My grandfather once told me that most fortune tellers rely on probability and statistics.
Taking face reading as an example, fortune tellers throughout history have observed people with various appearances and calculated the probability of them encountering certain events.
For example, people with a rebellious bone at the back of their head are most prone to fickleness and are more likely to rebel; this bone structure is considered an ominous sign.
However, not all people with rebellious natures in history chose to rebel.
Therefore, fortune-telling is 30% determined by fate and 70% by human effort.
Apart from those charlatans who cheat and swindle, most fortune tellers have a master-apprentice relationship.
They use knowledge passed down orally to tell fortunes.
It is said that fortune tellers cannot predict their own fate, but the truth is that most fortune tellers are like recent graduates.
When they work, they only use the theoretical knowledge they learned in school, and they just apply it mechanically.
Such a person doesn't even understand what fate is, so how can they tell other people's fortunes?
Of course, besides those mediocre people who rely on probability theory, there are many true masters.
They observed the wind and stars, and in a single glance, a hundred years had passed; they truly understood the meaning of destiny.
The old woman in front of me gave me that kind of feeling.
Upon hearing her question, I replied, "I do know a little about fortune telling, but it's only a superficial understanding, and I'm not in the same profession as you."
"I can tell."
Old Ma's wife stood in front of the door, glanced at me by the light coming through the window, and said: "You have too much yin energy about you. You look gloomy and make people feel very uncomfortable! You must make a living from the dead, right? Corpse collector, tomb raider, crematorium worker, that's probably one of those professions."
I wasn't surprised when Old Ma's wife revealed my identity: "You're a master. It seems I made the right choice coming here."
"It's too early to say that. There are some things I can understand, but I may not be able to express them."
Old Ma sat on a small stool by the door, picked up her pipe, and said, "You know the rules of fortune telling here, right?"
"Know."
I took out the 1,500 yuan in cash I had prepared from my pocket and respectfully handed it over: "The money is here, no more, no less."
"Logically speaking, I shouldn't be doing a divination for you, but you just happened to be the one who answered today's divination! Moreover, the divination shows that there is an opportunity in this matter, which can be considered as accumulating good deeds."
Mrs. Ma took the cash and put it aside: "Tell me, what do you want to ask?"
"To be honest, I didn't come here for fortune telling."
I got straight to the point: "I've come to visit because I want to make a promise. I've heard that you're a shaman and that you're searching for the whereabouts of a statue of the god Dokoho! So I wanted to ask if you know anything about the shaman temple on Mawei Mountain."
After listening to my words, Old Ma shook her head and said, "I'm afraid I can't answer that question. I came here from the year 2000 and settled down. When I moved here, there were no more shaman temples in this area."
When I heard Old Ma's wife's response, I felt somewhat disappointed.
Thinking that I shouldn't come for nothing, I asked Old Ma, "Since I've come here to seek divination, could you tell me where I need to go to find what I'm looking for?"
"It's true that I'm a fortune teller, but I'm not just a fortune teller. Or rather, not everything in this world needs divination to solve."
Old Ma exhaled a puff of smoke: "Tell me, what kind of stone statue are you looking for, and what is your purpose in finding it?"
"Save people."
I hesitated for a moment, then told the truth: "I have a friend who has been poisoned by a very strange Gu poison. Legend has it that only a special stone can save her. I suspect that the stone was carved into the image of the god Dokoho by shamans."
What's so special about that stone?
When the old woman asked a question, she saw me staring at her and replied calmly, "I'm a fortune teller, not an omniscient person. Besides, even if I were to do divination, I couldn't possibly be so precise. Don't think of me as some kind of supernatural being."
When I heard Old Ma's honest answer, I shrugged gently: "Legend has it that the stone is one of the world's source stones, capable of conjuring water out of thin air. As for how to use it to save people, I don't really know."
We organized several teams to investigate potential locations where stone statues might exist. The place I went to was Mawei Mountain!
After listening to my story, Old Ma smiled and asked, "Do you believe in fate?"
When she suddenly raised this question, I thought for a moment and replied, "I'm half-convinced."
"Believe it or not, you're lucky, at least this time! If you hadn't come here today, your friend would surely be dead!"
Old Ma's wife said bluntly, "You've come to the wrong place. The statue you're looking for isn't the Dokoho statue. Trying to save people this way is like trying to run a mountain to death."
"Do you know what kind of idol I'm looking for?"
I looked at Old Ma's wife in surprise: "Did you foresee something?"
“I told you, I’m a human being, not a god. How could I possibly calculate such details?”
Old Ma shook her head: "The statue you are looking for is the Hongshan Goddess Statue! Because this statue first appeared in the Jurchen tribe, it was mistaken for a shamanistic deity and was enshrined by Nurhaci on the Aisin Gioro clan altar."
This statue is thousands of years old and once belonged to a Jurchen tribe. Later, when the Qing Dynasty was established, a prince returned to Shengjing (Mukden) to worship his ancestors. Seeing the statue's unique material, he petitioned the emperor to bestow it upon the deity.
I listened to the old woman's detailed explanation and pressed her for details: "Then do you know where this statue is now?"
Old Mrs. Ma nodded: "I know."
When I saw that Old Ma was mentioning the statue but not its exact location, I knew she had more to say.
Seeing that she didn't bring it up herself, I took a deep breath: "Master, my friend's situation is extremely urgent, he's waiting for this statue to save his life! Since you just said it's a kind of opportunity, please tell me its whereabouts!"
Old Mrs. Ma looked at the moon in the sky, then at me: "You really want to know?"
I nodded patiently: "It's absolutely true, otherwise I wouldn't have come to your door so late at night and disturbed your rest!"
"Come in with me."
Mrs. Ma tapped her pipe on the wall, then turned and went into the room.
I saw her go inside and followed her in.
At this moment, only one room in this tiled house has a light on.
Upon entering, there is a kang (heated brick bed) on the right and two mahogany boxes against the wall on the left. It looks very simple, just like the kind of furnishings in rural areas in the 1990s.
The most prominent feature of this room, directly opposite the door, is a shrine.
The shrine was extremely simple; it was just a wooden board nailed to the wall with an incense burner on it.
There was no statue of a deity behind the incense burner, only a piece of yellow paper pasted on it.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com