The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 109

Suppression magic, also called ritual suppression, was a major branch of feng shui arts.

To suppress meant to overcome: using a curse to hold down something detested.

Objects with particular meanings were placed in special positions within a feng shui arrangement.

They could gather blessings and invite good fortune, but they could also summon disaster and kill without leaving a trace.

During the Warring States period, when Li Bing constructed the Dujiangyan irrigation system, he used carved stone rhinoceroses to suppress the waters. This was regarded as one form of suppression magic.

Such an open method of using stone beasts to suppress water was known as overt suppression.

Besides overt suppression, there was a secretive and despicable form called covert suppression.

Knowledge of covert suppression was usually held by physiognomists and craftsmen.

Craftsmen had held low status in ancient times, and many unscrupulous employers brazenly oppressed them and withheld their wages.

Where there was oppression, there would be resistance. Thus this craft of covert suppression had been passed down.

Zhao Li was almost certain someone had used suppression magic on this residence.

Whether both families had actually been cursed to death by it, however, could only be determined after the ritual charms were removed and compared against the coroners’ reports.

Though she had formed a theory, Zhao Li did not act rashly.

Much of the art had been lost in her original world, leaving her with little practical experience.

Moreover, two families had already died under bizarre circumstances. The suppression magic in this house was both insidious and vicious.

Zhao Li had no desire to inexplicably come to grief here.

“Zheng Lian, let’s go.” She dusted off her hands, called to him, and left the courtyard.

Remaining too long in a house subjected to such magic was harmful.

Zheng Lian did not know the reason and merely assumed the case was troublesome. He followed her quickly out.

The moment they emerged, they nearly collided with a middle-aged woman carrying a vegetable basket.

Seeing Zhao Li come out of that residence, the woman started and looked as though she had seen a ghost.

Her basket held radishes, greens, and a small piece of pork. She nearly dropped it.

She instinctively looked at the ground. Only after seeing that both people cast shadows did she breathe easier.

The woman was kindhearted. Retreating two steps to stand at a distance, she said, “Young lady, why did you go in there? No one should enter that house.”

Zhao Li immediately recognized a neighbor who might know something.

She hurried forward to inquire. “Auntie, do you know what happened here?”

Zhao Li’s harmless appearance made it easy for others to like her.

The woman hesitated. “That house is strange. Many people have died there.”

“Could I trouble you to tell me the details?” Zhao Li stepped forward and clasped the woman’s hand, pressing a small handful of copper coins into it. “This will take up some of your time. Buy the children a few treats.”

After spending so long around Lu Zhao and the others, Zhao Li had mastered the art of bribery.

The woman was about to refuse, but several copper coins were already lying in her palm. She swallowed her protest.

“Let’s move farther away before we talk,” she said. “It’s frightening to discuss it here.”

Zhao Li took the opportunity to invite her to the teahouse at the end of the street.

The woman usually managed her household and had never been invited to a teahouse. Intrigued, she hurried home to put down her basket, then followed Zhao Li inside.

It was hardly an elegant establishment. A scattering of idlers sat cracking melon seeds in the main room while listening to the storyteller onstage deliver some vulgar, suggestive tale.

As Zhao Li and the others entered, the storyteller snapped open his folding fan and half covered his face, imitating the pose of a seductive woman.

His dark, deeply wrinkled face, paired with his coyly fluttering eyes, was painful for Zhao Li to behold.

Yet the audience below cheered wildly.

“Zhao… Miss Zhao.” A-Bi was waiting by the stairs. She had meant to call her Commander Zhao, but changed the address at the last moment.

She remained somewhat afraid of both Zhao Li and Zheng Lian.

Seeing them arrive, she stepped aside and gestured upstairs. “My young mistress is upstairs.”

Inside the private room, Han Yin was leaning beside the window and listening to the storytelling below. She looked embarrassed when they entered.

Two kinds of pastries and a pot of tea stood on the table.

Since Zhao Li had invited someone to tea, she would not be stingy. She summoned a server and ordered a pot of fine tea made from broken leaves and three plates of seasonal pastries and fruit.

Only after the middle-aged woman had sampled each item with curiosity did Zhao Li ask, “Auntie, do you know what happened in that residence?”

Perhaps the sweets had loosened her tongue. Auntie Li told the story with great animation.

From this longtime neighbor, Zhao Li learned far more details.

The fur merchant’s family, the first to occupy the house, had lived in Xinghua Ward for many years.

Auntie Li’s family happened to live beside them.

In Mei San’s account, the sudden deaths of the merchant’s entire household seemed to have happened without warning. But an old neighbor like Auntie Li knew there had been omens long before.

As early as summer, the merchant’s elderly mother had worriedly told Auntie Li that midnight disturbances kept occurring in the house.

This did not mean rats or other pests, but an uncanny phenomenon that occurred around midnight.

At that hour, when the night was deep and the household slept soundly, the empty kitchen would ring with the clatter of pots, bowls, ladles, and basins.

Rustling conversation and consumptive coughing could also be heard in the hall.

In modern times, people on the top floor of a building would sometimes hear furniture being dragged or marbles striking the floor above their heads.

Most such incidents belonged to the same class of midnight disturbances.

The large majority could be explained scientifically. The small fraction that could not generally did no harm beyond frightening people.

If one found it irritating, a stream of filthy curses or the intimidating display of a pig-slaughtering knife or another blade that had taken life would usually scare it away.

Seeing everyone listening intently, Auntie Li lifted her tea to moisten her throat and lowered her voice. “Besides those disturbances, something truly sinister happened in their home.”

It began with the fur merchant’s elderly mother.

The old woman was frail and slept lightly. She kept dreaming of an elderly peddler woman pounding on the family door and asking whether she wanted to buy clothes.

The merchant’s family was well-off, but they still did not wish to waste money on ready-made clothing, so she refused every time.

After the dream repeated itself, the elderly mother began to feel uneasy.

She had lived a long life and knew what was good and what was dangerous.

Even in her dreams, she never allowed the peddler inside, much less bought clothes from her. She would seize a broom and drive away the old woman, whose smile resembled a raccoon dog’s.

This continued for several months. When winter came, the merchant’s mother caught a chill and fell ill.

Her whole body declined considerably.

Then one night, the elderly mother had the dream again.

This time, it was as if she had been drugged into a stupor, and she did something foolish.

When she heard the knock in the dream, rather than feeling her usual fear, she opened the door delightedly.

She welcomed the impossibly short old woman carrying baskets on a shoulder pole as though receiving an honored guest.

“Would you like to buy some clothes?”

The tiny peddler set down her load and pushed up the bamboo hat on her head, revealing a face like an old raccoon dog’s. She smiled as she asked the question.