Wong Tai Sin lot 45 of 100
Wang Zhi meets the immortals
Middling (中平). Grade as given on the named web transcriptions. We have not seen it on a temple printing, and we do not know that the temple prints one.
採樵不意到雲天
閒看敲棋二老仙
柯爛也思歸故里
山中七日世千年
Gathering firewood, he unexpectedly reached the clouds.
He idly watched two old immortals playing chess.
When the axe handle rotted he thought of home.
Seven days in the mountains was a thousand years in the world.
What this lot says
Time runs differently in the story: a short visit takes centuries of ordinary time. The verse names the mismatch directly.
The grade is middling. The lot suggests that your sense of how long something has taken may not match how the world has moved.
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 Zhi meets the immortals (王質遇仙)
A traditional allusion named with this lot. We have not traced the story to a source we could read, so we do not retell it here.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author, here read from named web transcriptions. We compared the sites character by character and show every difference. We could not establish whether the sites are independent of one another, and we have not read a temple printing.
Fortune Sticks (fortunesticks.org) (the text shown above)
採樵不意到雲天 / 閒看敲棋二老仙 / 柯爛也思歸故里 / 山中七日世千年
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Luckeyes (算命眼, luckeyes.com)
采樵不意到雲天 / 閒年敲棋二老仙 / 柯爛也思歸故里 / 出中七日世千年
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Andy.hk (加賀風水)
採樵不意到雲天 / 閒看敲棋二老仙 / 柯爛也思歸故里 / 山中七日世千年
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 1, character 1: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 採; luckeyes.com reads 采. This is the same character in a different written form.
- Line 2, character 2: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 看; luckeyes.com reads 年. This is a different character.
- Line 4, character 1: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 山; luckeyes.com reads 出. This is a different character.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.