Yin Yang Diviner

After Zhang Jinsheng put the Tongzhi Tongbao coin into his tool bag, Old Liu squatted at the entrance of the fortune-telling shop for a long time.

The setting sun filtered through the branches of the old locust tree, dyeing the eight coins at his waist in eight different shades of bronze. He squatted there, untied the eight coins one by one, laid them out on the bluestone slab, and then strung them back together one by one.

Untie it, then string it back together. Untie it again, then string it back together.

The hemp rope threaded back and forth through the coin hole, and the auspicious knot he gripped became damp.

"He said he was waiting for someone who could take it back." Old Liu hung the eight-emperor coins on his waist.

After getting up, he brushed the dust off his knees. "Who could accept this?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"That coin was under my pillow for forty years. The person is gone, but the coin is still warm. Who is it waiting for?" Old Liu wondered.

I shook my head, indicating that I didn't know either.

He nodded, pressed the eight coins to his waist, and the copper coins pressed against his hip bone, beating like another heart through his clothes.

He walked to the alley entrance and turned around.

The shadow of the old locust tree divided his face into two halves, one light and one dark. On the light half of his face, his eyes shone with an alarming brightness.

"I'll go look for it," he said.

The night market that Lao Liu went to was in an old residential area in the east of the city that had been partially demolished.

It's called a night market, but it's really just a narrow alley with stalls on both sides selling old books and newspapers, old-fashioned radios, enamel mugs, old clocks, coins, porcelain, and old furniture.

Most of the stall owners were elderly people. They sat on small stools with a cloth in front of them, displaying their wares on it. They didn't call out to customers; they just sat quietly, as if waiting for something.

There were no streetlights in the alley, so the vendors brought their own small, rechargeable lamps. The dim light illuminated the old items on their stalls, turning the entire alley into a broken river of light.

Old Liu stood at the alley entrance for a while.

The eight coins felt slightly warm at my waist, not a warm feeling of alertness, but rather as if something was blowing from the depths of the alley, touching the coins and causing them to move slightly.

He took the eight coins from his waist, held them in his palm, and walked into the alley.

The first stall sold used books. Thread-bound, paperback, and bound volumes of newspapers from the Republican era were stacked one by one on a plastic sheet.

The pages were worn and frayed from being turned so many times, the paper color changing from white to yellow, then from yellow to brown, as if decades of time had been flattened and left to dry in an alley.

Old Liu squatted down and placed the eight coins on the edge of the plastic sheet. The coins touched the surface of the sheet and made a very soft thud.

The stall owner was an old lady wearing reading glasses, knitting. She glanced at him, then lowered her head to continue knitting.

"What are you looking for?"

"Find me a coin."

"What money?"

"Tongzhi Tongbao".

The old lady paused her knitting for a moment.

She pushed her reading glasses up her nose and pulled a tin box from under the stall.

The box was old, with faded peony patterns printed on the tin, and the corners were dented and uneven. She opened the box, and inside was half a box of copper coins.

Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng—but not Tongzhi. Old Liu turned the copper coins over one by one, his fingertips touching the copper, the eight emperor coins vibrating slightly in his palm—as if recognizing relatives.

"The Tongzhi Emperor reigned for a short time and had little money." The old lady put the knitting needle back into the ball of yarn. "I've been collecting old books for twenty years, and I've only ever seen three Tongzhi Tongbao coins."

One was bought by a young man wearing glasses, one was taken by an old man to be made into a ring, and there was one—"

She paused for a moment, then said, "It's at Old Zhou's stall at the very end of the alley. Go check it out; he might not have packed up yet."

Old Liu thanked the old lady and walked deeper into the alley.

The eight coins grew hotter and hotter in his palm, not scalding, but as if something was pushing them out from the end of the alley, pushing them against the air. The air pushed the coins, and the coins bounced along the lines of his palm.

He walked to the very end of the alley, where there was a stall propped up by a door panel. A blue cloth was spread on the door panel, on which were displayed copper locks, copper mirrors, copper bells, copper coins, and some old copperwares that he couldn't name.

Behind the door sat an old man, about seventy years old, thin, with wrinkles on his face as if carved by a knife. He wore a faded blue cloth jacket and was twirling a pair of walnuts in his hands.

The walnuts, polished smooth and shiny, twirled in his palm, making a very fine, soft rustling sound.

Old Liu squatted down in front of the door.

The eight coins suddenly trembled in his palm, making his tiger's mouth go numb.

He placed the eight coins on a blue cloth, each coin bearing an era name, lined up in a row under the dim lamplight. Old Zhou's gaze shifted from the walnuts to the eight coins, and he stopped playing with the walnuts.

"One's character is shaped by the world's circumstances."

He placed the walnuts on the door panel, picked up Old Liu's eight-emperor coins, and examined them one by one.

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

After looking at them one last time, he placed the eight coins back on the blue cloth. "Eight coins, seven dynasties, one aura. How long have you been raising them?"

"A few months."

"It took several months to raise it to this quality; it wasn't easy." Old Zhou pulled a wooden box from under the door and opened it.

The box was lined with old cotton, and on the cotton lay a copper coin—a Tongzhi Tongbao.

It's round on the outside and square on the inside, with smooth, warm edges. The front has four characters, and the back has Manchu script. The copper color isn't yellow or blue; it's an extremely pale grayish-white, like something repeatedly soaked and dried. It's exactly the same as Zhang Jinsheng's.

However, unlike other coins, this Tongzhi Tongbao coin has an extremely fine crack along the edge of the hole, extending from the hole all the way to the last stroke of the character "治".

The cracks were filled with rust, and the color was a deep indigo.

"I've kept this coin for thirty years."

Old Zhou took the Tongzhi Tongbao coin out of the box and held it in his palm. "Thirty years ago, an old lady sold it to me. She said this coin belonged to her husband. When her husband passed away, he separated the two Tongzhi Tongbao coins, taking one with him and leaving the other for her. The one he took would die in his place, and the one he left would live in her place. She lived for thirty years, until she was eighty years old, and when she passed away, she sold this coin. She asked me to burn paper money for her husband with the money from the sale."

Old Liu took the Tongzhi Tongbao coin.

The copper coin felt slightly cool to the touch, and the indigo crack was right next to his palm, like a wound that had taken thirty years to slowly heal.

The eight coins vibrated simultaneously in his palm—eight coins, vibrating at the same frequency.

They recognized the coin.

"Her man took a different one," Lao Liu said.

"Two Tongzhi Tongbao coins, minted in the same year and from the same furnace. One died in someone else's place, and the other lived. The one that died was dug up from the ground, wandered around for a while, and then died. The one that lived lived for someone else for thirty years. The person is gone, but the coin is still here."

"What is the living one waiting for?"

Old Zhou put the walnuts back together, the rustling sound echoing in the alley, mingling with the static from a radio on a distant stall, and the mournful sound of the night wind blowing through the half-demolished old wall.

"Wait for it." Old Zhou pointed to the eight coins on Old Liu's waist. "Wait for someone to take it back. Take back a living coin to where it belongs."

Old Liu placed the Tongzhi Tongbao coin next to his eight coins.

Nine coins are arranged in a row on the blue cloth—Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi, and Tongzhi. Two Tongzhi Tongbao coins are included, one of which is his own, and the other belongs to Old Zhou.

His own was still intact, with a warm, bronze luster.

Old Zhou's piece was full of life, with a coppery-grayish-white hue.

They were separated by his own eight coins, the copper not touching the copper, but their energy was already intertwined.

The grayish-white vapor and the warm vapor flowed slowly between the nine coins, like two streams that had been washed by the same river for many years, finally meeting on the same blue cloth.

"These two Tongzhi coins were originally a pair." Old Liu held the two Tongzhi Tongbao coins side by side in his left palm.

"One lived for me, and the other waited for me. The one that lived has lived enough, and the one that waited has waited its turn. They should be together now."

He strung his eight coins back onto the hemp rope, and also strung Old Zhou's Tongzhi coin onto it.

Nine coins and a hemp rope.

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

The hemp rope passed through the hole of the coin and was tied tightly with a ruyi knot. Nine coins hung from his waist, the copper coins clinking against each other, like nine people saying the same thing at the same time.

Old Zhou placed the walnuts on the door panel and looked at the nine coins on Old Liu's waist.

The lamplight on the door panel illuminated his face with distinct light and shadow, making his wrinkles appear as if they were carved by a knife, the deep ones even deeper, and the shallow ones even more pronounced.

"This coin has been with me for thirty years," he said. "For thirty years, many people have asked about it, but no one has bought it. It didn't want to leave. Today it does.

Old Liu took the nine coins off his waist and placed them on the door panel. He then picked out Old Zhou's Tongzhi Tongbao coin and held it in his palm.

The grayish-white gas clung to the bronze, and the indigo crack at the edge of the coin hole gleamed faintly in the lamplight.

"This coin lived for someone for thirty years. Now that person is gone, it continues to live for them." Old Liu put the Tongzhi Tongbao coin back among the nine coins. "From now on, it won't live for anyone anymore. It will live for itself."

Nine coins were strung together and hung at the waist.

Old Liu stood up, and the eight-emperor coins became nine-emperor coins. The clanging sound was heavier than when he arrived—not in terms of weight, but as if something had pushed outward from the depths of the nine coins, shaping them into a complete circle.

They are no longer Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng, and Tongzhi.

They began to become "Old Liu's Nine Emperor Coins".

As Lao Liu walked out of the alley, the lights in the night market went out one by one behind him.

The old lady packed the old books into a cardboard box, and Old Zhou took the door panel off and leaned it against the wall.

The night wind blew in through the gap in the half-demolished old wall, dispersing the lingering smells of old paper, rusty old bronzeware, and the rustling of walnut shells in the alley.

The nine coins at his waist jingled in the wind.

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

Nine coins, seven dynasties, two hemp ropes, and a lucky knot.

They were clinging to Lao Liu's waist, through his clothes, nine different temperatures, nine different worldly atmospheres, growing together.