Revenge is Best Served After Reborn (James) novel Chapter 1342

"Yeah, what's all this talk about divisions and separations? Sounds like a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo to me."

Jenna was just as lost as everyone else when Sophie started her cryptic explanation.

Seeing their puzzled faces, Sophie picked up a stone from a nearby bush and started sketching eight symbols on the ground.

As she drew, she explained, "Three solid lines, three broken lines."

On the ground appeared two opposing symbols: one with three unbroken lines and the other with three broken lines.

"These solid lines represent the active force, and the broken lines represent the passive force," Sophie elaborated.

She continued, "A hollow center surrounded by activity, and a full center surrounded by passivity."

Sophie then added two more symbols: one with a passive line in the middle bordered by active lines, and another with an active line in the middle bordered by passive lines.

"Whoa, isn't this from the I Ching hexagrams?" Adler remarked, clearly impressed.

Angelo and Sandy exchanged bewildered glances.

"What hexagrams?" they wondered aloud.

"Thunder looking up, Mountain covering the bowl, Lake with a missing top, Wind broken at the bottom," Sophie continued, drawing the final four symbols.

"Anyway, back on track, these ancient hexagrams are split into two types: pre-heaven and post-heaven, and their differences are pretty significant," Sophie explained.

"The pre-heaven hexagrams, said to be created by Fuxi, align with heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain, and lake. The story goes that Fuxi observed the sky's patterns and the earth's laws, which led him to draw the pre-heaven hexagrams representing the cycle of life. Later, King Wen of Zhou developed the post-heaven hexagrams while in prison, expanding them to sixty-four. This indirectly led to the discovery of the changing seasons, and the twenty-four solar terms we know today were figured out by ancient folks bit by bit. The post-heaven hexagrams, however, are a whole different ballgame."

"How so?"

"The pre-heaven hexagrams take a big-picture view of the rise and fall of everything, like looking at Earth from space, whereas the post-heaven hexagrams focus on Earth itself," Sophie said. "The post-heaven hexagrams are often used in feng shui and predicting human destiny. I have a feeling I've seen this terrain somewhere before."

Sandy and Angelo looked at each other, almost in sync, and said, "We don't get it. Not at all."