Dragon Clan: Lu Mingfei Returns from Japan

Chapter 652 IF Side Story: Fortune-telling Cousins ​​(1)

一
My name is Xia Mi, and I am the 81st generation of the Lu family's geomancer.

He may also be the last geomancer of the Xia family.

The term "堪舆" (kān yú) means "the heavens" and "the earth," and together they represent heaven and earth, thus referring to feng shui.

This profession sounds prestigious, but it's actually just fortune telling and feng shui consultation. They're in the same line of work as the elderly people sitting on small stools under the shade of trees on the street, reading palms. And it's a high-risk profession, said to shorten one's lifespan.

According to my mother, the reason why my maternal grandfather, who was known as "the immortal," choked to death on a bowl of longevity noodles on his sixtieth birthday was because he performed too many fortune-telling rituals, which violated a taboo of heaven, and was taken away by heaven.

As for my great-grandfather, his death was even more bizarre. When he was forty-eight years old, he swallowed the cork of his drink and choked to death.

Come to think of it, a geomancer deals with gods and spirits all day long, how could he not have a shortened lifespan?
Because of this, my mother initially tried her best to stop me from learning fortune telling from my cousin and fellow apprentice, but later, for some reason, she stopped objecting and tacitly allowed me to follow my cousin.

And so I, a man surnamed Xia, became the heir of the Lu family, a family of fortune tellers.

During the day, I studied with my teachers at school; at night, I would go home and learn geomancy from my cousins ​​and fellow students. Over the past ten years, I haven't learned much Tang and Song poetry, but I can recite classics like the "Qing Nang Jing" and "Huangdi Zhai Jing" backwards.

However, perhaps because geomancy is closely related to knowledge of mathematics, literature, and geography, my grades in school were actually quite good.

Especially in Chinese, I would quote extensively from classical texts and delve into countless sources when writing essays, resulting in obscure and profound writing. Even the head of the grade was stunned, thinking I was planning to replicate Jiang Xinjie's feat of writing "The Death of Red Hare" in the college entrance examination, and wished he could worship me as a literary genius.

two

As mentioned above, my maternal grandfather died in the year of his sixtieth birthday, and my great-grandfather also died in the year he was forty-eight. This is because, for a geomancer, every tenth of a cycle (60 years) is a critical juncture.

If you can't make it through, you'll just be left here.

I'm only sixteen this year. Even if my turning point is at eighteen, it's still a long way off. But my cousin—Lu Mingfei, the 80th generation of the Lu family's geomancer—is turning eighteen this year. Since the beginning of spring, he's been constantly talking about his impending death.

Actually, eighteen years old is still considered quite young, even among geomancers. There's no need to be so worried. After all, human lifespan is 100 years and 30,000 days, and it's almost unheard of for a geomancer to shorten their own lifespan to eighteen.

Even my great-grandfather, who died young at the age of forty-eight, only reached the age of forty-eight because he practiced Falun Dafa.

In conclusion, looking back at the history of geomancers, most of them lived to be around sixty years old.

So I comforted my senior fellow apprentice, saying, "Don't worry so much. You've never seriously told fortunes in your life; you've only relied on your words to fool people. You've hardly ever violated the laws of nature. Maybe you'll live to be over a hundred and set a Guinness World Record for the longest-living geomancer."

Although he is both my cousin and my mentor, calling him "cousin" at school would be too conspicuous, and calling him "mentor" would be too disrespectful. So, I naturally called him "senior brother" at school, and this title carried over into my personal life.

There is an old tree in the courtyard, and the ground beneath it is filled with elderly people who come to cool off in the summer heat.

My senior classmate Lu Mingfei and I sat side by side on a square bench under a tree, enjoying the cool shade. He gazed wistfully at the sky at a 45-degree angle and said sentimentally, "You don't understand."

"How could I not understand?"

"People usually have a premonition when they are about to die. See this tree in the yard? When the last leaf falls, it will be time for me to go."

I rolled my eyes at him. "This is a camphor tree, evergreen all year round."

"..."

The senior brother coughed calmly: "Of course I know it's a camphor tree. I could tell that the camphor tree doesn't have much time left. Don't you understand the principle that when a tree dies, its leaves fall?"

"Alright, alright," I quickly stopped him. "If you're going to die, then die now. The tree is innocent. Why are you cursing it? It's taken a lot of effort for that tree to grow so big and bring blessings to this whole yard of people. Why would you curse it to die? What are you up to?"

I was absolutely right. The location where this camphor tree was planted happens to be a feng shui spot. The person who planted this camphor tree back then must have been knowledgeable. As long as the camphor tree grows luxuriantly and its branches and leaves spread out, it will continuously bring good fortune to the people in this courtyard.

While it's not some extraordinary luck, it's more like being able to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, finding some spare change when you go out, and not getting the low-probability draws in gacha pulls.

When my senior brother saw me say such a thing, he turned to look at me with a pained expression on his face: "Even setting aside the fact that I'm your cousin, I'm still your master. A teacher for a day is a father for life, yet you actually wish for my early death..."

"It's precisely because you are my master that I wish you would die sooner."

"why?"

I sat cross-legged on the chair and counted on my fingers as I said to him, "Think about it, my parents only have me as their daughter. Even if I don't get married and have children in the future, I still have to support two elderly people. You are my cousin, my senior brother, and my master, and you don't even have a girlfriend or anything. If you live too long, won't I have to support you too? How much pressure would that put on me?"

The senior brother sneered, "After all that talk, you just don't want to support me in my old age."

"Look at what you're saying, senior brother. You have to understand the pressure a girl like me faces in this society, don't you? Besides, you're the one who keeps saying you're about to die, so I'm just saying it to please you. What, how about you risk your life to help me find a good match and shorten your lifespan a bit?"

The senior brother stared for a long time before finally uttering a single syllable from his tightly closed lips: "Climb!"

three

In ancient times, men were considered to have reached adulthood at twenty and women at fifteen. In modern society, people are considered adults at eighteen.

In the rules of feng shui masters, both men and women must complete the sixteenth-year apprenticeship ceremony—that is, the graduation exam.

The content of the graduation exam for Feng Shui masters is very conventional. It is nothing more than being able to independently perform Feng Shui consultations and ward off bad luck for people without the help of a master.

This is because true Feng Shui masters are very rare in modern times. Therefore, masters are generally reluctant to let their apprentices do those difficult tasks.

Hundreds of years ago, when geomancers were still numerous, the industry was extremely competitive.

That was ancient times, with a pristine natural environment. Coupled with frequent wars and rampant banditry, it gave rise to many mountain spirits, wild creatures, and vengeful ghosts. Back then, the graduation ceremony for any geomancer involved venturing into rivers to capture water ghosts and climbing mountains to slay demons.

So I often pat my chest, thankful that I wasn't born in that era.

My senior classmate arranged for me to perform an exorcism for a family as part of my graduation exam. The courtyard where my senior classmate and I are now is where the family he arranged for me to live.

My senior colleague said that the woman of the house felt unlucky lately, so she went to a temple to burn incense. The monks there said she was possessed by something unclean and needed to perform a ritual on the house. That's why she came to us.

I find it quite strange. Logically speaking, with such a camphor tree in the yard, the residents shouldn't be plagued by bad luck. Moreover, all things have a spirit, and this camphor tree is so old; it must be very spiritual and more sensitive to evil spirits than people are.

If there were anything unclean in the yard, this camphor tree should have shown some obvious negative effects—like pests or yellowing leaves. But this camphor tree is growing very lushly.

"Why didn't the woman ask a monk to exorcise the evil spirits for her, but instead came to us?" I asked my senior brother.

Logically speaking, in the eyes of ordinary people, monks are the professionals when it comes to performing rituals. "Is it because the appropriate rituals are performed by monks who are detached from worldly affairs, so they can't be performed by monks?"

The senior brother shook his head. "No."

"why?"

"Because we are cheaper."

"..."

In political class, our teacher mentioned a phrase called "bad money drives out good money." So, we're the ones responsible for driving it out.

The family that hired us to exorcise the evil spirits was still a while away from closing time, and since I had nothing else to do, I idly rummaged through my bag for my homework. Meanwhile, my senior brother, looking like a little old man, ran to the side and started playing Go with an old man under a tree.

Perhaps it's because I'm in the center of a feng shui spot, influenced by the auspicious energy of this camphor tree, but even doing math problems has become much easier than before.

When I closed my notebook, my senior classmate and the old man were still playing the game they had just played. The game had progressed to the endgame. My senior classmate, playing white, had a large group of stones that were dead, and he couldn't protect either side. The outcome of the game was basically decided. My senior classmate was scratching his head in frustration. When he saw me approaching, he quickly whispered something to me.

"Is there any hope left...?"

I lowered my voice and firmly and sincerely refused, saying, "A true gentleman observes a game without speaking; I have my bottom line."

"Fifty."

"one hundred."

"……seventy."

"make a deal!"

"Your bottom line is only worth seventy?"

“I’m not a gentleman, I’m a woman.”

The old man across from us, fanning himself with a palm leaf fan, noticed my senior brother and I whispering to each other and quickly protested, "Hey, young comrades, what are you whispering about? You're not allowed to teach chess!"

Yes, young comrade.

It seems the old man is a retired senior official.

I quickly put on the bright smile that a sixteen-year-old girl should have and smiled at the old man, saying, "No, Grandpa, I just came over to talk to my cousin. We definitely didn't talk about anything on the chessboard!"

"Let's get this straight first, little girl, you can talk, but you're not allowed to talk about chess!"

"Yes, yes, I promise you, we absolutely won't talk about chess. Besides, I've only been playing chess for a few years, while you look like a veteran who's been playing for decades. Even if I wanted to teach you, could I possibly beat you?"

When the old man heard my flattery, the wrinkles on his face disappeared with joy, and his mouth stretched almost to the back of his ears. He touched a non-existent tuft of hair and squinted as he reminisced about the past.

"Young lady, you have a good eye. Back when I was still at my workplace, I was the chess champion in our unit. In the city-wide Go tournament for government employees, I represented our unit and fought my way through the competition, finally achieving a runner-up finish. If it weren't for my careless mistake in the final game of the best-of-three final, the championship would have been mine. You kids these days, although you're better at fiddling with phones and computers than us old folks, you really can't beat us at something as traditional as Go."

I continued to flatter him: "That's right, that's right, sir, you're clearly a seasoned chess master. My senior brother and I combined aren't even as old as you've been playing chess. Even if my senior brother and I were tied together, we still couldn't beat you."

The old man seemed to sense something was amiss from my boasting. After a pause, he frowned and said, "You little girl, you're not trying to flatter me so I'll allow you to teach your senior brother a move, are you? No way, I won't fall for that. Observers of chess don't speak."

I never expected that my usual trick of flattering him, which had always worked, would be seen through by this old man. My senior and I exchanged a glance, and he made a "seven" gesture with his hand and waved his hand, which meant "seventy yuan is gone."

I blinked back, indicating that he had plenty of time and I had other tricks up my sleeve.

I cleared my throat, a radiant smile spreading across my face, and said in an innocent and carefree voice, "You—are you scared?"

"..."

This tactic clearly worked. The old man's expression froze for a moment, then immediately became complicated. I knew it was the old man's pride and competitive spirit clashing within him.

Retired officials like this old man usually have a strong sense of pride. He likes playing Go and probably used to be praised for his skill back in his workplace. He probably couldn't tolerate being challenged by a teenage girl like me. After all, he probably thinks I've eaten less rice than he's eaten salt.

Soon, the old man's inner turmoil came to a conclusion. His face turned as red as a liver color, and with a wave of his hand, he spoke aggressively, uttering the famous line I had just imagined.

"You little brat, you're quite the goader. You've eaten less rice than I've eaten salt, do you think I'm afraid of a little brat like you? Fine, I'll let you go! Tell me, which step are you going to take?"

"Really? That's not a good idea, is it?"

"Stop dawdling, I told you to get off, so you get off."

I made a "seven" gesture to my senior brother, who silently gave me a thumbs up, stood up, and offered me his seat.

I straightened my skirt behind me, sat down properly on the seat by the chessboard, picked up a chess piece, placed it in a corner, and said with a smile, "I'll place it here."

The old man looked disdainful: "I thought you had some good moves? So you just play here? If you play here, I'll play...play here...play this..."

The old man's voice grew softer as he muttered, his brow furrowing as he stared at the spot where I had just placed my piece. Meanwhile, I had already opened my palm to my senior brother, ready to ask for the money.

"We haven't won yet, have we?" The senior brother reluctantly pulled out his wallet.

I pursed my lips and said, "That's about right, it's just a matter of a few moves. I'm afraid you'll run away if you don't pay me in advance."

"You really have so little faith in your senior brother's character?"

"Senior brother, do you even have any integrity?"

My senior brother slapped seventy yuan in cash into my palm, some change and some coins, while the old man opposite me picked up a chess piece with trembling fingers, trying to directly counter the "ko" move I had just been looking for.

Seeing the old man's hands trembling, I worried that he would be unable to sleep all night after returning home. At the same time, I casually picked up a chess piece and cut off his attempt to resist.

……

(End of this chapter)