The spot where the wall tile had peeled off was still cordoned off with caution tape.
When Chen Yao went for his morning run the next day, he deliberately detoured to that section of the old wall along the riverfront path. The municipal department had already enclosed the hazardous area with blue barricades, and temporary protective netting had been added to the top of the wall. A few elderly people doing morning exercises nearby were discussing the incident, saying the wall was built in the 1970s and was long overdue for repairs.
"That young man yesterday was really lucky," one old man gestured. "That concrete chunk weighed at least twenty pounds. It came down just as he tripped, missing him by a hair's breadth."
"Exactly, I saw it with my own eyes," an older woman chimed in. "The way he fell was strange, not like a stumble, more like... he deliberately threw himself to the side."
Chen Yao stood on the outskirts of the small crowd, listening. The morning air after the rain was crisp and clean, sunlight filtering through the gaps in the plane tree leaves, casting shifting light spots on the ground. Everything looked utterly ordinary, like any minor accident caused by aging urban infrastructure.
But he knew it wasn't.
He turned and left, walking slowly along the path. He wasn't wearing headphones; he listened to his own breathing and heartbeat, the sound of his footsteps on the damp ground, the distant city noise sliced into fragments by the morning breeze.
After returning from the old mansion last night, he had barely slept.
He sat at his apartment desk, laying out the three Qianlong Tongbao coins, his grandfather's annotation booklet, and the chart of his own Eight Characters and Decennial Fortune, as if analyzing a set of anomalous data. Rationality was making a last stand: the wall tile falling was a probabilistic event; dodging when falling was an instinctive reaction; the hexagram's manifestation was coincidence plus psychological suggestion.
But some things couldn't be explained by probability.
Like the feeling in that split-second before he fell—it wasn't a conscious decision, but his body reacting before his mind could. Like pulling your hand back from a flame without thinking. But dodging a falling object wasn't an instinctive reflex; it was a complex action requiring trajectory calculation and directional choice.
Unless... there was another computational system within the body.
Chen Yao recalled his childhood training in divination under his grandfather. Back then, he was only seven or eight, required to sit in the study every afternoon, memorizing the names, judgments, and line statements of the sixty-four hexagrams. One wrong character meant a rap on the palm with a ruler.
"Hexagrams aren't memorized," his grandfather often said. "They are 'seen.' You hold the hexagram lines in your mind, and they move on their own, telling you where it's blocked, where it flows."
Young Chen Yao didn't understand, finding it boring. But he had a good memory and quickly memorized them all. One day, his grandfather told him not to recite, but to just "look" at the hexagram.
It was the "Ji Ji" (既济, Completion) hexagram, with Water (Kan) above and Fire (Li) below. His grandfather asked, "Look at this hexagram. What does it resemble?"
Chen Yao stared at the six lines—three solid (yang), three broken (yin), alternating up and down. Suddenly he said, "It's like... like a bridge. The piers are in the water, the deck is being burned by fire."
His grandfather was silent for a long time, then patted his head. "Yes. The Ji Ji hexagram is about crossing a river, auspicious at first but chaotic at the end. The piers in water mean an unstable foundation; the deck scorched by fire means surface distress. See, the hexagram itself tells you the problem."
From then on, Chen Yao's ability to "see" hexagrams grew stronger. He could perceive the turning point of "the dragon at the zenith has regrets" from the six solid lines of the Qian (Heaven) hexagram, sense the gradual shift of "treading on frost, the solid ice arrives" from the six broken lines of the Kun (Earth) hexagram. In his eyes, hexagrams were no longer abstract symbols but dynamic pictures of energy.
But the year he turned twelve, he voluntarily stopped all that.
The trigger was a minor incident. A neighbor lost their cat and asked his grandfather to divine if it could be found. His grandfather cast a hexagram, got "Tong Ren" (同人, Fellowship with Men), and said the cat had gone southeast and would be found within three days. The next day, the cat was indeed found in a small park to the southeast, but with an injured leg, limping.
By then, Chen Yao could already understand hexagrams. He asked his grandfather, "Tong Ren means 'in fellowship with others.' The cat was found, so why was it injured?"
His grandfather looked at him, a complex expression in his eyes. "Because the 'good fortune' of finding the cat required a little 'misfortune' to exchange for it. The hexagram shows the cat's leg injury corresponds to... the youngest daughter of the family that lost the cat developing a fever in three days, but she recovers quickly."
"So the cat's leg was exchanged for the child's fever?"
"Not exchanged, but... balanced," his grandfather chose his words carefully. "Causality has weight. If it becomes lighter on one side, it becomes heavier on another. What we do is just prevent the weight from concentrating on one person, one thing."
Chen Yao couldn't accept it. That cat was affectionate, often sunbathing in their yard. He imagined it hiding in the park with a lame leg, and the neighbor's little sister suffering from fever. Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn't the cat return unharmed and the sister not get sick?
"Because the world doesn't operate that way," his grandfather finally said. "If you want something to 'increase,' something else must 'decrease.' That is the Dao."
That night, Chen Yao made a decision: he would no longer study these things. He didn't want to see those invisible "exchanges" anymore, didn't want to know that every "gain" had a "loss" price tag. He would study mathematics, physics, knowledge that was clean, definite, and free from ethical dilemmas.
He succeeded. He excelled academically, got into a top university, studied data science, and after graduation joined an internet company, using algorithms to predict user behavior. In his world, everything could be quantified, optimized, a "Pareto optimal solution" found—making the whole better without harming anyone.
Until yesterday.
Until that compass needle pointing at him, that annotation booklet with "Borrowing Life to Be Born," the fulfilled Guai hexagram, and that concrete chunk falling from the sky.
"So I never really escaped," Chen Yao murmured softly to the morning river surface.
He took out his phone and clicked on the address and location sent by Mr. Zhou. The construction site was in the newly developed western suburbs, a distance from the city center. The appointment was for 10 a.m.; it was now 8:30.
Should he go?
Rationality said: Don't go. This has nothing to do with you. You're a data analyst, not a feng shui master. If the site has problems, they should find engineers, safety supervisors, even the police.
But another voice asked: If Grandfather really did something there back then? If those "strange occurrences" are side effects from that past intervention? If... those workers getting hurt are paying the price for some "adjustment" made years ago?
Chen Yao stopped walking.
He remembered the cold records in the annotation booklet: "Such-and-such year, month, day, adjusted such-and-such direction for such-and-such client, effective. Also note: Three days later, someone somewhere suddenly developed such-and-such illness." Two records placed side by side, separated only by a page.
What if the incidents at Mr. Zhou's site were the continuation of such a record?
He opened a ride-hailing app and entered the destination.
The car sped along the elevated highway. Chen Yao watched the city skyline flash by outside the window, glass curtain wall buildings gleaming in the morning light. This was a world built on logic and efficiency. The height of every building, the width of every road, the timing of every traffic light—all meticulously calculated.
But beneath this glossy order, was there another, older, more obscure set of rules operating? Like the underlying code of a computer, invisible to the user but determining everything on the screen.
The construction site arrived.
The perimeter fencing was high, spray-painted with lavish renderings of the residential complex: "Cloud Brocade Manor—A Tribute to the Urban Elite." Security at the entrance; Chen Yao gave Mr. Zhou's name and was let in.
Inside was different from what he imagined. Not the dusty, chaotic construction scene he expected, but unusually tidy. Materials were neatly stacked, roads were paved, there were even green belts. But there were few people on site. Several tower cranes stood still, excavators idle, only a few workers chatting in the distance. The atmosphere felt heavy.
Mr. Zhou's office was a temporary prefab building, but decorated quite properly inside: rosewood desk, leather sofa, a kungfu tea set on the coffee table. Zhou Zhenghua himself was around fifty, slightly overweight, with heavy eye bags, his suit wrinkled as if he hadn't slept all night.
"Mr. Chen, you're here." He stood up to greet him, his handshake sweaty-palmed. "Thank you for coming, really... I'm at my wit's end."
Chen Yao sat down. Mr. Zhou busied himself making tea, his hands slightly trembling.
"Mr. Zhou, you said on the phone something happened at the site again? With the tower crane?"
"Yes, yes, the tower crane." Zhou Zhenghua poured tea, some splashing out. "Yesterday afternoon, the boom of Tower Crane No. 3 suddenly started rotating on its own. There were workers below at the time; thankfully they dodged quickly, no one was hit. But the guy in the control room was terrified; he said the control lever didn't move at all, the machine just turned by itself."
"Mechanical failure?"
"We checked. The manufacturer sent people too. They said everything was normal." Zhou Zhenghua lowered his voice. "This is the third 'accident' this month. Last week, the basement of Building No. 2 suddenly started seeping water. We pumped it out, but it kept bubbling up. Water quality tests... well, let's say it had a strange smell. Not sewage, not groundwater. Before that, a worker on night duty said he heard crying from underground."
Chen Yao listened quietly. Each phenomenon alone could be explained: mechanical glitch, geological issue, psychological effect. But combined, appearing at the same site, especially—if this place truly was a "causal sedimentation pool" as Grandfather suggested.
"Mr. Zhou, when did you seek out my grandfather?"
"Three years ago, when the project first acquired the land." Zhou Zhenghua recalled. "Back then, surveys discovered an ancient tomb underneath, quite sizable. I was worried it would affect construction, so through an introduction, I found Mr. Chen. He came to look, said this place... the earth energy wasn't clean, needed handling."
"Did he handle it?"
"He did." Zhou Zhenghua nodded. "The old master performed a ritual, revised the construction blueprints, reset the time for breaking ground. Everything went smoothly for over two years after that, until last month."
"Did my grandfather say anything specific back then? Like... precautions, or warnings?"
Zhou Zhenghua thought. "He said if there were any unusual movements again within three years, we should stop work immediately, not disturb anything underground again. He also said... if something truly unsolvable happened, we could go find him, or his descendants." He looked at Chen Yao. "The old master mentioned in passing then that he had a grandson with a special fate pattern, who might be able to resolve this situation in the future."
Chen Yao's heart tightened. Grandfather had foreseen even this?
"Could I see the site? Especially where the ancient tomb was found."
"Of course, of course." Zhou Zhenghua stood up. "I'll take you."
They walked through the site. Chen Yao noticed that the deeper they went, the weaker that sense of "tidiness" became. The ground began showing fine cracks, some filled with dark green moss that seemed out of place for the season. The air held a faint, peculiar smell like iron mixed with earthy dampness.
The tomb site was now a large pit, protectively backfilled, with a rain shelter erected over it. A sign stood by the pit: "Cultural Relics Protection Area, No Excavation."
Zhou Zhenghua pointed at the pit. "The tomb is from the Ming dynasty, a family tomb of an official, well-preserved. After the archaeological team finished excavating, we backfilled it as required. The old master said back then that the tomb itself wasn't the problem; the problem was... something beneath the tomb."
"Something underneath?"
"The old master didn't say exactly what, only that it was 'accumulated resentment,' older than the tomb itself. Building the tomb on top actually served to suppress it. Our digging disturbed the seal." Zhou Zhenghua gave a bitter smile. "I didn't understand any of that back then, thought it was just mystical talk. But now... I believe it."
Chen Yao stepped closer to the edge of the pit. He closed his eyes, trying to "see" this place as he used to "see" hexagrams in childhood.
At first, only darkness. Then, some vague images surfaced: dark, viscous, oil-like stuff flowing slowly deep underground. It was pressed down by a thin, faintly glowing "membrane." The membrane had breaks in places, black stuff seeping out from the ruptures, creeping upward...
He snapped his eyes open and took a step back.
"Mr. Chen?" Zhou Zhenghua asked with concern.
"It's nothing." Chen Yao shook his head, though breathing a bit rapidly. The vision felt too real, not like imagination. "How did my grandfather handle it back then?"
"He performed a ritual here, used many talismans, and buried something." Zhou Zhenghua pointed to the four corners of the pit. "Buried a bronze box at each corner—east, south, west, north. I don't know what was inside. The old master said it was called the 'Four Symbols Seal,' could temporarily confine what was underneath, let it slowly dissipate."
"'Temporarily' for how long?"
"He said... five years at most."
Chen Yao calculated. Handled three years ago, five-year limit, two years left. But strange occurrences had already appeared, meaning the "Four Symbols Seal's" effect was waning, or something had damaged it.
"Mr. Zhou, has there been any excavation at the site recently? Even small-scale?"
"No, absolutely not." Zhou Zhenghua stated firmly. "Since the old master's instructions, I've strictly forbidden anyone from disturbing this area. Not even getting close."
"What about other parts of the site? Any new pits, pile driving, or... burying anything?"
Zhou Zhenghua hesitated. "Other places... normal construction, yes. Last month, we dug a septic tank at the northeast corner of the site. Does that count?"
Northeast corner.
Chen Yao's heart sank. In feng shui, the northeast is the "Ghost Gate" direction, the Gen (艮) trigram, associated with stillness and accumulation. Digging a pit there, especially a septic tank—a repository for filth—was practically opening a discharge vent for the underground "accumulated resentment."
"Take me to see it."
The septic tank was already built, sealed with a concrete lid. It was at the edge of the site, near the perimeter wall. Chen Yao approached; the iron-and-earth smell grew stronger. He crouched, touched the edge of the concrete lid—damp, not from rain, but moisture seeping out, carrying a faint fishy odor.
"When was it built?"
"Mid-last month."
"And the strange occurrences started after it was built?"
Zhou Zhenghua thought, his face changing. "Yes... pretty much just a few days after."
Chen Yao stood up. His gaze swept over the site, his mind quickly integrating information: "Accumulated resentment" under the ancient tomb, the Four Symbols Seal's confinement, the septic tank at the northeast Ghost Gate disrupting local balance, the seal leaking faster, causing various "strange occurrences."
But there was a key question: When Grandfather used the "Four Symbols Seal," was it for "suppression" or "dilution"? The annotation booklet said that for sedimentation pools, dilution was prioritized. If it was dilution, then the seal's purpose wasn't permanent confinement but to let what was underneath release slowly, dissipate naturally.
Then building the septic tank might have accidentally accelerated this process, turning "release" into "eruption."
"Mr. Zhou, I need some quiet time," Chen Yao said. "Please go back to the office. I'll look around here."
Zhou Zhenghua seemed to want to say something but finally nodded and left.
Chen Yao stood alone by the septic tank. He took the three Qianlong Tongbao coins from his backpack. This time, he didn't ask "Will there be trouble?" but asked, "How should the 'accumulated resentment' here be handled?"
He shook the coins and cast them.
First cast: Two heads, one tail. Lesser Yin.
Second cast: One tail, two heads. Lesser Yang.
Third cast: Two heads, one tail. Lesser Yin.
Fourth cast: Two tails, one head. Lesser Yang.
Fifth cast: Two tails, one head. Lesser Yang.
Sixth cast: Two heads, one tail. Lesser Yin.
Lower trigram: Lesser Yin, Lesser Yang, Lesser Yin — Kan ☵ (Water).
Upper trigram: Lesser Yang, Lesser Yang, Lesser Yin — Xun ☴ (Wind).
Upper Xun over lower Kan formed the hexagram Huan (涣, Dispersion).
Hexagram Huan. The Judgment says: "Dispersion. Success. The king approaches his temple. It furthers one to cross the great water. Perseverance furthers." The Image says: "The wind blows over the water: the image of Dispersion. Thus the kings of old sacrificed to the Lord of Heaven and established temples."
Chen Yao stared at the hexagram. Huan means dispersal, dissipation, unclogging. Wind over water, dispersing what has gathered. This seemed like a good omen, aligning with the "dilution" approach.
But then he looked at the line changes. The sixth line (top line, Yang) was a moving line, changing to Yin. The changed hexagram then became: Upper Kan over lower Kan, Kan for Water, double Kan — the hexagram Kan (坎, The Abyss).
Hexagram Kan, danger and pitfalls upon danger.
The top line statement of Huan says: "He dissolves his blood. Departing, keeping at a distance, goes out. No blame." Meaning: Dispersing the bloodshed injury, going far away, leaving, no misfortune.
But after the line change, the whole hexagram becomes the double-danger Kan. What did that mean?
Chen Yao mentally deduced: Huan hexagram speaks of dispersal, but the top line changing hints that "bloodshed injury" (dissolving his blood) might occur during dispersal, and ultimately one would fall into deeper danger (changing to Kan).
Dispersal would cause harm. Not dispersing, the accumulated "resentment" would keep erupting, harming people at the site.
A dilemma.
He put away the coins and looked toward the ancient tomb pit. Sunlight reflected harshly off the rain shelter. The site was still quiet, but the quiet held a certain tension, like a string stretched to its limit.
His phone vibrated. A message from Mr. Zhou: "Mr. Chen, just got a call. A worker didn't show up this morning. His family said after going home last night, he started running a fever and talking nonsense, kept shouting 'Don't press on me'... Could this... be related?"
Chen Yao tightened his grip on the phone.
He dissolves his blood.
Had it already begun?
He looked up, scanning the four directions of the site. The "Four Symbols Seal" boxes Grandfather buried should be in those locations. If he wanted to reinforce the seal or guide the "resentment" to dissipate more safely, he needed to find those four bronze boxes, check their condition, maybe do something.
But he didn't know how. Grandfather hadn't taught him specific rituals, only how to see hexagrams.
Perhaps... seeing hexagrams was enough?
Chen Yao closed his eyes again, this time trying to clear his thoughts, just visualizing the entire site's layout—the ancient tomb at the center, the Four Symbols Seal at the four directions, the septic tank at the northeast corner like a breached dam. Then, he superimposed the Huan hexagram he just cast onto this image: Wind over water.
From which direction does the wind come? Where does the water flow?
He "saw" wind coming from the southeast, carrying a warm breath (Xun is Wind, southeast). The water flow (Kan is Water), originally pressed under the tomb, was now seeping out from the northeast breach. If he could make the southeast wind stronger, blowing across the entire site, perhaps it could disperse, dilute the seeping "water vapor" instead of letting it accumulate harmfully.
But how to make the "wind" stronger?
Chen Yao opened his eyes and walked toward the southeast corner of the site. There were some construction materials stacked there—steel pipes, formwork, cement. He reached the southeast corner, closed his eyes to feel—indeed, the airflow here seemed more通畅, a breeze brushing his face.
He crouched, using his hands to brush aside some gravel and loose soil on the ground. Digging down about twenty centimeters, his fingertips touched something hard.
It was a bronze box, palm-sized, surface oxidized black, engraved with blurred patterns—a Green Dragon, the Azure Dragon of the Four Symbols in the East.
The box had no lock. He opened it gently.
It was empty.
No, not completely empty. At the bottom was a thin layer of grayish-white powder, like incense ash or some kind of ground mineral. In the center of the powder lay a small, corroded coin—a Kangxi Tongbao.
Chen Yao dipped a finger in the powder, brought it close to smell—a faint sandalwood scent, similar to the smell in Grandfather's study.
He placed the bronze box back, covered it with soil. Then he went to the southwest, northwest, and northeast corners in turn. At the southwest, he found the White Tiger box; northwest, the Black Tortoise box; northeast, the Vermilion Bird box.
All four bronze boxes were empty, only containing ash and a coin.
But the Vermilion Bird box at the northeast corner was noticeably different. The box body had fine cracks; the ash inside was dark red, like mixed with blood. The coin was also more severely corroded, almost crumbling.
Northeast. Ghost Gate. Septic tank.
The seal was weakest here, already eroded.
Chen Yao stood at the northeast corner, looking at the Vermilion Bird box in his hand. The cracks were clear in the sunlight. He recalled the top line statement of Huan: "He dissolves his blood. Departing, keeping at a distance, goes out."
Blood had already appeared—the feverish, delirious worker.
What next? "Departing, keeping at a distance, goes out," or falling into double Kan?
He didn't know.
But he knew he had to do something. Not because he believed in all this, but because—if it were all true, then the harm happening now had its roots partly in Grandfather's intervention three years ago. And he was Grandfather's grandson, the one who might "inherit the profession."
Even if only a possibility, he couldn't turn and walk away.
Chen Yao placed the Vermilion Bird box back in the soil but didn't bury it completely. He stood up and walked back to the office.
Zhou Zhenghua was pacing anxiously. Seeing him return, he immediately approached.
"Mr. Zhou," Chen Yao said, his voice calm enough to surprise even himself. "I need you to do a few things."
"Please tell me!"
"First, immediately evacuate all workers from the site for at least three days. Pay them as usual; make up a reason.
Second, contact the archaeological department, apply for secondary protective measures for the tomb area, say new seepage hazards were discovered.
Third," Chen Yao paused. "I need cinnabar, yellow paper, a new writing brush, and... a bowl of clean glutinous rice."
Zhou Zhenghua's eyes widened. "You're going to..."
"I'm going to try," Chen Yao said, looking out the window at the overly quiet site, "to draw the wind here."
He finished, then startled himself.
Draw the wind here—words so much like something Grandfather would say.
Glossary for Chapter Three
Four Symbols Seal (四象镇): A Feng Shui method using four objects (often corresponding to the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise) placed at cardinal directions to create a stabilizing or sealing energy field.
Ghost Gate (鬼门): In traditional Chinese geomancy, the northeast direction (Gen 艮) is considered the "Ghost Gate," a direction associated with Yin energy, potential stagnation, and negative influences.
Hexagram Huan (涣): The 59th hexagram of the I Ching, symbolizing dispersion, dissolution, and the scattering of obstacles, often in a positive sense of release.
Hexagram Kan (坎): The 29th hexagram, representing water, danger, the abyss, and repeated pitfalls. It is one of the more ominous hexagrams.
Gen (艮) Trigram: One of the eight trigrams, representing mountain, stillness, stopping, and the northeast direction.