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The sun had only just slipped beneath the horizon, its final rays painting the peaks of the Shining Moon Mountain in molten gold. I sat cross-legged in the center of the stone circle, my palms resting on my knees, breath slow and deliberate. Around me, the breeze shifted, teasing the edges of my indigo robes and whispering through the ceremonial wind chimes. The Trigram had stirred again. As a Diviner, I was taught to listen?not with ears, but with spirit. The Trigram was not a symbol to us; it was a living echo of the Eight Energies that shaped the balance of all things. Heaven, Earth, Fire, Water, Mountain, Pond, Thunder, and Wind?each spoke to us in riddles and resonance. But it was the shifting space between them that I had come to understand most deeply. Earlier that morning, the sacred stones of Buya had cracked with frost despite the summer sun. Birds circled backward above the East Temple. Something had unbalanced the energy flow. Something was stirring the Trigram. I laid out the eight yarrow stalks before me, one for each element. My fingers moved with practiced grace, casting them in sacred patterns. As they fell, the markings of the Li Trigram?Fire?began to emerge. Three lines. Broken, solid, broken. Flame. Illumination. Passion. But also deception. My breath hitched. Fire was not native to this season. It was not meant to rise tonight. Then, like a whisper drawn on the wind, I felt it: a disruption in the south. Near the Cave of the Red Scorpion. The heat was not natural?it was not fire of hearth or ritual. Someone had tampered with the flow of Qi. Someone untrained. I stood, gathering my staff and the yarrow stalks, slipping them into the folds of my robes. My journey would take me into the wilds tonight, but I would not be alone. The Trigram had spoken?and though its messages were often cloaked in metaphor and mystery, I had learned one truth through decades of meditation: When the lines break where they should be whole, and flames rise in the stillness, the balance has been disturbed. And it is a Diviner?s duty to restore what has been lost. | |