A Prophet - Preface

Preface 

Have you ever had your fortune told? Have you ever been scammed?

This is a little-known group, yet one that can appear by your side at any moment. These individuals are not true fortune-tellers, nor are they researchers of the Book of Changes. They possess only a superficial, half-baked understanding, yet they style themselves as "fortune-tellers." They manipulate rhetoric and set up scams, operating either alone or in small groups of three to five, hawking their services on street corners or making unsolicited house calls. In alleyways, streets, teahouses, and wine shops, their figures can frequently be seen. These "fortune-tellers" are intricately connected to a group we are about to introduce—the "Jiang Xiang Faction"!

What is the "Jiang Xiang Faction"? What do they do?

The "Jiang Xiang Faction" was a special group that used the banner of fortune-telling to swindle people out of their money, existing for nearly 300 years in Chinese history. They arose during the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns of the Qing Dynasty, flourished in the late Qing and Republican eras, dissolved after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and vanished after the founding of the People's Republic. This organization was initially founded by Fang Zhaoyu, one of the Five Ancestors of the Hongmen, for the purpose of "overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Ming." They raised the banner of fortune-telling and physiognomy to secretly recruit members for the Heaven and Earth Society, propagating the concept of "acting on behalf of Heaven" to continuously expand anti-Qing forces. However, with the progression of history, by the late Qing and Republican periods, this group gradually lost its moral path, shifting from "overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Ming" to pure swindling and deception, and the entire branch completely lost its sense of righteousness. After the founding of the nation, it completely disintegrated and vanished during the campaigns against reactionary secret societies in New China. As a group, it perished, but because the "Jiang Xiang Faction" was once extremely prosperous, with tens of thousands of followers spread across the country, its scam techniques also became widely circulated. Consequently, to this day, in certain corners of society, some fortune-tellers still uphold the lingering legacy of the "Jiang Xiang Faction," cheating, swindling, and stirring up trouble. These people have all been influenced by the "Jiang Xiang Faction" to varying degrees, and can be said to be the remnants of the "Jiang Xiang Faction."

Relevant historians once attempted to decode the "Jiang Xiang Faction," but ultimately gave up due to a lack of historical materials. The secret manuals of the "Jiang Xiang Faction" were passed down by word of mouth, and their whereabouts were extraordinarily covert. They donned the glamorous disguise of "fortune-telling masters" to wantonly perpetrate scams. Reaching high-ranking officials and nobles on one end, and rustic villagers on the other, none could escape their all-encompassing net, yet extremely few were ever able to see through them.

Jianghu rumors say they put on god-frightening and ghost-deceiving acts, amassed wealth through fraud, exhausted all moral conscience, and committed every conceivable misdeed. So what was their actual life really like? How exactly did these people carry out their scams? Were they truly completely devoid of humanity?

There is a living elder who is a descendant of the "Jiang Xiang Faction." Born in 1928, he joined the "Jiang Xiang Faction" in 1948, was imprisoned in 1952 during the government's campaign against reactionary secret societies, and was released in 1957. This elder, who is now eighty-two years old, is the author's (which is to say, my) great-uncle.

For as long as I can remember, I would always listen to him recount those past stories: how they drew talismans and chanted incantations, how they summoned the wind and rain or performed rituals to banish demons, and how they wrapped military intelligence agents, bandit chieftains, deep-boudoir resentful women, underworld bosses, and brothel courtesans around their fingers. Those ghostly and fox-shadowed legends, those life-or-death struggles, and those profit-driven conspiracies all left a profound impression on me. Over time, I discovered that although the "Jiang Xiang Faction" as a system was laden with sins, it nonetheless possessed its own core philosophy, which can be summarized in a few rules:

1. Only scam the wicked, never scam the good. They followed the principle of using evil to control evil. 
2. The concept of seizing the day; money obtained through scams had to be spent quickly. As the saying goes: "Jianghu wealth comes from the Jianghu and returns to the Jianghu; if it is not dispersed, disaster will follow." 
3. Never scam someone for sex; seizing another man's wife was strictly forbidden. They held the most rustic and fundamental human ethical values. 
4. Never separate family members from their flesh and blood. Nourished by the feudal ethics of "of the three unfilial acts, having no descendants is the greatest," the "Jiang Xiang Faction" never trafficked in or harmed other people's children.

A phrase my great-uncle frequently repeated was: The bitter sea is boundless; turn back and the shore is at hand. As long as one is willing to turn back, one can reach the shore. I sought his venerable opinion, and he was willing to make these matters public—for himself, it is a conclusion; for the world, it is a warning. Thus, with my great-uncle dictating and me organizing, that mysterious history of the "Jiang Xiang Faction" gradually surfaced. This is firsthand source material directly originating from a direct descendant of the "Jiang Xiang Faction." Over the following months, based on this foundation, I re-sketched the history of the "Jiang Xiang Faction," ultimately forming the documentary-style novel of today.

For the convenience of narration, this text uses the first-person pronoun "I" to represent my great-uncle, focusing on the history of the "Jiang Xiang Faction" from the first year of the Republic of China to the 1950s after the founding of New China. Readers will experience the consummate "Yingyao" deception techniques of the "Jiang Xiang Faction," the peerless ghost-and-spirit-defying "Zhafei" craft, and the unfathomable, bizarre ghost-surgery of the "Luban Gate." Most importantly, once readers understand these deceptive methods, they will never be scammed again!