Tales of Folk Feng Shui Mysteries

I didn't care what kind of "gege" (Qing princess) she was. Even if Xiaoyanzi from My Fair Princess showed up, I'd still take her down!I glared at Yicheng and snapped,"Where's your master? Is the Venerable Miaoyin really going to ignore this?"

"Amitabha," Yicheng answered calmly."Master said that gege has karmic ties with our Buddhist order, and he advised me not to intervene. He said Benefactor Jiang was fated to return to her spiritual form as a maiden—her soul lingering in this world goes against destiny, and this calamity is hers to face."

"Calamity your grandma's claw!"I was fuming, chest rising and falling in anger.

Yicheng, with his always stoic face, remained unmoved. I couldn't deny—under his still surface hid a raging sea. If I didn't know he also cared deeply about Shiyu, I'd have punched him already.

He told me Shiyu was currently bedridden at home, her soul having been taken to the Forbidden City. We had to wait until nightfall to track down that Qing dynasty princess and confront her.

Without delay, we rushed to Shiyu's home.Before we even entered, we heard her mother sobbing softly.

"Auntie, how is Shiyu?" I asked anxiously.

She burst into tears as soon as she saw me, grabbing my hand and begging me to save her daughter. I had no time for pleasantries—I pried her hand off and ran toward the main bedroom.

When I opened the door, I froze.

She lay there quietly, looking like she was just asleep.Her long lashes trembled slightly—if I hadn't known her soul was missing, I'd have thought she was just pulling a prank.

I sat beside her bed, held her hand tightly, and whispered:

"Don't worry. As long as I'm alive—no one will hurt you."

I took a deep breath.This… was going to be the most difficult challenge I'd ever faced.

Turning to her parents, I asked,"Think carefully. What happened before she collapsed?"

Her mother said Shiyu had been perfectly fine during the day.But that night, she suddenly became very nervous, saying there was a ghost outside the door trying to drag her away.

She had these episodes when she was younger, so her father hung a statue of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva in the living room. That seemed to calm her down.

But then, in the middle of the night, Shiyu claimed she'd received a phone call saying I'd been in a car accident, and she rushed out.

I gasped.How did that gege know about me?

Yicheng added,"Yesterday, I was at the Forbidden City chasing a malicious spirit when I saw Miss Jiang being soul-hooked by a ghost warden. I tried to stop them and reason with the gege, but she injured me."

It wasn't the time for blame.

Shiyu had lost one soul and seven spirits, and only her prenatal soul and guiding spirit remained. If we waited too long, the rest would be taken too—and she'd never wake again.

I asked Yicheng,"Do you know why that gege took her?"

"I asked," he said, "but she wouldn't answer. So I attacked."

Of course, I wasn't expecting useful intel from this guy.

I called her parents over and gave them a list of items to gather.Once they left, I sat back beside Shiyu and took out the Celestial Master Token, placing it in her hands.

"I, Zhang Dabao, only have two years left to live. I have nothing to fear. If you don't wake up, then she's going with you. Even if she absorbed the dragon qi—even if Heaven spares her—I'll sever the dragon veins of the Northeast and drag her down with me."

To cut a dragon vein is to invoke national disaster.The 1941 Shandong floods.The 1942 Henan drought.The 1960 famine.Even the Tangshan and Wenchuan earthquakes—all were caused by dragon veins collapsing, or blood being spilled on true dragons.

That's why Heaven spares those linked to the national fate.But I meant what I said: If Shiyu dies, I'll make the heavens pay.

The Celestial Master Token suppresses evil and guards the soul—it'd protect her for now.

By afternoon, her parents returned with the items I asked for.It wasn't dark yet, so the gege wouldn't appear.Yicheng sat cross-legged in the living room chanting sutras.

I got to work.

By 4 PM, I finished setting up:

Lit two red candles in the bedroom, to inform Heaven, Earth, and the Three Mao True Lords of my actions.

Burned paper money, gold ingots, gold bars.

Wrote four talismans representing the Four Symbols:

Left Azure Dragon

Right White Tiger

Front Vermilion Bird

Rear Black TortoisePasted them in each cardinal direction in Shiyu's room.

Just like in movies, I drew talismans of divine soldiers, Six Ding and Six Jia, and pasted them on the windows—to block ghost wardens.

Ghost wardens aren't the same as nether officials.The former are like corporate security, the latter like government officers.

Then I created the final Celestial Master Talisman—1.5 meters long.I wrote the command summoning the Three Mao True Lords, enclosed the mantra "Om Ma Mi Li Hong" in a circle, and inside that, wrote the seal character "镇" (suppress).I placed it at the Five Yellow sector of the room.

The bedroom was now a "Four Symbols Formation."The living room, I turned into a Five Directions Soul Suppression Array using cloths of five colors:

White (West, Metal)

Black (North, Water)

Green (East, Wood)

Red (South, Fire)

Yellow (Center, Earth)

On each cloth, I wrote suppression mantras in black ink.In the center, I nailed down the white cloth with a nine-inch iron spike.

With the Five Directions and Four Symbols formations complete, I dared the ghost wardens to try and enter.

I pricked Shiyu's forehead with a silver needle, drew two drops of blood, and wrote two substitute soul talismans.Handed them to her parents and instructed:

"Take these talismans and paste them on the foreheads of paper dolls—one boy, one girl. Go to the nearest crossroads, face due south, and burn them.The boy goes on the left, the girl on the right.If the fire burns weakly, pour on gasoline. Let it blaze strong—don't stop until it does."

"Will this bring Shiyu back?" her mother asked, trembling.

Bringing someone back isn't so simple.

If it were just a lost soul, there were ways to call her back.But this gege took her soul deliberately.

Yicheng suddenly stood and said:"If we want Miss Jiang to awaken, we must go to the Forbidden City at midnight—and take back her soul."

"Take back… her soul?" her father gasped."What does that mean? What happened to her?!"

"She's lost one soul and seven spirits," I explained, sighing."If negotiation fails—we'll have to steal it back."

I handed her father seven copper coins, saying:"If any ghost wardens come knocking, toss one coin at a time onto the white cloth."

Shiyu's house was now an impregnable fortress.

By 11 PM, Yicheng and I left the house together.

This would be our first mission as a team.

The night was thick with haze.We hailed a cab and headed to the Forbidden City.

Palaces have always been haunted grounds—Full of concubines, eunuchs, and endless torment.Behind all the pomp and power were decades of unspeakable cruelty.

On the way, the cabbie asked,"What are you doing heading to the Forbidden City this late? I've heard that place is haunted lately."

He glanced at Yicheng and chuckled,"You a real monk or something? Off to catch ghosts?"

Curious, I asked what he'd heard.

He said most night drivers avoid the area.Even though it's a commercial zone, everything shuts down after 11 PM.The streets turn eerily quiet.

He laughed again:"Anyway, I don't believe in ghosts. But someone in our driver chat group once said they saw a Qing-era procession carrying a sedan chair march right into the red walls.He thought it was a film shoot—until the whole parade walked through solid stone.Guy got so sick he couldn't drive for days."

"That's creepy," I muttered, playing along.

But the driver waved it off,"Pfft. People just imagine things. If there were ghosts, everyone living around the area would've seen a ton by now."

He glanced at us again in the rearview mirror,"Seriously though—are you ghostbusters or just urban explorers?"

"Saving someone," Yicheng replied coldly.

The driver tried to keep talking, but I cut in—said we had a sick relative nearby.

When we arrived, we got out and headed toward Daqing Gate.

This was a tourist hotspot and museum—heavily guarded.Getting through the front door was impossible.

I asked Yicheng,"Where exactly did you see Shiyu?"

He pointed to Daqing Gate."That gege entered from there with a procession. I tried to stop her—she attacked me."

The towering crimson walls stood like a barrier between two worlds.

We had to find that gege.

Yicheng was about to scale the wall when I stopped him.

"Hold up! You'll get caught immediately. We'll be arrested before we can even find her."

"Then what do you suggest?"He actually showed a flicker of emotion.

I looked him in the eye."If you can handle pain—then lend me your body.I'll scare the ghosts out of the Forbidden City myself."

"Flesh is but a shell," he said."If it serves a purpose, take it."

With his consent, I had him strip off his monk robes.Bare-chested, I took out silver needles and pierced four yin acupuncture points on his body—each to a depth of seven inches:

Earth Yin Point

Corpse Dog Point

Mass Formation Point

Blood Return Point

In Mao Shan Taoism, the human body has eight gates, developed during the Yuan dynasty.These points correspond to the Eight Trigrams, which emerge from the Five Elements, generated by yin-yang.

Once the four points were locked, I used a vermilion brush to draw a phoenix on Yicheng's back—artistic skill didn't matter, just the shape.

The moment I finished the brushstroke,his body began to swell—like the Hulk transforming.