Yin Yang Diviner

It was already afternoon when the bus stopped at Liuhe Town Station.

Old Liu slept on my shoulder the whole way, his head tilted to one side. The copper coins in his pocket swayed with the bumps of the carriage, and the hemp rope rubbed against his pants with a soft rustling sound.

The car came to a stop, and he suddenly woke up, drool from the corner of his mouth wiping a shiny trail on my sleeve.

"Have we arrived?" He looked out the window groggily. The shadow of the old locust tree was falling on the car window, and the light dappled through the branches and leaves.

When he got off the bus, Old Liu tripped on the step where he missed a step, and the copper coins slipped out of his pocket. The hemp rope caught on the edge of the pocket, and the seven coins hung in mid-air, swaying in a line.

The seven coins, bearing the reign titles of Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng, gleam with seven different shades of bronze in the afternoon sunlight.

The bluestone slabs at the entrance of the alley were scorching hot from the sun.

The foxtail grass on the wall swayed in the wind, casting shadows on the blue bricks like a row of little people shaking their heads.

The vermilion gate was half-closed, and through the cracks, the green of bamboo leaves and the shadows of old locust tree branches could be seen.

Pushing open the door, I found that my second grandfather was not at the stone table.

On the stone table sat the camphor wood box, and next to it was the small piece of yellow paper left after the talisman had been removed—the talisman's core had been filled when Mr. Zheng removed it yesterday.

I brought it back, folded it into a small square, and placed it under the camphor wood box.

Grandpa's voice came from inside the house: "Come in when you're back."

In the main room, Second Grandfather sat in the old rattan chair, with a tea set in front of him.

It wasn't his usual purple clay teapot; it was a rough pottery teapot with no glaze and a coarse body. You could feel the sand particles that hadn't been sifted out of the clay when you ran your fingers over it.

Steam rose from the spout as the tea was poured out, its color deeper than usual—not amber, but a deeper, richer color, like the color of an old locust tree root steeped in well water.

He poured two glasses, pushing one towards me and the other to the empty seat across the table.

"Where's Xiao Liu?"

"He went to buy steamed buns at the alley entrance, saying he was hungry the whole way."

Second Grandfather nodded, picked up his cup, but didn't drink it; he simply held it in his palm, letting the steam warm his chin. "How's the matter with Zheng Dehou going?"

I recounted the whole story about that bead from the beginning.

A sandalwood bracelet with eighteen beads; my father wore it for thirty years.

On the anniversary of his death, one of them changed color.

The ancestral tablet was missing a corner, located at the last stroke of the character "厚" (thick). A talisman for warding off evil spirits was pasted on the back of the tablet overnight.

At four o'clock in the morning, Mr. Zheng came out of his bedroom and said he saw it.

It wasn't that I heard it, it was that I saw it—on the day his father tied a safety knot on his fingertip, the red string left a white mark.

For over fifty years, the white mark remained in the missing corner of the ancestral tablet, sealed by half a thread. The bead changed color, the thread awakened, and the white mark surfaced, becoming visible to him.

After hearing this, the second grandfather put the teacup back on the table from his palm.

White steam was still rising from the spout of the rough pottery pot, wisps of steam rising to about half a foot high before dissipating.

"Zheng Dehou passed away suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was fine in the morning, but he was gone by noon. People in the industry call this 'sudden death.' When someone dies suddenly, their soul dissipates quickly, without having time to say what they should have said. The unspoken words don't dissipate; they attach themselves to the things they were closest to in life. Zheng Dehou's closest possession wasn't that sandalwood bracelet, but the thumb he used to fasten a safety buckle for his son."

"He left the white mark on his fingertip in the memorial tablet for more than fifty years. It wasn't until he passed away, until his son lifted the tablet from the altar, and until the bead changed color—that the white mark surfaced. What he wanted his son to see was not the mark, but the finger he had placed underneath when tying the red string."

"I'm afraid it will choke my son."

Grandpa didn't reply. He picked up his teacup and took a sip. The thick rim of the rough earthenware cup allowed the tea to flow over it and into his mouth, the bitterness stronger than usual. "How many talismans did you use to do this?"

"One. A house-protecting talisman."

"The talisman suppresses the house itself, not the silk threads inside the ancestral tablet. What suppresses the silk threads isn't the talisman, but rather the fact that when you pasted the talisman, you didn't have the intention to 'suppress' it. You just wanted it to see it. Once it saw it, it came out. The talisman is just a trigger." He stood up from the rattan chair, walked to the long table, and opened the camphor wood box.

The eight old items—a Bagua seal, a copper bell, five-emperor coins, a peach wood sword, an ink line, a piece of wood struck by lightning, a fetal induction bell, and a well-mouth copper mirror—lay quietly on a dark red velvet cloth.

He pulled out a piece of yellow paper from the bottom of the box—not a talisman, but a handwritten page. The edges of the paper were burnt, leaving a ring of scorch marks.

"This was left by your great-grandfather. It's called 'The Sudden Departure Instructions.' When someone suddenly departs, their soul is scattered, but their will remains on the thing closest to them. To draw out that will, you can't use suppression, you can't use expulsion, you can't use sealing."

"We had to 'wait.' Wait for the right moment. Zheng Dehou's moment was the instant his son lifted the ancestral tablet from the altar. Once the tablet was off the altar, the half-strand that had been pressing down on it loosened."

"The bead changed color because the silk awakened. By placing the talisman, you opened a door for it. It walked out on its own, into the son's eyes. From beginning to end, you didn't 'do' anything. You simply waited, and then opened the door."

He folded the handwritten page and put it back at the bottom of the box. "Waiting is the hardest skill in the trade. Suppressing, driving away, sealing, cutting, guiding, defining boundaries, breaking—all of these are 'doing.' Waiting is 'not doing.' You've learned to wait."

Old Liu's voice came from the courtyard: "I bought steamed buns! Pork and cabbage, still warm!" He stepped across the threshold carrying an oil paper bag.

The oil paper was printed with five red characters: "Liuhe Steamed Bun Shop".

The buns were indeed still hot; the bottom of the paper bag was soaked through with steam, revealing a small patch of oil. He placed the bag on the table, took one out, and took a bite. The cabbage inside was crisp, and the pork fat dripped down his chin.

"Grandpa Qin, have one too." He pushed the paper bag towards his second grandfather.

Second Grandpa took one out of the paper bag, but didn't eat it right away. He held it in his palm and looked at it.

"Liuhe Steamed Bun Shop, the Zhang family's. His father was ten years older than me. He sold steamed buns in town when he was young, and he did it for fifty years. Then he passed it on to his son, who sold them for another thirty years."

"The dough for their steamed buns is made by an old fat man, the filling is hand-chopped, and only the stalks of the cabbage are used, not the leaves. Eighty years of life's experiences are condensed in this one bun. When you bite into it, you're not just biting into pork and cabbage, you're biting into eighty years of history."

Old Liu took a slow bite on his second bite, chewing for a long time before swallowing. "No wonder it tasted so good."

In the evening, Lao Liu returned to the city.

When he left, he took out the seven copper coins from his pocket and laid them out one by one on the stone table.

Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng. "Grandpa Qin, I can't make a complete set of these seven coins. Zhang Jinsheng said that if one is missing, the 'qi' (vital energy) won't be retained. But after carrying them around for these past few days, I've discovered that they're not missing a single coin; they're missing me!"

He strung the copper coins back onto the hemp rope one by one and put them into his pocket.

"From now on, these will be my ritual implements. Others nurture their implements with incense and moonlight, but I'll nurture them myself. I'll carry them with me to and from get off work every day, on the bus, while eating steamed buns and drinking soy milk. Once I've fully nurtured them, they won't just be seven loose coins anymore; they'll be my seven coins, Liu Yang's." His figure disappeared at the alley entrance. A section of hemp rope peeked out from the pocket, swaying in the twilight.

My second grandfather poured the last bit of tea from the earthenware pot into my cup.

The tea had gone cold, and the bitterness lingered at the bottom of the cup. When I drank it, it was so astringent that it made my tongue feel numb.

"Go to the City God Temple again tomorrow. Zhang Huaijing asked you to write the character 'Jing' last time, and you left it with him. Go and get it back tomorrow."

"And then what?" I asked.

"After you retrieve it, he will have you write another character. Whatever character you write, he will teach you that character. The Su lineage of character divination is not about a master teaching a disciple, but about characters teaching people. The character you write is the skill you should learn." He picked up his empty cup and twirled it in his palm.

The rough pottery bottom of the cup, worn smooth by the lines of a palm, makes a very fine, soft rustling sound, like an old woman turning prayer beads.