energy of the sandalwood suppressed it, preventing it from emerging. Last month, on the anniversary of your father's death, you wore the bracelet on your wrist, and your body heat warmed and loosened the worldly energy of the sandalwood. Once the worldly energy was released, the thread inside awakened."

Mr. Zheng walked over from the window and sat down on the mahogany sofa.

His hands were on his knees, his knuckles clenched white. "What will happen when I wake up?"

"After it wakes up, it struggles to break free. The worldly pressures have been suppressing it for decades, and it can't break free, so it can only spin inside the bead. With each spin, the color on the surface of the bead deepens. Once it has completely dispersed the worldly pressures, the bead will crack."

"What happens after it cracks?"

I picked up the beads from the coffee table and held them in my palm.

Zhenyuan's heat radiated from his satchel, throbbing against his hip bone.

"After it splits open, the thread will emerge. It was sealed for decades, and the first thing it will do after it comes out is to find the person who sealed it in. Since that person is dead, it will seek out that person's closest blood relatives."

Mr. Zheng remained silent for a long time.

The only sounds in the living room were the whooshing of the air conditioner vents and Lao Liu's barely audible breathing from the corner of the sofa.

Outside the window, the lights in the urban village lit up one by one, turning the gray buildings into a dense array of warm yellow dots.

"Was this thread sealed in by my father?" His voice was very soft.

"Yes. The sandalwood bracelet was made by an old craftsman, but the silk threads inside the beads were added later. To seal a silk thread inside a sandalwood bead without it being crushed by worldly energy, a talisman is needed. The talisman's core is spindle-shaped—the core of an exorcism talisman—which 'fixes' the silk thread to the inner wall of the bead. The silk thread remains fixed for as long as the talisman's power lasts. When the talisman's power is exhausted, the silk thread comes out."

"Why? Why would he seal a thread inside his bracelet?"

I put the beads back on the coffee table, placing them side by side with the ancestral tablet that had a corner missing.

The wood of the ancestral tablet is dark in color, and the eleven characters "The Divine Seat of My Late Father Zheng Dehou" are drawn with cinnabar and gleam dark red under the light.

"Your father passed away suddenly. He had a cerebral hemorrhage. He was fine in the morning, but he was gone by noon, without leaving a single word. But some things are better left unsaid."

I picked up the ancestral tablet, turned it over, and held the chipped edge up to the light.

The break wasn't chipped off—I used the Zhenyuan light on the stone table this afternoon, and the wood grain of the break is different from the surrounding wood. Although the color is similar, the direction of the wood grain doesn't match.

This corner wasn't chipped off; it was patched up with another piece of wood. Over the decades, the wood's color has been uniformly blended with the incense smoke. The missing corner is located precisely at the last stroke of the character "厚" (thick).

"The character '主' (zhu) in '神主牌' (shen zhu pai) was not originally written like this."

I placed the memorial tablet on the coffee table. "According to tradition, before the encoffining, the tablet isn't inscribed with 'Shenzhu' (神主, meaning 'divine master'), but 'Shenwang' (神王, meaning 'divine king'). The character 'Wang' (王, meaning 'king') is missing a dot at the top, signifying that the person has just passed away and their soul hasn't settled yet, so it's too early to call them 'master'. After the encoffining, the bereaved son uses a new brush dipped in cinnabar to add a dot to the character 'Wang,' and then 'Wang' becomes 'master.' Only after this dot is added can the deceased's soul truly settle into the memorial tablet. On your father's memorial tablet, the last stroke of the character 'Hou' (厚, meaning 'thick') and the dot on the character 'Wang' were made with the same cinnabar. There was something mixed into the cinnabar."

Mr. Zheng's gaze shifted from the card to the dull bead.

Seventeen intact sandalwood beads, one of which was soaked through with silk from the inside. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"This is the thread that's mixed in." I lifted the bead and placed it next to the missing corner of the memorial tablet.

"Before your father passed away, he took a thread from his own body, ground it into cinnabar, and applied it to the ancestral tablet. He sealed the remaining thread into this bead. His passing was sudden, but this action was not. He had worn the sandalwood bracelet for thirty years, and the beads had been thoroughly warmed by his body heat on his wrist, accumulating enough worldly energy to suppress the thread for decades. He had calculated the timing perfectly—the years when worldly energy could suppress the thread would coincide with the first anniversary of his death."

Why did he do that?

I put the memorial tablet and beads back on the coffee table. The air conditioner stopped whirring, and the living room suddenly became stiflingly quiet. "He wants you to see this."

"What do you see?"

"I saw what he didn't finish saying before he left." I held Zhenyuan in my palm, the mirror facing the missing corner of the ancestral tablet.

"The bead's color change isn't meant to harm you. It's because on the anniversary of his death, with his last lingering will, he awakened the thread within the bead. Once the thread awakened, the bead changed color, and you'll have someone examine it. As they look, they'll see it on this memorial tablet with a missing corner. The words your father didn't finish saying aren't in the bead."

From the depths of the mirror, golden light steadily rose, enveloping the ancestral tablet. "Inside the tablet."

Mr. Zheng picked up the ancestral tablet from the coffee table.

His thumb landed right on the last stroke of the character "厚" (thick). The vermilion-painted strokes had been darkened by decades of incense smoke, but the missing corner—the small piece of wood that was later added—exuded a different aura from its surroundings in the golden light.

It's not the worldly air of sandalwood, nor the incense-like scent of cinnabar; it's an extremely faint, grayish-white color, like the lingering mist on a river surface on a winter morning.

It was exactly the same as the grayish-white mist inside the bead.

The same silk thread was used; half was ground into cinnabar and applied to the memorial tablet, while the other half was sealed inside a sandalwood bead and pressed for decades. The bead changed color, and the memorial tablet chipped a corner—both events occurred in the same month. It was no coincidence.

"What's sealed inside the memorial tablet?" His voice was strained.

"Your father's last words. He left in such a hurry that he didn't have time to say anything. But he knew he would leave in a hurry—this wasn't his first stroke. When he removed that thread from his body, he knew his time was coming. He sealed his words in the memorial tablet and the thread in the bead. When the bead changed color, that was when the words could be taken out."

"How do I retrieve it?"

I took out the talisman that my second grandfather had drawn from my bag.

The triangular talisman bulged slightly under the light, like an eye that had not yet opened.

"The talisman suppresses the house itself, not the words. Hold the memorial tablet carefully and stick the talisman on the back of it. Leave it there overnight, and you will hear it yourself the next morning."

Mr. Zheng accepted the talisman.

His hands were steady as he folded the talisman to the perfect size to fit the back of the memorial tablet, then pressed his fingertip against the talisman and flattened it.

The triangular talisman faces the center of the back of the memorial tablet.

The moment it was pasted up, a very faint sigh came from the memorial tablet—not a human voice, but as if something that had been suppressed for decades had finally been released, letting out a long, long breath.

Outside the window, the bronze bell of the City God Temple rang once in the night wind.

Even from this distance, the sound came through clearly, like someone shaking a small handful of loose silver from a great distance.