Guan Di lot 43 of 100
A summons and a fast boat
Fairly good (中吉, 戊丙). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 戊丙 is from manekineko.com.tw.
一紙官書火急催
扁舟速下浪如雷
雖然目下多驚險
保汝平安去復回
A single official letter urgently presses you.
In a small boat you go quickly down, with waves like thunder.
Though you meet many alarms along the way,
I will keep you safe, to go and to come back.
What this lot says
This is a lot about a trip made under pressure. The verse says the journey is frightening but that you come through it.
It describes the fear and the return, not the details. If you are about to do something that makes you nervous, it reads as encouragement.
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
Liu Bei goes to the banquet at Yellow Crane Tower (玄德公黃鶴樓赴宴)
According to the account on Wikisource, which says this is a popular tale and not strictly historical, Liu Bei was invited to a banquet where an ambush was planned, and escaped on the advice of Zhuge Liang. The account adds that, in the histories, the plot is said to have been dropped because Guan Yu was present.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/43, 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)
一紙官書火急催 / 扁舟速下浪如雷 / 雖然目下多驚險 / 保汝平安去復回
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
一紙官書火急催 / 扁舟速下浪如雷 / 雖然目下多驚險 / 保汝平安去復回
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 4: Wikisource's commentary says 回 is also written 來.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.