Wang the Ninth believed implicitly in all this as a European child believes in the Biblical story of Creation. The truth of it was so immanent that it was a mere manifestation of scholarship to ascertain the precise facts. So he settled himself on the hard wooden bench all attention while the old man peered at him over his spectacles, and arranged the little painted squares with their distinctive characters as he replied to the questions. Presently he had all the data complete—save for the determination of the element which would control him. When he learnt that he was a blacksmith's son he put all the elements aside save metal and fire; with these two in his fingers he consulted his books.
"You were born by fire," he said at last. "That is quite clear to me from the insistence with which your year indicative is repeated under the fire-element. By fire you will live and be tested. Wait till I combine: then we may see how the future grows."
With that he swept the fire-character into the heap of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches: he shuffled the lot slowly backwards and forwards under his hands as a priest performs a rite. Then he took three ancient coins and shook them in a goblet: three times he repeated the process so that he should acquire the necessary guidance. He noted swiftly with the aid of his brush their import on a piece of red paper, and muttered to himself at the insistence with which the original indications were repeated.
Wang the Ninth sat stone-still watching every movement. A soldier with a bundle of clothing on his shoulder had stopped in idle curiosity: there was another wayfarer or two as well. All these people were silent in the presence of learning; for each one of them at the appointed season would consult such a man regarding marriage or distant journeys or the settling of any important business.
Now the old man stopped his shuffling motion abruptly, aligned the characters, and drank in their meaning as a scholar does a clear script. The onlookers crowded forward so as not to miss a word.
"Born by fire," he began, "you are in opposition to water—yet are you attracted by it. Everything from water must influence you. By water, rivers and oceans are meant: dominated will you be by something from over the sea which will shape your life and violate your ancestry."
He consulted a book.
"Yet fire will return to you. By fire will you be tested. See here is it written—strange men shall lift you up and great perils shall you face but you will not flinch. Stormy will be your life, but finally successful. Violent death will approach you but you will survive. Your destiny is with unaccustomed things which will come upon you before you are yet a man and drag you far away. So is it written. I would scan your features."
The boy rose and put his strong ugly face close to the learned one who now murmured:
"Confirmatory signs are evident in the features. The mouth, colour, nose, ears are good, but there is lacking the proper heaviness of eyebrow. Guard against being turned from your purpose, for there is weakness in your eyebrows. Now the hands?"