Chapter 1: The Little Diviner Saves Her Clan
Edward Quan ·
My father was a renowned diviner, famous across the surrounding villages. He could read Heaven's secrets and predict other people's fortunes; only his own fate remained beyond his sight.
Fortunately, all four of his sons were exceptional men.
When Father turned sixty, Mother gave birth to another child—a daughter.
The midwife cried out in alarm, “The young miss was born blind!”
My parents clung to each other and wept.
Father had calculated every sign of fate and divined countless destinies, yet never once imagined his youngest daughter would be blind.
In my previous life, I was a famous feng shui master in Hong Kong.
I had arranged the feng shui of the richest man's mansion, chosen groundbreaking dates for property developers, changed stage names, and read the career fortunes of celebrities.
Having seen through the ways of the world, I prayed on my deathbed that I might attain the Dao and ascend to Heaven.
Who would have thought that when I opened my eyes again, I would be reborn into a family of fortune-tellers?
The Heavenly Dao was clearly playing a joke on me!
People always grow sick of the trade they're in. In this life, I was determined to live in comfort and stay out of worldly affairs!
No matter how many remedies my parents found for my eyes, I kept “seeing nothing.”
In the fifth year of my pretending to be blind, the Xie family was suddenly charged with a crime punishable by the execution of the entire clan.
His Majesty personally rode to the execution ground at the market gate to oversee the beheadings.
With my little hands braced against either side of the wooden cangue, I walked steadily across the execution ground.
Then, in my childish voice, I said to the Emperor,
“Your Majesty, there is a little baby hidden in Her Highness's belly.”
“But the baby's father is not Your Majesty.”
Consort Yu, seated in the imperial carriage, immediately went pale.
“How dare you!”
More than a hundred and twenty members of the Xie family went weak with fear and collapsed to their knees.
Mother bit her lip until it bled, but she still couldn't stop her teeth from chattering.
“Your Highness, spare her! My little Wu can't see anything…”
The wooden cangues and iron chains clanged against the ground with a dreadful sound.
The old and young of the Xie family kowtowed and begged for mercy. The entire execution ground looked like a field of dry grass bent low by the wind.
Four months earlier, the Consort had taken an anti-miscarriage medicine prescribed by the Imperial Medical Office.
Unexpectedly, she soon developed severe abdominal pain and miscarried that very night.
My second elder brother, Xie Zhen, who was then an attending physician at the Imperial Medical Office, was immediately thrown into the imperial prison.
My elder brothers ran everywhere trying to plead his case, but got nowhere.
Our once laughter-filled family was suddenly scattered and left in ruins.
Mother climbed onto a stool and put her head through a white silk sash hanging from the beam.
I rushed to stop her, but my short legs caught on the threshold and I tumbled to the floor.
My eye socket struck the doorframe.
When I looked up again, the corner of my eye was already bruised.
“Mother, Mother…”
Mother hurried down from the stool and gathered me into her arms, sobbing.
“Little Wu, you can't see. Why are you running around like that…?”
“I'm useless. I couldn't protect you!”
In truth, I could see everything. I had rushed in precisely to stop Mother from taking her own life.
The man seated high on the dragon throne looked down at me.
I was only a child of four or five, with strips of cloth wrapped over my eyes.
I was short and thin, like a little earthworm just poking out of the soil in spring.
His haughty, unhurried voice reached my ears.
“The Consort miscarried not long ago. How could she be pregnant again?”
I took out three copper coins.
Mother had secretly sewn them into my clothes to ward off evil and misfortune.
Without the slightest fear, I answered loudly, “Your Majesty, I calculated it using the Six-Line method of divination.”
On the execution ground, my second brother, Xie Zhen, crawled forward on his knees.
“Your Majesty, my little sister is still young and ignorant. If she said anything disrespectful to the throne, I, a guilty subject, will die in her place first!”
The scent of ambergris incense grew stronger as the Emperor approached.
A mountain-like pressure crashed down on me.
“Your second brother's life is in My hands. Explain clearly—how did you arrive at this calculation?”
I stroked the coins in my palm.
“Her Highness's sign of offspring is exceptionally prosperous.”
“But it does not align with the Imperial Star.”
The moment I finished speaking, the Emperor flew into a rage.
“Impudent!”
“Little Wu…”
Before his shout could frighten me, Mother fainted.
The Consort clutched her lower abdomen, her face ashen.
“The hour of execution has come. Your Majesty, avenge the lost Imperial child for this concubine!”
The Emperor, eager to protect his beloved Consort, knocked my coins from my hand with a sweep of his arm.
“There are so many members of the Xie family. Why not behead you first?”
“Your Majesty!”
From the packed crowd, my fourth brother cried out hoarsely,
“I, the guilty subject Xie Huan, will die in my little sister's place first!”
The Emperor sneered.
“I never knew the supervisor of My Imperial Wardrobe Bureau had such courage. I truly put the wrong man in the wrong position.”
Earlier, on the late Emperor's birthday, His Majesty had personally gone to the imperial mausoleum to pay his respects.
My fourth brother had been responsible for urgently making a ceremonial crown, which required an eastern pearl presented as tribute from the southern frontier.
When he told me about it, I had been fascinated.
So he had made a piece of colored glass of similar size and given it to me.
Clatter…
The glass bead I had hidden in my pocket suddenly fell out and rolled to the Consort's feet.
I lunged to pick it up, but a palace guard kicked me roughly aside.
A eunuch promptly picked up the bead and presented it to the Emperor.
His Majesty assumed it was only a child's marble.
“Give my bead back!”
“Fourth Brother made this glass bead to match that beautiful eastern pearl!”
“You can't take it!”
Crying and wailing, I groped around with both hands.
I happened to grab the hem of the Consort's skirt.
A pure white, shining eastern pearl was revealed in the sunlight, set into her embroidered shoe.
The Emperor frowned.
His gaze moved back and forth between the two pearls.
“Xie Huan, come here.”
Xie Huan stepped forward, put an arm around my shoulder, and knelt with me.
After more than a month in prison, he had grown much thinner.
“Little Wu, don't be afraid. Fourth Brother is here.”
The hoarse steadiness in his voice calmed me a little.
I heard the Emperor ask, “Was the missing eastern pearl the same size as this glass bead?”
Fourth Brother bowed. “Your Majesty, the eastern pearl had a mark on its surface.”
“The mark looked like a true dragon soaring through the sky.”
“When I made the glass bead, I deliberately reproduced that mark.”
The Emperor's voice turned icy, stripped of every trace of affection.
“Wang Luquan, bring the Consort's shoe.”
The Consort immediately began to sob.
Only then did I understand.
Even the most powerful man beneath Heaven had limits to his favor.
“Your Highness, forgive this servant.”
The eunuch placed the tiny embroidered shoe beside the glass bead.
The two pearls were exactly the same size.
Even the natural blemish shaped like a dragon matched perfectly.
Had their materials not been different, one could truly have passed for the other.
The Consort suddenly burst into anger.
“Xie Huan is framing me!”
“The entire Xie clan is to be beheaded today. Even as he dies, he wants to drag a few more people down with him!”
“Your Majesty, please investigate!”
The Emperor removed the eastern pearl from the shoe and placed it in my palm.
Its surface was smooth and warm, and it felt heavy in my hand.
I shook my head.
“Your Majesty, this isn't my pearl.”
“It's the payment I give you for divining.”
“It's too much.”
I refused to accept it.
In my previous life, I had earned more than enough from fortune-telling.
If I accepted a priceless eastern pearl, I would have to return to that same profession in this life.
I only wanted a comfortable life, free of worldly affairs, so I firmly returned the pearl.
The Emperor sat back on the dragon throne.
“Then divine once more for Us.”
“Tell Us what exactly is inside Consort Yu's belly.”
“Xie Guanyan, We want to hear the truth.”
Long ago, when His Majesty was still Crown Prince, he had been ordered to travel south to manage the floods.
The flooding continued without end, and starving refugees wandered everywhere.
Unable to find a solution, the Crown Prince invited a fortune-teller from Wushui Town to cast a divination.
“Your Highness, the Taiyin star afflicting the Water is only the surface sign.”
The fortuneteller suddenly changed his tone.
“Would Your Highness like to hear the truth?”
The Crown Prince paused. “What do you mean?”
The fortuneteller clasped his hands and reported, “Someone is using the floods to stir up chaos and throw the Wu River region into disorder.”
Relief grain had been skimmed off at every level, and starving people had stormed the county offices more than once.
It turned out that the Second Prince's faction had secretly caused it all.
After the floods were brought under control, the Crown Prince asked the fortuneteller what reward he wanted.
The fortuneteller cast a divination and learned that he would have a daughter in his old age.
“This commoner begs Your Highness to name my youngest daughter.”
The Crown Prince wrote down three characters: Xie Guanyan.
Gazing at the myriad scenes of the mortal world, in the end, all of it was like passing clouds.
I seemed to peer through the thin veil of fate and glimpse the helplessness of the Son of Heaven.
Once again, I tossed the coins into the air.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
…
On the sixth toss, the coins fell.
The divination was complete.
“The Imperial Star is out of alignment. Another star has secretly intruded.”
“That star…”
I turned my head toward one direction.
“Is in the east.”
The air instantly grew several degrees colder.
The Consort craned her neck and screamed,
“She is slandering my reputation!”
“Your Majesty, how can you believe this child's nonsense?”
Her shrill voice sounded like a vengeful ghost coming to claim a life.
My eldest brother, kneeling not far away, suddenly spoke.
“Little Wu, you can't see… Do you know who you're divining for?”
“That's the Son of Heaven… the supreme ruler beneath Heaven!”
“Kneel and beg His Majesty to spare your life!”
After being framed for writing a treasonous poem, my eldest brother had been imprisoned. The jailers had beaten his mouth until it was mangled.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth down his neck.
There was a twenty-year age gap between us.
When I was little, Eldest Brother always carried me in his arms, afraid I might fall.
Hearing him struggle to finish his words made my heart ache.
He was a brilliant top scholar who had once been the Crown Prince's tutor.
Even with the entire clan about to be executed, he remained stubbornly loyal and filial.
How could such an old-fashioned man have written a treasonous poem?
The ambergris incense, a fragrance reserved for the Son of Heaven, drew closer.
The Emperor's voice was terribly cold.
“Guards!”
“Bring three physicians to examine the Consort.”
“If she is not pregnant, We shall have Xie Guanyan torn apart by five horses, as a warning to the world!”
Eldest Brother kept pleading, but the imperial guards pressed him hard to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, I could no longer hear him.
Half a year earlier, the Hu had invaded the border, and the Emperor personally led a campaign.
On the very day he beheaded the khan, an urgent letter arrived from the palace.
Consort Yu was pregnant.
A great victory and a child on the way for his beloved Consort—two joyous events at once.
After returning in triumph, the Consort received even more of the Emperor's exclusive favor.
But after taking the anti-miscarriage medicine prescribed by my second brother, she writhed in pain on the ground.
The loss of the Imperial child was a grave crime—one punishable by the execution of the entire Xie clan.