Bagua Luo Pan

  "Little ones are convenient to carry, but when going out, it's still more impressive to carry a big one. In today's society, everyone thinks that the bigger the better, a big house is good, a big car is also good. The Peugeot 307, which was originally flat in foreign countries, has been given a butt after coming to China, just to cater to the Chinese people's preference for bigness."

  Tang Zhendong said that, Old Ye could only nod his head. He didn't understand cars, but he understood the psychology of Chinese people very well. Chinese people value face over practicality, so they always like big and flashy things that are not necessarily useful.

  Little did they know, the engine is still the same engine, and the car is still the same car. By widening the buttocks, dozens of kilograms of weight are added out of thin air, and fuel consumption and wind resistance naturally come with it.

  "Alright, let's get the big one." Old Ye put down the exquisite compass in his hand and picked up a large compass with a diameter of at least 30 centimeters. "This big one is not bad, it feels good in the hand! At first glance, it seems more accurate than the small one just now."

  Tang Zhendong smiled in his heart: Old Ye, you are indeed a swindler of the rivers and lakes, and also a not-so-high-level swindler of the rivers and lakes.

  The compass is a must-have treasure for Feng Shui masters. To be exact, it's a necessary tool for the Li Qi Feng Shui school.

  Feng shui is divided into Xinglun and Liqi, and the Luopan is an operational tool of the Liqi school. The Luopan, as its name suggests, is round in shape, while the base below is square, implying the ancient principle of "Tianyuan Difang". In fact, the design of the base as a regular square is not only symbolic of Tianyuan Difang, but also has practical uses. The square base can also correct the angle at which the Luopan is held in one's hand, and whether the Luopan is perpendicular to the building being measured.

  Tang Zhendong was very familiar with the compass, and his master Xu Zhuo had specifically asked the prison guard to bring one from outside when teaching Tang Zhendong about the compass.

  "A junior Feng Shui master must use a compass, but at my level, the compass is no longer needed. I mostly use the heart disk, with the heart as the disk, penetrating heaven and earth. You still have a long way to go to reach the realm of the heart disk." These were Xu Zhuo's original words to Tang Zhendong.

  Master Xu Zhuo was penniless in prison, but whether it was the warden or the small jailers, they all treated him as if he were a god. Why? It's because Xu Zhuo's compass had already been imprinted on his mind and became part of his body.

  "I also realized the heart disk boundary only after being in prison, but you don't have to rush, from now on, every day, you must recite the structure of the Luo Pan in your mind once or twice until you are familiar with it."

  Because the structure on the compass is too complicated, Tang Zhendong didn't touch it and that's fine, but when he really touched it, he realized that the compass condensed the wisdom of countless people.

  From the initial North-South poles, to the later East-West-North-South four major directions, using the Twelve Earthly Branches to represent East-West-North-South, that is, from four directions, divided into twelve directions, and then adding the Ten Heavenly Stems to the Twelve Earthly Branches, and later incorporating the Four Guas of the Eight Trigrams, forming the 24 Mountains of the compass we know today.

  The twenty-four mountains represent the compass being divided into twenty-four directions. The eight trigrams and the twenty-four mountains are two layers of the compass, but Lao Ye's compass is extremely complex, with fifty-two layers, and the outermost grid is divided into three hundred and eighty-four grids. Lao Ye held this complex compass and chuckled, "I can only show off my skills by taking out this compass. You're absolutely right, young Tang! I'm an old Jianghu, even older than Old Jianghu!"

  Tang Zhendong also smiled, not because Old Ye was praising himself, but because Old Ye was an amateur. The more layers a compass has, the more complicated it is, and the more confusing it is for those who don't understand it. What a compass needs to verify most is the sensitivity and accuracy of its magnetic needle. Having too many layers is just cheating amateurs.

  Lao Ye is just an amateur!

  Tang Zhendong had memorized the 52-layered Luopan while in prison, which is almost the most layered Luopan that can be bought on the market. This has to be blamed on Master Xu Zhuo, if it weren't for his orders and the prison guard trying to please him, would they have gone out of their way to buy such a complicated Luopan for him?

  The consequence is that he also has to memorize such a complex abacus. If the prison guard had only bought a five-layered abacus, Tang Zhendong would have been able to memorize it in just five minutes. But with an abacus of over 50 layers, with one layer having as many as 384 grids, can you imagine how large an abacus Tang Zhendong has stored in his mind?

  It took Tang Zhendong three months to memorize all the grids on this compass.

  Tang Zhendong saw Old Ye holding such a complex compass and couldn't help but want to curse, this damn thing had wasted three whole months of his brain cells.

  Until Tang Zhendong had such a complex compass printed in his mind, Master Xu Zhuo would casually ask which direction and which floor, and Tang Zhendong could answer fluently. This questioning was not just reciting questions, but rather, during the three to five years of memorization, he would often be quizzed at random.

  However, what made Tang Zhendong even more puzzled was that after his master had him memorize the compass, his master smashed it to pieces in front of him. What's even stranger is that his master didn't say a single word to him afterwards.

  Lao Ye chose a good compass, this compass sells for over 1,000 yuan. Tang Zhen Dong also picked up a pure copper Lu Ban ruler and a Ding Lan ruler. After calculating the total, it came to 1,800 yuan. Just as Tang Zhen Dong was about to pay, Lao Ye pressed down on his hand and used his silver tongue to haggle the price down from 1,800 to 880 yuan. In the end, they even threw in a small compass for free. Of course, this small compass was something Tang Zhen Dong had insisted on.

  "Take the small ones, I'll take the big ones, at least we each get one." Anyway, since it doesn't cost anything, Old Ye naturally hopes for more good things.

  It stands to reason that Tang Zhendong should have been used to Old Ye's ignorance of Feng Shui, but he couldn't help but want to mock him. However, since they were in someone else's store, saying anything would only make a fool of himself, so Tang Zhendong didn't say any more. In fact, what Tang Zhendong admired most about Old Ye was that he had managed to haggle the price down from 1,800 to just 880, which left Tang Zhendong in awe.

  Tang Zhendong wanted to get a small compass, not because he himself also wanted one, but on the contrary, Tang Zhendong hated this compass. This was prepared for some people who understood the situation at home.

  Those who are engaged in the feng shui industry, masters who look at feng shui for people, generally need to carry at least two compasses with them, one large and one small. This is to prevent the compass needle from losing its spirit or when encountering strong magnetic interference, there is a basis for judgment. This is the current practice of popular feng shui masters, and some knowledgeable people will also pay attention to these small details of feng shui masters.

  Of course, these experiences were told by Master Xu Zhuo to Tang Zhendong during his leisure time.