Grudge Bone

Zhang Yucheng had barely caught his breath before he collapsed onto his hands and knees and began vomiting violently. Black water gushed from his mouth like a fountain. It took a long while before he finally stopped and lay on the ground, gasping for air, his expensive suit filthy.

"Dad, what's wrong...?" Zhang Yunyao walked over and asked anxiously.

It took Zhang Yucheng quite some time to come to his senses. Looking dazed, he said, "What just happened? My stomach hurts so badly, and my head's spinning. I feel awful."

"Why did you open that white box without my permission? If I hadn't stepped in, you'd be dead by now," I said gravely.

Only then did Zhang Yucheng remember. Guilt covered his face as he said, "Young Master Wu, I'm truly sorry. I just wanted to see what was inside. Nothing happened when you opened it, so I went ahead and opened it myself. I never expected black mist to come out."

"There were three warding objects buried in your ancestral graves. I just told you that this last one was the most crucial, which meant it was bound to be the most dangerous, too. You don't understand any of this, yet you dared to open something so sinister. Of course you were going to fall victim to it. Didn't you notice that when I opened the box, I never touched it with my hands and kept some distance from it?" I said in one breath.

"I was wrong, I was wrong... Thank you for saving my life, Young Master Wu. What do we do next? Now that we've dug this thing up, is everything all right?" Zhang Yucheng apologized repeatedly.

"It isn't as simple as you think. Whoever set up this formation in your ancestral graves wasn't merely trying to destroy their feng shui. They had another goal: to kill everyone in your family." I wasn't exaggerating to frighten him.

That was how terrifying this formation was.

Feng shui could kill, but it could also save lives. Sometimes a brick in front of a grave or a blade of grass behind it could determine whether future generations lived or died, let alone so many sinister objects planted in their ancestral graves.

Zhang Yucheng's face went white when he heard that. For a moment, he had no idea what to do.

I walked over to the white wooden box Zhang Yucheng had opened and looked down inside.

This time, the wooden box didn't contain an animal's corpse, but an unidentified white object the size of a palm.

By then, all the baleful energy in the box had dissipated.

I found two sticks and used them like chopsticks to lift the white object out of the box. I examined it carefully from every angle and sniffed it a couple of times, then couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.

Damn it, this was a piece of a human skull, and it looked pretty fresh.

The piece of skull was intact and probably less than a month old.

Could the person trying to harm Zhang Yucheng's family and destroy their feng shui have actually murdered someone and put their skull here as a warding object?

If that really was the case, this person was far too vicious.

I could also tell that the skull was steeped in resentment. Its owner must have suffered a terrible injustice before dying and met their end deeply unwilling to accept it.

In feng shui circles, we called something like this a "grudge bone."

It was the bone that retained the greatest amount of resentment from someone who had died an unnatural death.

Using something like this to harm someone worked every single time.

I also noticed some tiny talismanic inscriptions carved into the grudge bone. They were almost impossible to spot without looking closely.

Placed in the Zhang Family's ancestral burial ground, the grudge bone had absorbed the baleful energy and resentment of the dead buried there. That was why its baleful energy had erupted the moment the box was opened, nearly killing Zhang Yucheng.

The culprit had prepared this thing for two reasons. First, it played a crucial role in destroying the feng shui of the Zhang Family's ancestral graves. Second, it was meant to deal with feng shui masters like me. Anyone who opened the white wooden box would be struck by the grudge bone's baleful energy. At best, they would suffer serious injuries and spend months bedridden. At worst, they would die on the spot.

Fortunately, my eight years of training under my master hadn't been wasted. He truly deserved his title of Feng Shui King and had passed on everything he knew, warning me to be extremely cautious whenever I dealt with feng shui matters. Otherwise, I might well have fallen victim to it myself.

As I continued studying the white skull, Zhang Yunyao helped Zhang Yucheng over to me again. She asked curiously, "Young Master Wu, what is that white thing?"

"It's a human skull, and it's still fresh. Its owner died less than a month ago," I said evenly.

Both father and daughter began trembling at those words. Zhang Yunyao, in particular, involuntarily took several steps back.

For ordinary people, even hearing about a dead person's skull was frightening, let alone seeing one with their own eyes.

Although this was my first time seeing such a thing, I made my living in this line of work, so I could stomach far more than an ordinary person.

"First a dead cat, then headless snakes, and now we've dug up a skull. What exactly is this person trying to do?" Zhang Yucheng asked.

"It's simple. Your family's feng shui site is called the dragon-tiger exorcism acupoint. The mountain ahead resembles a reclining dragon, winding for several miles. This site has some dragon energy, which benefits your ancestral graves. But the culprit put nine headless snakes in a wooden box. Snakes are also called little dragons, so cutting off their heads symbolized severing the energy of the dragon vein here. The cat served much the same purpose as the headless snakes. Tigers belong to the cat family, so the culprit used a cat in place of a tiger, blinded it, slit open its belly, and pulled out all its teeth. Through these symbolic acts, they utterly destroyed the feng shui arrangement of your dragon-tiger exorcism acupoint. This site is now completely unusable. As for the skull, it's a grudge bone, steeped in resentment. This burial ground already has very heavy yin energy. Putting something like that here likely means that even the ancestors buried here won't be able to rest in peace," I explained each point in turn.

"So our only option is to relocate the graves. It looks like we'll have to trouble you again, Young Master Wu. Sorry for the trouble, but we'll need you to find another auspicious feng shui site where the Zhang Family can rebury our ancestors," Zhang Yucheng said.

"Finding an auspicious site is easy enough, but relocating the graves will be troublesome. That skilled feng shui master from before chose this ancestral burial ground for your family. The dragon-tiger exorcism acupoint is also known as a corpse-sheltering ground, meaning it can shelter and bring prosperity to future generations. The corpses buried here all share one trait: even after a thousand years, they won't decay. When unearthed, they may even look just as they did when they were first buried. Their bodies will be extremely well preserved."

"But the person trying to harm the Zhang Family set up a formation here, and that skull in particular has disturbed the corpses buried in this corpse-sheltering ground. If things go wrong, those corpses could turn into undead."