Chapter 7

The Gulfstream was soaring high but steady in the clouds.

The setting sun outside of the porthole was shining into the plane’s dining area. Xie Yuchen kept watching a surveillance video on a laptop.

It was a recording from the snowy back alley of a restaurant. It was suspected that this was the place where someone had moved Qi Qiu’s frozen corpse into a car. But the camera couldn’t film behind the corner, so only a very blurry image could be seen. Some distance from the camera, a person could be seen pulling a humanoid object out of the snow. Then, the person was blocked by the wall.

Some cameras in St. Petersburg’s Sky Eye system were very old, so the picture quality was very poor. The only thing that they could confirm was that this was a man.

It was of little use, but it was interesting to see that the old lady was able to use so much manpower and material resources in such a short amount of time. She clearly had a lot of power if she could find this twenty-second clip among the whole city’s camera data.

“We’ve funded six or seven labor schools to cultivate the employability of people at the bottom of society. This time, I asked the students to help.” The old lady leaned back in her seat and continued, “You can tell me your terms, Mr. Xie.”

“The one traveling with me needs considerable funds and remuneration. I’ve already asked Beijing to send a quote to your company. I don’t need it, but I heard that you’ve funded an ophthalmic research institute in Cologne, Germany. I want to invest in your ophthalmic project. I’d like a seat on your board of directors and a copy of the monthly meeting information sent to me. If you withdraw your shares, I want a good faith memorandum guaranteeing my right of first refusal.”

“This is a public welfare project aimed at studying a few ophthalmic diseases. The expected return is very low. If Mr. Xie expects benefits, we can provide a better plan. We’re very sincere and don’t want to mistreat our savior.”

“I’ve read the business plan and have my own profit considerations.”

“Then we’ll transfer the shares free of charge and bear all of the transfer taxes and fees.”

Xie Yuchen smiled. As expected of a mother’s love for her children; cost didn’t matter at all. But he didn’t dare ask for more. He didn’t want to take advantage of this woman’s feelings just to make a profit, even though he knew the benefits were great.

“There is still a small favor that I need your help with. I should have done it myself, but I probably won’t return to China for a short time.”

“Please say it. We’ll do it as soon as possible.”

“The feng shui array in the church used a corpse. I thought that the corpse was moved here sixty years ago, but I later found out that it wasn’t. I had been misled by the newspaper, but even so, Qi Qiu was kidnapped and tortured. It must have taken a very long time, because the harmful feng shui array of this Floating Pool technique needs a special kind of corpse. In other words, it needs the corpse of someone who was trying to cultivate into an immortal but was interrupted halfway. This kind of corpse can’t be found at any time. I checked Qi Qiu’s background and found that he arrived in Russia four years ago. Then, he frequently started returning to China three years ago. He must have been under surveillance at that time. When he returned to China, he must have been searching for this kind of immortal corpse. The whole process took at least more than two years—after more than two years, he didn’t return to China again—at which time he also accurately collected the larvae of those cicadas to ensure that they would hatch this year. So, this feng shui array must have only been set up a few months ago. The perpetrators went silent while they waited for the cicadas to come out and the harmful feng shui array to start harming people.”

“I can’t understand this witchcraft at all.” When the old lady looked at Xie Yuchen, there was an incomprehensible emotion in her eyes, “Will they continue to hurt my family in this way?”

“Feng shui isn’t witchcraft. It exists objectively in both Chinese culture and geography. Anything that exists objectively will be used by people for both good and bad. You don’t have to worry too much. Now that we’ve gotten involved, things won’t continue to deteriorate,” Xie Yuchen said. “But this corpse was different from other corpses that try to cultivate into immortals. She was deceived. I had my people check it as quickly as possible. The man who lied to her is about 82 years old this year. He has a lot of children and grandchildren, and has already repented and become a really kind old man. He’s tried hard to forget about this matter for a long time. He used his half-baked knowledge to deceive this girl into dying for love. To tell you the truth, it’s a little late to punish him now. But I still hope that you can get the jade female corpse and put it in the old man’s bed on the twelfth day of the fourth lunar month of this year (1). Don’t wake him up. He has a bad prostate, so he’ll definitely see it by himself when he gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

The old lady looked at Xie Yuchen, “It seems that the despicable liar has met the devil.”

Xie Yuchen didn’t comment, but handed over a note containing the old man’s address.

When the old lady left her seat to take care of the request, Black Glasses came over with wet hair and sat in front of him. Xie Yuchen found that he had cut his hair short and changed into a pair of round-framed sunglasses.

“Why did you get a haircut?”

“There’s a barber on this plane. You don’t want to try it?”

“No, I don’t think it’s much of an improvement.” Xie Yuchen took a sip of coffee. “There are still three hours until we land. You’re the one who’s close to the Qi family, so you need to debrief me. We need to exchange information.”

“The Qi family’s eight-calculation Qimen technique can be regarded as separate from the standard eight-calculation Qimen technique. It’s a very small niche, and there aren’t many people in China who know about it. So, Qi Qiu was targeted specifically. The person acting behind the scenes must be very knowledgeable.” Black Glasses looked out the window and opened a can of beer.

“If they’re so knowledgeable and know feng shui, then why use Qi Qiu?”

Black Glasses gave Xie Yuchen a meaningful look and smiled, “Why did Er Ye teach you personally? Do you know?”

“Just say it.” Xie Yuchen sighed.

“Er Ye taught you in order to cut off a certain kind of knowledge with your generation. We’ve learned a lot about feng shui, but it’s only enough to find dragon veins, determine the atmosphere under mountains, or predict the size of a tomb. But in the legends, feng shui could do more than you can imagine, which is something you really don’t want to believe. Why?”

“So you’re saying that the previous generation didn’t want us to know too much about feng shui?”

“In fact, the people we know who understand feng shui are all lacking the skills to find one particular dragon vein, which means that the tombs buried in this dragon vein are relatively safe. Unless there’s an accidental collapse or something, they’ll be impossible to find with our knowledge.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Because our knowledge was passed down by the feng shui ancestors of old. They would teach about all kinds of dragon veins in the world, but they left one for themselves. This dragon vein was thus deleted from all feng shui knowledge. We can’t see it or even find it. The most powerful feng shui masters in China are buried in this dragon vein.”

“It sounds like an elephant graveyard.”

“Yes, this hidden dragon vein is full of good things. There are only about eight people in China who know about it now. They are the only ones left; the real feng shui masters. It’s said that they can do things completely different from what we might think. But feng shui schools are very different and arouse the harmful nature of feng shui, which will end up hurting feng shui masters. That was why Qi Qiu was chosen. One of those eight people should be the schemer.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s a benefit of living for a long time.” Black Glasses laughed again.

When Xie Yuchen heard this statement, he thought for a while, “If they only killed those three people before killing Qi Qiu, then they would have to come up with a new plan for the remaining two. People like Qi Qiu are not so easy to find, so I don’t think it’s right. In reality, it’s very likely that all of Qi Qiu’s arrays have already been set up and they’re all in the countdown phase. We don’t have much time.”

Black Glasses took a sip of beer and looked out the window, “By the way, if they’re such a great feng shui expert, do you think they’ve calculated where we’re going?”

Xie Yuchen looked out of the window and saw that the sun had almost set. As the clouds below reflected the plane’s wing lights, he found that the shadow of the wing looked a little strange.

As he looked at it some more, he suddenly felt that the shadow of the plane’s wing wasn’t normal at all. In fact, it seemed that there was a person lying under the wing.

<Chapter 6><Table of Contents><Chapter 8>

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TN Notes:

(1) Since this was written this year (i.e., 2021), I think the day is May 23th. This website had auspicious and inauspicious things to do on this date.

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I know it seems kinda dumb considering how we just finished it, but I got Restart put into a pdf for you guys last night. I went ahead and included Restart Part I, Part II, and the Trial Reading stuff. I’ll try to get Sand Sea or Tibetan Sea Flower into a pdf next. Just need to find the time/motivation...

Pic added 5/8/2023 (fan translation courtesy of me)