The Golden Jade Dragon Coffin and the Beautiful Maiden

My new work is out! Please visit Tomato Novel to read it. I hope you'll enjoy it. Your support motivates me to write, and I'll do my best to tell every story well! Lying beneath the crack, I saw that there was no darkness inside it, only gold, deeper than gold. A woman's face floated in the gold, pale and poreless, but with lips so red and bright, as if she'd just sipped wedding wine. She smiled at me, her teeth fine and sharp, one by one.

"Chen Jiu," she said, as if confirming it, or perhaps sighing. "You've finally come."

I wanted to cry, but no sound came out. Grandpa lifted me high, positioning the scab on my navel directly in front of the coffin's crack. A drop of blood, not yet healed, trembled on the verge of falling.

"My lady," Grandpa began, his voice as rough as sandpaper scraping copper. "I've brought you virgin blood and a pure yang soul. Old Chen asks only that you... show mercy and give us another seven years."

The woman in the coffin said nothing. She only extended her tongue, impossibly long and red, its tip split in two, and gently caught my drop of blood. The moment the blood touched her tongue, it was absorbed, like ink spreading across rice paper. A tiny ghostly face bloomed, then quickly vanished.

"Seven years." The woman drew back her tongue. Her voice came from inside the bronze coffin, yet sounded as if it were right beside my ear. "Seven years from now, he

[Social Impact and Thematic Elevation]

The novel uses the "spirit coffin" as a mirror to reveal the greed of the living;

The "blood pact" as a thread to stitch together the divide between yin and yang;

And a "half-baked practitioner" as a pen to write down the greatest truth:

"Feng shui cannot change fate, only people's hearts;

If people's hearts don't change, even the finest dragon's lair is still a grave."