Chapter Thirteen: The Gift of Prophecy

When my father first chose this place to build our house, my grandfather was strongly opposed. According to the principles of feng shui, a location like this was far more suited for a tomb than a residence for the living. In my grandfather’s words, with protective hills on both sides and a mountain at the back, this spot ought to be a prosperous place that attracts wealth and fortune. However, the problem was that directly opposite this mountain stood another, taller and more imposing peak, perpetually wreathed in mist.

My grandfather said that with one mountain forever looming above another, the view from our front door was not of open plains but rather of a daunting, towering slope. Unless someone in our household possessed a spirit as grand as the dragon of the opposing mountain, our home would inevitably be suppressed. Such a place, he insisted, was only fit for the dead, not the living.

Naturally, my father paid him no heed. To him, the abundant sunlight, level ground, and the prospect of carving out a couple of acres for crops after a bit of tidying up made this the perfect spot. With mountains encircling us and a secluded courtyard, it promised tranquility.

Unable to sway my father, my grandfather relented and brought out his compass to help with the feng shui, though my father ignored him and pressed on with the construction. My grandfather declared that the central axis of our main door aligned with emptiness.

It’s said that at the time, my grandfather tried to show my father the compass. But my father, dismissive of such superstitions and still brimming with youthful arrogance, knocked the compass from his hand, chipping a corner off as it hit the ground. That act led to a complete rupture between father and son.

The compass is a vital tool for a feng shui master—a lifeline, really. Every master passes on his most important tools and secrets only to his most trusted disciple on his deathbed. Our family had been practitioners of the Dao for generations, albeit from a small, humble sect. The only precious thing we had was this compass, handed down from the very first ancestor.

Passing on the master’s robe and compass symbolized entrusting a disciple with a lifetime’s knowledge and hopes. In the world of Daoist practitioners, it was known as handing over the rice bowl—entrusting the lineage and expecting it to flourish.

Any Daoist apprentice, whether trained under a renowned master or self-taught, who lacked the master’s compass and robe, would not possess the essential skills or secrets of the tradition and would not be recognized as an heir. For generations, the Xia family’s incense had burned strong. Everyone coveted the compass, for whoever held it would be recognized as head of the Xia family, regardless of personal talent—much like the tokens of authority passed down in martial arts novels.

Those who had never formally apprenticed, self-taught or otherwise, were known in Daoist circles as “gourd learners”—men who had taken up the craft halfway through life or taught themselves from books.

These self-taught men might manage to interpret the feng shui of a house or a grave, but actually practicing feng shui required caution. Reading feng shui and shaping it are entirely different arts. Methods for reading it are many, from the Eight Trigrams and Qimen to heart-ease techniques or even witchcraft, but truly shaping feng shui demanded complete mastery, attainable only through inheritance. Only then could one wield the skills to alter a person’s fortune or fate.

Especially in the art of yin-yang burials, caution was paramount. Lacking profound skill, one should never tamper with graves, lest misfortune fall upon both oneself and others. The disasters unleashed by bad grave feng shui could be devastating, from the destruction of entire families to loss of life, often within a hundred days.

People trusted my grandfather not just for his skills, but for his legitimate lineage. His compass, unlike any I would ever see again, was unique.

Everyone knows a compass has three parts: the heavenly pool (the needle), the inner plate, and the outer plate.

The heavenly pool is essentially the compass needle, mounted on a pointed spindle at the center of the circular box. The bottom of the needle has a concave spot, so it balances on the pivot. The end with the arrow points south, the other north. There’s a red line painted on the base called the “sea bottom line,” flanked at the north end by two red dots. When using the compass, you align the north end of the needle with the sea bottom line.

The inner plate, immediately outside the compass needle, is a rotating disc marked with many concentric circles, each called a layer. The layers are divided into segments—some more, some fewer. The simplest has eight, while the most complex has 384. Each segment bears unique characters.

There are many varieties of compass, some with more layers, some fewer—up to fifty-two, or as few as five. Each school of feng shui inscribes its core teachings onto the compass’s discs, so the entire sect’s essence is distilled into this one instrument. The more rings, the more formidable the compass, and the deeper the knowledge behind it. Some spend their whole lives deciphering only half of its secrets; many more layers are the legacy of ancient masters.

My grandfather's compass was different from the start. It was not made of brass or jade but of a single piece of transparent, glass-like material, barely the size of a palm. While most compasses have at least five layers, his had only two. The characters on it were also unique—not the heavenly stems and earthly branches, but simply “Life” and “Death.” The discs could be turned left or right, and with each position, there was a soft click. The two layers would combine to form one of only eight possible outcomes.

It was this precious compass that my father, in one careless motion, chipped. To my grandfather, who cherished it as his very life, its damage was a blow beyond forgiveness. No wonder he broke with my father.

Perhaps my father realized the significance of what he’d broken. He reluctantly apologized, giving my grandfather a way to save face. The old man sighed, “A thousand-pound gate, a two-ounce house; a door without a spirit, a house without a master. Make of it what you will!”

In the end, my father buried a copper coin on the main door’s central axis, and used an ink line to snap a black mark across the lintel—the line drawn with the compass, pointing to emptiness.

That’s why the old house’s main door was never straight, but askew. Grandfather still helped my father one last time, shifting the door forty degrees to the left—a single position on the compass. As he put it, don’t expect help from anyone; if nobody brings you harm, count yourself lucky.

Since ancient times, every door has its guardian spirit. But our old house had none. Because the door pointed to emptiness, it was an open gate: spirits and ghosts could enter, monsters and demons as well. Everything depended on whether the master of the house had a strong enough fate, whether his life-force was sufficient to tame the place.

As for what hidden dangers this house held, it didn’t take many years before they began to show.

When I was seven and ready to start school, there was a schoolhouse in Hong Village, but not in Wuli Pu. The children from Wuli Pu had to walk seven or eight miles over mountain paths to attend class in Hong Village. Both villages were tiny; our whole class had barely thirty students. In those days, schooling was free—mornings spent reading from the Selected Works, afternoons on arithmetic.

The desks were all handmade by the village carpenter, two children to a desk. I was paired with a boy from Wuli Pu. When the teacher called roll, he answered to the name Zha Wenbin. He was about my height. The other children from Wuli Pu said he’d been found and taken in, and that he’d always been bullied. I, on the other hand, was famous for mischief in Hong Village—on the very first day of school, I’d knocked out a classmate’s loose tooth. So he was a little afraid of me at first.

That morning, as usual, I shouldered my schoolbag and went to class. Not long after I got to the classroom, Zha Wenbin nudged my arm and said, “Something’s going to happen to you today.”

I was puzzled. What could possibly happen to me?

He tilted his head and whispered in my ear, “In a little while, you’ll have to ask the teacher to go home. Something’s happened in your family. I dreamt last night that today you’d be in mourning.”

At that age, I didn’t understand what “in mourning” meant, so I asked him. Our whispering caught the teacher’s attention, and soon enough, I was called on and scolded: “You two aren’t paying attention in class. What are you whispering about?”

I swear, I was an honest child. So I raised my hand and said, “Teacher, Zha Wenbin says I’ll be in mourning today. What does ‘in mourning’ mean?”

At that, the teacher was exasperated. How could these two scamps be discussing such things in class? As the flowers of the Republic, we should have been talking about how to be the next generation of socialist successors—not dwelling on superstitious nonsense.

“Zha Wenbin, stand up!”

“Teacher, I…”

“No buts! Do you even know what ‘in mourning’ means? Nonsense!”

The teacher’s rebuke drew a round of laughter from the class. Zha Wenbin’s face turned bright red. Perhaps the laughter irked the teacher, making him feel that discipline was being undermined by this one boy. He stormed off the podium, grabbed Zha Wenbin like a chick, hauled him to the front, and barked, “Go on, tell everyone. What does ‘in mourning’ mean?”

Zha Wenbin looked at me pitifully, tears swimming in his eyes, his hands twisting the hem of his shirt. The teacher, growing angrier at his silence, began to shake his thin shoulders and even raised his pointer, spanking him hard. The classroom was in chaos, the children laughing uproariously. At last, Zha Wenbin couldn’t stand it. He blurted something that stunned everyone: “Teacher, I dreamed that Xia Yi’s grandfather would die today. In a moment, his father will come for him, carrying white hemp cloth for him to wear—in mourning…”

That answer drove the teacher wild, and he lashed out even harder with the pointer. Just then, the classroom door burst open. Instantly, every eye turned to the newcomer.

My father stood there, holding a piece of white cloth. He greeted the teacher, “Teacher Zhang, I’m Xia Yi’s father. His grandfather just passed away. I’ve come to take him home…”