Yin Yang Diviner

After closing the camphor wood box, I didn't leave immediately.

Second Grandpa refilled the rough pottery tea set with water, and wisps of white steam rose from the spout, dissipating only when they reached the height of the bamboo tip.

He poured two glasses, pushed one towards me, and kept the other for himself without drinking it.

"A memorization tool isn't about memorizing how to use it." His voice drifted from the rim of the teacup, enveloped in steam, revealing no emotion.

"Usage is rigid; a town is a town, a guide is a guide, and a boundary is a boundary. You've examined eight old items, and you've felt the nature of each one. Those are their origins, not yours. From tomorrow onward, what you remember is the relationship between you and them."

He put down his teacup and pulled out the book "An Outline of Yin and Yang" from under the armrest of the rattan chair.

The corners of the book pages were curled up, with a few pieces of rough-edged paper folded into small squares tucked inside—those three words that the fortune teller had kept for me and then returned.

"Mirror", "Mirror", "etc."

He opened the book and turned to a blank page. The spine was pressed down, and the paper lay flat on the table.

"The first stroke is a record of Zhenyuan."

I sat down opposite him.

Inside Zhenyuan's satchel, through the coarse cloth, the golden light deep within his yang membrane shone steadily.

From the first night I placed it on the windowsill facing the moonlight, to the forty-ninth night when it sent the accumulated light from my ancestral aperture into my dantian—this period was neither long nor short, but I never really thought of writing it down.

"It's not about recording when it recognized you or how it recognized you." My second grandfather took the brush off the brush holder, dipped the tip in the tea, smoothed it on the edge of the inkstone, and handed it to me. "It's about recording what you saw for the first time you used 'Zhao'."

This is the first time I've used the character "照".

It was on this stone table that my second grandfather hung the Bagua seal above Zhenyuan and asked me to take a picture.

I saw three layers of light surrounding the seal's face—the indigo lightning, the scorched brown of fire, and the lightning of the mountain demon.

That was the first time Zhenyuan spoke to me after he recognized me as his master.

It refers to the mark left on the ritual implement by others, and it refers to the three great calamities that Zheng Yi used to suppress back then.

But what I felt in that instant was not a calamity, but the slight warmth of the golden light deep within the Yang membrane as Zhenyuan lifted those three indigo clumps from the depths of the Bagua Seal.

I put the pen down.

This is not about writing usage instructions.

It describes that afternoon—the bamboo leaves rustled, the shadow of the old locust tree moved from one end of the stone table to the other, and the smoke rising from my second grandfather's pipe was illuminated by the light as a pale blue.

The Bagua seal hung above the mirror, its indigo light seeping out from around the seal surface like crackles on an old porcelain bowl. Zhenyuan felt slightly warm in my palm.

For the first time, the golden light deep within my hymen rose up on its own, pressing against my Laogong acupoint, beat by beat, like another heart beating.

After writing the last word, the pen tip left the paper.

The page was filled with blank space. The handwriting was not neat, and some strokes had bled at the edges because the ink on the nib was too light. But the pen did not pause when writing each character.

The copper coin rested quietly on my wrist, the bronze mirror at the wellhead sat quietly in my satchel, and the Zhenyuan abyss sat quietly in my palm. They did not weigh down my pen, nor did they suppress my will; they were simply there, like three silent people who had been listening all along.

Second Grandpa pulled the book over and looked at it for a while.

He didn't comment on whether the handwriting was good or bad, or whether the sentences were coherent; he simply closed the book and placed the newly written character between the two characters for "mirror."

"The first note is finished. The second note is the Bagua seal. But not today." He poured out the tea from the rough pottery pot, scooped out the tea leaves that had settled at the bottom with his fingers, and placed them to dry on the corner of the stone table. "You've used the Bagua seal twice. Once for applying the seal, and once you didn't."

Useless.

Regarding Mr. Zheng's matter, I indeed did not use the Bagua Seal.

The ancestral tablet was missing a corner, and half a thread was sealed inside the bead. Mr. Zheng pasted a house-protecting talisman all night. At four o'clock in the morning, he came out of the bedroom and said that he "saw" it - he saw his father tie a safety buckle on his fingertip on the day of his full moon celebration, with a white mark on his fingertip from the red string.

From beginning to end, I didn't ward off anything. I just put up the talisman and waited.

Wait for that half-thread to wake up on its own, wait for it to lift up the fingertip sealed inside the memorial tablet, and wait for Mr. Zheng to catch it with his own eyes.

"Waiting" is not the ability of the Bagua Seal.

The power of the Bagua Seal is to "suppress".

But what that matter needed wasn't a town, it needed to wait.

I didn't use the Bagua Seal because from the day Zhenyuan saw it, I knew it had suppressed thunder, fire, and mountain demons; its nature was extremely strong. Strong things shouldn't be used for "waiting."

Second Grandfather put the tea leaves that had been drying on the corner of the stone table back into a small earthenware jar.

"It's harder to not use it than to use it. A ritual implement develops its own temperament over time. The nature of the Bagua seal is hard; when you take it out of the box, it tries to suppress it. When you put it back, it waits in the box. It waits for a time when it truly needs to be 'suppressed.'" He covered the earthenware jar, stood up, and carried the camphor wood box into the house.

When I came out, I had something extra in my hand.

It was a piece of yellow paper.

It's not a talisman, but a handwritten page with a burnt edge, leaving a ring of scorch marks. It's from the book *Zhou Zou Yin*—the page my great-grandfather left behind.

He placed his handbook on the stone table, his fingertip touching the last stroke of the character "骤".

"Your great-grandfather left this page of 'Sudden Departure Instructions' not to teach people how to draw out the will of a sudden departed person. It's to teach people to wait. The soul of a sudden departed person has scattered, but the will remains. When the will awakens, no one knows. All one can do is wait. Your great-grandfather waited for many people, some who were waited for, and some who were not. He wrote the names of those he waited for on the back of 'Sudden Departure Instructions'."

He turned the notebook over. The back was covered with tiny writing, not in lines, but as individual names, arranged vertically from top to bottom and from left to right.

Some names are written in dark ink, indicating they were added in the last few decades; others are so lightly written that they are almost invisible, as if they have been washed away by time many times.

I counted them, and there were about thirty names.

The last name, still fresh in ink—Zheng Dehou.

"Before your great-grandfather passed away, he gave me this handwritten copy. He said that all the people he had waited for were on the back, and that I should write down the names of whoever I waited for in the future. I didn't wait for many people."

Zheng Dehou was the first. He took a brush from the brush holder, dipped it in the tea, and wrote three small characters next to the three characters "Zheng Dehou"—Qin Yiheng.

"It wasn't you who waited. You waited for him. You waited for him and he got his name written under your great-grandfather's name. In the future, whoever you wait for, write their name down too. When the back of this handwritten book is full, you'll know that what people in this line of work value most isn't skill, but the willingness to wait for others."

The bamboo leaves rustled in the wind. The shadow of the old locust tree had moved from the west wall to the east wall; the sun was already setting. I folded the "Sudden Journey" and placed it in the title page of "The Essentials of Yin and Yang."

Those names lay silently in the creases, more than thirty of them, their ink varying in shades, like a row of figures standing in the twilight, some near, some far.

I haven't met anyone yet.

But Zheng Dehou's name was written on it, and I waited for him.

wait.

There will be more names in the future.

I'll wait until they're all gone, and then I'll write them down one by one.

In the evening, I returned to the east wing.

The window paper was bathed in the warm yellow light of twilight, and the four characters "澄心静气" (meaning "calm mind and tranquil spirit") on the wall seemed to float gently in the light and shadow.

I took the "Outline of Yin and Yang" out of my bag and turned to the page where I wrote it today.

Zhenyuan.

The first name I wrote down.

The handwriting had a very faint tea-colored hue in the twilight, and the edges of the strokes were frayed, like the cracks on an old porcelain bowl that had been soaked in tea for a long time.

I closed the book and put it under my pillow.

The bamboo leaves rustled outside the window, mingling with the cicadas chirping in the old locust tree in the distance, one chirp after another, as if waiting for something.

Inside the satchel, the golden light shone steadily from the depths of Zhenyuan's yang membrane, and the grayish-white gas on the bronze mirror at the wellhead gathered on the surface like a curled-up sleeping cat.

Three rough-edged paper packets were stacked together—"Mirror," "Mirror," "Wait"—each stroke hidden in the creases, like three seeds yet to sprout. They were waiting, and so was I.