Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Five Ghosts Open the Door

“Damn it, are you insane? What’s got into you? Thinking of jumping off the building?!”

Behind me came Lao Liao’s voice. I turned around and saw him holding a quaint little copper bell in one hand and the needle from his compass tool in the other.

I suddenly realized that the faint sound of the bell and the sharp pain in my back must have been Lao Liao stabbing me with the needle to save me.

I had just jumped out the window, and Lao Liao immediately slapped the back of my head, scolding me for being possessed by some madness. I got up from the sofa, then slowly climbed upstairs, heading to the balcony, and shockingly, even considered jumping from there.

If it weren’t for Lao Liao grabbing me, I probably would have fallen already.

“I was just, just bewitched by a woman,” I told him.

Lao Liao squinted and asked, “Are you sure it was a woman who bewitched you?”

“Yes!” I said firmly without hesitation.

It turned out that the scenes I had just witnessed alone at home—Lao Liao and Lisa both disappearing—were all illusions, mere hallucinations.

“Meow!” I heard a miserable cat cry again. Lao Liao looked around the yard with a grave expression and said,

“This yard’s eerie not just because of that strange locust tree and the group of female ghosts beneath it.”

He pointed to a low wall beside the locust tree outside the window, where a cat was quietly lying.

“Look at this.”

I leaned forward to look down—the second-floor windowsill must be over three meters high. Falling from here would probably cost one’s life. Just thinking about it made me shudder.

Then I looked up at the cat Lao Liao indicated. It looked even more bizarre—the face bore no resemblance to a normal cat, with hollow eyes and grayish-white fur. Its mouth, full of sharp teeth, was snarling at me, as if displeased that Lao Liao had woken me.

Its front legs were longer than its hind legs, making it seem as if it were sitting upright on the wall.

This grotesque creature frightened me, and I hurriedly asked, “Lao Liao, what the hell is that thing?”

Lao Liao thought for a moment and said, “That thing is called a cat ghost, a sinister spirit formed from a cat’s soul. Cat ghosts love to harm people and especially enjoy playing tricks, often using seduction. They appear as handsome men to women, and as alluring women to men. It was trying to trap you just now! Luckily, I stopped you in time...”

The hideous creature bared its teeth at us, growling lowly, then leapt down from the wall and disappeared into the roots of the locust tree.

Lao Liao exhaled deeply. “This locust tree isn’t ordinary. Lisa living here all this time without incident is quite lucky.”

I glanced at Lisa behind me; she seemed frightened and stood silently with a pitiful look.

“Liao, do you think President Li knows about the locust tree?” I suddenly asked suspiciously.

“Hard to say. He owns so many houses and doesn’t live in most of them. This kind of ghostly tree is quite rare.”

Just then, I saw the strange locust tree move...

“Hey! Liao, look, that dead tree just moved,” I whispered.

“Really?”

Lao Liao glanced at the dead tree. Suddenly, a long slender branch twisted and stretched like a human hand entwined with leaves, and faintly, a male corpse could be seen among the foliage.

“This is bad! Someone’s on the tree, go save them!”

Lao Liao shouted, and we ignored the terrifying atmosphere to rush downstairs and out the door.

Dawn was breaking, a gentle breeze swayed the tree’s branches peacefully. Where was the horror of a ghostly corpse entangled by a tree?

Since it was morning, our fear of the eerie yard diminished greatly. Lao Liao took the opportunity to carefully inspect the surroundings. After pacing back and forth a few times, he quietly returned to me and said softly, “Brother Xu, this place is not clean.”

“Not clean?” I wondered why he hadn’t realized this last night. Maybe he was just getting spooked now?

Seeing my doubt, he nervously stamped his feet. “This yard is a Feng Shui curse called ‘Five Ghosts Opening the Door’!”

“Five ghosts opening the door?”

“Look, this yard is built at the west end of the old street. Beyond to the west is a highway, and to the south is an alley. The main gate faces south, making it a north-facing house. For commercial and residential purposes, there’s another door on the west side for customers to come and go. But from a Feng Shui perspective, opening doors both to the south (Li trigram) and west (Dui trigram) simultaneously is called ‘Five Ghosts Opening the Door.’ It causes fire, theft, and more seriously, it affects the residents’ temperament, even leading to bloodshed.”

“Also, to the west of the house flows a north-south river, with water in the southwest all year round. The southwest in the later Heaven Bagua is the Kun trigram, yin in nature. In the earlier Heaven Bagua, the southwest is the Xun trigram, also yin. Both trigrams represent heavy yin energy, and if there’s anything water-related in the southwest corner of the house, it’s extremely inauspicious.”

Hearing this, I looked toward the yard’s southwest corner. Sure enough, there was an old well with irrigation equipment and pipes nearby, evidently used for watering the garden.

So that well must be the sinister Feng Shui point.

“What should we do?” I asked Lao Liao.

“First, fill in the well to break the Feng Shui formation. Then check if there’s a yin-yang stitch to cure tree ghosts. If not, we’ll have to cut the tree down!”

I agreed. Now that we knew the cause of the evil, we were living beings after all—how could we be harmed by a tree and a well? That would be an insult to the yin-yang stitch.

After informing Lisa, we fetched shovels and began filling the well.

After sweating for over half an hour, a deep pit appeared. The well was completely filled. It would have been better sealed with cement, but we lacked the materials.

“Miss Lisa, don’t come near that tree these days. Wait for our call, remember, remember,” I earnestly told her.

She seemed terrified, now quiet as a kitten, nodding at us with wide eyes.

After these preparations, Lao Liao and I left the house. From outside the gate, I looked at the locust tree’s branches stretching beyond the house and felt a lingering unease. Feng Shui was indeed mysterious. Could Lisa’s wild transformation be related to this Feng Shui curse?

I shared my thoughts with Lao Liao, who nodded. “Possible. Especially since her appearance was already like that, and with the cat ghost beneath the tree causing mischief, it’s not impossible for her to change over time...”

Just as we stepped out of the yard, a shout came from behind. I turned and suddenly saw a brick flying straight at my forehead from afar. Too late to dodge, everything went black.