Yin Yang Diviner

The undercover agent surnamed Zhou visited again three days later in the evening.

That day, the sunset over Liuhe Town was exceptionally intense, as if someone had ground cinnabar into a whole vat of tung oil, creating a heavy color between red and brown.

The shadow of the old locust tree stretched from the alley entrance all the way to the base of the bluestone monument. It was stretched long by the evening light, long enough to look like a hand reaching in from outside the town, pressing against the stone pavement, its five fingers slightly curled, as if trying to grasp something, or perhaps just letting go.

I was tidying up the camphor wood box in the east wing, wiping each of the ritual implements given to me by the Seven Elders with a soft cloth—the copper handle of the Dragon-Seeking Ruler gleamed from the warmth of my hands, the markings on the Broken-Destroying Ruler were as fine as hair, and the bell's clapper was made of peach wood, making a dull sound when shaken, as if something wrapped in cotton was struggling to break free.

Zhenyuan felt slightly warm inside the bag, not from alertness, but like a cat that had been curled up for a long time, sensing its owner was awake and turning over.

There were three knocks on the courtyard gate. They were neither hurried nor slow, and the intervals between each knock seemed to have been measured with a ruler.

I opened the door, and the undercover agent surnamed Zhou was standing outside.

He changed his clothes—the dark gray jacket was replaced with a navy blue work uniform, the collar turned up, and the frayed part of the left cuff was patched with a piece of the same color cloth, the stitches were fine, not his own handiwork.

His complexion was even more somber than the last time I saw him, and the dark circles under his eyes were thicker, as if someone had used a brush to apply layers of light ink.

But he stood there, his back straight, his shoulders level, like an expansion bolt screwed into a wall, invisible from the outside, its internal threads gripping the wall tightly.

"Mr. Qin," he said, his voice low but clear, "I'm sorry to bother you again."

I let him into the yard.

He sat down at the stone table, without leaning back in his chair; there was a two-finger gap between his spine and the chair back, as if he were ready to stand up at any moment.

I poured a cup of tea from the earthenware pot and pushed it towards him. He didn't drink it; he just held the cup in his palm, letting the steam warm his hand.

The hand was steady, with large knuckles and extremely short nails, so short that a sliver of pink flesh was visible at the edges. It was a hand that had held a gun for a long time, yet also a hand that hadn't held a gun in a long time—the calluses at the base of the fingers were still there, but the edges had begun to soften.

"There's been progress in Old Kui's case," he said.

Old Kui.

The drug lord who suddenly disappeared three years ago.

The undercover agent surnamed Zhou tracked him down for three years, from one city to another, from within the country to overseas, and then back from overseas.

All the clues point to one conclusion—Old Kui is dead.

But Lao Kui's men are still active, the supply of goods has not been cut off, the channels have not changed, and even the secret code for meeting has not been changed.

How can a dead man continue to command an underground network?

"I found the last place Lao Kui stayed." The undercover agent surnamed Zhou took out a photo from the inner pocket of his work clothes and placed it on the stone table.

The photo shows a wall, a gray brick wall, with clumps of withered yellow moss growing in the cracks between the bricks.

There were words on the wall—not written with a pen, but carved in with something sharp, the strokes penetrating deep into the brick surface, the grooves filled with years of grime.

Four characters, arranged vertically, from right to left.

"The God of Literature does not shine."

"Engraved on the inner wall of an abandoned warehouse in the west of the city." The undercover agent surnamed Zhou pointed to the first word on the photograph.

"The warehouse was Old Kui's safe house. The last time he was seen before he disappeared was when he entered this warehouse. He never came out again. The warehouse had no back door, no tunnel, and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. When the police broke in, it was empty. Only these four words had appeared on this wall."

I held the photo up to my eyes.

The setting sun filtered through the branches of the old locust tree, falling on the photograph and highlighting the sharp angles of the strokes in the character "魁".

The character 魁 is composed of 鬼 (ghost) on the left and 斗 (fighting) on ​​the right.

The top stroke of the character "鬼" (ghost) is very long, like a hand reaching out from the wall with its fingers spread out, trying to grab something.

The two dots of the character "斗" are different shades, one dark and one light. The dark dot is carved very deeply, almost penetrating the brick surface.

The faint trace floats on the surface, like someone who ran out of strength halfway through carving, or someone who hesitated while carving.

"These four characters were carved by Lao Kui himself," said the undercover agent surnamed Zhou. "The handwriting has been examined and it's his. But Lao Kui only attended primary school for two years, and even his own handwriting is crooked. These four characters, especially the character 'Kui,' cannot be carved by someone with only two years of primary school education."

I didn't speak.

He took out his great-grandfather's small calligraphy brush from his satchel, and then took out a stone inkstone, pine needle ink, and half a sheet of rough-edged paper from his bundle.

The ink was ground on the inkstone a dozen times, producing a small pool of clear, bright ink.

The small calligraphy brush was stirred in the inkwell, and the tip was smoothed out.

I handed him the pen.

Write a single character: 魁 (kuí).

He took the pen.

The pen tip looked very thin in his palm, like he was holding a match.

But his pen-holding posture was wrong—not the stiffness of someone who can't write, but because he hadn't held a pen in so long that his fingers remembered, but his muscles had become rusty.

The pen tip touched the paper, his hand hovered, his wrist motionless, only his fingers moving. One stroke, one line, and another.

He wrote the character "魁" (kuí). The character for "ghost" (鬼) was on the left, and the character for "fight" (斗) was on the right.

He wrote the stroke above the character "鬼" (ghost) extremely slowly, pausing twice on the paper—once at the beginning of the stroke and once in the middle.

The ink spread out where it paused, like two small, gray clouds.

For the two dots in the character "斗" (dǒu), he first wrote the lighter dot, then lifted it up with a light touch of the brush tip.

Then, when writing the darkest point, the pen tip pressed down and paused on the paper for a moment, allowing the ink to seep into the paper's texture and form a small, dark circle.

I stared at the character "魁". Zhang the fortune teller taught me that when interpreting a character, you don't look at whether the strokes are beautiful or not, but rather at the thoughts hidden within the strokes.

When a person writes their own name, they are writing how they want others to see them. When a person writes someone else's name, they are writing how that person appears to them.

The undercover agent surnamed Zhou wrote the character "魁" (kui) with the ghost radical very slowly, as if he was trying to identify something.

The radical for "fight" is written extremely fast, as if it's chasing something.

"You didn't write Lao Kui." I turned the rough-edged paper towards him, pointing my fingertip to the stroke above the character for "ghost."

"You wrote about yourself looking for him. This stroke paused twice, indicating that you chased after him to the warehouse door, which was locked from the inside. You stood outside the door, your hand raised, but you didn't knock."

He stared at the character "魁" and remained silent for a long time.

The shadow of the old locust tree moved from the stone table to the base of the east wall.

The light in the courtyard changed from golden yellow to pale gold, and then from pale gold to bluish-gray.

"I knocked," he said. "I knocked for a long time. Nobody answered."

"And then?"

"Later, the police broke down the door. It was empty inside. These four words appeared on the wall."

He turned the photo over.

On the back of the photo, a few small words were written in ballpoint pen: Warehouse due north, three feet from the wall.

This is a measurement record of the engraving location.

Due north.

Three feet.

The character 魁.

I took Zhenyuan out of my bag and held it in my palm.

Golden light from deep within the sac rose up and spread across the mirror surface.

I pointed the mirror at the four characters on the photo, and golden light shone through the photo, illuminating the grooves in the engraved marks.

Deep within the mirror, the grooves began to glow—not with reflected gold, but with a very faint grayish-white light emanating from within the engravings.

The grayish-white color seeps out from the strokes of the character "魁", from the last stroke of the character "星", from the horizontal stroke of the character "不", and from the four dots at the bottom of the character "照".

Four wisps of grayish-white vapor slowly swirled deep within the mirror.

It is the spirit of the world.

It's not the old man's worldly wisdom.

Old Kui's worldliness should be a different color—a drug dealer who has walked on the edge of a knife for half his life, his worldliness would not be this clean gray-white.

This gray and white color belongs to another person. A person who carved words into the wall.

A person who, after carving the last character, put down the carving knife, walked to the due north, stood there for a long time, and then disappeared.

"The God of Literature is not shining." I put Zhenyuan back into my bag.

"Kui Xing is the first star of the Big Dipper. Old Kui's nickname comes from this. 'Kui Xing doesn't shine' means that the Big Dipper no longer shines on him. But this wasn't said by Old Kui himself—it was said by the person who carved the inscription."

Who carved the inscription?

I did not answer immediately.

He took out the rough-edged paper with the character "魁" written on it from the bundle, folded it in half, then folded it in half again, and folded it into a small square.

The paper wrapping felt light in my palm, almost weightless.

However, when the undercover agent surnamed Zhou wrote this character, the tip of his pen paused twice.

The weight of those two meals is all in this paper package.

"What's engraved on that bronze plaque on your waist?"

He froze for a moment.

Then he reached into the inner pocket of his work clothes and pulled out the bronze plaque.

The bronze plaque was polished to a shine, with rounded edges and a single character engraved in the center: "Zhou".

It's not his surname, it's a code name.

The undercover agent's code name. The aura emanating from the bronze plaque was reflected in the mirror of Zhenyuan, giving it an extremely deep indigo hue.

It's not evil, it's not malevolent, it's a deep blue color that comes from walking on the edge of a knife for a very long time and being worn down by countless brushes with death.

"Who gave you this bronze medal?"

"My master," his voice lowered, "the previous generation of undercover agents. His codename was also 'Zhou.' He disappeared fifteen years ago during a mission, never to be seen again, neither alive nor dead. I took over his codename, and I also took over the path he didn't finish."

"Who is the person your master is chasing?"

His pupils contracted sharply.

His Adam's apple rolled up and down once, then rolled up again.

"...Old Kui."

The courtyard fell silent. The bamboo leaves rustled in the wind.

I pushed the paper package containing the character "魁" in front of him, my fingertip touching the crease of the package.

"The person who carved the words was your master. He carved 'Kui Xing does not shine' on the warehouse wall, not for Old Kui—but for Old Kui to hear. Old Kui understood the meaning of these four words, so he did not come out of the warehouse. But after your master finished carving these four words, he did not come out either."

"You've been chasing Lao Kui for three years. Your master has been chasing Lao Kui for even longer. You're not chasing the same person, but you're chasing the same thing."

I pushed the paper package closer.

"The signal you're waiting for isn't Old Kui."

"It's the last breath of your master that hasn't completely dissipated from those four words he left on the wall."

The undercover agent surnamed Zhou held the paper package in his palm.

His fingers tightened, his knuckles turned white, and the bronze medal trembled slightly in his other hand.

It wasn't a shaky hand—it was the indigo aura inside the bronze plaque that was moving.

The dark blue aura seemed to be awakened by something the moment he gripped the paper package.

It rose from the depths of the bronze plaque, following the lines of his palm, beating again and again, like another heart.

"Due north," he said. "Three feet."

He stood up.

The navy blue overalls were tinged with a near-black blue by the setting sun, and the patches on the collar were stitched with fine stitches, probably sewn by someone before he left home.

He stuffed the paper package into the inner pocket of his work clothes and stuck it to the bronze medal.

"I'm going due north, three feet."

He walked to the door and turned around. The setting sun shone from behind him, shrouding his face in shadow, obscuring his expression.

But the indigo hue on the bronze plaque shone through from under the work clothes, making it brighter than before.

It wasn't light—it was like something that had been suppressed for a very long time, finally pushing outward from the inside.

"I'll come find you after I dig it up."

The courtyard gate closed. The dark blue figure disappeared at the alley entrance.

On the stone table, the cup of coarse pottery tea had gone completely cold, and a thin film had formed on the surface of the tea soup.

Bathed in the last sliver of gray-blue light in the sky.

I held Zhenyuan in my palm, and the golden light deep within the Yang membrane receded, leaving only a very faint layer floating on the edge of the mirror.

It was quiet inside the handbag.

The four personal magical artifacts—the Zhenyuan, the copper coin, the lightning-struck wood, and the bronze mirror at the wellhead—are each in their proper place.

There are already six rough-edged paper packets—Mirror, Mirror, Wait, Wo, Gui, and Men.

There's one more today.

"Kui".

Each stroke is hidden in the creases, like a seed that has not yet sprouted.

Waiting for the last breath left by the person who carved the inscription, three feet deep to the due north.