Volume One, Chapter 17: The Nine Stars of the Big Dipper

As early as the beginning of the twenty-first century, our foreign counterparts, the London Metropolitan Police Service—commonly known as Scotland Yard—once grandly established a “Super Recognizer” investigation unit.

They claimed that these “Super Recognizers” could, with just their naked eyes, accurately identify a suspect from a database of tens of thousands of faces, even if they had only briefly encountered them before—more precise and faster than AI recognition or surveillance cameras.

These foreigners are truly rare in their astonishment. In our country, such “Super Recognizers” are not only found in every police station, but each graduating class of the police academy usually has a few.

Firstly, it is hereditary. Many second-generation officers inherit their fathers’ keen observational skills and surpass them. Secondly, it is nurtured over time. Growing up watching surveillance footage outside the criminal investigation center while waiting for their parents to finish work, it’s almost impossible for us to suffer from face blindness.

However, the abilities of Super Recognizers vary. Some people, if you have breakfast across from them, can still remember what you look like twenty years later; others, after sharing a meal with you, can recount exactly what you ate two decades ago.

Master Qi is more remarkable than any Super Recognizer I have ever met. A whole cabinet full of ledgers and a towering stack of case files would be a nightmare for any officer, but with just one glance, he memorizes their contents. He is a walking archive.

“That’s right… hmm, they are the Big Dipper,” Master Qi said after a long moment of contemplation, suddenly smiling. “Apprentice, a major discovery! Do you remember the small holes above the stone gates we’ve passed? I just recalled the positions of all these holes and tried to project them onto the same plane—guess what? They actually form a complete Big Dipper constellation!”

Holes? The Big Dipper? It felt illogical to me, and I frowned slightly.

Everyone else immediately erupted:

“Officer, you must be mistaken!”

“That’s impossible. We passed through four stone gates, plus the five gates of this courtyard—5 plus 4 equals 9, a total of nine gates. Each has a small hole; no matter how you count, that’s nine stars. Where do you get a Big Dipper of seven stars from?”

I said nothing, looking instead at Master Qi.

“Hey, who says the Big Dipper must have only seven stars? You all failed astronomy,” Master Qi chuckled lightly. “If I’m not mistaken, during the Tang Dynasty there was a notion of a Big Dipper with nine stars—Greedy, Giant, Military, Assistant, Official, Martial, and Broken Star.”

Master Qi wasn’t reciting a spell but listing the traditional names the ancients gave each star of the Big Dipper.

Because the seven stars connected resemble an ancient ladle used for scooping wine, it was called the “Big Dipper Seven Stars.” Taoism also refers to the Big Dipper Seven Stars as the “Seven Primordial Stars of Misfortune Relief,” namely: the Greedy Wolf of the Tianshu Palace, the Giant Gate of the Tianxuan Palace, the Lu Cun of the Tianji Palace, the Literary Star of the Tianquan Palace, the Honest Star of the Yuheng Palace, the Military Star of the Kaiyang Palace, and the Broken Army Star of the Yaoguang Palace.

This is exactly the mnemonic Master Qi recited.

The Big Dipper we are familiar with, plus the two stars flanking the handle of the dipper—“Left Assistant” and “Right Assistant”—7 plus 2 equals 9, collectively called the “Big Dipper Nine Stars.”

“I see,” I murmured after a moment of reflection.

If we order the carved names on each stone gate—Hukou, Chenxiang, Taibai, Huachi, Longshou, Lintao—

These place names correspond one by one to actual Tang Dynasty geographic locations: Hukou on the Yellow River, Chenxiang Pavilion in Xi’an, Taibai Peak in the Qinling Mountains, Huachi County in Huayang, the southern Loess Plateau, and Dingxi in Gansu.

Placing them on the same map and connecting them sequentially also forms the shape of the Big Dipper!

“There is one last point I can’t figure out,” I looked up at Master Qi and posed a more professional question. “Look, the main seven stars of this Big Dipper constellation are quite perfect, but the two auxiliary stars ‘Left Assistant’ and ‘Right Assistant’ are way off. Yelang is in Yunnan-Guizhou, and the Shu Road is in Sichuan. These two stars deviate greatly from the position of the dipper’s handle. What do they represent, and how should we explain that?”

“Apprentice, do you remember ‘Journey to the West’?” Master Qi asked, looking up at me. “It was based on Wu Cheng’en’s ‘Great Tang Records on the Western Regions,’ but many place names were fictional or fabricated.”

For example, the book describes a desert with quicksand that “eats people.” Wu Cheng’en imagined it as a “flowing sand” river, the home of Sha Monk. Since he never personally ventured into the great desert, he didn’t know that “flowing sand” was actually solid sand, not a flowing liquid river.

Even in the Four Great Classical Novels, such hearsay errors appear—not due to the ancients’ lack of insight but because ancient geographic and travel limitations made it difficult to verify information. People relied on scant descriptions in books or stories from travelers, trying to imagine events thousands of miles away.

We cannot judge the ancients by modern geographic knowledge. Today, you open a satellite map and have a god’s-eye view. You buy a high-speed rail ticket and can see the scenery across the country clearly. The ancients had no such technology.

Master Qi paused, then added that Tang Dynasty people’s travel was certainly more inconvenient than that of the Ming Dynasty. If the homeowner happened to be born in the late Tang, amid social unrest, he would be even more reluctant to travel far, lest he lose his head.

He probably never visited Yelang or Shu Road himself, only heard that they were in the “Western Regions.” But this concept was very broad. Whether northwest or southwest, he wasn’t very sure—just that it was likely closer than the impassable Yumen Pass. So, when this homeowner placed the two auxiliary stars, errors in position were understandable.

I nodded slightly, completely persuaded.

Reviewing the entire Big Dipper again, eight of the nine stars were matched, with only one star missing.

This star lies at the tip of the Big Dipper’s handle.

It can only be Dunhuang, Gansu—Yumen Pass.

“Since we have two stone gates to choose from—one marked ‘Hangu Pass,’ the other ‘Yumen Pass’—should we quickly exit through Yumen Pass, Master? Are you listening?” I called to him twice.

But he did not respond at all. I saw him closing his eyes, rubbing his temples. “Lower your voice a bit; you’re not making sense,” he said.

Yumen Pass. Dunhuang. The handle points to Dunhuang.

Hangu Pass. Lingbao. The North Star is in Lingbao.

The North Star, the North Star… Master Qi repeated these words, then slowly opened his eyes, raised his hand, and pointed firmly to the “Hangu Pass” stone gate, saying with conviction:

“We should go this way.”