The Two Strangers Who Weren't Human
Desperate to catch the last bus home before a festival, a traveler burns spirit money and casts divination coins—summoning help from forces that arrive wearing the faces of strangers.
The I Ching says: "Spirits harm the proud and bless the humble."
What has no voice and no form? Spirits and ghosts. They can help you, or they can destroy you. Like water that carries a boat can also sink it.
This happened on the day before the Lantern Festival, in the Year of the Metal Ox. I was rushing from the county town back to the city to celebrate with my family. But I'd been delayed, and now I had less than half an hour to catch the last bus. If I missed it, I'd miss the festival entirely—and this was a remote farming town, pouring rain, with no way back until morning.
I had no choice.
I reached into my wallet and pulled out three sheets of spirit money—the kind burned as offerings to the dead. I grabbed my divination coins and made an urgent petition to the unseen forces around me. I begged the spirits of the ten directions to help me get home.
But the wind was howling, and rain was coming down in sheets. I only managed to burn one sheet before the flame died. I promised the remaining two would be burned later, once I was safely home and could properly dismiss the spirits I'd summoned.
I cast the coins three times.
Sacred. Yin. Yin.
In our tradition, the Yin represents the hidden realm—the world beneath. Two Yins mean possession, attachment. The Sacred coin means communion, a spirit stepping forward to assist. The reading was clear: the spirits were already beside me, working in the shadows. I just had to move.
I ran out into the rain, searching for a shared electric scooter. Nothing. The nearest one was a ten-minute walk away, and the bus station was at least twenty minutes by bike—even in perfect weather. A taxi? In this remote town? Impossible.
I was stranded.
Then a man appeared.
A middle-aged man in a worn jacket, standing under the awning of a closed shop. He saw me with my suitcase, soaked and desperate, and called out.
"Where you headed?"
"The bus station," I said.
"I'm catching a ride home," he said. "Just got one. You want to split it?"
I asked if it was on his way. The driver—who had pulled up in a battered sedan—nodded and said it was. So I got in.
When we reached their stop, the driver turned to me. "You can get another car from here, or pay eighteen yuan to keep going."
"Fine," I said. I was already pulling out my phone to pay when the driver stopped me.
"Your friend already took care of it."
I turned to the middle-aged man, but he was already stepping out into the rain. He didn't look back. He didn't say goodbye. He just walked away, shoulders hunched against the weather, and vanished around the corner.
Ten minutes left.
The driver dropped me at the agreed location, but when I called the bus driver, there was confusion. Wrong spot, he said. He'd been waiting. Where was I?
Panic set in.
Then an old man approached me. He wore a black coat and a black hat pulled low, his face half-hidden in shadow. He told me I was waiting in the wrong place—that the bus stopped at the traffic light, not here. He pointed down the road with a gloved hand.
I hesitated. But something in his voice was certain, absolute. I started walking toward the intersection.
A moment later, my phone rang. The bus driver, irritated: "Where are you? I've been waiting forever."
"I'm at the spot you told me—"
"No," he interrupted. "Not there. I don't know how to explain it, but it's not where you are."
Then I remembered the old man's words. I sprinted toward the traffic light.
There, on a narrow side street just past the intersection, was the bus. Its headlights cut through the rain like two pale eyes.
I made it.
When I got home, the first thing I did was go to my altar. I burned the remaining spirit money. I laid out food offerings—fruit, rice wine, incense. I thanked the forces I'd summoned and formally dismissed them, sending them back to where they came from.
Then I sat in silence and thought about what my teacher had once told me.
"When you cast for spirits and get double Yin," he'd said, "it doesn't just mean help is coming. It means they're already inside the situation. They're wearing faces you recognize."
Not everyone meets a kind stranger at exactly the right moment. Not everyone gets pointed in the right direction by a mysterious old man when they're about to give up.
The middle-aged man who paid my fare and walked away without a word.
The old man in black who knew exactly where the bus would be, even when the driver himself couldn't explain it.
Two strangers. Two perfect interventions.
My teacher's voice echoed in my head: "Spirits harm the proud and bless the humble."
I had been desperate enough to ask. And something—someone—had answered.
But here's what keeps me awake at night: I never got the middle-aged man's name. I never saw the old man's face. And when I went back to that intersection the next week, the shop where the man had been standing was boarded up. Had been for months, the neighbor told me.
So where had he been waiting?
And who—or what—had been wearing his face?
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*
What has no voice and no form? Spirits and ghosts. They can help you, or they can destroy you. Like water that carries a boat can also sink it.
This happened on the day before the Lantern Festival, in the Year of the Metal Ox. I was rushing from the county town back to the city to celebrate with my family. But I'd been delayed, and now I had less than half an hour to catch the last bus. If I missed it, I'd miss the festival entirely—and this was a remote farming town, pouring rain, with no way back until morning.
I had no choice.
I reached into my wallet and pulled out three sheets of spirit money—the kind burned as offerings to the dead. I grabbed my divination coins and made an urgent petition to the unseen forces around me. I begged the spirits of the ten directions to help me get home.
But the wind was howling, and rain was coming down in sheets. I only managed to burn one sheet before the flame died. I promised the remaining two would be burned later, once I was safely home and could properly dismiss the spirits I'd summoned.
I cast the coins three times.
Sacred. Yin. Yin.
In our tradition, the Yin represents the hidden realm—the world beneath. Two Yins mean possession, attachment. The Sacred coin means communion, a spirit stepping forward to assist. The reading was clear: the spirits were already beside me, working in the shadows. I just had to move.
I ran out into the rain, searching for a shared electric scooter. Nothing. The nearest one was a ten-minute walk away, and the bus station was at least twenty minutes by bike—even in perfect weather. A taxi? In this remote town? Impossible.
I was stranded.
Then a man appeared.
A middle-aged man in a worn jacket, standing under the awning of a closed shop. He saw me with my suitcase, soaked and desperate, and called out.
"Where you headed?"
"The bus station," I said.
"I'm catching a ride home," he said. "Just got one. You want to split it?"
I asked if it was on his way. The driver—who had pulled up in a battered sedan—nodded and said it was. So I got in.
When we reached their stop, the driver turned to me. "You can get another car from here, or pay eighteen yuan to keep going."
"Fine," I said. I was already pulling out my phone to pay when the driver stopped me.
"Your friend already took care of it."
I turned to the middle-aged man, but he was already stepping out into the rain. He didn't look back. He didn't say goodbye. He just walked away, shoulders hunched against the weather, and vanished around the corner.
Ten minutes left.
The driver dropped me at the agreed location, but when I called the bus driver, there was confusion. Wrong spot, he said. He'd been waiting. Where was I?
Panic set in.
Then an old man approached me. He wore a black coat and a black hat pulled low, his face half-hidden in shadow. He told me I was waiting in the wrong place—that the bus stopped at the traffic light, not here. He pointed down the road with a gloved hand.
I hesitated. But something in his voice was certain, absolute. I started walking toward the intersection.
A moment later, my phone rang. The bus driver, irritated: "Where are you? I've been waiting forever."
"I'm at the spot you told me—"
"No," he interrupted. "Not there. I don't know how to explain it, but it's not where you are."
Then I remembered the old man's words. I sprinted toward the traffic light.
There, on a narrow side street just past the intersection, was the bus. Its headlights cut through the rain like two pale eyes.
I made it.
When I got home, the first thing I did was go to my altar. I burned the remaining spirit money. I laid out food offerings—fruit, rice wine, incense. I thanked the forces I'd summoned and formally dismissed them, sending them back to where they came from.
Then I sat in silence and thought about what my teacher had once told me.
"When you cast for spirits and get double Yin," he'd said, "it doesn't just mean help is coming. It means they're already inside the situation. They're wearing faces you recognize."
Not everyone meets a kind stranger at exactly the right moment. Not everyone gets pointed in the right direction by a mysterious old man when they're about to give up.
The middle-aged man who paid my fare and walked away without a word.
The old man in black who knew exactly where the bus would be, even when the driver himself couldn't explain it.
Two strangers. Two perfect interventions.
My teacher's voice echoed in my head: "Spirits harm the proud and bless the humble."
I had been desperate enough to ask. And something—someone—had answered.
But here's what keeps me awake at night: I never got the middle-aged man's name. I never saw the old man's face. And when I went back to that intersection the next week, the shop where the man had been standing was boarded up. Had been for months, the neighbor told me.
So where had he been waiting?
And who—or what—had been wearing his face?
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*