Heaven leaves no secret entirely in darkness, Nor seals the truth within a single land. Through winter nights and forgotten ages, Its signs endure where mortal eyes may stand.
The Signs of Heaven
From a high ridge veiled in mist, the two celestial generals, Guan and Zhang, looked across the vast lands below.
Guan gazed toward the distant horizon. “The prophecy speaks of the Rabbit and the Golden Rooster,” he said. “Where might these signs be found beyond the land in which the prophecy was preserved?”
Zhang studied the world below. “Heaven does not always preserve its signs in books. Sometimes, a meaning survives in a custom long after its origin has been forgotten.”
They did not force the world to reveal its secrets. They simply observed what had endured through time.
The Sacred Rabbit and the Awakening of Life
In a Western village, spring had arrived.
Children ran across green lawns, searching beneath bushes and among flowers for brightly painted eggs. Near a cottage stood a carved wooden rabbit, its ears raised and its eyes turned toward the path.
Guan paused. “The Rabbit,” he murmured.
Zhang followed his gaze. “In the prophecy, it marks an appointed time. Here, it appears in a celebration of spring.”
The children continued their search, unaware of the celestial beings nearby. To them, the rabbit was simply part of a familiar tradition. Yet the image suggested something deeper: after the stillness of winter, life had returned. What seemed dormant was not necessarily dead.
“Heaven placed one sign in the prophecy,” Guan said, “and the mortal world carried another into its traditions.”
“Perhaps the sign was never meant to speak to only one people,” Zhang replied.
The Secret Within the Shell
Nearby, a family gathered around a table covered with painted eggs. A child carefully turned one in his hands, studying its smooth shell.
Guan watched in silence. “From the outside, it appears complete. Yet its form alone cannot tell us what lies within.”
Zhang looked at the egg. “A shell may conceal life. Stillness does not always mean emptiness.”
Across the mortal realm, people often judged by what they could immediately see. But what was hidden might still be unfolding. In that simple form, the two generals recognized a familiar pattern: what was not yet revealed might still be present.
The Evergreen and the Character of Wood
Winter had settled over another land. Inside a modest home stood an evergreen tree, its branches green and bright against the cold.
Zhang stopped before the window. “Wood,” he said quietly.
Guan turned toward him. “Mu-Zi?”
Zhang nodded. “The character Mu means wood. The prophecy speaks of Mu-Zi. But perhaps there is another place where the same sign has survived.”
His gaze turned toward a familiar folk image passed down through generations: a broad, joyful, smiling figure surrounded by children.
The mortal people called the image of the Great Laughing Buddha The Eighteen Children of Maitreya.
Zhang stood before the statue for a long moment and slowly traced the ancient characters in the air:
十八子
“Ten and eight,” he said.
十 + 八 = 木
Guan’s expression changed.
Zhang continued. “And Mu with Zi…”
He wrote the second character.
木 + 子 = 李
Guan stared at the character. “Li,” he said quietly.
The prophecy had spoken of Mu-Zi. The mortal world had preserved those exact characters within a familiar folk image of Maitreya surrounded by eighteen children. The connection was too precise to dismiss.
“Perhaps they did not know what they were preserving,” Zhang said.
“Yet Heaven left the sign where generations could see it,” Guan replied.
The Golden Rooster Above the Earth
Snow covered the square before an old stone cathedral. High above its roof, a golden weathercock turned with the winter wind.
Guan looked upward. “The Golden Rooster. In the prophecy, its eye points toward the land of descent. Here, we see only an image of a rooster placed high above the earth.”
People crossed the square below, rarely looking up at the weathercock doing its practical work.
“We must not assume that every resemblance carries the same meaning,” Zhang said thoughtfully.
“But neither should we overlook what has survived,” Guan replied.
The Signs Scattered Across the Earth
As evening approached, Guan and Zhang rose above the clouds. Below them stretched a world of diverse peoples, languages, and customs, each retaining scattered fragments:
❖ The Rabbit of spring;
❖ the egg concealing life;
❖ the evergreen standing through winter;
❖ the eighteen children surrounding Maitreya, forming the character Li — 李;
❖ the rooster above the city;
❖ the quiet act of giving thanks.
The signs were no longer isolated. They were beginning to form a pattern.
Gazing down at the mortal world from above, the two celestial generals recalled the ancient piece of yellow silk they had received from Nüwa’s brocade pouch beside Shiji’s mountain—the sacred prophecy of the Tui Bi Tu (Thôi Bi Đồ):
“At that time, Maitreya Buddha would descend through the void into the Middle Heaven of the Nanhé Futu World, in China, beneath the gaze of the Golden Rooster. As the final years of the Jade Pure era approached the end of the kalpa, the Dragon Flower Assembly would be held in the Year of the Tiger. In the Year of the Rabbit, He would descend into the Middle Heaven and take Mu-Zi as His surname.”
It became clear then that Heaven had never left its revelation in a single place. The prophecy had been preserved in ancient texts. The heavenly words had been carried through lineages. And deeper meanings had woven themselves into the ordinary customs and symbols of humanity.
The map of China resembled a Golden Rooster with its eye pointing toward the North. The Rabbit signified the earthly year of His arrival. And the eighteen children surrounding Maitreya served as a living key to decode the surname Li from Mu-Zi.
What seemed like mere coincidences were, in truth, part of a grand arrangement first ordained at the Dragon Flower Palace—a sacred pattern that the future Mystic Ancestor of the Emei lineage would safeguard and pass down through the ages.
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“They do not remember the beginning,” Zhang said.
“But they still carry the signs across different ages,” Guan replied.
Their observation mission was complete. The world below continued its ordinary life—celebrating, gathering, giving thanks, and honoring traditions. Remembering without knowing what they remembered.
And the signs would remain.
The Vision of the Turning Wheel
Yet the signs themselves were not the end of the mystery.
Guan and Zhang remained above the clouds, their gazes fixed upon the mortal world below. Zhang slowly raised his hand and traced a circle through the shimmering air. The vision passed beyond ordinary distance—not merely across mountains and oceans, but through the layers of time itself.
Golden characters appeared in the void:
“After I personally transmit the Three Characters and the Threefold Law, all laws shall return to One, and the Law shall rectify Heaven and Earth. When the work is complete, I shall pierce through the void and depart. My mortal surname shall be Mu-Zi.”
The words remained suspended before them.
Then the two characters separated:
木
子
Mu.
Zi.
The golden forms turned slowly within the celestial light. When they joined again, they became another character:
李
Li.
Guan’s gaze descended toward the human world.
The meaning unfolded layer by layer. The prophecy spoke of a divine being descending from the higher realms, entering the mortal world beneath the surname Mu-Zi. Yet the mortal world itself had preserved the same sign in another form. Mu and Zi, joined together, formed Li—a name that would later stand within the arrangement of the human age.
The vision moved across the land of China.
Its shape resembled a Golden Rooster. Within that form, the eye of the Rooster pointed toward the northern earth.
Jilin.
The Rabbit.
Mu-Zi.
Li.
The fragments that had seemed scattered across centuries now stood together beneath one celestial design.
Guan remained silent.
The correspondence was no longer merely symbolic. It had entered history.
In the mortal world, the sign connected with those ancient words had appeared in the northern land during the year of the Rabbit. And in 1992, the Great Fa began to spread openly among humanity.
Its teaching was carried through three simple yet immeasurably profound principles:
Truthfulness. Compassion. Forbearance.
Three Characters.
Three principles.
One Great Law.
The teaching spread with astonishing speed, reaching millions within only a few years. Yet the prophecy had not spoken merely of a doctrine that would become known. It had spoken of a choice that would one day divide the hearts of humanity.
Another passage emerged from the golden light:
“Good men and faithful women shall accumulate virtue and cultivate the Three Characters transmitted by Maitreya Buddha. Humanity shall hold different views. There shall be few who believe and many who curse, and good and evil shall become clearly divided.”
The vision darkened.
Some believed.
Some doubted.
Some mocked.
Some attacked.
The division did not begin with banners or proclamations. It began within individual hearts, in the moment when a person encountered truth and decided whether to recognize it, reject it, or conceal his uncertainty beneath the approval of the crowd.
A second passage appeared:
“Those who sincerely put the Three Characters into practice shall transform from mortals into Saints, while those who do not believe shall remain unchanged.”
The vision passed across the mortal realm.
Some bowed their heads in faith. Some continued their cultivation despite persecution and hardship. Some held to their convictions even when the world around them rejected them.
For those who sincerely walked the path, the mortal body was no longer the final measure of existence. The ordinary could be transformed. The human could rise toward the divine.
Yet many remained unmoved. Decades of materialism and disbelief had taught them to trust only what could be touched, measured, or controlled.
Then the final passage appeared:
“When everyone knows the Three Characters, yet refuses to recognize them as true, sound and image shall join together in condemnation. Gods and ghosts shall weep. One pull, two pulls, three pulls—and sentient beings shall remain unconscious.”
Silence fell across the celestial realm.
Guan looked upon the mortal world.
The prophecy had not described a single battlefield. It had described an age in which falsehood would be carried through sound and image, entering countless homes at once.
The danger would not lie only in the existence of lies. It would lie in their repetition—until familiarity wore the appearance of truth, and the multitude could no longer distinguish what it had chosen from what had been placed within its mind.
The same age that carried the Three Characters to countless people would also carry their condemnation.
Some would turn away.
Some would believe.
Some would repeat what they had heard without ever questioning it.
And some, despite everything, would continue searching.
Zhang’s expression grew solemn.
“The deepest tribulation of this age,” he said, “is not of the flesh.”
Guan lowered his gaze.
“It is whether the heart can still recognize truth when falsehood surrounds it.”
The vision changed.
The abyss disappeared, and in its place appeared a vast river of time. It flowed toward an unseen boundary. Then the current slowed.
Once.
The river was drawn back.
Again.
A second time, the final boundary receded.
Then a third.
The appointed moment had been delayed—not because Heaven had abandoned the world, but because humanity had been granted another chance.
And another.
And another.
Three times, the boundary had been held back.
Three times, sentient beings had been given another opportunity to choose.
The mercy was immense.
But so was the weight carried by that mercy.
The Western Prophecy: The King of Terror
The signs did not belong to one land alone.
Guan’s gaze shifted westward. Another fragment of the same vast mystery had survived there—not in the ancient language of the East, but in the cryptic verses of a foreign seer whose name had endured through centuries: Nostradamus.
Through their Túc Mệnh Thông, the two generals looked upon an old prophecy:
“The month of July, 1999,
To resurrect the King of Angoulmois,
The Great King of Terror shall descend from the skies...
Before and after, Mars shall reign over the realm,
Under the pretext of bringing happiness to mankind.”
Silence settled between the two generals. They did not see the prophecy as an isolated prediction. They saw another fragment of a much larger pattern—a warning from the Western world that had echoed across the same age in which the signs of the Holy King were beginning to converge.
Guan’s expression grew solemn. “Another land carried another fragment,” he said.
“And another warning,” Zhang replied.
Their vision moved forward. The calendar turned. The year 1999 arrived.
What followed was not merely a conflict of armies. A vast earthly apparatus began to move against those who had embraced the Great Law—institutions, propaganda, coercion, fear, and public hatred all becoming instruments of persecution.
The two generals watched without speaking. They saw ordinary people being told what to believe. They saw lies repeated until they resembled truth. They saw fear transformed into suspicion, and suspicion into hatred. And beneath it all, they sensed something darker: a struggle not merely over bodies, but over whether human hearts could still distinguish truth from deception.
The Revelations of Tui Bi Tu
The vision shifted once more. Far to the East, the sacred pages of the Tui Bi Tu (Thôi Bi Đồ) unfolded in a brilliant flash of golden light. The passage they had already witnessed now appeared in a second layer of meaning—not as another prophecy, but as a seal upon the age that had begun to unfold.
Guan watched as the vision descended into the familiar machinery of mortal life: images repeated across millions of screens, words carried into countless homes, and sound and image moving together until falsehood became familiar.
The mortal world had entered an age in which a lie no longer needed to be whispered. It could be amplified until millions heard it at once.
The vision deepened. Higher beings watched from beyond the mortal realm. The sorrow was not only for those who had been persecuted. It was also for those who had been deceived into helping the persecution, for the same lies that struck the disciples of the Great Law also placed the deceived themselves in danger.
The stone had already been placed at Zhangbu Valley. The prophecies had already been written. The warnings had already been scattered across different lands and different ages.
And when the appointed hour came, the six characters upon the crystal would shine for all to see. Those who cast aside hatred and prejudice, and chose righteousness instead, would find a path through the storm. Those who refused to awaken would face another kind of consequence—not imposed by Heaven, but born from the choices they themselves had made.
The Light Still Waits
The vision slowly faded. Guan and Zhang stood once more beneath the celestial winds.
Below them, the mortal world continued its ordinary rhythm. People worked. Children played. Families gathered. Songs were sung. Lights appeared in distant cities.
Most knew nothing of the prophecies, the signs, or the ancient arrangements moving quietly behind history. Yet the signs remained:
❖ The Rabbit;
❖ the Wood;
❖ the Rooster;
❖ the hidden characters;
❖ the ancient prophecies;
❖ the traditions carried across generations;
❖ and now, the light itself.
Zhang looked toward the horizon. “The signs were never hidden.”
Guan nodded. “They were waiting for humanity to recognize them.”
For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Guan turned his gaze toward the distant mortal world.
“But seeing the signs is only the beginning.”
Zhang’s eyes followed his. “The final test is whether humanity will recognize the light when it comes.”
The celestial winds moved through their robes. Far below, the world continued to turn. The appointed hour had not yet arrived. But the signs had already begun to converge.
And somewhere within the vast stream of human history, the choice that would determine the fate of countless lives was already taking shape.
Heaven would wait.
For the signs had never been hidden.
They had only been waiting to be seen.
(To be continued...)