Chapter Ten: The Feng Shui Formation of Healing and Benevolence

Xu Qingguo’s eyes brightened at these words.

“What do you mean?”

I stood at a high point on the hillside, gestured for them to follow, and pointed to the surrounding terrain.

“The hill is guarded by five smaller peaks, undulating and connected, forming the shape of a brush rest. This mountain itself is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, steep and smooth—it’s not a ginseng mountain, but a giant calligraphy brush!”

Everyone was stunned for a moment, then scrambled to higher ground to look down at the mountain.

Fatty Dong’s eyes widened. “Damn! It really does look like a giant brush!”

Xu Qingguo nodded. “Go on.”

I directed their gaze further out. “To the north, that stretch of alluvial plain, broad and square, is the calligraphy paper. The yellow soil hill to the east, shaped like a steamed bun, is the pulse-resting pillow. The nearby mountains, dense with trees and overgrown with herbs, are collectively known as the Herb King Ridge—a natural medicine cabinet for traditional Chinese medicine. The brush rest, the brush, the paper, the pulse pillow, and the medicine cabinet—the five treasures of Chinese medicine are all gathered here!”

Fatty Dong gave me a thumbs-up. “Awesome! And then?”

I turned and pointed toward the lake. “What does this lake look like?”

Xu Qingguo squinted, examining it carefully. “A gourd?!”

I nodded. “It’s narrow at the top, wide at the bottom, and indented at the waist—it’s a giant medicine gourd! The five treasures gather energy to honor the medicine gourd, forming the perfect feng shui layout of ‘Qihuang’s hundred herbs, hanging the gourd to save the world.’”

The phrase “hanging the gourd to save the world” has historical origins. It refers to the Eastern Han physician Fei Changfang, who saw an old man selling medicine with a gourd hanging from his waist. After being cured, Fei became his apprentice and eventually became world-famous. Patients flocked to him, but because he was often out gathering herbs, he hung his gourd at the door of his clinic so people would know he was in. Ever since, doctors have regarded “hanging the gourd to save the world” as their lifelong professional ideal.

Xu Qingguo let out a long breath. “Brilliant! It seems my conviction in these clues was correct... Where is the tomb entrance?”

I explained, “There is a four-line rhyme for this layout: ‘Medicinal decoctions descend from the heavens, flowing through the hands of the divine physician; the prescription is written with the brush, nourishing all souls in the dust.’”

Fatty Dong frowned. “Student Meng, can you stop with the poetic nonsense and just give us the answer?”

I broke down the rhyme against the terrain. “Simply put: nature provides rainwater that falls into the gourd pond. The water seeps to the ghost-fellow’s tomb at the bottom of the lake, where it is processed by his ‘hands’ into medicinal decoction. The decoction then likely flows down the mountain through the karst cave we came up from, and finally, using this brush-shaped mountain, it is written onto the earth to nourish the world’s sick.”

Xu Qingguo knitted her brows. “You mean... the tomb is beneath the lake?”

I nodded. “I scouted earlier. The water at the waist of the gourd pool is shallowest and has a different echo. There’s likely an artificial drainage channel at the bottom. If we search the channel, we’ll find the tomb.”

Xu Qingguo bit her lip, suppressing her excitement. “A true wonder of the world! No time to lose—find that channel!”

The group gathered their tools and quickly reached the narrow waist of the gourd pool. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers, and waded in to feel the bottom. Large granite slabs! It was indeed man-made.

Back on shore, I attached a rod to my Luoyang shovel, took a few aimless looks, and decisively struck the ground on a grassy slope beneath the dense forest. After digging only a few meters, I pulled up some soil and inspected it. “Worked soil mixed with lime. Dig!”

After digging just over a meter deep, a large stone culvert appeared beneath the grass. It was the pipe for the heavenly water! The engineering was ingenious—not only was it large, but its base was perfectly level with the lake’s water surface. The large volume allowed for flood discharge, while the level base ensured that the lake water flowed quietly into the mountain like a gentle stream.

Fatty Dong was thrilled and prepared to blast. “Damn! We’ve hit the jackpot! I’ll blow this thing open with explosives!”

I grabbed him immediately. “Blow it up? Are you crazy? If it collapses, the lake will backflow and drown us. How are we getting down then?”

Fatty Dong scratched his head. “Then what do you suggest?”

I pointed to the exposed side of the pipe. “Cut a large hole in the top!”

Fatty Dong sniffed. “That requires some skill. I used to work in renovation—leave it to me!”

Despite his size, he was quite capable. With a small hammer to trace the seams and a sledgehammer to finish the job, he soon opened a hole two people wide. He patted his hands smugly. “Miss Xu, this is extra work—it’ll cost you! Eighty per hammer, add eight hundred to my cut when we get back.”

Seeing the pipe opened, Xu Qingguo’s eyes lit up. She gave him a thumbs-up. “I’ll triple it... Meng Xun, can we go down now?”

Before I could answer, Fatty Dong raised a hand. “Wait! Can’t hold it anymore. Gotta take a leak first—let the ghost-fellow brew some soup with my ‘divine nectar’...”

As he began to unzip his pants to pee into the culvert, he suddenly shouted, “Holy crap!”

In the moonlight, a strange, gnarled hand reached out from the culvert and dragged Fatty Dong inside! We all retreated a few steps, staring at each other in horror. The change had happened in a split second. No one had clearly seen what had grabbed him.

Wu Ping immediately pulled out a shotgun, shielding Xu Qingguo. His forehead veins bulged, his gaze cold. “A Spotted-Neck Immortal?!”

I shook my head. “No, looking at the hand, it seems to be a large animal.”

They all looked at me. As the lead, the situation was mine to resolve.

“Give me a shotgun!”

With a shotgun in one hand and a machete in the other, I cautiously approached the culvert and shouted, “Fatty! You damn fatty!”

No response. I pulled out a small flare, lit it, and tossed it in. “Pop!”

The fire flared, and through the red light, I could see several meters into the culvert. Neither Fatty Dong nor any strange creature was in sight. I tied a long ox-tendon rope tightly around my waist and looked at the others. “I’m going down to check. If there’s trouble, pull me up immediately!”

I gritted my teeth and jumped into the culvert.

It was much wider than I had imagined. The temperature was slightly higher than outside, the walls were covered in moss, and a trickle of water flowed along the bottom—not unlike a city sewer. I held a flashlight in my mouth and moved forward cautiously. The moss on the walls had been scraped away in places, revealing scattered, strange handprints—some seemed deformed—but there were no footprints.

Was the thing that grabbed Fatty Dong walking upside down?

My scalp tingled. I kept my weapons close and pressed on for another twenty meters until I reached a dead end. Below was pitch black, and a breeze brushed against me. The water flowed over the edge like grain being sifted.

As my flashlight beam swept across, a small rainbow appeared in the mist. There was no doubt that beneath this gap lay a massive space within the mountain. I didn’t know how high the drop was. Fatty Dong must have fallen down there—I wondered if he had already been reincarnated. The ghost-fellow’s tomb was likely down there!

I immediately turned back. Xu Qingguo was pacing anxiously. Seeing me return, her expression was a mix of urgency and worry. “What’s the situation?!”

I braced my hands on the opening. “The culvert is clear, but there’s a massive space below. Fatty Dong must have fallen in. The tomb is definitely nearby. We have to decide now whether to go down!”

Wu Ping turned to his boss. “Miss Xu...”

Xu Qingguo waved him off, her attitude resolute. “The tomb is one thing, but we all swore an oath under the spirit banner. Even if Dong Chuan is a corpse, we’re bringing him out. We’re going down!”

Her words changed my opinion of her significantly. There were few people left who followed the old-fashioned chivalry of the underworld, especially a woman.

Saving him was the priority. We quickly descended into the pipe. When we reached the drop-off, I immediately took out a chisel and a grappling claw, intending to carve holes in the wall to secure a rope for everyone to slide down.

Before I could start, Xu Qingguo made a strange expression, twitching her eyes at me.

I frowned. “What?”

At that exact moment, I saw Wu Ping tighten his grip on his shotgun, aiming it directly at my head, his eyes burning with intense murderous intent.