Zhang Zhenwei stared, stunned, at the little round-faced child who smiled up at him with squinted eyes. Could this kid really be that formidable?
That damn old Taoist — what kind of trouble had he put his little granddaughter through? When he found him, Zhang thought, he would give him an earful.
Anger bubbled up in him; he barked at the doctor, “Well? What are you waiting for? Wrap her up properly — give her whatever medicine she needs!”
“Yes, yes, of course.” The doctor scurried, uneasy. But the look Zhang Zhenwei turned on Zhang Yuanyuan was all tenderness; it almost dripped.
“Are you tired, little one? Want to nap some more? Grandpa’s made you a lovely princess room.”
The child’s eyes curved like small moons — the sight of that adorable face tugged at something in him, a memory aligning with that image until it was almost painful.
“I’m not sleepy,” Yuanyuan said obediently. “I want to help Grandpa deal with the bad things in the main house.”
“Bad things?” Zhang frowned.
She nodded primly. “Yes. There are things hidden inside the two stone lions outside. They’ll hurt Grandpa’s health and mess with the uncles’ luck and fortune. We need to fix it quickly.”
She had felt it the moment she stepped through the gate — a heavy, gloomy qi had settled over the entire compound. Luckily, the people in the courtyard were men of solid virtue; their own merit could withstand most of that dark air. Still, they wouldn’t escape unscathed.
The more the child explained, the deeper Zhang’s worry etched the lines between his brows. He crouched, gently rubbing the spot between her brows. “Good girl. Don’t worry. Grandpa will go with you.”
“Okay.” Yuanyuan blinked, then brightened. “Grandpa, can I move things around in the house?”
“Of course! Put things wherever you like.”
Zhang made a grand, paternal sweep of his hand. Agreement reached, the doctor rebandaged the old man’s hand with fresh gauze, checked him over, and finally allowed the two of them to go outside together.
The little girl sprinted for the gate, eyes like glass marbles, taking in the courtyard with careful scrutiny. Her manner left the adults inside staring.
“What does she think she’s doing?” someone muttered.
“Follow her,” another said.
The Zhang estate was a proper house of influence—built into the hill, drifting with sandalwood scent, sunlight slanting through carved lattice windows to spill warmth inside. Two great stone guardian lions flanked the gate, imposing and dignified.
But beneath that calm, an unseen black mist slithered. A chill threaded through the compound. The mist was fiercest around a few window openings in the outer wall. Even the proud stone lions looked tired, sapped of vigor.
Yuanyuan’s brows knitted into a furrow; she fished a talisman from her pocket and bounced toward Zhang Zhenwei. “Grandpa, pick me up.”
With a small slap, she pressed the paper charm to the forehead of the left lion.
Before he could say anything, she wriggled free, scampered around the statue, and with another confident little slap stuck a talisman to its tail. She puffed out her cheeks, indignant. “Hmph. Bad people are so mean!”
“What’s going on?” Zhang asked, bewildered.
She tugged his sleeve, leaned close, and pointed at the base of the lion’s tail. “Grandpa, someone made a barely noticeable hole under the lion and shoved a blade in. Stone lions are supposed to ward off evil and protect wealth. If someone ruins them from their dirty hiding places, it messes up the whole house.”
Her face was solemn and fierce. Her teacher had told her the most insidious tricks were the least noticeable.
She explained carefully: the Zhang residence followed a classic feng shui layout—south in the front, north in the back, dragon on the left, tiger on the right. Whoever picked this site had taken care. But the saboteur had tampered with the lions and had especially struck at the front—Zhuque, the south position—breaking the house’s protective alignment. The compound’s wind-and-water were upset; yin energy pooled and could not drain away.
On their way there she’d also noticed a newly dug channel near the front gate. It was filled with filth. Someone had placed dirty things in it, even weighted animal carcasses into the riverbed in a certain way so the corpses would stay sunk—ordinary people could not fish them out. The rotten things were seeping yin into the house.
She waved another paper talisman, and it ignited without flame, turning to ash in seconds. The ash blew toward the channel and drifted along the current. The child watched it with a grave expression.
Those small gestures left the men of the Zhang family slack-jawed.
Zhang Hang scratched his head and followed, curious. “Little one, are you playing house?” he asked with a grin.
Yuanyuan shook her head, all seriousness. “No. That spot is the source of the house’s feng shui collapse. If I’m right, this land used to be a kind of marsh. Someone turned it into a channel, dumped a lot of filth in, and used special methods to anchor animal carcasses in the bottom so the corpses keep pushing yin into the courtyard.”
“You mean we’ve been unlucky because of that?” Zhang Zhenwei’s brother Kla? Wait names: Zhang Zhenwei's sons/uncles — keep consistent. Earlier mentions "three uncles". The man Zhang Zhenwei is patriarch, uncles Zhang Hang, Zhang Chen, Zhang Munan. Continue.
“Have you all been feeling off for about a month?” she asked.
Hearing that, the men all stiffened. Even the most skeptical could feel something was off about the child.
Zhang Chen’s glasses flashed, and after a moment he said soberly, “Yes. I handle the company. Lately projects that should close without issue suddenly run into trouble at the last minute. We’re bleeding money.”
“What the hell—” Zhang Munan jumped, remembering a near-fatal racing accident. “I nearly drove off a cliff a few weeks back—was that—?” He stamped in alarm.
Zhang Hang laughed, grabbing the younger man’s neck in a mock choke. “If Dad were here, he’d call you thick-skulled. You always get in your own way. Why don’t you start listening to the girl?”
Munan’s face flushed under the teasing. The child, embarrassed by the praise, stuck out her tongue. Amid the joking, she tugged at her grandfather’s sleeve, eyes bright.
“Grandpa, we should get someone to deal with the river quickly. Those carcasses are sunk with a method that normal people can’t lift. We need specialists who use old techniques to dive and retrieve bodies properly.”
“But the house isn’t beyond saving,” she added. “There are a few little problems inside, too. We can fix them.”
“All right.” Zhang Zhenwei agreed without hesitation, his face full of pride. “We’ll do as the little one says.”
Yuanyuan grinned, flashing a mouthful of white teeth, then hopped back inside as if she owned the place. The way she moved had everyone stunned.
She began pulling things out of the house—objects that had once been gathered by Zhang He’an, talismans and household charms meant to protect the home. They were good pieces, valuable not just materially but for their protective function. The girl pinched her lips, shaking her head at a few of them as they came out, sighing that they’d been wasted by being placed wrong.
She was a small, purposeful whirlwind, rearranging and muttering like someone who’d known the house a lifetime. The adults watched, unsettled and a little in awe, as the little girl set about undoing a lot more than dust and clutter.