A Prophet - Chapter 24 (Part 3)
Chapter 3 - Zeng Jingwu Cleverly Captures Kuomintang Secret Agents
Grandfather obediently accepted the order and acted in accordance with "Red Fox's" instructions.
On the evening three days later, Grandfather led dozens of brothers into the mountains. This time, all those brought along were ordinary foot soldiers, and none of the branch heads were allowed to participate. Grandfather was worried that these branch heads had too many criminal records and would eventually be sentenced to death for their accumulated crimes—saving as many as possible was the priority. As for the foot soldiers, they had joined the trade not long ago and still had relatively clean records; even if they were eventually arrested after the case broke, they could still be sent to labor re-education under the principle of "learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing the sickness to save the patient." As long as they stayed alive, there was hope.
Late into the night, the brothers finally heard strange bird calls echoing from the back mountain.
"Coo-coo, coo-coo, tsk-tsk, tsk-tsk."
Grandfather listened intently, then softly called out, "Is this Caoxi Road?"
A moment later, a voice replied, "A fine leisure spot for everyone."
"Is there an oil lamp to add a wick?" Grandfather called out again.
The other party answered, "Life and death are both unmissable."
"I am 'Hun Tian.'" Grandfather moved in the direction of the voice.
Two figures vaguely emerged from the bushes, carrying two radio transmitters, and said weakly, "We are 'Golden Tiger' and 'Silver Fox.' Why did you take so long to arrive? We've been squatting here for a whole day and night; our bread is finished, our water is completely gone, and we're starving and freezing."
"Dozens of miles of mountain paths are not easy to find. If it weren't for having many brothers, I probably still wouldn't have found the two of you right now," Grandfather said.
This was the first order Grandfather had received: to rendezvous with two Kuomintang airdropped secret agents, and then hide them inside coffins at Boss Wang's coffin shop while awaiting further instructions. The objective of the two secret agents was to contact underground agents lurking in Shanghai and blow up the Shanghai Power Plant.
Grandfather led the two men to Boss Wang's coffin shop and gently knocked on the shop door.
Boss Wang asked softly from inside the courtyard, "Who is it?"
"Boss, I need materials for a funeral rite to order a few coffins," Grandfather replied.
"Wait a moment." Boss Wang opened the door, poked his head out, looked around, and said, "Hurry in."
A banquet table had already been prepared in the inner room. "Come, come, this old man has been waiting for you all for a long time. Please take a seat," Boss Wang said with a smile.
Grandfather and the two secret agents sat down. The two agents were indeed starved and immediately reached out to eat.
Boss Wang raised his wine glass: "Oppose the Communists and recover the country, let us achieve the great enterprise together!"
The two secret agents hurriedly raised their glasses, and Grandfather raised his as well. The three of them said in unison: "Oppose the Communists and recover the country, let us achieve the great enterprise together!"
The four of them drained their glasses in one gulp. Grandfather pondered secretly in his heart: With so many secret agents lurking in every nook and cranny of society, if Fourth Master Jia hadn't exposed the truth, who would have ever known that this honest and thick-skinned coffin shop owner was a Kuomintang sleeper agent?
Grandfather and Boss Wang had been dealing with each other for quite some time. Usually, when Grandfather performed rites to exorcise demons, he frequently procured incense burners, candle stands, paper figures, and paper horses from the coffin shop. Whenever he encountered ghost marriages, he never forgot to throw some business Boss Wang's way, enticing the clients into purchasing a high-priced, luxury coffin. Ordinarily, Boss Wang always treated Grandfather with utmost respect, and Grandfather had already grown accustomed to Boss Wang bowing and scraping before him. Now that Boss Wang had suddenly flipped the script like a turtle turning over its shell, Grandfather still felt somewhat unaccustomed to it.
Amidst the clamor of that era of transition between the old and the new, any ordinary person could potentially be an unfathomable martial arts master who had been hiding for a long time. They lay low among the mundane markets on both sides of the strait; some exposed themselves amid the shifting tides of the times, while others never exposed themselves at all. Years later, when people distanced themselves from war, conspiracies, and slaughter, these very individuals coincidentally became a vital driving force in promoting cross-strait reunification. At their core, they were all Chinese; they had merely fought for their respective stances, much like a pair of brothers who had fallen out but would eventually shake hands and make peace.
After a few drinks, Grandfather suddenly felt a hint of daze before his vision blurred: "Not good! There's drugs in the wine!" Grandfather lost consciousness.
How much time passed, he did not know, but Grandfather felt a wave of dizziness. He cupped his head with both hands and found himself lying on a bamboo couch. He propped himself up and looked closely; a familiar face floated into view.
"Instructor Zeng?" Grandfather called out in astonishment.
"Grandfather, don't move yet. The effects of the drug haven't worn off." Zeng Jingwu helped Grandfather sit up.
"What is going on here?" Grandfather patted his head.
"Grandfather, you really gave me a fright this time." Zeng Jingwu let out a sigh. "Do you remember the pact we two brothers once made in Shanghai? You said you would never join either the Nationalist or the Communist party."
"I remember, I remember." Grandfather nodded.
"A few days ago, intelligence indicated that you were a Kuomintang informant planted on the mainland, which gave me quite a scare."
"Instructor Zeng doesn't even trust me?" Grandfather forced a bitter smile.
"Alas, it's not a matter of trust. Over all these years, our Party has suffered immensely in this regard. Not to mention outsiders, even founders of our Party, such as Zhou Fohai and Chen Gongbo, didn't they defect? In times of blood and rain, how many people can truly maintain their faith? Besides, Grandfather, you played a dangerously high stakes game this time—your Second Branch Head almost lost his life as well!" Zeng Jingwu said with deep emotion.
"Something happened to the Second Branch Head?" Grandfather was greatly shocked.
As it turned out, after Grandfather feigned allegiance to the Kuomintang, he secretly deliberated on how to transmit the information out. He knew he was definitely being monitored by secret agents like Fourth Master Jia, and the moment he traveled out, he would inevitably expose his flaws. After deep contemplation, he had the Second Branch Head disguise himself and quietly carry a confidential letter to find Zeng Jingwu.
Unexpectedly, this detail was also grasped by the Kuomintang secret agents. The Second Branch Head sprinted all the way, completely unaware that someone was tailing him, and was nearly butchered the moment he reached the outskirts. Fortunately, the underground communist agents arranged by Zeng Jingwu appeared in the nick of time, captured the Kuomintang agents, and saved the Second Branch Head.
When Zeng Jingwu first received the news that Grandfather had joined the Kuomintang, he was also extremely nervous. Assassinating the leader of New China and blowing up the Shanghai Power Plant were two major cornerstones of the "Pengcheng Plan." New China's intelligence agencies had promptly intercepted this intelligence, and both the northern and southern public security systems had already cast an inescapable net, just waiting for Mao Renfeng and Liu Hanshan to make their move. Consequently, Grandfather found himself involuntarily entangled in the middle of it all, catching Zeng Jingwu, who was in charge of intelligence in Shanghai, completely off guard.
Adhering to an attitude of extreme caution, Zeng Jingwu did not alert the enemy, choosing instead to observe how Grandfather handled the situation—just in case Grandfather really was a Nationalist agent. It wasn't until Grandfather arranged for the Second Branch Head to deliver the message that the heavy stone pressing on Zeng Jingwu's chest finally fell.
"Does Grandfather know who betrayed you?" Zeng Jingwu asked.
"Who?"
"No outsider. It was the brothers from your own branch hall."
"Which ones?"
"The few individuals who came over from Qin Baichuan's side are all Kuomintang secret agents. Bearded Qin didn't know it before your death, and you didn't spot it either! Two foot soldiers kept tailing the Second Branch Head. If our men hadn't followed closely behind, both you and the Second Branch Head would have been exposed."
"No wonder." Grandfather fell into deep contemplation and said, "I considered my plan airtight, and the Second Branch Head's disguise technique is not something ordinary people can see through. Which specific individuals are they?"
"Wu Wenming, Wang Guocai, and Jia Dachong," Zeng Jingwu replied.
"Hahahahaha." Grandfather looked up toward the sky and laughed heartily, then said, "Wu Wenming [No Culture] means being extraordinarily ugly; Wang Guocai [Ruin Country Talent] means a wasted talent of a ruined nation; Jia Dachong [False Loyalty] means lacking true loyalty. Onomastics is truly a subject worth studying; when examined closely, it is full of fascinating irony."
"Heh." Zeng Jingwu also smiled. "We've reached this point, and Grandfather still has the heart to joke."
"Where are the two airdropped secret agents?" Grandfather remembered the two men he had brought from the mountains.
"They've both been arrested."
"What about Boss Wang of the coffin shop?"
"He is one of our own Party's people!"
Grandfather experienced a wave of dizziness. The owner of the coffin shop had alternately turned out to be a Kuomintang secret agent and an underground Communist Party member—was this what they called a double agent of legend?
"What happens next?" Grandfather asked.
"Use falsity to deceive the enemy, follow the vine to unearth the melon, and sweep up all the secret agents in Shanghai in one fell swoop!"
"Understood." Grandfather nodded, then ground his teeth as he said, "Those scoundrels in my branch hall—I'm going to carve them up myself!"
"No, absolutely not!" Zeng Jingwu said hurriedly.
"Why?"
"Grandfather, this is no longer the old society. We are the People's Republic of China, and traitors must be handed over to the people for trial."
"The people? Where are they?" Grandfather was stunned.
Zeng Jingwu was even more stunned. "Where? They're everywhere."
"Commoners?" Grandfather said with a puzzled expression. "What do commoners understand? They're just bumpkins and potato farmers. Can they dig information out of a prisoner's mouth? They don't even know how to write their own names!"
"Heh." Zeng Jingwu chuckled, shook his head, and said, "Grandfather, you really need to study some politics. We have the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, people's courts at all levels, people's assessors, and soon there will also be the National People's Congress. You must not underestimate the strength of the masses; the foundational base of our Party's enterprise is the broad masses of the people!"
What Zeng Jingwu said was no idle talk; the power of the people was something Chiang Kai-shek and his followers never grasped or utilized in their entire lives. However, the two secret agents "108" and "999," whom Liu Hanshan had airdropped near Beijing to rendezvous with Duan Yunpeng, truly and deeply experienced what it meant to fall into the vast ocean of the people.
The Great Wall stretches for thousands of miles with its soldiers, and mountains and rivers span ten thousand miles in red. After "108" and "999" were dropped from the plane, "108" got snagged in a tree, couldn't untangle his parachute, and didn't dare call for help, ultimately freezing to death. "999" was discovered by peasant elders on the outskirts of Beijing the moment he landed. The elderly man shouted at the top of his lungs, attracting a large crowd of militia members who rushed forward brandishing picks, hoes, and sickles. The moment "999" drew his military saber and waved it around a few times, he was completely submerged by the masses.
Meanwhile, the wild hag case in Sichuan was also cracked by public security organs, with the Nine Palaces Daoist Master Liu Santao acting as the mastermind behind the scenes. This case was the premier major human-trafficking case of the early founding period of the nation. There was no wild hag at all; it was Liu Santao's criminal gang who had lured underage children deep into the mountains, imprisoning them in a secret alchemical furnace room he had built in order to refine so-called immortal pills.
The practice of refining immortal pills using young boys and girls was a recurring motif in the history of medical sorcery, particularly during the Ming Dynasty, when Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Houcong, went madly obsessed with alchemy, tasting every immortal pill under the sun in pursuit of eternal youth. Yet the carving knife of time still mercilessly carved through the rings of his life. As years passed and he consumed numerous elixirs, his complexion grew increasingly haggard.
Finally, one day, a Daoist sorcerer volunteered himself, claiming to have invented a brand-new alchemical technique. He asserted that if this type of elixir were taken continuously for several years, one's complexion would definitely become rosy and youth would be restored. Thus, the most barbaric, bloody, ignorant, and cruel alchemical technique in history made its appearance deep within the imperial palace grounds.
This type of elixir, named "Red Lead," was brewed using the menstrual blood of virgins as its raw material. Hundreds of fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girls experiencing the first stirrings of romance were coaxed by the sorcerer and the emperor into entering the imperial palace one after another. Believing they were fortunate enough to become court maidens, they never imagined they would instead become raw materials for alchemy.
Once these girls were imprisoned within the inner palace's alchemy chambers, they did nothing all day except wait for their menstrual cycles to arrive so that imperial physicians and sorcerers could hold copper basins to catch the blood. To ensure the purity of the menstrual blood, the sorcerer commanded the girls to abstain from eating meals, consuming only a few mulberry leaves and a tiny sip of dew each day. The girls were tortured until they lost all color in their faces and became utterly emaciated. Later on, as the alchemy chamber required ever-greater quantities of menstrual blood, the normal menstrual volume of the court maidens could no longer satisfy the palace's demands. After a devious discussion between the sorcerers and imperial physicians, they began administering drugs to the girls. These drugs were specifically formulated to induce menstruation with extremely violent potency, quickly throwing the maidens' physiological states into utter disorder, causing them to hemorrhage multiple times every month.
In this manner, the palace maidens were tortured to the brink of death until their bodies were completely hollowed out and could no longer produce menstrual blood. At that point, Zhu Houcong would use the excuse of "human scum" to bury these people alive. "Human scum" meant that the essence of their bodies had been completely drained, leaving behind only an empty husk of dregs. The term coined by Zhu Houcong was later applied to himself, with future generations of historians referring to him as the "Human Scum Emperor."
Once alchemy entered this stage, it crossed into the demonic realm. The entire imperial court was saturated with eerie winds and an ominous aura. Not long after Zhu Houcong died, Wei Zhongxian was born, followed closely by "eight thousand female ghosts disrupting court discipline," leading the Ming Dynasty to gradually stumble toward its doom amidst a chaotic dance of demons.
As an elite Daoist sorcerer of his generation, Liu Santao was obsessed with alchemy and firmly believed that "Red Lead" could prolong life and enhance longevity. To live a little longer, he resorted to his old tricks, secretly abducting young boys and girls, using the menstrual blood of girls to refine pills and drinking boys' urine as an alchemical medium in a delusional bid for immortality. He had also fabricated the "wild hag" rumors to hoodwink the common people.
Heaven has eyes; the public security organs cracked this major child-abduction case, arrested Liu Santao, and confiscated one radio and four pistols from the Nine Palaces Daoist Temple. With ironclad evidence, Liu Santao confessed completely. The secret agent heavily bribed by the Kuomintang and hidden within the "sectarian societies" finally shed his painted skin, awaiting him now was a severe sentence meted out by the people. With this, the rumor of the "Celestial Eye" fabricated by Liu Santao naturally collapsed without being attacked.
Later, under the personal command of Luo Ruiqing, the Ministry of Public Security captured Liu Hanshan's ace assassin, Duan Yunpeng, alive. The Chairman was safe in the north, Shanghai was stabilized in the south, and the first espionage war of New China ended with a complete victory for the People's Republic. Only then did Grandfather understand that the Kuomintang had adopted a diversionary tactic: the so-called blowing up of the Shanghai Power Plant was merely a smokescreen to create tension, while assassinating the leader of New China was their true objective. Fourth Master Jia and the two secret agents hidden inside the coffins were merely sacrificial chess pieces, used along the way to drag Grandfather into the mess; otherwise, why would anyone have revealed such top-secret information as blowing up a power plant to Grandfather, a person of ambiguous loyalty?
The first day of the lunar new year in 1952. Zeng Jingwu came to offer New Year greetings to Grandfather.
The two of them drank wine and chatted, recounting everything from 15-year-old Grandfather first entering the Axe Gang to deliver a message, to the two of them plotting to shake up the Zhoushan Archipelago, from the death of Ninth Master Wang Yaqiao to their joint efforts to squeeze out Fourth Master Jia and force that old ghost to reveal his true colors. As they talked on and on, their eyes welled up with warm tears.
"Grandfather, you should leave." Coming to the end of the conversation, Zeng Jingwu suddenly blurted out.
Grandfather was startled, and both fell into silence. This was a topic neither of them was willing to face, yet ultimately had to confront.
"The new round of the campaign to suppress 'sectarian societies' is about to begin. No matter what, the reality that Grandfather is a 'sectarian society' boss will not change," Zeng Jingwu said.
"I understand." Grandfather nodded.
"This time is different from the past. Are you really not leaving?" Zeng Jingwu spoke what was in his heart.
"I went through so much trouble to gather this group of ragtag fellows together precisely to send them onto the right path," Grandfather said profoundly.
"People will die this way. You'd be better off running away first. Once the campaign is launched, I will clean out the old nest of your 'Jiangxiang Guild,' and I guarantee not a single person will slip through the net. That way your brothers can be reformed, and you won't have to march to your death," Zeng Jingwu said.
Grandfather shook his head. "I understand the 'Jiangxiang Guild' better than you do. As long as the boss is not dead, they will retain hope. Not only must I die, but I must let them watch me die. Only then can everything be settled once and for all."
"With a character like yours, why didn't you join the Communist Party back then!" Zeng Jingwu said with a tone of regret.
Grandfather could not help laughing.
"However, things are probably going to get real this time. The bandits and secret agents have been mostly wiped out, and nowadays the various local 'sectarian societies' are making a huge ruckus. We are materialists; millennia of feudal superstition will be eradicated in this very era. You know Xiangæž—å«‚ [Xianglin's Wife], right?"
"I know, I know, the character in Lu Xun's writings."
"How pitiful she is. There are plenty of people like that in China right now. We must awaken the people, making them understand that only they can liberate themselves. Gods and ghosts—Chinese people have believed in ghosts and gods for three thousand years, yet ultimately ended up in poverty and destitution! Your 'Jiangxiang Guild' carried out justice on behalf of heaven, but times have changed. In this new era, the proper path among human affairs is full of vicissitudes!" At his most emotional point, Zeng Jingwu's cheeks flushed red.
"Instructor Zeng is right. I have pondered the affairs of the 'Jiangxiang Guild' for a long time; it is indeed time for a conclusion. I am entrusting Instructor Zeng with one matter..." Grandfather thought for a moment and said.
"Grandfather, please speak! As long as it doesn't violate Party discipline and state laws, I will certainly carry it out!"
"Heh. Of course it won't violate them. Not only will it not violate them, it will even assist you in your work."
"What is it?" Zeng Jingwu's eyes lit up.
Grandfather raised his voice and shouted toward the doorway, "Big Head!"
At that time, I was setting off firecrackers outside the courtyard with the Second Branch Head and others—a string of one thousand firecrackers known as "Earth Red." The Second Branch Head had wrapped the firecrackers several times around a tree branch before hanging them up, then lit them with a long incense stick. They popped and crackled in a tremendous explosion, creating a deeply celebratory atmosphere.
Grandfather shouted a few times before I heard him, and I hurried inside.
"Grandfather, did you call me?"
"Heh, silly Big Head." Grandfather smiled at me and said, "Go to the west wing room. Next to the stove there is a cabinet, and inside the cabinet there is a bundle. Go bring the first book inside it."
"Yes!" I happily went to fetch the book. Being assigned a task by the boss for a subordinate to execute was a supreme honor for a junior.
Before long, I brought the book over. Looking at it closely, it wasn't a book at all; it was a stack of manuscripts written by Grandfather. The title on the front page read: Records of Yin and Yang Demystifying Delusions.
Grandfather took the manuscript, blew the dust off the top, flipped through a few pages, and then handed it to Zeng Jingwu.
"This is?" Zeng Jingwu took it with a puzzled expression.
Grandfather said nothing, gesturing for him to take a look.
Zeng Jingwu read a few pages, his expression growing deeply thoughtful before he suddenly slammed his hand down on the table and stood up. "Brilliant! Brilliant! Using the spear of another to attack their own shield—brilliant!"
It gave me such a start that I shivered.
Following Grandfather's death, a vigorous movement to break down superstitions was launched across the country. Grandfather's manuscript was printed and became one of the primary exemplary readings for the masses to eliminate superstition, though the author's name listed was not "Shangguan Chengming," but "Anonymous." Given Grandfather's sensitive identity, his real name was not used on the book. After the launch of the Cultural Revolution, such books were banned.
I was fortunate enough to hide a copy during the Cultural Revolution, preventing it from being taken by my son and daughter to the commune to be burned as one of the "Four Olds." This was the warning admonition to the world written with the last remnants of Grandfather's exhaustive efforts. People who believed in superstitious fortune-telling basically regained their clarity of mind upon reading this book.
Grandfather's intentions could be scrutinized by heaven and earth: he wore two faces—one yin and one yang—while his ambitions resided between good and evil. For so many years, just like numerous fortune-tellers, Grandfather had bitterly pursued the path of scholarship and the way of human conduct, repeatedly examining the accuracy and practicality of various fortune-telling arts, and even reflecting on the trajectory of his own destiny more than once. All these rights and wrongs, births and deaths, invariably attested to a single truth: good and evil are the root causes of the rise and fall of destiny; fortune-telling is merely an appearance, while the cause and effect behind it are the reality.
Pity the common folk of the world, who remained oblivious to this principle until their dying day, parasitically clinging to the chains of fate like oil beetles. They feared their destiny was bad, they sensed their destiny was already bad, yet they could never find a way to alter their fate. They begged bitterly for the heavens to show mercy, desperate for fortune-tellers to point out a way through the maze; their entire lives were spent wandering within the prison of destiny, unable to break through, and not even daring to try. They walked on thin ice with utmost caution, living out their lives in trembling terror amidst poverty and misfortune, never daring to contend with fate.
Fortunately, the "Jiangxiang Guild" had appeared in history, and out of the "Jiangxiang Guild" had come Grandfather. This was perhaps the mission history had bestowed upon Grandfather. Any earth-shattering work capable of awakening the world must inevitably be the heartfelt outpouring of someone within the trade. Only by mastering the tricks and logic of an industry to perfection and scaling the heights of research in a certain field could one inherit the past to establish the present, sweeping away all obstacles with irresistible force, arguing with solid evidence, and flowing smoothly from beginning to end.
Records of Yin and Yang Demystifying Delusions recorded many historical stories concerning fortune-telling, alongside Grandfather's theoretical arguments. In short, he wanted to make the common people of the world understand the true meaning of destiny: fortune-telling is unreliable, and changing one's fate relies solely on oneself. Let us appreciate Grandfather's posthumous work, which contains the following passages:
In bygone days, Jiang Ziya accompanied King Wu on his expedition to subjugate Zhou. Before the great battle, he commanded a sorcerer to perform divination, resulting in the hexagram of "Pi" [Stagnation] from the Book of Changes—an extremely inauspicious hexagram. Furthermore, while the divination was being cast, torrential rain fell from the skies and washed over the sacrificial altar, extinguishing the incense—all signs of ill omen. All the officials declared that this battle was bound to be lost, yet Jiang Ziya alone forcefully rejected the dissenting views, stating that the strength of the common people surpasses that of ghosts and gods. In the end, King Wu achieved a great victory. People say Jiang Ziya was fond of tinkering with arcane arts, but at the critical moment, Jiang Ziya did not believe in fortune-telling at all, basing his decisions instead on the current state of affairs.
Lü Cai, a great genius of the Tang Dynasty, was thoroughly versed in the principles of yin and yang and fond of the five mystical arts; the censor Wei Zheng never failed to pay deep respects whenever he encountered him. Yet this man frankly stated in his Essay on Fortune-Telling: "Diviners elevate people's official ranks and lifespans to please their hearts, and exaggerate fortunes and misfortunes to extort people's wealth... Yet a family that accumulates goodness will inevitably have a surplus of blessings—is it truly necessary to establish an official salary before things become auspicious? A family that accumulates evil will inevitably have a surplus of calamities—is it truly necessary to invite the plundering ghost-star before disaster strikes?"
Lü Cai was a rare genius of destiny studies in history, and the Old Book of Tang still preserves his famous essay on naming studies. It was precisely because he penetrated deep into the fortress of fortune-telling, knowing both himself and his enemy, that he was able to launch a counter-attack and drive fortune-telling arts to their doom.
Chancellor Cai Jing of the Northern Song Dynasty. Although this man was an infamous traitorous chancellor, he repeatedly made outstanding contributions in the eradication of superstition. One day, he summoned multiple fortune-tellers of the capital to divine his fate. The fortune-tellers vied with one another to praise Cai Jing, exclaiming that he was blessed, prosperous, and bound for supreme nobility! Upon hearing this, Cai Jing threw his head back and laughed heartily, then pointed to a man behind him named Zheng Xiaoxiao, saying to the fortune-tellers: "Zheng Xiaoxiao was born in the same year, the same month, the same day, and the same hour as I. His father, Zheng Fen, was an old friend of my father. Today, I have become a chancellor, yet Zheng Xiaoxiao still inherits his father's profession, selling steamed pancakes. What high theories do you, esteemed scholars, offer in response?" The fortune-tellers were all left speechless and mute.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, came from a humble background, but after unifying the realm, he could not sleep peacefully day or night. Upon seeing this, Grand Master of the Book of Changes Liu Bowen hurried to ask why. Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Why was I able to become emperor?" Liu Bowen replied: "It was the mandate of heaven." Zhu Yuanzhang asked again: "Then surely someone born in the same year, same month, same day, and same hour as me must also possess the potential to become emperor?" Liu Bowen immediately caught on, and the very next day he issued a secret decree to the administration commissioners to search out anyone sharing Zhu Yuanzhang's eight characters. In the end, three such individuals were found: a monk, a beggar, and a market merchant. From then on, Zhu Yuanzhang slept soundly!
Ji Xiaolan, a great genius of the Qing Dynasty, was infatuated with fortune-telling arts in his youth until the day his nephew was born. On that very same day and at the exact same hour, on the other side of a window, the son of his family's servant, Liu Yunpeng, was also born. Ji Xiaolan looked at the two infants and sighed: "Identical eight characters—will their destinies be the same?" Sixteen years later, his nephew died prematurely, while Liu Yunpeng remained alive and well, living past seventy-three. From then on, the Imperial Academician no longer obsessed over numerical arts.
Chinese numerical arts have undergone numerous iterations, from early turtle shell divination, astromancy, dream divination, and cloud divination, down to later yarrow stalk divination, coin divination, Taixuan divination, eight-character divination, plum blossom divination, and chess divination. Every single one of them called upon people to tie their destiny to the fortune-tellers. People clung to a myth, holding fast to an expectation, unaware that fortune-tellers lectured others on the grand principles of human conduct while hiding in dark corners to eat, drink, gamble, and visit prostitutes. This has forever been the bizarre logic between the fortune-teller and the fortune-told. Do humans have a destiny? Yes. If not, how do we live? Do humans have a destiny? No. Everything stems from cause and effect! The affairs of the world pass in a hurry; doing good is paramount...
Grandfather was gone, leaving behind his posthumous work and the heartfelt words that inspired the minds of men.
Was Grandfather truly dead? At least until the appearance of Huang Farong's daughter, I had always believed so.
We watched with our own eyes as Grandfather walked step by step toward the execution ground, and at that time the brothers cried their eyes out. Immediately afterwards, the brothers of the branch hall all received their deserved punishments.
I was sentenced to five years.