A Prophet - Chapter 19 (Part 1)

Chapter 1 - Three Types of the Book of Changes: Lianshan Yi, Guicang Yi, and Zhouyi

Grandfather seemed to have thought of something, frowning as his eyes stared unblinkingly at the oil lamp, various clues intertwining within the flickering light.

"Sir? Sir?" Hong Laohu watched Grandfather's dazed expression, completely bewildered.

Liu Congyun also gazed at Grandfather. As fellow disciples of the Jiangxiang Sect, they shared a telepathic tacit understanding; he knew that the master of the "Muzi Lian" faction was about to make a major discovery.

Grandfather suddenly slapped his forehead, his brilliantly shining eyes flashing. "The corpse-driving team... the map... feng shui... dragon veins... dragon lairs... could the Japanese be searching for..."

"The death lair!" Liu Congyun immediately realized. "Searching for the death lair of China's dragon vein!"

"Once the death lair is struck, China's national fortune will be completely exhausted!" Grandfather added.

"That must be it! The Lianshan Yi mentions that there are dragon-traveling tunnels across the land of China!" Liu Congyun said eagerly.

"The Lianshan Yi? Dragon-traveling tunnels?" Everyone was shocked.

Grandfather smiled, looked at Liu Congyun, and then said to the others, "When it comes to feng shui, Military Advisor Liu is the expert. We should let the advisor explain." Grandfather knew how to handle people, deliberately praising Liu Congyun to let him show off in front of Hong Laohu.

Liu Congyun understood the hint perfectly. He took a sip of tea, pursed his lips, and said, "Don't be anxious, everyone, let this old man explain slowly! Most people today know about the Book of Changes, but they don't know that there are actually three types of it. The ancient versions were the Lianshan Yi, the Guicang Yi, and the Zhouyi. Later, the Lianshan Yi and the Guicang Yi were both lost, and only the Zhouyi was passed down. What people call the Book of Changes today actually refers solely to the Zhouyi. Later, I heard that when the Dunhuang scripture cave was opened, a duplicate copy of the Lianshan Yi was found, but after the foreign powers arrived, it went missing. Could it... could it have fallen into the hands of the Japanese devils?" At this point, Liu Congyun himself grew anxious.

"If it falls into the devils' hands, what will happen?" Hong Laohu asked.

"Ancient legends state that the Lianshan Yi records how, after Pangu separated heaven and earth, the cosmic layout of the heavens tilting to the northwest and the earth sinking to the southeast was basically set, and twelve dragon-traveling tunnels are hidden deep within the earth! The ancients believed that dragons shuttled between the five lakes, four seas, mountains, and rivers. Once the death lair of a dragon-traveling tunnel is struck, that region will suffer a blockage of the vital energy of the five elements, resulting in the total exhaustion of its national fortune, causing the heavens to collapse and the earth to sink!"

"Heh, Advisor, those words sound a bit absurd!" Hong Laohu countered. "If there were dragon-traveling tunnels underground, wouldn't people like us have fallen right through them long ago? The Japanese devils have pressed down with overwhelming military might—tank brigades, infantry brigades, and cavalry brigades pushing thousands of kilometers deep into our country—and we haven't seen a single tank fall into a dragon-traveling tunnel."

Liu Congyun pondered for a moment, then said, "Perhaps later generations misunderstood. The dragon-traveling tunnels spoken of by the ancients are not tunnels in the way we understand them, but rather a form of vital energy. It is like the vital energy within the human body—invisible and intangible, yet circulating throughout the entire system. Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that blood follows where energy leads, and energy is the commander of blood; energy drives the blood, and blood is the mother of energy. It truly exists! When energy and blood are flourishing, a person has spirit; when energy and blood are deficient, a person falls ill. That must be what it means. The wisdom of the ancients cannot be easily fathomed by people today."

"Mm, what the advisor says makes a fair amount of sense." Hong Laohu nodded in praise.

The moon was dark and the wind was high, and the mountain cave hummed loudly from the howling wind. Grandfather, Liu Congyun, and Hong Laohu analyzed the situation meticulously.

Hong Laohu had started out as a bandit in the deep mountains since the Central Plains War, and by now he had been reigning as a mountain king for nearly ten years. After the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army occupied Hubei and might soon launch an offensive into Hunan. As a major bandit chieftain holding down the borderlands of Hunan and Hubei, he also began to ponder his own future.

Survival was difficult for the unique demographic of bandits. Whether they were unpardonable major bandits or righteous bandits driven to the mountains by desperation, times were hard for all of them. The Nationalist Party suppressed bandits, the Communist Party suppressed bandits, and even the Japanese suppressed bandits. Sometimes in the occupied territories, the Japanese would launch massive bandit-suppression campaigns that ordinary citizens cheered for. Ordinary bandits simply wanted to grab a share of the spoils in these chaotic times, while ambitious bandits sought to continuously grow and expand—just like Zhang Zuolin in the Northeast—carving out a separatist regime that forced the imperial court to whitewash them, ultimately becoming peerless warlords who influenced the course of Chinese history.

Yet bandits were ultimately a marginalized and vulnerable group; ruthless methods could not make up for a shortage of strategic intellect. No matter how fierce they were, they could not escape the ultimate fate of being wiped out. If a bandit group possessed individuals as courageous and resourceful as Hong Laohu and Liu Congyun, or a think tank that could rival all opposing forces, it would not be far from achieving great things.

Hong Laohu carefully sorted out his future. A simple schoolteacher, well-read and courteous in educating future generations, should have pursued a gentle and refined profession. Yet the ways of the world did not go as hoped, forcing him to pick up a blade and shoulder a gun, seizing the mountains and turning to banditry. Hong Laohu possessed a broad vision; he recognized that Grandfather was timber of high quality and intended to recruit him under his command.

"What plans does the sir have for the future?" Hong Laohu suddenly asked Grandfather.

"Heh," Grandfather chuckled, anticipating that Hong Laohu would ask this. "Commander, my brothers and I are members of the Jiangxiang Sect in life and ghosts of the Jiangxiang Sect in death. Although we find ourselves in a dangerous predicament right now, our fundamental nature of grasping the universe and divining the heavens has not changed. To be able to meet a figure of such mutual loyalty and sincerity as Commander Hong today is already the greatest fortune of three lifetimes. When tomorrow dawns, my brothers and I will naturally head south and leave your esteemed territory, so as not to cause the commander any further trouble."

"You are too modest, sir. You are a disciple of Master Jiu, and I have always held Wang Yaqiao in high respect. You possess a chivalrous heart and an intellect spanning ancient and modern times, and the advisor has also mentioned you many times. Now the times are in chaos and the devils are pressing hard, so why doesn't the sir stay at my humble dwelling for a while? We can wait until the situation clarifies before making further plans."

Before Grandfather could reply, Hong Laohu continued, "As we analyzed the dragon vein just now, I found that the situation is becoming increasingly grave. Although I have taken to the mountains as a bandit, I am a Chinaman. Even if I don't cooperate with the Nationalist and Communist parties, I have no desire to let the Japanese trample China flat! If a dragon vein truly exists, and the Japanese devils really manage to locate the dragon-traveling tunnels, won't our Chinese nation face a catastrophic disaster? Therefore, we must figure this matter out together and not shame our status as descendants of Yan and Huang!"

Grandfather had been waiting precisely for these words from Hong Laohu. He understood that relying solely on his own strength to fight the Japanese and that group of "sectarians" left him isolated and weak. If he could drag Hong Laohu into the fold, things would become much easier.

Both old foxes wanted to use the other for their own purposes.

Grandfather nodded. "Commander Hong is a man of great righteousness whom I deeply admire! However, my brothers and I are merely fortune-tellers and diviners. I wonder how we can be of any help under Commander Hong—by eating for free? Not to mention myself, even my subordinates would not be willing."

"Heh, you are being too modest, sir. My brothers and I were also ordinary folks. Once we picked up guns and took lives, we became bandits. The waves you stirred up in Shanghai were also quite grand; we are all fellow travelers in this world. After the devils occupied the Three Towns of Wuhan, their next move will be to advance into Hunan. To be frank with you, we are also considering whether to fight to the death with the devils once, retreat, or surrender and accept reorganization by the devils as puppet troops. With over a thousand brothers and a thousand mouths, I am responsible for them."

"Mhm," Liu Congyun nodded from the side. "The devils are out in the open while we are in the dark; this is one of our favorable conditions. The devils have invaded China, stretching their supply lines too thin. Even with precise maps, they still cannot avoid suffering from acclimatization, which is our second favorable condition. Especially these mountains, with their treacherous terrain, making them easy to defend and hard to attack. When the devils come, if we fight and retreat simultaneously, self-preservation will be completely unproblematic. Of course, the devils are heavily equipped, with airplanes bombing from above and tanks advancing from below. If we fight a positional war, we are no match for them. Furthermore, the devils possess chemical weapons. Once a north wind or northeast wind blows, the mountain pass ahead of us will become our ghost gate; if the devils seize the opportunity to release poison gas, none of us will be able to run."

Grandfather nodded. "There is one more condition in our favor. The devils' invasion of China focuses primarily on occupying major cities and railway lines; they rarely station troops in remote, desolate places because they simply do not have the manpower. My subordinates told me that in his hometown in Henan, a whole county had only a handful of real Japanese, while the rest were puppet troops and traitors. Therefore, even if the devils attack Hunan, they will only strike major cities like Changsha. To put it bluntly, the devils will only march on those main grounds. Once their main forces pass through and enter the frontal battlefield, we can precisely launch ambushes from behind—just like the Communist Party's behind-the-enemy-lines guerrilla units, ghost-like and unpredictable, launching sudden strikes. We fight when we can win, and we run when we cannot, focusing on seizing weapons and strategic supplies. This way, the commander's forces will grow larger and larger, and we will win the praise of the common people."

"Hahaha, the advisor and the sir speak with absolute correctness! Running away and surrendering are both inferior strategies! Eliminating the enemy's effective strength while strengthening ourselves is the superior strategy," Hong Laohu said with a smile.

"Of course, if a dragon vein map truly exists and we can get our hands on it, that would be the best outcome of all!" Liu Congyun said.

"Are there any records of dragon-traveling tunnels throughout ancient and modern times?" Hong Laohu steered the topic back to feng shui.

"Of course there are. Both Grandfather and I study this field, and we understand quite a bit about it."

"Things like feng shui have been exaggerated to a mystical degree since ancient times. Just how much practical effect does it actually have?" Hong Laohu pressed further.

Grandfather smiled. "The effect of feng shui can be large or small; it can determine life and death, or it can be utterly useless!"

"How do you explain that?" Hong Laohu was startled, and even Liu Congyun felt that Grandfather's statement was a bit biased.

"Feng shui, known in ancient times as the art of geomancy, is bluntly the study of how people can live auspiciously in a given location. From grand imperial palaces down to thatched huts and farming cottages, their orientation, direction, surrounding geographical conditions including the trends of mountain ranges, the positions of rivers and trees, and so on, all fall within the scope of feng shui investigation."