The fortune teller said that all four young people were prime ministers, and no one believed that they died of poverty. They really became prime ministers.

Fan Zhen, a famous writer and historian in the Northern Song Dynasty, participated in the compilation of the Book of the New Tang Dynasty. Fan Zhen worked hard all his life and wrote a lot. He wrote a book called Chronicle of Dong Zhai. This book is Fan Zhen's current affairs notes, which records such a thing.

Prime Minister Zhang Shixun is a good friend of Fan Zhen. He once told Fan Zhen about an experience when he was young. When Zhang Shixun was just admitted to Jinshi, he went to Suoguo Temple with Kou Zhun one day. When they saw a divination booth, they visited the fortune teller and asked about their future. The fortune teller saw the two men and said, "They are both prime ministers." It was predicted that both of them would become prime ministers in the future, and they left with a grain of salt. When they continued to play, they met Zhang Qixian and Wang Sui again. Chatting and chatting, I went to see a photo together. The fortune teller was surprised to see four people coming together and said, "In one day, there are four prime ministers." In just one day, I actually met four people with the orders of the Prime Minister.

Four people couldn't help laughing after listening, and the onlookers didn't believe it. They all scoffed and thought that the fortune teller was talking nonsense in order to cheat money. At that time, all four were very young and entered the official career soon. They are all junior officials. Being a prime minister is not that easy, let alone four people. So these four people were just joking and soon forgot. However, many years later, all four of them became prime ministers. Occasionally talking about what happened that year, the four people all thought that the fortune teller was a great master, so they wanted to write a biography for him and describe his deeds.

I asked around and learned that the fortune teller had passed away. It turned out that after the fortune teller predicted that all four of them would become prime ministers, they were regarded as nonsense charlatans from now on. "Fame is fading away, and no one asks again, so that people die of hunger and poverty." No one asked him to tell his fortune, which led to poverty and eventually starved to death. Knowing this result, all four people lamented. The fortune teller can accurately calculate the future of four people, which shows that he has high fortune-telling skills. However, because of his lip service, he made a prediction that ordinary people could not believe, lost his reputation and died of poverty. Is this the consequence of revealing the secret?