Chapter 141: Grotesque and Bizarre

Seeing Elder Huang furrow his brow in worry, Huang Guolun cautiously asked, "Did someone back the wrong horse? Has it implicated our family?"

Elder Huang quickly waved his hand. "You're overthinking it. This has nothing to do with business or politics. It only concerns you and your brother."

"Ah?"

Huang Guolun's mind went blank for a few seconds before he immediately jumped to a conclusion. "It's not another one of those 'masters' telling you something again, is it?"

Elder Huang offered a noncommittal, bitter smile.

Huang Guolun was completely baffled. After worrying for half a day, it turned out to be this kind of illusory, metaphysical nonsense!

Elder Huang stood up, called Huang Guolun over to the tea table, and personally scalded a small cup of tea for him.

"What on earth did those masters tell you? How did they manage to get you into this state?"

Huang Guolun smiled as he drank the tea, still unaware of the gravity of the situation.

Elder Huang spoke in deeply esoteric tones: "Some things—if you believe them, they make you miserable; if you don't, they still cause worry."

"Dad, I don't think you need to believe in this kind of stuff every time. Many of those so-called 'masters' are just scamming people for money. Take that fellow with the goatee who came to our house last time, for instance; he was obviously a half-baked charlatan, felt like he knew even less than you do."

"This Mr. Yi is different."

"The 'Mr.' who comes is always different, but the tune remains the same. The prices they charge are never low."

Elder Huang said earnestly, "This Mr. Yi is truly different. He didn't want any money."

Huang Guolun paused. "No money?"

"I actually wish he had wanted money. If he had taken money, my heart would feel a bit more at ease. True or false, I'd just write it off as spending money to avert disaster and doing a good deed. But this Mr. Yi—no matter how I tried to give him money, he wouldn't take it. When I asked him to help break the deadlock for us, he said there was nothing he could do."

Huang Guolun said suspiciously, "That's a bit eerie. If he doesn't want money, what is he after? Just giving you a free fortune-telling?"

"He's after nothing at all. In his own words, he found our family's destiny matrix quite interesting, wanted to chat with me a bit more, and then he just spoke."

"What did he say?" Huang Guolun grew increasingly curious.

"Many of the things he said were identical to what that blind old woman said years ago. Things like our family having to guard tombs to repay a karmic debt to the heavens—he saw all of that."

"Did he already know about these things beforehand and just put on an act to fool you?"

"Do you think I'm that easy to fool?" Elder Huang said with a stern expression. "This Mr. Yi's identity is extraordinary. Back when Beijing was hit by SARS, do you know why the state urgently built a temporary hospital in Xiaotangshan?"

"I think I heard you mention this before. They say troubled times produce extraordinary people, and someone exceptional came out to take control back then. There was a dragon vein or something at Xiaotangshan, and building the hospital there involved performing rituals to nail something down and divert all the evil energy away. Anyway, it sounded pretty supernatural."

Huang Guolun wore a slightly mocking expression and spoke his true thoughts: "I've always felt this was completely unreliable, just wild rumors even more bizarre than fiction."

Elder Huang replied, "I also thought it sounded quite supernatural and found it hard to believe. But from what I understand, there's a high probability it's true. This Mr. Yi whom I encountered this time was actually involved in that Xiaotangshan project."

Huang Guolun wore an incredulous expression and asked, "Could this Mr. Yi possibly be the master who guided the Xiaotangshan project?"

"No. Mr. Yi doesn't have quite that much capability. The situation back then was extremely critical; Mr. Yi and several other top-tier masters who often advise high-ranking leaders were invited to think of a solution, but they couldn't handle it either. Later, an unworldly master appeared uninvited, and together with Mr. Yi and the other worldly practitioners, they managed to put the Xiaotangshan plan into effect."

Huang Guolun took a sip of the bitter tea and doubted, "Is this true? No matter how I listen to it, it sounds unreliable. Where did this Mr. Yi even come from? Did he just make all this up?"

"Don't talk nonsense, that's taboo," Elder Huang scolded gently before saying with a straight face, "This Mr. Yi is not an ordinary master, nor is he someone just anyone can afford to invite. He was invited by Boss Lin."

Upon hearing this, Huang Guolun stopped making casual comments. He knew that Boss Lin's background reached the heavens; he was the most powerful among the people cooperating with his father. If Mr. Yi was invited by Boss Lin, then his status was indeed extraordinary.

Elder Huang continued, "Before the New Year, our company acquired a two-thousand-mu forest land from Lingbei to build the largest Wanfu Cemetery in northern Beijing. The planned area of this cemetery is larger than the three cemeteries the company currently operates combined. This project is our company's most important development project for the next few years. Earlier, the company invited several masters to help with the design and planning of the new cemetery, but their opinions were completely inconsistent. The bosses all felt that we needed to find an even more formidable master to take a look. In the end, Boss Lin exerted an enormous amount of effort to bring Mr. Yi out of retirement to examine the feng shui of Wanfu Cemetery for our company."

Huang Guolun asked curiously, "How did it go? Did he say the feng shui of that land is good?"

"Extremely good. Mr. Yi said that land is a forest of ten thousand blessings, and the new cemetery's name, Wanfu Garden, was given by him. According to Mr. Yi, around the Thirteen Tombs, apart from the Fubei Garden our family developed earliest, the feng shui of the Wanfu Forest area is the absolute best."

"Then that's a good thing! What are you still worrying about?"

"I told you, what I'm worried about has nothing to do with the cemetery. If Mr. Yi had only looked at the cemetery's feng shui, that would be the end of it. But unfortunately, during dinner that day, he had a few too many drinks, and his spirits were piqued. One thing led to another, and the conversation shifted to our family's affairs. At the time, several bosses were present, and out of everyone's families, he didn't mention a single word about theirs—he singled out our family's affairs and laid them all out."

Huang Guolun asked oddly, "What did he say about our family?"

"Right in front of those bosses, he spoke of our family's tomb-guarding destiny. Those bosses were quite pleased upon hearing it, all thinking that cooperating with our family to run a cemetery was a wise move. But then, some of the things Mr. Yi said gave me deep, lingering sorrow, sigh!" Elder Huang sighed, trailing off as if he didn't want to continue.

Huang Guolun asked in a muffled voice, "What on earth did he say? Did he talk about my brother's destiny and mine?"

Elder Huang weighed his words before saying, "It's not really about your destiny and your brother's; actually, it concerns the next generation, but it is intimately tied to the two of you."

Suddenly changing the subject, Elder Huang asked Huang Guolun, "How have your blind dates been going lately? Have you seen anyone you fancy?"

Huang Guolun was slightly dazed for a moment and replied, "I haven't made much progress on my end."

Elder Huang asked again, "What about your brother? Does he have someone?"

"He... probably doesn't either. He was badly hurt by his last relationship. These few years, he wants to throw himself into his career and doesn't want to talk about marriage. In his own words, he wants to establish his career first before starting a family. Once he makes something of his career, then he'll think about getting married."

"Mm, that's not too bad."

Elder Huang was actually quite satisfied with the current status of neither of his sons having partners.

"Dad, why are you asking all this?" Huang Guolun guessed along, "Could it be that Mr. Yi calculated that my brother and I are destined for a bumpy road and will never have a good marriage in this lifetime?"

"Even worse than that," Elder Huang said with difficulty. "What Mr. Yi talked about wasn't the two of you; he was talking about the next generation."

Huang Guolun frowned and asked, "Did he calculate Taozi's destiny?"

"He didn't fortune-tell for Taozi specifically, but he talked about a whole batch of rather complicated destiny charts for their generation. To sum it up: until our family finishes repaying the heavenly debt of guarding the tombs, every single child born in the next generation will carry a severe curse of harming their kin. Fortunately, when your mother and I named you two 'Kunlun', it stabilized the destiny palaces of your lives, otherwise the two of you would have been cursed to death by your children. That could be considered a providence of the netherworld. But your wives—they don't have such good luck. They will all be cursed by the children, and the curse will be extremely severe."

Huang Guolun listened in gloomy silence, feeling as if his heart had been stabbed with a knife.

Elder Huang reached out, scalded another cup of tea, handed it to Huang Guolun, and comforted him, "I knew saying this would surely hurt you. I hesitated for a long time before deciding to tell you. Your mother still doesn't know about this. I don't plan on telling her either, and you mustn't tell her either, lest she worries and becomes heartbroken."

Huang Guolun took the tea, his hand trembling, and the spilled tea scalded his fingers. But he endured it without a sound, conflicted and somewhat reproachful as he said to Elder Huang, "Dad, are you saying Chen Jia was cursed to death by Huang Tao? That is just too absurd! Can you please stop casually spreading such nonsense!"

Elder Huang blamed himself, sighing, "Sigh, I know you feel miserable hearing this, and my heart hurts even more than yours. The main point of me telling you this isn't about who cursed Chen Jia to death. I am telling you that the fate of Huang Tao's generation will be exceptionally bizarre and weird."

"Bizarre and weird?" Huang Guolun repeated with extreme displeasure. How could his old man use such a term to describe his most beloved grandson!

Elder Huang was suffering far more than Huang Guolun, and at his wits' end, he said, "I didn't say that, Mr. Yi did."

"Whoever said it! You shouldn't listen to such ghost stories! And you certainly shouldn't believe them!"

"Don't snap at me just yet, listen to me finish. This 'bizarre and weird' that Mr. Yi spoke of is not entirely bad. He means that when the children of Huang Tao's generation grow up, they will all possess the destinies of freakish geniuses, eccentric talents, and extraordinary minds. As long as they don't stray onto the wrong path, they will all become pillars of talent blessed by the heavens. But there is one catch: until our family repays the heavenly debt, if this generation continues to be born, they will severely curse their mothers—it is a life-for-a-life curse matrix with absolutely no way to break it. The reason Mr. Yi told me this after drinking is to remind our family that until the heavenly debt is repaid, we must not have any more children. If we do, we will repeat Chen Jia's tragic path, committing a selfish sin at the expense of others. Do you understand what I'm saying?"