The Astrologer
by Ian Tullis
Answer: ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM
This mini-meta is about the Twenty-Eight Mansions of Chinese astrology. These are 28 constellations organized as four sets of seven; each set is assigned an animal: one of Dragon, Tortoise, Tiger, Phoenix.
Each of those animals supplies one seven-letter "feeder" answer to this metapuzzle: SEMINAR, INHABIT, ???????, AIMLESS. If you copy the mansion info table from Wikipedia and put the seven letters of each "feeder" answer by the seven mansions for the appropriate animal, you get:
| Critter | Ord. | Name | Translation | Letter from "feeder" |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 1 | 角 (Jué/Jiăo) | Horn | S |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 2 | 亢 (Kàng) | Neck | E |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 3 | 氐 (Dī) | Root | M |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 4 | 房 (Fáng) | Room | I |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 5 | 心 (Xīn) | Heart | N |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 6 | 尾 (Wěi) | Tail | A |
| Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍) Spring | 7 | 箕 (Jī) | Winnowing Basket | R |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 8 | 斗 (Dǒu) | (Southern) Dipper | I |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 9 | 牛 (Niú) | Ox | N |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 10 | 女 (Nǚ) | Girl | H |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 11 | 虛 (Xū) | Emptiness | A |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 12 | 危 (Wéi/Wēi) | Rooftop | B |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 13 | 室 (Shì) | Encampment | I |
| Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武) Winter | 14 | 壁 (Bì) | Wall | T |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 15 | 奎 (Kuí) | Legs | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 16 | 婁 (Lóu) | Bond | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 17 | 胃 (Wèi) | Stomach | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 18 | 昴 (Mǎo) | Hairy Head | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 19 | 畢 (Bì) | Net | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 20 | 觜 (Zī) | Turtle Beak | ? |
| White Tiger of the West (西方白虎) Fall | 21 | 參 (Shēn) | Three Stars | ? |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 22 | 井 (Jǐng) | Well | A |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 23 | 鬼 (Guǐ) | Ghost | I |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 24 | 柳 (Liǔ) | Willow | M |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 25 | 星 (Xīng) | Star | L |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 26 | 張 (Zhāng) | Extended Net | E |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 27 | 翼 (Yì) | Wings | S |
| Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀) Summer | 28 | 軫 (Zhěn) | Chariot | S |
Now you have a letter associated with each mansion; thus, you can decode the strange phrases in each mysterious statement to letters. E.g., in "Hey, you overgrown pet, is that a winnowing basket hanging from your neck, because you're chaff!" winnowing basket gives the letter R and neck gives the letter E. Continuing in this manner, and filling in unknown tiger letters, yields the intermediate instruction: REASSEMBLE ALL LETTERS AS AN IMMENSE TERM. It's telling you to anagram the 28 letters of SEMINAR, INHABIT, ???????, AIMLESS into one word.
There aren't many 28-letter words. If you find a list of such, you'll probably notice that ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM could anagram to those words (but glycosylphosphatidylinositol, e.g., could not).
Knowing from the constellations that the Tiger answer has to be ??S??NT and that the remaining letters are ADIT, you can infer that the Tiger answer is DISTANT.