Guan Di lot 57 of 100
Think again in the noise
Middling (中平, 己庚). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 己庚 is from manekineko.com.tw.
事端百出慮雖長
莫聽人言自主張
一著仙機君記取
紛紛鬧裏更思量
Troubles come out a hundred ways, and your worrying runs long.
Do not listen to what others say. Make your own decision.
One move of the immortal's craft: remember it.
In the midst of the commotion, think again.
What this lot says
This is a lot about keeping your head in a noisy situation. The verse says many things are going on and that other people's advice is not to be taken blindly.
The suggestion is to pause and think again. If you are about to react to pressure, take a day.
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
The rotted axe handle and the game of chess (爛柯觀棋)
According to the account on Wikisource, Wang Zhi of the Jin dynasty went into the hills to cut wood and watched two boys playing chess. When the game ended, his axe handle had rotted, and when he got home everything had changed. The legend says a moment among immortals is a hundred years among mortals.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/57, 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)
事端百出慮雖長 / 莫聽人言自主張 / 一著仙機君記取 / 紛紛鬧裏更思量
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
事端百出慮雖長 / 莫聽人言自主張 / 一著仙機君記取 / 紛紛鬧裏更思量
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 3: Wikisource's commentary says 仙 is also written 先.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.