Guan Di lot 73 of 100
Half a hairpin, no word
Lowest (下下, 辛丙). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 辛丙 is from manekineko.com.tw.
憶昔蘭房分半釵
而今忽把信音乖
痴心指望成連理
到底誰知事不諧
I remember the orchid room where we split the hairpin.
Now word has suddenly gone astray.
Your foolish heart hoped for a joined branch.
In the end, who knew the matter would not work?
What this lot says
This is a lot about an unfulfilled promise. The verse recalls a shared token, a break in contact and a hope that did not come true.
It is honest and sad. It does not say you were wrong to hope, only that this particular match did not work.
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
Wang Zhaojun remembers the Han emperor (王昭君憶漢帝)
According to the account on Wikisource, Wang Zhaojun, a Han court lady, volunteered to marry the Xiongnu chief. In the account, she wrote to the emperor that she had never forgotten him and asked him to care for her father and brother.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/73, 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)
憶昔蘭房分半釵 / 而今忽把信音乖 / 痴心指望成連理 / 到底誰知事不諧
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
憶昔蘭房分半釵 / 而今忽把信音乖 / 痴心指望成連理 / 到底誰知事不諧
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 1: a note in Wikisource's transcription gives 惜 for 昔, apparently a variant reading.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.