The sandalwood had burned out.
The last wisp of blue smoke swirled in the afternoon light beam before dissolving into the stale air of the old manor. Chen Yao stared at the trajectory of the falling ash, suddenly recalling his grandfather's words: "The direction the ash leans indicates where the weight of causality is heaviest."
He didn't believe it, of course.
Just as he didn't believe a compass could dictate fortune, nor that an eight-character birth chart (Bazi) could define one's destiny. Least of all, he didn't believe a human could "borrow" anything from the hands of Fate. He was a data analyst. He believed in regression models, A/B testing, and the predictability of user behavior—logic that could be verified, repeated, and dismantled into zeros and ones.
But at this moment, sitting in his grandfather's study at Shou Yi Zhai, faced with walls of yellowing ancient texts and ash staining his fingertips, something within him was beginning to loosen.
Three days ago, his father's voice on the phone had sounded exhausted: "Your grandfather's things... it's time to handle them. You are the eldest grandson; you go." There was no room for negotiation, only a relief that sounded like a burden finally being set down. The Chen family seemed to share a collective avoidance of this old house and the title of Shou Yi Zhai. Chen Yao was twenty-five; this was only his third time returning. The first was in childhood; the second was for his grandfather's funeral. This was the third.
He stood up and began organizing the desk.
The most prominent object on the desk was a brass Luo Pan (feng shui compass). Eight inches in diameter, it consisted of the Heaven Pool, the Inner Plate, and the Outer Plate, layered with dense, tiny inscriptions: the Twenty-Four Mountains, the Seventy-Two Dragons, and the Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees of Gold-Splitting. His grandfather used to call it the "Ruler of Heaven and Earth," capable of measuring the Qi and fortune of mountains and rivers. Chen Yao remembered trying to play with it as a child, only to be harshly rebuked—the only time he had ever seen his grandfather truly angry.
He reached for it, his fingertips just brushing the cold brass edge—
The needle moved.
It wasn't a jolt caused by his touch. It was a slow, steady rotation, as if spun by an invisible hand. The magnetic needle in the Heaven Pool swept past the Ding direction of the South Mountain, glided over the Wu direction of the North Mountain, and finally came to a trembling halt.
The tip pointed straight at him. Unswerving.
Chen Yao froze. There was no wind in the room; the sycamore leaves outside were still. He waited ten seconds. The needle remained motionless, as if nailed to the center of his chest.
"Battery?" he muttered to himself, followed by a self-deprecating scoff. This was a purely mechanical compass; where would a battery be? He carefully rotated the compass in another direction.
The needle followed, still pointing directly at him.
A chill crawled up his spine. He took a deep breath, placed the compass back in its original spot, and turned to the bookshelves. His movements were hurried, as if he were fleeing.
The shelves were mostly filled with thread-bound books, their pages brittle and yellow. The Collected Annotations of the I Ching, Jing's Commentary on the Changes, The Comprehensive Compendium of Three Destinies, The Deep Sea of Zi Ping... Many spines bore labels written in his grandfather's tiny, formal script: "The flow of fortune is shifting; observe with caution," "The subtleties of Bazi; this volume is critical," "Methods of Yin Dwellings; perilous, do not use." The caution, and perhaps fear, of the user bled through the lines.
Chen Yao's gaze landed on a copy of The Kinship of the Three (Zhouyi Cantong Qi) in a blue cloth case. He had a deep impression of this book; in his final years, his grandfather was almost never without it. The edges of the pages were frayed from constant handling. He pulled it out; it felt heavy.
Inside the case, alongside the main text, was a thin, hand-bound notebook of annotations on Xuan paper. He flipped it open.
The handwriting belonged to his grandfather, transitioning from the bold strokes of youth to the faded, thin lines of old age. The first few pages were mostly excerpts from the original text, interspersed with notes: "This line speaks of 'firing process,' but actually refers to the intersection of time and fate," "Lead and mercury are not external objects, but the innate Life-Qi and the postnatal Fortune-Cycles." Further in, the annotations became denser, the handwriting more frantic. There were numerous hexagrams, celestial stems, and brief event logs.
"Year of Gui-You, 7th day of the 3rd lunar month: Adjusted the Southeast position for a client named Li. His son fell and broke his left leg three days later. Note: Strong Wood overcomes Earth; the manifestation is in the limbs."
"Year of Bing-Zi, 12th lunar month: Relocated a grave for the Wang residence. Broke ground at the Hour of Chou. A son was born that year. However, the head of the household contracted a lung disease the following year. Note: The Earth-Qi was stimulated too violently, backfiring on the Dui-Metal."
Chen Yao flipped through page after page; those cold records felt like a secret ledger. Every "adjustment" corresponded to a "price." Some costs were minor; others were catastrophic. In the later entries, words like "Caution," "Regret," and "Never again" appeared frequently.
Halfway through the book, his fingers stopped.
At the top of that page, a specific Bazi (Birth Chart) was written:
Xin-Si, Ren-Chen, Wu-Xu, Bing-Chen
Chen Yao was sensitive to numbers; this was his own birth chart. May 12, 2001, 8:00 AM. Below the characters were four words written with such force they seemed to pierce through the paper:
Living on Borrowed Time (借命而生)
There was no explanation, no further notes. Only those four words hung there like a verdict.
Chen Yao's mouth felt dry. He instinctively looked at the compass on the desk—the needle was still stubbornly pointing at him.
"Living on Borrowed Time..." He chewed on the words. Whose life was borrowed? How was it borrowed? For what purpose was he born?
He continued flipping. Near the end, he saw a longer passage written in a trembling hand, likely penned in his grandfather's final days:
"Winter of the Year of Ren-Yin: Reviewed the old volumes and realized the debt has become deep. Every 'good fortune' adjusted has a source; every 'misfortune' avoided has a destination. What we call Feng Shui and Numerology is nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul—grafting disaster onto others. But the bricks of the east wall eventually run out; can the disasters we graft away ever truly fail to return?"
"Shou Yi Zhai has been passed down for seven generations. Each generation speaks of 'Inheriting the Legacy,' but in truth, we are 'Inheriting the Debt.' The First Ancestor, Chen Yi, created the method of 'Lending Time and Fate' during the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. It was originally meant as a desperate measure to preserve life in chaotic times and continue our knowledge. But once this gate is opened, it is like drinking poison to quench thirst. Future generations have all fallen into it, making 'borrowing' the norm and 'transferring' their trade, forgetting that cause and effect are one. Both fortune and disaster must eventually be paid for by oneself."
"In my life, I have adjusted seven hundred and thirty-one cases. Over four hundred were successful. But the innocents harmed, displaced, or burdened in the shadows—how many times over does that number reach? Every time I think of this, I cannot sleep. But the debt is owed, the karma is created. What can be done?"
"I only hope that among future generations, one with wisdom might grasp the two words: 'Accepting the Bill' (认账). This is not repaying the debt (for the debt cannot be repaid), nor is it atonement (for the sin cannot be atoned), but it is..."
The handwriting stopped abruptly there, leaving a blank space. There were a few pale yellow stains on the paper, like dried teardrops.
Chen Yao closed the notebook. His palms were sweating. The silence in the study had grown heavy, pressing against his eardrums. The metaphysical talk he had resisted since childhood, dismissing it as superstition, was now laid out before him in a way that was systematic, cold, and documented.
It wasn't that he didn't believe in the mysterious; he just didn't believe in things without logic. And what his grandfather had left behind contained data, case studies, causal links, and even "unfalsifiable" technical details—exactly the kind of "reality" he feared most.
The light outside dimmed. He checked his phone: 4:00 PM. Time to leave.
He put the notebook back into the case, hesitated, and then stuffed it into his backpack. As he turned, his peripheral vision caught a corner of yellowed paper peeking from the corner of the desk.
He pulled it out. it was an old-fashioned piece of stationery with red vertical grids. It bore his grandfather's handwriting from his final years—written slowly, but with clear strokes:
"To my grandson Yao:"
"By the time you see these words, I will be gone. The items in Shou Yi Zhai are left for those with whom they share a fate. Only the notebook and the compass must be handled by you personally."
"Your Bazi is unique, aligning secretly with the First Ancestor, Chen Yi. This is the sign of 'Inheriting the Legacy,' but also the opportunity for 'Resolving the Legacy.' I have exhausted my strength and still cannot fathom the key to this, so I dare not mislead you with empty words."
"I have only one phrase to give you: Do not believe in the 'good or bad' of the hexagrams; instead, observe the Structure of Causality. Good is not necessarily a blessing, and bad is not necessarily a disaster; they are merely the visible manifestations of a vibration in the network. If you truly wish to escape, you must see the Source of the Vibration, rather than trying to hide from the waves of manifestation."
"Additionally: A merchant named Zhou will surely come looking for you within three years. His situation is perilous; accept it with caution. If you must act, remember: that which has been 'Already Collected' cannot be collected again, and that which is an 'Empty Shell' cannot be created again."
"Your Grandfather, Chen Shouyi. Final words."
There was no date at the end of the letter.
Chen Yao folded the letter and placed it in the inner pocket of his backpack. He took one last look at the study, his gaze sweeping over the shelves of classics, the compass, the empty armchair, and the lingering scent of sandalwood.
He closed the door and locked it.
The old house sank into the twilight.
As he reached the entrance of the alley, he felt a sudden intuition and looked back. Inside the small window of the second-floor study, there seemed to be a faint flash of light—as if a piece of brass had moved.
He shook his head and walked quickly toward the subway station.
In his backpack, the annotated notebook of The Kinship of the Three felt heavy, like he was carrying a tombstone.
That night, Chen Yao returned to his rented high-rise apartment. He placed the notebook and the letter on his desk, brewed a cup of coffee, and tried to use his habitual rationality to organize everything.
"It can be explained by cognitive bias," he muttered to the computer screen. "Confirmation bias—I'm only looking at the records that match 'metaphysics.' Survival bias—Grandfather only recorded the cases that 'came true.' The compass pointing... probably magnetic interference nearby, or I'm carrying something metal."
He convinced himself until one in the morning.
Before sleep, acting on a strange whim, he pulled out three Qianlong copper coins. This was a method of casting hexagrams his grandfather had forced him to learn as a child, saying that copper coins, having passed through countless hands, possessed "human-Qi" and were more sensitive than yarrow stalks. He hadn't touched them in years, but he surprisingly remembered the technique.
"Just testing my grandfather's theory," he thought self-deprecatingly. "What should I ask? Let's ask... if there will be trouble in the next three days."
He whispered the question in his mind, held the three coins in his palms, shook them, and scattered them on the table.
Two tails, one head. Shao Yang (Young Yang). Two tails, one head. Shao Yang. Two heads, one tail. Shao Yin (Young Yin). Two heads, one tail. Shao Yin. One tail, two heads. Shao Yang. Two tails, one head. Shao Yang.
Chen Yao looked at the resulting hexagram, his finger tracing an imaginary line on the table. The lower trigram was three Yang lines: Qian (Heaven). The upper trigram was two Yin and one Yang: Dui (Lake). Dui over Qian—this was the Hexagram of Kuai (夬), "Breakthrough."
Kuai. The judgment said: "Proclaimed at the king's court. There is peril in the outcry." The image said: "The lake rises to heaven: the image of Breakthrough. Thus the superior man dispenses riches to those below and refrains from resting on his virtue."
It wasn't a good hexagram. it implied a break, danger, and the need for decisive action.
He frowned and checked the changing lines. All six lines were static; there were no moving lines. The hexagram remained unchanged.
"Coincidence." He swept up the coins and turned off the light.
In the darkness, he seemed to see the compass needle again, slowly turning toward him.
The next day was Saturday. Chen Yao was a habitual morning runner. His route was fixed: start from the apartment, run south along the riverfront path for three kilometers, and turn back.
When he left at seven, the sky was overcast. He changed into his running shoes, put on his headphones, and played electronic music with a BPM of 180—he needed a strong rhythm to drown out his thoughts.
There weren't many people on the riverfront path at this hour. When he reached the turnaround point, he began to accelerate. The beats in his headphones were dense. He focused on his breathing and pace, temporarily pushing yesterday's events to the back of his mind.
About five hundred meters back from the turnaround point, a section of the path ran alongside an old stone retaining wall. The wall was about three meters high and covered in vines. Chen Yao passed it every day and never gave it a second thought.
Today, as he ran beneath the wall, the music in his headphones suddenly stuttered.
Almost simultaneously, his left foot tripped on a protruding pebble, and his body pitched forward. In that split second of losing balance, he instinctively twisted and lunged toward the outer edge of the path, crashing onto the grass.
A heavy, dull thud echoed behind him.
He turned back and saw a piece of concrete the size of a washbasin smashed exactly where he had been running a moment ago. Debris flew everywhere. The concrete block had broken off from the top of the retaining wall; the fracture was fresh.
Chen Yao sat on the ground, gasping for air, staring at the concrete. If he hadn't tripped, if he had maintained his original trajectory, that concrete would have hit him squarely on the back of the head.
The music in his headphones resumed, the beats as intense as before, but he couldn't hear them. He only heard the thunder of his own heart and the four words echoing repeatedly in his mind:
Ze Tian Kuai. There is peril.
He slowly scrambled up, brushed the grass off his clothes, and walked over to the concrete block. Looking up, a section of the railing at the top of the wall was missing; that was where the concrete had crumbled. The wall was old, but it had looked no different when he passed it yesterday.
Other runners began to gather. Someone called the police; someone asked if he was hurt. Chen Yao waved them off, saying he was fine.
The police arrived, recorded the situation, and said they would contact the municipal department to inspect the wall. The onlookers whispered among themselves: "That was close." "The wall definitely needs repair." "The young man is so lucky."
Lucky.
Standing in the crowd, Chen Yao felt a detached coldness. It wasn't luck. It was the hexagram he had cast, the warning of "peril," and that inexplicable, lunging intuition when he tripped—that wasn't a choice made after thinking; it was his body reacting before his consciousness.
Just as in his childhood, when his grandfather trained him to "read the hexagram like a map," saying that for a true practitioner, when the hexagram enters the eyes, the body naturally knows how to avoid or approach. He had thought it was just mystical nonsense back then.
Now, his back was soaked in cold sweat.
He thanked the police and the bystanders and walked slowly home. His pace was sluggish; every step felt like treading on uncertain ice.
Back at the apartment, he showered and sat at his desk. The notebook lay there quietly.
He flipped it open and found his grandfather's annotation on the Kuai hexagram. In the blank space on that page, his grandfather had written in red ink:
"Kuai means 'Breakthrough' or 'Decision.' Five Yang lines breaking through one Yin line; it appears lucky but is actually precarious. For though the Yin is weak, it sits in the highest position (the top line), like a stone hanging over one's head. The hexagram image is of Qian-Strength and Dui-Joy, but extreme joy easily breeds negligence, and extreme strength easily breeds arrogance. Thus, 'peril in the outcry.' One must remain constantly alert, as if treading on thin ice."
"When this hexagram applies to events, it mostly indicates sudden danger originating from high places, old ailments, or unexpected quarters. The way to resolve it is not through 'resistance,' but through 'yielding.' Strength yields to softness; action yields to stillness. Yield the original path, and the peril will miss its mark."
Chen Yao's gaze fixed on the words: "originating from high places, old ailments." The retaining wall was an old ailment; the concrete came from a high place.
He closed his eyes.
His rationality was screaming, saying this was a coincidence, a probability, a retrospective fit.
But the memory of his body, that flash of intuition, and the cold, corresponding text before his eyes formed a causal chain he could not dismantle.
The phone rang.
He looked at the screen—an unknown number. He hesitated for a moment, then answered.
"Hello... Is this Mr. Chen Yao?" A middle-aged man's voice, thick with anxiety and exhaustion. "I am Zhou Zhenghua. Your grandfather, Old Mr. Chen, helped me before. I... I've run into big trouble. Can we meet?"
The merchant named Zhou.
His grandfather's words from the letter surfaced in his mind: "A merchant named Zhou will surely come looking for you within three years. His situation is perilous; accept it with caution."
Chen Yao gripped the phone, his knuckles turning white.
Outside the window, dark clouds pressed against the city; a storm was coming.
He was silent for a long time, so long that the man on the other end thought the signal had dropped, calling out "Hello?" several times.
Finally, he heard his own voice, dry and calm:
"Time and place."
After hanging up, he walked to the window. The city looked grey and unfamiliar under the shadow of the clouds. He remembered a passage from his grandfather's notebook about "The Inheritor":
"Once you know that causality can be adjusted, you can never return behind the Veil of Ignorance. The world you see from then on is nothing but a mesh of strings and knots. What we call freedom is merely choosing a path within that mesh. What we call fate is merely the sum of the paths you have chosen."
"And the most terrifying part is—"
"The mesh will actively seek out the nodes that can perceive it."
Chen Yao looked down at his own open hands.
The lines on his palms were intricate and complex, like a web.