The Feng Shui Master, Chosen by Fate

First comes fate, then luck, then feng shui; fourth, accumulate virtue, and fifth, study. A newborn cries three times, and whether their life is good or bad is set in stone.

My name is Shen Ye. The day I was born, the village was battered by torrential rain for three days and nights, and a flash flood washed away half the bridge. The midwife said I didn’t cry or fuss when I came into the world. I just stared straight up at the roof beams until my grandfather slapped my back, and then I let out a wail. That cry shook half the crown from the old locust tree in the courtyard.

Grandfather said my fate was too hard, my birth chart cursed, and I wouldn’t live to see thirteen.

To prolong my life, Grandfather defied fate and sacrificed ten years of his own lifespan. When I was thirteen, I came down with a fever that wouldn’t break. My temperature hit 42 degrees, and it felt like my internal organs were burning. Grandfather used our family’s secret art to save me, but five years later he died a mysterious, gruesome death. Blood streamed from all seven orifices, and something had gnawed his hands down to the bones, yet he wore a smile.

That was when I learned he had borne the karmic consequences in my place.

Before he died, Grandfather stuffed a battered copy of The Green Satchel: A Secret Manual of Feng Shui into my arms. He left me with just one sentence: “Shen Ye, our lineage has lasted seventeen generations, and every generation has died a terrible death. Either pass this craft on, or find a way to break the curse.”

I chose a third path: I would find out who had cursed the Shen family.

My name is Shen Ye. I was eighteen that year, and after inheriting my grandfather’s legacy, I set out on the path of a feng shui master.