Guan Di lot 11 of 100
A good start that may not last
Lowest (下下, 乙甲). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 乙甲 is from manekineko.com.tw.
今年好事一番新
富貴榮華萃汝身
誰道機關難料處
到頭獨立轉傷神
This year brings a fresh run of good things.
Wealth and glory gather on you.
Who could have said how hard the turns of things are to foresee?
In the end you stand alone and are hurt in spirit.
What this lot says
This is a lot of two halves. The first two lines are bright, and the last two warn that things can turn in ways no one foresaw, leaving you alone at the end.
Take it as a caution against over-reaching. If a good run has begun, the verse suggests keeping your allies close and not counting on it to last.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Han Xin's merit does not last; Sun Bin meets Pang Juan (韓信功勞不久；孫臏遇龐涓)
According to the account on Wikisource, Han Xin helped found the Han dynasty and won great victories, but the emperor distrusted him, he was demoted and he was later put to death, aged thirty-two. In the same account, Sun Bin and Pang Juan studied under the same teacher, Pang Juan grew jealous of Sun Bin and had his feet cut off, and Sun Bin later defeated him in battle.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/11, the 故事及記載 section
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. We read it from two named web transcriptions, Chinese Wikisource (the base text) and manekineko.com.tw. Neither is a scan of a printing, the edition behind them is mixed, and we could not establish whether the two are independent of each other.
Wikisource (關聖帝君靈籤) (the text shown above)
今年好事一番新 / 富貴榮華萃汝身 / 誰道機關難料處 / 到頭獨立轉傷神
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
今年好事一番新 / 富貴榮華萃汝身 / 誰道機關難料處 / 到頭獨立轉傷神
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 3: a note in Wikisource's transcription gives 識 for 道, apparently a variant reading.
- Line 4: Wikisource's commentary says 立 is also written 力.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.