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Chapter 31: A Master's Love
🕑 Added 2025-02-24 10:18:39 +0000 UTCChen Xiao tentatively closed one eye, and the compass in the darkness became even clearer. So, he boldly shut both eyes and reached out to touch it.
The compass in the darkness was not solid, it was an illusion. When Chen Xiao extended his hand, the shadowy form of the compass settled onto his palm. He cupped his hands together, and the compass followed his movement, shifting to rest before him.
He examined it carefully. It was identical to the one he had seen in his dream the previous night. At this moment, he realized that perhaps it had not been a dream at all, he had merely assumed so because he had been asleep when it happened.
In the darkness, his consciousness became increasingly attuned to the subtle connection between himself and the compass. It was not a bond of blood or body but something more intangible, a spiritual resonance.
At the center of the compass, in the position of the Celestial Pool, the magnetic needle rested quietly, swaying ever so slightly with his movements. Unlike before, it no longer spun incessantly. Though puzzled, Chen Xiao quickly set aside his doubts. He carefully grasped the edge of the compass and turned it over. As expected, on the back, at its center, was a small inscription: "Compass crafted by Fang Gu of Dongyu."
The moment he saw his master's name, all the lingering doubts in Chen Xiao's heart suddenly unraveled!
The master's Luo Jingyi, the geomantic compass, was the very "unknown" that had existed within his body. Perhaps bringing him into this world and merging him with the lifeless body of a boy had consumed too much of its energy. As a result, the compass had to absorb the heat converted from his food to recharge itself, which explained why he had felt so ravenous upon waking. And once it had accumulated enough Qi as energy, the first thing it did was reappear before him.
Thinking back on how he had been tirelessly reading feng shui for people, accumulating Qi to feed the compass until it awoke from its slumber, he finally understood. What his master had once told him, that the compass was a part of him, was not an exaggeration. Without experiencing all this, he would never have realized that the compass could actually carry Qi itself.
Now that he understood the truth, a complex wave of emotions surged in his heart. There was gratitude, guilt, and above all, the long-suppressed longing for his master that now spread boundlessly through him.
His master, Fang Gu, had been the most important person in Chen Xiao's past life—without exception.
Chen Xiao had not been an orphan, but he knew nothing of his origins or his family. When he was five years old, he had been abducted by human traffickers right from his doorstep. After several transfers, he was taken to a completely unfamiliar place.
The people there treated him fairly well at first, they had to, since he was meant to be sold, and his appearance had to remain intact. Chen Xiao had been an intelligent child; he could recite his parents' names and home address. But the traffickers had their methods for dealing with children like him.
They would repeatedly ask him for his parents' names and address, and every time he recited them fluently, he would be beaten and scolded. After enduring this for a while, the pain conditioned his mind to avoid mentioning anything that led to his punishment. Eventually, the names and numbers blurred in his memory, until he could no longer recall them at all.
Months passed, and he stopped crying out for his parents. The traffickers told him that his parents had abandoned him. On the surface, young Chen Xiao remained silent, but inwardly, he never believed them. Though violence had erased his ability to remember names and numbers, he never forgot the truth, that these people had stolen him from his real family. They were not good people.
Chen Xiao had been a strikingly handsome child, and healthy boys like him were easy to sell. When the traffickers decided he was ready, they sold him to a family. But it did not end there—within days, he was returned.
He was simply too troublesome. Crying and fussing was one thing, but he had a habit of running to the neighbors and telling them he had been bought from bad people. This terrified the family, who feared that raising such a child would be a risk, what if he ran away when he grew up?
After being returned several times, Chen Xiao became an unwanted burden. The traffickers grew impatient, scolding and beating him, calling him a "money-losing waste"—and in a sense, he was. He cost them food but never brought in any profit.
Yet, Chen Xiao endured. He knew that if he was sold and taken too far away, he might never find his parents again.
He continued wandering with the traffickers, moving from place to place, until he was nearly eight years old. By then, he was too old to be an easy sell, he was harder to train and less likely to bond with a new family. The trafficking group decided to get rid of him by selling him to a gang of beggars, who would cripple him and force him to beg for money.
By then, Chen Xiao had been with them for over two years. A young woman in the group, who had recently given birth to her own child, took pity on him and secretly warned him of their plans. Her original intent was to convince him to behave and accept being sold to a family, better that than becoming a crippled beggar.
But Chen Xiao understood, he could not stay any longer. Whether as someone’s adopted son or as a tool for begging, neither fate was acceptable.
By now, he had been with the traffickers long enough that they were not particularly strict with him. Seizing a moment of carelessness on their part, he fled.
To avoid being recaptured, he used a method he had learned from them, hitching rides in secret. He would cling to the back of carts or blend in with adults boarding vehicles, switching from one to another before anyone could react. This way, he successfully traveled far from the traffickers’ reach.
After escaping, he wandered for several months. Eventually, in a place called Xiaoshui, he met his master, Fang Gu.
At the time, Fang Gu was already seventy-two years old. When he saw Chen Xiao, an impulse stirred in his heart, he decided to take him in as his disciple and pass down his teachings.
When Master Fang Gu asked if he still remembered his parents' names, Chen Xiao could only recall a single character, either a surname or a given name, that sounded like "Chen." So, Fang Gu gave him the surname Chen and named him after the place where they met.
And just like that, after three years of wandering and hardship, living an abnormal life, Chen Xiao finally had a home. One could say that Fang Gu was his great benefactor, the one who saved him from the sea of suffering!
Knowing that his time was limited, Fang Gu didn’t send Chen Xiao to school. Instead, he opted for one-on-one tutoring, hiring private teachers to lay a solid foundation for him. As for feng shui, Fang Gu personally took on the role of instructor.
Chen Xiao was deeply grateful. Even though the knowledge Fang Gu imparted was profoundly complex, he studied with all his might. As he grew older and began to truly grasp the essence of feng shui, he became utterly fascinated by it. He no longer needed any urging, he absorbed everything Fang Gu taught with insatiable hunger.
Ten years after they met, Fang Gu took Chen Xiao to perform his first feng shui job, officially marking his debut in the field. But before Chen Xiao could fully celebrate his newfound independence, he noticed Fang Gu’s health declining rapidly. Before long, his master had grown frail and weak.
It was only then that Chen Xiao learned the truth, Fang Gu had always known that his lifespan would not exceed eighty-two years, and that this very year would be his final one. He had already prepared his grave and wished to be buried in his family’s ancestral tomb.
Fang Gu was relieved to see that Chen Xiao had fully inherited his legacy, trusting him completely to handle his final affairs. However, what he didn’t anticipate was that Chen Xiao couldn’t accept his impending death and began seeking ways to alter his fate.
For most people, such an attempt would have been utterly futile. But Chen Xiao was a feng shui master, and against all odds, he actually found an extraordinary method.
At the time, his heart was consumed by grief at the thought of losing his master. His entire being was fixated on one goal: no matter what, he had to change Fang Gu’s fate. This obsession made him reckless, causing him to abandon reason and morality in his desperation. One could say that his long-delayed rebellious phase had finally arrived, his youthful arrogance convincing him that if he lost his one and only family, life would be meaningless, and nothing else in the world would matter.
So, he went to Fang Gu’s hometown and found another auspicious location near the ancestral tomb. There, he severed the land’s energy flow, extracting a rare feng shui treasure from a neighboring burial site. Then, he buried it in Fang Gu’s family’s ancestral grave, boosting its fortune, prosperity, and longevity.
The effect was immediate, Fang Gu’s health began to improve.
Had Chen Xiao not suffered a swift backlash, Fang Gu might never have realized what had happened. But by the time he found out, the damage had already been done.
The village from which Chen Xiao had stolen the energy had once been a place of great fortune, producing many talented scholars and officials. Had he not disrupted its feng shui, it could have thrived for centuries to come.
But with its energy flow severed, the village’s fortunes turned instantly. The once-fertile land became barren, its waters turned murky and bitter, undrinkable. The villagers' quality of life plummeted, their living conditions worsening by the day. Many wanted to leave, yet they had no idea what the future would hold.
Fang Gu immediately took action to remedy the situation, stepping in to clean up his disciple’s mess. He coordinated with various parties to relocate the villagers to another suitable location, not as fortunate as before, but still livable.
Chen Xiao’s reckless and desperate act left Fang Gu both furious and anxious. But seeing his disciple on the verge of death due to the backlash, all he felt was regret and heartache. To save Chen Xiao, who was now facing death himself, Fang Gu announced that he would take on feng shui commissions once more.
It had been years since he last worked, but the moment word got out, people flocked to his doorstep.
Thus, Fang Gu carefully selected jobs that could help mitigate the backlash, allowing Chen Xiao to perform them while he supervised. With a grandmaster overseeing the process, none of the clients had any complaints. Over the years, Chen Xiao gradually built his own reputation, eventually becoming a true feng shui master in his own right. He no longer needed to rely on his master’s name to attract business.
It was only after that incident that Chen Xiao finally realized just how ignorant and arrogant he had been. The price he paid for his recklessness was steep, a lesson that left a deep imprint on his heart.
At the same time, he came to understand his own arrogance. He should never have attempted to alter fate when he lacked the strength to withstand the consequences. Throughout history, there had been renowned feng shui masters who severed dragon veins without suffering backlash, because they were truly masters. At the time, he had merely been a fledgling, unprepared for the storm he unleashed.
Still, he never regretted what he had done. Because his master, his most cherished family, was alive.
Even though the cost had been immense.
The thought of his master burying him, a disciple dying before his teacher, saddened Chen Xiao deeply. To make up for it, he devoted himself to making money, ensuring that Fang Gu would have the best possible life in his old age.
He also took on a few disciples and established a trust fund, ensuring that even after his passing, they would care for his master in his stead.
When he finally closed his eyes for the last time, he felt at peace. Everything was in place, his master would live comfortably, reaching the ripe age of one hundred and twenty before passing peacefully.
But now, holding half of his master’s shattered compass in his hands, he finally understood just how much pain and sorrow he had caused him.
Tears streamed down Chen Xiao’s face.
He sobbed, his cries filled with heartbreak and regret.
