The paperwork for going abroad was soon sorted out. With a thick stack of English-language documents in hand, I set off for Singapore.
I had a connecting flight in Shanghai.
The wait was rather long, so I wandered around the airport, full of curiosity.
Suddenly!
Toward the back of a bookstore!
That thin old man in the blue robe was standing right there!!!
I was beside myself with excitement and rushed straight over without thinking...
When I reached him, I suddenly realized, Huh? I haven't thought of what to say...
My mind went blank... I stammered out, "Master."
The old man answered with a smug smile, "Yes, my disciple."
Well, damn. He had slipped into the role of my master just like that, catching me completely off guard. I was both startled and delighted.
I was delighted because all the questions bottled up inside me could finally be answered. But I was startled because-how had I become his disciple? I couldn't shake the feeling that he'd pulled a fast one on me.
For the moment, I set all that aside.
"Master, are you a Daoist priest?"
"Got a problem with that?" The old Daoist raised his eyebrows.
"Not at all! Not at all!" I put on a shameless grin. "It's just that last time we met, you kept talking about Karl Marx, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. You didn't really seem like a Daoist priest."
The old Daoist retorted indignantly, "What, can't a Daoist priest be educated? I may not have as many academic qualifications as you, but I know every bit as much."
"Of course, of course." Seeing his reaction, I immediately seized the opening. "Master, look, fate clearly brought us together, and we've pretty much made this master-and-disciple thing official. Shouldn't you teach me something?"
"Hmm, fair point!" The old Daoist nodded, muttering as he pondered, "I really should teach you something."
I watched him hopefully, turning the possibilities over in my mind.
The art of immortality? The art of restoring youth?
The art of summoning wind and rain? The art of turning stone into gold?
The art of creating duplicates? The art of invisibility?
The art of riding clouds? The art of shrinking distances?
The art of walking through walls? The art of summoning souls?
I happily ran through all the possibilities, but the old Daoist still hadn't stirred. His eyes were closed, as though he had entered a meditative trance.
"Master?" Unable to hold back any longer, I called to him softly.
His eyes snapped open, giving me quite a fright.
"I'd better teach you a little divination first, to protect yourself."
"Divination? You can use that to protect yourself?" I repeated, rather bewildered.
"Yes!" The old Daoist's expression turned serious. "Your wealth lies to the south, but your partner lies in a different direction. There's a hurdle in your marriage prospects. I'll teach you a technique to keep you from falling into that pit."
"Don't scare me like that! Can it be averted?"
"First, I'll teach you how to calculate the direction in which your partner lies. That way, you won't waste your time on the wrong person."
"Oh..." My hopes had taken quite a fall. I'd thought I might learn some miraculous art.
The old Daoist was an old hand, after all. One look at my reaction told him I was disappointed.
"I told you before: only something that stands up to testing can be called science," the old Daoist said seriously, his voice low.
I was baffled again. Why are we back to science? What does that have to do with divination?
How does this old fellow's mind keep jumping around like that?
"There is no person or event in this world that cannot be predicted accurately," he declared, emphasizing every word.
Was this Daoist cultivation, or cultivation to become an immortal? Could it really be that badass?
As a thoroughly straightforward STEM guy, I couldn't keep a single thought to myself.
I asked incredulously, "Even weather forecasts get things wrong sometimes, let alone predictions about anything else."
The old Daoist calmly explained, "Weather forecasting works by using air humidity and wind speed to predict where rain clouds will drift at a particular time in the future and produce rainfall."
He paused, saw that I understood, and continued, "An inaccurate forecast means other factors came into play. For example, a new external force might change the wind speed, so the clouds don't drift to the predicted location."
"In other words, when a weather forecast gets it wrong, it isn't because the principle behind the prediction is wrong. It's because some of the known conditions were left out or changed," I said, expressing my understanding.
"Exactly. Prediction is a form of mathematical reasoning. As long as you list the conditions correctly, the answer you calculate will definitely be correct," the old Daoist said with complete confidence.
"As long as the logic is correct, there's a way to avert the outcome. Take the weather, for instance. Interventions such as artificially inducing or suppressing rain can change the result that would otherwise occur."
After saying that, he waited for me to take it in.
"What looks like an inaccurate prediction is simply an outcome that was inadvertently averted," he added.
His words were like a beam of light shining straight onto my forehead, opening up a bright new world for me.
I couldn't wait to learn marriage divination.
(Author's note: The next two chapters take a little mental effort. If you have no background in this at all, don't worry if you don't understand everything on your first read. Just keep reading.
It won't affect your understanding of what comes afterward.
The important points will come up repeatedly later on. Read them a few times, and you'll understand them thoroughly.)
Before you continue