I consulted a feng shui master in Hong Kong.

Huang Shouzhou, who had been holding back for a long time, finally couldn't help but ask, "Junior brother, what kind of person is that Zhou guy? We know he's not clean, why don't we just capture him first?"

Chen Qinghe walked slowly, still clutching the charred talisman he had brought back from Jinfulou, his expression calmer than usual.

"Mr. Zhou is not the root," he said.

"Not the root?" Huang Shouzhou was taken aback.

"He's a middleman," Chen Qinghe said. "Some people are responsible for meeting people, some for making connections, and some for carrying out the work. The guy surnamed Zhou is at most the visible hand, specializing in finding business, setting up schemes, and cleaning up after the people behind the scenes. He's not the one who truly controls the talismans and sets the rules."

Huang Shouzhou felt a chill run down his spine: "Then we've made a wasted trip?"

"It wasn't a wasted trip," Chen Qinghe said calmly. "Now that we know he's just a middleman, we can't rush into anything with him. If we do, the people behind him will immediately back down. What I'm looking for isn't him, but the hand standing behind him."

Huang Shouzhou opened his mouth, wanting to ask another question, but Chen Qinghe had already pushed open the courtyard gate and walked in.

The courtyard of Sanxuan Temple is always quieter at night than outside.

Half a stick of incense remained on the altar, and the small oil lamp behind the statue of the patriarch flickered twice, casting a dim and bright light on the newly erected wooden screen.

Huang Shouzhou went to the backyard to fetch water first, but Chen Qinghe did not immediately enter the house. Instead, he stood inside the door and slowly glanced around the yard.

With just one glance, his brows furrowed slightly.

wrong.

It's not a major problem, just a slight deviation. Like a breath that was walking smoothly suddenly becoming choked at the threshold.

An ordinary person would not have noticed it at all, but he had just returned from Jin Fu Lou and was thinking about the Pei family's talisman and the thread in Li Zhengfeng's old notes. As soon as he entered San Xuan Temple, he immediately caught that almost imperceptible sense of stagnation.

Chen Qinghe didn't say anything, but raised his hand and plucked the old copper bell hanging by the door.

The ringtone was soft, but the ending note wasn't as clear as usual; instead, it sounded muffled.

Huang Shouzhou came out carrying a bucket of water. Seeing him standing still, he asked in surprise, "Junior brother, what's wrong?"

"Don't touch anything in the yard yet," Chen Qinghe said.

Upon hearing this, Huang Shouzhou's hand trembled, almost spilling the water in the bucket: "What? Someone else has been here?"

"They may not have even entered the courtyard." Chen Qinghe looked up at the gatehouse and the corner of the wall, "but someone outside has been plotting something."

Huang Shouzhou immediately became nervous and couldn't sleep soundly all night.

But Chen Qinghe didn't rush out to investigate. Instead, he locked the door again and sat in front of the incense table for half the night, flipping through the old booklet left by Li Zhengfeng.

Huang Shouzhou huddled to the side, dozing off. In his half-awake state, he saw him sometimes reading a book and sometimes getting up to measure his steps at the door, which made him even more uneasy.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, Chen Qinghe got up.

He opened the courtyard gate first.

Huang Shouzhou followed behind, and as soon as he poked his head out, he froze.

Two stone guardians appeared on either side of the door.

The stones were not large, but they were all polished into squares. They stood on the left and right sides of the threshold, with the red lacquer on them not yet dry. The three characters "Shi Gandang" were engraved on them, and there was still a little gray-black powder pressed into the characters.

To onlookers, it would just seem like someone was being kind by warding off evil spirits at the Sanxuan Temple. But Huang Shouzhou had been out on the streets for a few years, and when he saw where the thing was placed, his expression immediately changed.

"This...this isn't helping us ward off evil spirits, it's blocking the door!"

Chen Qinghe squatted down, gently wiping the bottom of the stone tablet with his fingertip, removing a fine layer of white ash. He brought it to his nose and smelled it, his expression growing even colder.

"Lime, incense ash, and bone powder," he said. "It's a method of cutting off the flow of energy. Stone guardians are originally meant to suppress evil spirits and block negative energy, but when placed here, they don't face the street or the alley. Instead, they block the entrance from the left and right, precisely to cut off the flow of energy in front of our Sanxuan Temple."

Upon hearing this, Huang Shouzhou gritted his teeth: "Damn it, I just left Jin Fu Lou yesterday, and this thing is placed at my door this morning. Those bastards really dare to come!"

Chen Qinghe remained unperturbed, simply measuring the distance from the threshold to Shi Gandang before calmly stating, "They're testing us."

"Try what?"

"Let's see if we understand," Chen Qinghe said. "If we can't see it, the Sanxuan Temple shop will slowly decline without them even lifting a finger. Once the energy flow to the entrance stops, incense won't enter, people won't gather, and passersby will only find the place more and more stifling each day. At that point, who will still come?"

Huang Shouzhou felt a chill run down his spine as he listened.

That's too underhanded.

No bloodshed, no fire, no smashing doors, no disturbances.

They'll just secretly give you two stones; over time, the Three Mysteries Temple will naturally decline.

"So what do we do now?" he asked.

"Break it first." Chen Qinghe stood up, turned his head and glanced at the old water vat in the yard. "Go and scoop out two ladles of the water that was left to stand overnight, and then get my old wooden ruler."

Huang Shouzhou hurried off.

Chen Qinghe did not rush to move the stone guardian. Instead, he first used a wooden ruler to measure the center line of the threshold, and then slowly poured still water under the two stones.

When the lime gets wet, a little grayish-black fumes immediately rise to the surface and seep out along the brick seams.

"As expected, it's filled with dead ashes." Huang Shouzhou felt a chill run down his spine.

"They don't want to suppress evil spirits, they want to suppress the door," Chen Qinghe said. "Shi Gandang blocks the road and breaks the door. If dead ashes are added, it will suppress not only evil spirits, but also the fortune of the homeowner."

After he finished speaking, he went around to the left and tapped the ground lightly with his foot. The stone wasn't actually placed there; instead, three broken tiles were placed underneath it, tilting the stone surface diagonally towards the threshold of the Sanxuan Temple. The same thing happened with the one on the right.

Upon seeing this, Huang Shouzhou immediately cursed, "These bastards, they even calculated the angle perfectly!"

Chen Qinghe ignored him, only raising his hand to slightly rotate the left-hand stone guardian half a circle, so that its surface was no longer facing the door, but directly facing the alley. He did the same for the right-hand stone. After doing all this, he called to Huang Shouzhou, "Move it now."

The two men, one on each side, moved the two stone tablets from the doorway and placed them diagonally across the road at the alley entrance. Chen Qinghe looked at the location and nodded, saying, "Put them here."

Huang Shou-zhuo, panting, asked, "This is...?"

"This is where it should be," Chen Qinghe said. "There's a narrow passage ahead, and Shi Gandang is placed here to block the way. Putting it at the entrance of the Sanxuan Temple is just using its name to cut off our life force."

Huang Shouzhou understood, and felt the fire in his chest burning even brighter: "These people are damn cunning."

Chen Qinghe patted the dust off his hands, but suddenly smiled.

"The fact that yin is yin also reminded me of something."

"What is it?"

"Since they can use the stone guardian to set up a trap, it means that this group of people not only know how to use talismans, but also know how to use objects to sever life force." Chen Qinghe looked at the two stones that had just been straightened at the alley entrance, his eyes calm. "In that case, we don't have to just stand by and take the beating."

Huang Shouzhou's eyes lit up: "Junior brother, you have an idea?"

"A little," Chen Qinghe said. "You need to do something for me today."

"What is it?"

"Find a stone market."

Huang Shouzhou was taken aback at first, then realized what he meant, and his eyes lit up: "You mean... to use their own methods against them?"

"It's not about retaliating," Chen Qinghe said calmly. "It's about reciprocity. Since they tested the Three Mysteries Temple with stones first, I have to give them something in return, so that the other party behind them knows that the Three Mysteries Sect isn't just good at recognizing talismans."

Huang Shou-chou became increasingly excited as he listened, patting his chest and saying, "Alright! Leave this to me. I may not be familiar with other things in Sham Shui Po, but I can still find quarries, tile shops, and timber stores. How big and old do you need it for? Or do you want it engraved?"

"Don't carve any words yet," Chen Qinghe said. "I need two pieces of bluestone, one for the corner and one for the gate. The stone surface must be straight, the texture must be solid, and there shouldn't be any breaks in the grain. Ideally, they should be leftover stones from old houses, carrying a bit of the old house's dignified atmosphere, not the dry, hard stones from newly mined mountains."

Huang Shouzhou was taken aback: "So particular?"

"A stone guardian is a powerful talisman if placed correctly, but it can be a malevolent force if placed incorrectly," Chen Qinghe said. "They can use it to cut off our family's fortune, and I can use a stone to illuminate their path. But I don't want bad people; I want them to see for themselves that they've overstepped their bounds."

Huang Shouzhou felt a surge of warmth in his heart as he listened.

Yesterday, we only suspected that Mr. Zhou had a group of people behind him, but today, with these two stone tablets placed there, it's as if they've directly exposed their hand. Now that they've already reached the entrance of the Sanxuan Temple, there's no point in retreating.

He immediately responded and turned to run outside.

Chen Qinghe stood at the door, watching him disappear into the alley in a flash, his gaze slowly returning to the two corrected stone tablets.