His complexion did not look sickly. It was neither black nor pale, bluish nor purple, and his eyes were their usual color, showing no sign of dullness. Yet his earlobes betrayed everything: all those colors were concentrated there. Without a keen eye, no one could have noticed that frightening detail.
"You don't look very well," Zeng Mu said by way of greeting.
"Of course not. I'm even worse than I look," Yao Chun replied. His voice sounded normal too, except that his breathing was a little short, making him sound twenty years older.
"The people outside said you've been waiting for me. Did you know I would come today?"
"Of course. My health is rather poor right now, undeniably so, but if there's something I want to know, I can still divine it."
"You haven't even asked my name."
"You're a fellow without a name who calls himself Nameless, aren't you?" Yao Chun turned sideways and pulled a divination sheet from beneath his pillow. Spreading it across his legs, he studied it carefully, then added, "Strange, though. What I see in these hexagrams isn't quite that simple."
"Kan does not part from Li, Gen does not unite with Dui, Xun does not follow Zhen, and Qian does not guide Kun. A truly rare and bizarre configuration. Yet the four images are distinct, the eight trigrams unfold, and everything accords with yin and yang and the two primal forces. This is nothing less than the ultimate hexagram."
Zeng Mu did not quite understand. He glanced down at the divination sheet, but its diagrams meant nothing to him either. "What are you trying to say?"
"I feel..." Yao Chun shook his head and hesitated. A few seconds later, he nodded again. "You're not as simple as you appear. The changes within you