Setting out, he strode along on his cloud-steps and came straight to West Gate Street in the city of Chang'an. There he saw a knot of people, jostling and packed close, all noise and clamor.

拽開雲步, stretching out his cloud-strides, takes 拽 as zhuài, 'to pull, to stride.' 擠擠雜雜 and 鬧鬧哄哄 are doubled-up words for a packed, noisy crowd, every syllable repeated so that you can hear the jostling. (長 in 長安 is cháng.)

Among them one was holding forth in grand style: 'For a man whose fate-sign is the Dragon, the Tiger stands in clash with him. Though the branches yín, chén, sì, and hài are said to form a harmonious set, what is to be feared is the day that offends the Year-Lord.'

Street-corner almanac talk, and a joke at the reader's elbow: what draws the Dragon King into the crowd is a man explaining that people born in Dragon years clash with Tigers. 屬龍, 'to belong to the Dragon,' means born in a Dragon year, with 屬 read shǔ; 相 in 相沖, 'to be in mutual clash,' is xiāng. 寅辰巳亥 are four of the twelve earthly branches, the cycle that fixes years and hours alike, and the 歲君 is the Jupiter-spirit whose 'offense' brings a year of bad luck.

Hearing this, the Dragon King knew at once that this was a place where divinations were sold. Stepping forward, he parted the crowd and looked within. He saw:

情知 is to know something full well, without being told. 賣卜之處 is 'a place where divination is sold,' with 卜 read bǔ. The 賦 that follows describes the studio.

Pearls and gems along all four walls, and the whole hall hung with figured silks.

珠璣 covers pearls both round and irregular, and 綺繡 is patterned brocade. Fortune-telling, evidently, paid.

From the treasure-duck censer the incense never ceased; in the porcelain vase the water was wondrously clear.

寶鴨 is an incense-burner cast in the shape of a duck, the smoke rising off its back. 恁 (nèn) is 'so, to such a degree.'

To either side were ranged paintings by Wang Wei, and above his seat hung high an image of Master Guigu.

The decor is a statement of credentials. 王維 (Wáng Wéi) was the great Tang poet-painter, so his work along the walls announces taste and money; 鬼谷 (Guǐgǔ), the Master of Ghost Valley, is the semi-legendary patron of diviners and strategists, so his image above the seat announces the trade. Certificates on the office wall.

An inkstone of Duan, ink of gold-flecked soot, set off by a great brush of frost-white hair;

端溪硯 is the Duanxi inkstone, the most prized kind there is, and 霜毫, 'frost-hair,' is fine white brush-hair. 相 in 相襯 is xiāng, and 著 in 襯著, 'set off by,' is the ongoing-state zhe.

the Forest of Fire-Pearls and the reckonings of Guo Pu, carefully matched against the new canon of the Bureau.

The reference shelf. 火珠林 (Huǒzhūlín), the Forest of Fire-Pearls, is a classic manual of coin-divination, and 郭璞 (Guō Pú) was the great Jin-dynasty diviner and geomancer. 了 in 對了 is the completive le.

In the six lines of the hexagram he was deeply versed; in the eight trigrams thoroughly skilled.

六爻 are the six lines of a hexagram in the Book of Changes, and 八卦 the eight trigrams those lines are built from. 熟諳 and 精通 both mean having complete command of a subject.

He could know the pattern of Heaven and Earth, and well understood the disposition of ghosts and spirits.

天地理 is the underlying pattern of Heaven and Earth, 鬼神情 the workings of gods and demons. Between them the couplet claims that nothing anywhere lies outside this man's competence.

On his one board the zi and wu bearings were fixed and set; a whole breast of stars he could array in order.

一槃, a variant of 一盤, is the single divining-board. 子午 is its north-south axis, which is also its midnight-noon axis, since the same branches serve for compass and clock alike; 子 is read zǐ, as in 子時, the midnight double-hour. 滿腹星辰, 'a bellyful of stars,' is the astrologer's mastery of the heavens carried about inside him. (一 is yì before 槃.)

Truly, things to come and things long past he viewed as in a moon-bright mirror;

觀如月鏡, 'to see as in a moon-bright mirror,' is the figure for perfect sight of past and future alike. (那, 'those,' is the pointing nà.)

how many houses would rise, how many fall, he discerned as though a very god.

鑑若神明, 'to mirror like the gods,' presses the claim further still: not merely events, but which households rise and which fall. 興 in 幾家興 is xīng, 'to rise, to flourish.'

He knew the ill and fixed the auspicious, pronounced on death and foretold life.

斷死言生, 'to judge death and speak of life,' claims authority over fate's verdicts themselves — and says it in two balanced phrases that sound as final as the verdicts do.

When he opened his talk, wind and rain came swift; when he set brush to paper, ghosts and spirits took fright.

開談 is simply 'to begin speaking,' and the claim built on it is that his talk brings wind and rain and his brush frightens the spirits. Read the line again with one eye on the doorway. The actual lord of wind and rain has just walked in, and he is about to put the boast to the test.

On his signboard, characters set out his name in full: Master of Divine Reckonings, Yuan Shoucheng.

The signboard, and at last a name. 神課先生, 'Master of the Divine Reckoning,' is the professional title; 袁守誠 (Yuán Shǒuchéng) is the man whose infallible art will destroy a dragon.