“Oh, I’m going up the mountain to gather some firewood for cooking. There’s nothing left at home,” Zhao Laotai lied to Youzi. Naturally, he wouldn’t tell the other party that he was actually going to inspect a geomantic site.
“Chopping firewood? At your age, why don’t you ask your son to go?”
“Heh, I can’t get him to move. That good-for-nothing acts like a little lord at home. You carry on, I’m off. It’ll get dark soon, and who knows, maybe there’ll be a timely rain shower,” Zhao Laotai replied evasively.
“No need to rush, Old Zhao. I know a pile of branches nearby. Why don’t I take you there? I can help carry them back down the mountain too.”
“No, no, don’t bother. You should go back now!” Zhao Laotai grew increasingly anxious. This guy clearly knew his intentions and insisted on tagging along.
Youzi chuckled slyly, “You’re going to check out that geomantic site, aren’t you? Don’t worry, it’s well hidden beneath the branches. No one has noticed it.”
“What? You—” Zhao Laotai was shocked, his heart instantly sinking.
“That’s right. You’re really unlucky. That precious site was discovered by a scoundrel like me,” Youzi gave him a sly look, nearly drooling with greed.
“What are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re referring to. What you saw is just an ordinary piece of land,” Zhao Laotai still couldn’t believe that an outsider had discovered the geomantic site and desperately tried to conceal the truth.
“Is that so? Ordinary? There’s a coffin lid that looks exactly like a real one, even brown in color. I thought it was born from the genuine spiritual energy of the earth!”
“Fine, if you say it’s not, then I’ll just go ahead and smash it,” Youzi said and turned to leave, looking like a furious Li Kui, fearless of heaven and earth.
“Wait, I have something to say,” Zhao Laotai gave in. It seemed the geomantic site had indeed been found by him. Helplessly, he called Youzi back, hoping to have a serious conversation. Judging from Youzi’s tone, he probably wanted something from him, so there was likely a deal to be made.
“Oh my, my talkative old man, you’ve finally changed your mind?” Youzi stopped obediently, smiling smugly like a triumphant winner.
“Tell me, what do you want in return?”
“Frankly spoken!” Youzi gave a thumbs-up. “Since you’ve been so straightforward with me, I won’t beat around the bush anymore. To be honest, I just wanted to make a little profit from this. That’s why I’ve been desperately searching all over the mountain today. Fortunately, heaven has been good to me, and I actually found it. In fact, I was on my way to your house to discuss this business deal when, lo and behold, I met you on the road…”
“Cut the chatter, just tell me something concrete!”
“Fine, straight to the point. My price is fifty silver dollars. I’ll keep this secret forever, until your dying day. What do you think?”
“Fifty it is, but you must keep your word!” Zhao Laotai gritted his teeth.
“Of course, although I’m just a beggar, I do have my principles. You can rest assured. Actually, exchanging some silver dollars for the prosperity of your descendants for generations is quite a bargain. You might even have someone like Emperor Qin Shi Huang in your family. You can’t expect to have all the good fortune to yourself, right? You must pay a price!”
“Alright, then. Come here tomorrow to get the money. Don’t be late.”
“Great, it’s a deal. Goodbye. You can go ahead and carry your firewood now. Haha…” Youzi considered himself victorious and arrogantly hummed a ruffian’s tune in front of Zhao Laotai as he swaggered down the mountain.
Zhao Laotai stood there like a soul had left his body, unable to recover for quite a while.
When he got home late at night, Zhao Laotai tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. His left eyelid kept twitching, and he felt uneasy, as if something was going to happen the next day. “Could it be that Youzi is trying to trick me?”
The more Zhao Laotai thought about it, the more awake he became. He finally got up and went to the courtyard. A gentle breeze blew, and the stars in the sky twinkled brightly at him.
“Sigh, everything is destined. As the ancients said, ‘Fortunate people await fortunate land, and fortunate land awaits fortunate people.’ If I, Zhao Laohan, am fated to be buried in a good geomantic site, no one will be able to ruin it. Remember how Zhu Yuanzhang’s mother was buried in grass after dying from an epidemic because they couldn’t afford a coffin? Unexpectedly, during the journey to bury her, a sudden rainstorm caused a pile of earth to collapse from the hillside, burying her body perfectly. Later, Zhu Chongba defeated Chen Youliang, ruled the world, and became the true dragon emperor. This is known as ‘heaven’s burial,’ something that cannot be stopped or forcibly pursued by ordinary people.” He tried every means to comfort himself, imagining he was the reincarnation of Zhu Yuanzhang.
Early the next morning, Zhao Laotai arrived at Sisheng Ridge with a bag of silver dollars. He didn’t tell his son about this, fearing that his son would blab the news to his wife again, making it known to everyone. When he reached Sisheng Ridge, he found that Youzi had already been waiting there for some time.
“You came pretty early, huh? Don’t worry, I won’t go back on my word. Here you go!” Zhao Laotai took out a small package from his pocket and tossed it toward Youzi.
Youzi sneered, grabbed the package deftly, and weighed it in his hand. “Hope there’s not a single coin missing?”
Zhao Laotai angrily said, “You just go down the mountain and enjoy your money. I’m sick of seeing you.”
“Alright, money received, disaster removed. Goodbye and best wishes for your longevity and the happiness of your descendants. Hahaha…” Youzi put the money into his pocket and then happily strutted away.
“You bastard, may you die a bad death!” Although Zhao Laotai had driven away the plague god, he still felt quite upset in his heart. After all, he shouldn’t have had to spend a single penny extra. He had to curse fiercely to ease his hatred. But perhaps it was truly destined by heaven that Zhao Laotai couldn’t become another Zhu Yuanzhang. His financial loss and bitter curses failed to help him feel at ease or eliminate the current disaster.
After Youzi got the extorted money and went down the mountain, he originally planned to find a place to spend it. However, his vile nature suddenly sparked a new idea: “Why should I keep my promise? Am I some kind of hero or noble knight? Hmph, I won’t follow your wishes. I’m going to ruin it for you.”
Thinking of these despicable ideas, Youzi suddenly lost all interest in gambling. Instead, he was stimulated by a different kind of violent excitement that thrilled him. He grabbed a big iron hammer, quietly climbed up the back of Sisheng Ridge, found Zhao Laotai’s precious site, dug up the soil, and then swung the hammer at the brown coffin lid.
Bang, bang, bang—the sound of iron striking stone echoed throughout the mountains and fields. It didn’t break. Youzi kept hammering, but strangely, after five minutes of effort, he still couldn’t break through this lid. Wiping sweat from his forehead, Youzi muttered to himself, “So it really is a treasure? Can’t even be broken by a hammer. Well, I’ll use some dark methods. Let’s see if you can resist this!”
When he was a child, he had heard from elders that if you want to bring immediate misfortune to someone’s family, all you need to do is urinate on their ancestral graves. It was said to be foolproof. He had also heard that the reason why Hubei couldn’t produce an emperor was because a certain empress had urinated on the land’s dragon vein after her death, causing the spiritual energy of the dragon vein to flee to Hunan.
“Alright, I’ll do that first. I’ll piss on you and then hammer it.” Without hesitation, Youzi pulled down his pants and took a long piss on the brown lid. He hit the target perfectly.
Unexpectedly, this trick actually worked. Five minutes after the stone lid was soaked in urine, it suddenly made a hissing sound, as if it were being dissolved by chemicals. Then it turned black and with a ‘pop,’ emitted a puff of green smoke that spread out into the universe.
But that wasn’t all. Suddenly, the bright sunny day turned dark as clouds gathered from nowhere, heavily covering the top of Sisheng Ridge. Then came fierce winds, thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. This sudden weather change frightened Youzi, who had never experienced such a phenomenon before. He quickly sensed that this change was somehow closely related to him. The commotion was too intense. Though he was a demon of chaos, he still feared the Buddha’s five-finger mountain. In the rain, he hurriedly covered the stone coffin with soil, and after concealing the scene, he rolled and crawled down the mountain in panic, fearing he would be struck by lightning.
In fact, when Youzi was scared and running down the mountain, the villagers of Shangxiu Village below were even more astonished. Zhao Laotai was so frightened that he fell to the ground immediately.
The thunderous and lightning-filled scene was only happening on top of Sisheng Ridge, while Shangxiu Village was still bathed in bright sunshine. The villagers were instantly stirred up upon witnessing this.
Everyone believed that a thousand-year-old demon, having transformed into human form, had attracted the attention of heaven, and thus the Jade Emperor had sent gods to strike thunder to subdue the demon. However, Zhao Laotai, lying on the ground, had a different concern.
He recalled the three curses mentioned by the yin-yang master who had inspected the land for him but was never paid: “First, once the spiritual energy is released, the mountains and earth will tremble. When the coffin appears, lightning and thunder will strike. Second, when heaven sends rain to Shangxiu Mountain, the stone coffin will be buried, and a flood will come in June. Third, three months later, a child will be born in the lower village and drown within seven days. Now, with thunder and rain falling on Sisheng Ridge for no apparent reason, could it be that someone has destroyed his precious stone coffin site? But who else would know the location of the stone coffin site besides Youzi?”
“Could it be that Youzi has gone back on his word and is not keeping his promise?”
The more Zhao Laotai thought about it, the more terrifying it became. He no longer cared about anything else. He got up from the ground and ran up the mountain. He needed to see what was happening for himself.
“Dad, where are you going? It’s raining on the mountain!” His son feared his father would get hurt and quickly grabbed his arm to stop him from going up. His father ignored his son and forcefully shook off his grip.
“A major event has occurred. I must go up to see. Wait for me at home.”
“No, it’s too dangerous. I won’t let you go up,” his son grabbed his father’s clothes again, refusing to let go. In anger, his father slapped his son’s face. With a ‘slap,’ his son’s hands immediately moved from his father’s body to his own face.
In anger, his son said, “Dad, you old bastard, why did you hit me? I was only trying to help you. You need to understand.”
Zhao Laotai had no mood to deal with his son’s incoherent curses. Without looking back, he headed toward Sisheng Ridge. At that moment, his mind was filled with only one question: “Could it be that I, Zhao Mouren, truly lack the fortune to enjoy such a precious site?”
As he doubted and climbed, he soon found himself in the rain. Oh no—the path was too muddy, and he slipped and fell. No matter, he got back up. He pulled up his trousers, which had slipped down to his thighs, and continued climbing. The heavy rain battered his body, and lightning still roared above his head. He looked like a homeless old beggar, lonely and swaying in the storm, appearing so small and weary.
After a while, he finally reached the mountaintop. He was almost at his precious site, and a hint of relief seemed to appear on his face. But just then, another loud thunderclap sounded. With a crash, a big tree was split into two, and the upper half fell directly onto him.
Ah—he was crushed beneath the large tree and thus departed from this world forever. After his death, his eyes remained wide open, staring directly at his longed-for “stone coffin site.”
Two hours later, the storm finally ceased, and the sky above Sisheng Ridge was no longer filled with dark clouds but instead displayed a beautiful rainbow.
Zhao Laotai had not returned yet, and his son at home was beginning to feel anxious. After all, it was his own father, and no matter how big the grudge, he couldn’t hold a lifelong resentment. He informed his wife and then made his way back along the same path toward Sisheng Ridge. He had imagined countless possibilities, such as breaking a leg or getting lost. However, he never expected that his father would be crushed beneath a large tree, unable to move ever again.
“Dad, what’s wrong with you? Wake up, Dad! I told you not to come, but you insisted. Now look at this… Dad! You stubborn old man! Now that you’re gone, what am I supposed to do?” The son could no longer hide his grief, and tears streamed down his face.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage