Yin Yang Diviner

As Mr. Zheng carried the ancestral tablet into the bedroom, the bronze bell of the City God Temple outside the window rang again.

It's not the wind—there's no wind tonight.

Old Liu and I stayed in the living room. The mahogany sofa was very hard, and even with the embroidered cushions, it was still hard.

He took the seven copper coins out of his pocket and laid them out one by one on the coffee table.

Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng.

The coins are seven coins, each bearing a different reign title. A hemp rope is threaded through the hole in the coin, and the ends of the rope are tied into a tiny auspicious knot.

"Zhang Jinsheng said one coin is missing, so it's not a complete set." He turned the coins over one by one, and the Manchu script on the back looked like fine engravings under the light.

"He said his grandmother once said that coins should be in sets, otherwise they won't retain their vitality. I asked him why they should be in sets, and he said he didn't know. He just felt that if there were seven coins, representing seven dynasties, and a hole was missing in the middle, the vitality would leak out through that hole."

I stared at the seven copper coins.

I examined their aura with Zhenyuan this afternoon—seven coins, seven auras: Shunzhi's thick, Kangxi's steady, Yongzheng's deep, Qianlong's smooth, Jiaqing's thin, Daoguang's pale, and Xianfeng's floating.

The seven types of energy are strung together on the same hemp rope, each independent of the others.

But Lao Liu is right, one is missing. It's not which one is missing, but the "continuation" that should have been there between them—from Shunzhi to Xianfeng, the Qing Dynasty went from prosperity to decline, and the quality of copper coins also changed from solid to thin, from stable to unstable.

What's missing isn't a single coin, but something to connect these seven elements into a complete "momentum".

"Let's go see Zhang Jinsheng tomorrow," I said. "Let's ask him which one is missing."

Old Liu put the copper coins back into his pocket. A section of hemp rope peeked out from the pocket, dark and grimy, like a small piece of hanging rope taken from the stove.

The bedroom door was closed all night.

Lao Liu and I took turns dozing off on the sofa for a while.

Old Liu fell asleep first, his head resting on the pillow, with a little glistening drool at the corner of his mouth.

The copper coins in his pocket swayed slightly with his breathing, and the hemp rope rubbed against his trousers with a soft rustling sound, like an old woman turning prayer beads.

I leaned against the other armrest as Zhenyuan took it out of his bag and placed it on the coffee table, mirror facing upwards. The golden light deep within the mirror membrane receded, leaving only a very faint layer floating on the edge, like a half-closed eye keeping watch for its master.

At four in the morning, the bedroom door opened.

Mr. Zheng came out. He hadn't changed his clothes; he was still wearing that dark blue polo shirt with a crisp collar, but he looked like something had been taken away from him—not fatigue.

It was as if something heavy had been removed from his body, leaving him feeling light as a feather.

He sat down on the mahogany sofa and placed the ancestral tablet on the coffee table.

The talisman on the back of the memorial tablet is still there, its triangular core slightly raised in the dim light of dawn.

The edge of the talisman was curled up at a tiny corner, as if something was pushing it outward from the inside—not the talisman, but the door that had been closed for decades.

"I heard it," he said softly. "Not with my ears. It's here." He pointed to his forehead.

"What did your father say?"

He didn't answer immediately. Outside the window, most of the lights in the urban village had gone out, with only a few windows still lit, like a few eyes that hadn't closed yet in the gray-blue early morning light.

The eaves of the City God Temple jut out from the buildings, and the copper bells on the eaves are silent.

"He didn't say anything. He showed me something." Mr. Zheng reached into the collar of his polo shirt and pulled out a red string.

A small jade safety buckle was tied to the red string. It was warm and smooth, and had become translucent from body heat. "He put this safety buckle on my head when I was a month old. I've worn it for over fifty years and never taken it off. He said, 'As long as I'm alive, the buckle stays; when I'm gone, the buckle goes.'"

"Last night I didn't see him. It was myself. On the day of the full moon, he held me and tied this peace buckle around my neck. His hands were rough, his knuckles were covered in calluses. When he tied the red string, the calluses got caught on the thread. He was afraid it would choke me, so he put his finger under the red string. After the red string was tied, he pulled out the finger that was under the string, and there was a shallow white mark on the fingertip where the red string had cut."

He looked down at his thumb.

There was nothing on his fingertips. "He pressed his thumb, which had been bound with a red rope, onto the ancestral tablet. The spot he pressed was the last stroke of the character '厚' (thick).

The broken corner of the ancestral tablet gleamed with a dull, woody color in the dim light of dawn.

There was an extremely fine seam between the small piece of wood that was later added and the surrounding old wood, which was almost invisible after decades of incense smoke.

But last night, the half-thread sealing the memorial tablet came to life, stretching the seam open slightly. Through that small gap, Mr. Zheng saw his father's thumb, which had been resting on the tablet.

On the fingertip, there is a white mark left by a red rope, which has not faded even after more than fifty years.

"He wasn't leaving me the safety buckle. He was leaving me that white mark." Mr. Zheng tucked the safety buckle back into his collar. "The buckle stays with the person, and leaves with the person. The buckle didn't leave; he left it behind when he left. What left behind wasn't him, but the fingertip with the white mark from the red string. He left that fingertip in the memorial tablet."

Old Liu woke up at some point.

He sat in the corner of the sofa, the copper coins in his pocket were quiet, and a section of hemp rope peeked out from the pocket, dark and grimy, like a small piece of hanging rope taken from the stove.

He looked at the dull bead on the coffee table, surrounded by seventeen intact sandalwood beads in a circle, one of which was empty. "Where's the half-thread from that bead?"

Mr. Zheng picked up the beads from the coffee table.

The dull surface, bathed in the morning light, gleamed with a muted, settled darkness that had finally subsided. "The silk awakened, dispersing the worldly aura of the bead. But it didn't crack. After dispersing the worldly aura, it retreated back into the inner wall of the bead, clinging to the grain of the sandalwood, motionless. Like someone who has traveled a long way, finally returned home, lay on their bed, pulled the blanket up to their chin, and closed their eyes."

He threaded the beads back onto the bracelet.

The eighteen beads were strung together again. The dull one was mixed in with the seventeen sandalwood beads. The color and the aura were wrong, but it stayed quietly in the empty place for a long time, like the one who had gone far away finally returning in a row of complete people.

"Did Mr. Qin ask you to pass on a message?" Mr. Zheng picked up the ancestral tablet from the coffee table and wiped off the talisman on the back of the tablet with his palm.

When the talisman was peeled off, the small hollow inside the triangular talisman core had flattened. It wasn't deflated—it was complete. Like an eye that had opened, seen what it needed to see, and then closed again.

"I brought it. He said that the half-thread your father sealed in the memorial tablet will never sleep again once it awakens. You should thread it back onto your bracelet; it will be close to your pulse, listening to your blood. It will accompany you as long as you live."

Mr. Zheng put the bracelet back on his wrist.

Eighteen beads were placed against his pulse: seventeen were made of sandalwood, and one was dark brown. The dark brown bead was pressed right on his cun-kou (radial artery) point, with half a thread inside the bead clinging to his blood vessel through the skin.

One beat after another, pounding in sync with his pulse.

It was already daylight when we left the urban village.

There was no one on the stone bench under the banyan tree. Aerial roots hung down from the branches and stuck into the soil, turning a translucent golden-red color in the morning light.

Old Liu walked beside me, the seven copper coins in his pocket dangling the whole way, the hemp rope rubbing against his trousers with a soft rustling sound.

"I know which coin Zhang Jinsheng was referring to as missing." He took the copper coins out of his pocket, and the seven coins swayed back and forth on the hemp rope. "It's not that one is missing, it's that there are seven extra."

"What do you mean?"

"Mr. Zheng's bracelet has eighteen beads, one of which is different. When that different bead came back, the bracelet was complete. My seven coins represent seven different kinds of energy, none of them touching each other. It's not that one is missing to string them together—it's that I'm missing myself. I carry them in my pocket, and when I walk, they clink and tinkle, as if they're talking. What they're missing isn't another coin, but someone who carries them around with them."

He stuffed the copper coin back into his pocket. A section of hemp rope peeked out from the pocket, dark and shiny, bathed in the morning light. The grease on its surface, accumulated over decades from the stove, was slowly turning into a warm, smooth patina, like that of something touched by hands for decades.