Zhao Yan 趙顏

In Chapter 69 of the Romance, when Cao Cao fell ill and medicine failed to cure him, Xu Zhi, Assistant to the Grand Astrologer, who had come from Xuchang, asked whether he had heard of the divine diviner Guan Lu, and told him stories about him one after another. Guan Lu, he said, was a native of Pingyuan who from childhood loved to gaze up at the stars, and who grew up deeply versed in the Book of Changes. At the time when Liu Bin, the Administrator of his commandery, was treating him as an honored guest, Guan Lu, strolling at leisure in the outskirts, stood by the roadside watching a young man ploughing a field for a long while, and then asked his surname and age. Romance, Ch. 69 §2–4 · 10–11

The young man answered that his surname was Zhao, his given name Yan, and that he was nineteen. Guan Lu said that there was an aura of death between his brows and that he would surely die within three days, and that it was a pity that one so handsome should have no long life. When Zhao Yan went home and told his father, the father ran after Guan Lu, prostrated himself on the ground weeping and bowing, and, though Guan Lu said that this was the will of Heaven and could not be averted by prayer, clung to him, saying that this old man had only this one son. Zhao Yan too wept and pleaded. Romance, Ch. 69 §12–13

Seeing how earnest the love between father and son was, Guan Lu told him that if he took a bottle of clear wine and a piece of dried venison to the foot of a large tree on the Southern Mountain the next day, he would find two men playing go on a flat rock. The one seated facing south in a white robe would be of very fierce appearance, and the one seated facing north in a red robe very handsome; when they were absorbed in their game he should kneel and offer the wine and venison, and when they had finished eating and drinking he should weep, bow and beg for a longer life. He urged him, however, never to say that Guan Lu had taught him this. Romance, Ch. 69 §13–14

The next day, when Zhao Yan went five or six li into the Southern Mountain, there indeed were two men playing go on a flat rock beneath a great pine, so absorbed in their game that they did not notice they had drunk all the wine Zhao Yan had offered. When Zhao Yan prostrated himself, weeping, and begged for a longer life, the man in the red robe said that this must surely be Master Guan's doing, and that since they had already accepted his private hospitality they ought to take pity on him. The man in the white robe took out a register, examined it, and said that Zhao Yan was nineteen this year and ought to die, but that he would add the character nine (九) above the character ten (十), so that his lifespan would reach ninety-nine; and he had him tell Guan Lu never again to divulge the secrets of Heaven. Romance, Ch. 69 §14–15

When the man in red had added the character with his brush, the two turned into a pair of white cranes and soared into the sky. When Zhao Yan returned and asked, Guan Lu said that the one in red was the Southern Dipper and the one in white the Northern Dipper. To Zhao Yan's question of how it could be only one man when the Northern Dipper was said to have nine stars, Guan Lu answered that dispersed it was nine and united it was one, and that the Northern Dipper records death and the Southern Dipper records life. Father and son bowed in thanks, and Xu Zhi said that from that time on Guan Lu never again lightly divined for others. Hearing this, Cao Cao sent men to Pingyuan to summon Guan Lu. Romance, Ch. 69 §16–17