During the Tang Dynasty, Wang Yan, an official who served the crown prince, once remarked that the events of a person’s life seemed bound to an unseen order. Fortune and misfortune, he believed, arrived not by chance, but according to a pattern set long before.
To illustrate this view, he recounted a striking episode from the reign of Empress Wu Zetian.
When members of the imperial clan were condemned during her purges, one young kinsman was sent to the Court of Judicial Review and sentenced to death. Facing the inevitable, the man sighed and said: “Since I cannot escape death, why should I wait for the executioner’s blade?” That night, he tore his own collar into a rope and hanged himself with it.
By morning, however, he revived. He laughed, spoke freely, and ate and drank as if nothing had happened, appearing as calm and comfortable as if he were at home. Several days later, when the sentence was finally carried out, his expression did not change. He showed no visible fear.
After his failed suicide, the man explained what he believed he had witnessed. He said that upon dying, he was confronted by an official of the underworld, who rebuked him for arriving before his appointed time. Shown the Book of Life and Death, he was told that a killing committed in a previous existence now required repayment through this specific execution. He could not settle his “karmic debt” by his own hand; he had to face the blade as decreed.
Wealth and rank are granted by Heaven
The same worldview shaped how people understood success and status. During the Zhenguan era, Zhang Baozang served as Chief of the Imperial Guard. While traveling home to Liyang, he encountered a young hunter enjoying freshly prepared game by the roadside.
Leaning against a tree, Zhang sighed. “I am already seventy,” he said, “and I have never once enjoyed wine and meat like this. How bleak my life has been.”
A monk standing nearby pointed at him and replied: “Within sixty days, your rank will rise to the third grade. What is there to regret?” With that, the monk disappeared.
Puzzled, Zhang returned to the capital. Around that time, Emperor Taizong was suffering from severe dysentery. Despite the efforts of many physicians, his condition did not improve. The emperor issued a decree promising generous rewards to anyone who could cure him.
Zhang, having once suffered the same illness, submitted a memorial recommending a traditional folk remedy of milk boiled with long pepper. After taking it, the emperor recovered quickly and ordered that Zhang be granted a fifth-rank position. The appointment, however, was delayed by Prime Minister Wei Zheng for more than a month.
When the emperor’s illness returned, he requested the same remedy and recovered once again. Only then did he realize that Zhang’s promotion had never been finalized. Enraged, the emperor overruled the objection and elevated Zhang to a third-rank civil post, additionally granting him the title of Minister of State Ceremonies.
It was precisely 60 days after the monk’s prediction.
The architecture of an ordered life
In traditional Chinese thought, the idea that “Heaven” determined a person’s fate offered more than just an explanation for hardship — it offered a moral framework. Today, such beliefs are often dismissed as superstition, yet they provide a profound sense of psychological security.
If wealth and rank are granted by a higher order, then frantic ambition is unnecessary. If life and death are fixed points, then fear is redundant. For earlier generations, accepting these forces was not an act of resignation, but a realization that human life is part of a much larger, balanced ledger. Whether we call it fate, karma, or the laws of the universe, this perspective suggests that our lives are never truly random, and every action carries a weight that eventually finds its way back to balance the scales.
Translated by Joseph Wu
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