Willow Lane was located in the southwest corner of the old city district, a neighborhood not yet completely transformed by the tide of demolition. The alley was narrow, the bluestone pavement worn smooth by time, flanked by houses in the late Qing and early Republican style—white walls, gray tiles, latticed wooden windows. Many window sills held potted plants; devil's ivy trailed down from second floors, swaying gently in the afternoon breeze. Chen Yao stood at the entrance of the alley, holding a note with the address written by Mr. Zhou: "Willow Lane No. 17, Wu Residence." The alley wafted with the aroma of cooking, the murmuring sounds of radio opera, and the idle chatter of elderly residents. Everything appeared peaceful, ordinary, full of the warmth of everyday life.
But he was here to find a "price."
Three days had passed since the site handling. During these three days, Chen Yao hadn't returned to work; he'd taken sick leave. He shut himself in his apartment, repeatedly reviewing his grandfather's annotation book, especially those records about "already received."
Those records were as cold as medical case files:
"Guivei Year, 5th Month, 2nd Day: Adjusted ancestral grave feng shui for client Zhang. Half a month later, Zhang's son passed the imperial exam. Separate note: Carpenter Li in the east of the city broke his right arm in June of the same year, permanently disabled. Eight Characters clashed."
"Jichou Year, 12th Month: Selected an auspicious day for the Wang household's relocation. The following year, the Wangs' business prospered. Separate note: Village teacher Zhao in a neighboring town died suddenly of heart disease, aged forty-two. Corresponding hexagram."
Every transaction of "good fortune" corresponded to a payment of "misfortune." Moreover, the payer was often unrelated to the beneficiary, chosen only because of some "correspondence" in Eight Characters, direction, or hexagram, becoming the vessel for the price.
Grandfather's handwriting sometimes added notes beside these records: "Had no choice," "This case excessive, should serve as a warning," "However, without this shift, Zhang's son might have failed, his father's debts piling up, the whole family in distress."
There were justifications, penitence, but they couldn't change the fact: someone was suffering for another's fortune.
Now, it was Dr. Wu's turn.
Chen Yao took a deep breath and entered the alley. His footsteps echoed crisply on the stone pavement. A few elderly people sitting in doorways sunning themselves looked up at him, curious but not inquiring. In such old neighborhoods, unfamiliar faces were rare.
No. 17 was a two-story old house, the façade neater than the others. The black-lacquered wooden door was slightly ajar. Above the doorframe hung a faded wooden plaque inscribed with four elegant characters: "Apricot Grove Spring Full" (杏林春满, a phrase praising skilled doctors). This was the mark of a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner.
Chen Yao stood at the door for a few seconds before knocking.
Slow footsteps came from inside, then the door opened a crack. A woman in her sixties peered out, her face weary, eyes sunken, but her clothes clean and neat.
"Who are you looking for?" she asked softly.
"I'm looking for Dr. Wu," Chen Yao said, trying to sound natural. "A friend recommended him, said Dr. Wu is very skilled, wanted to consult him."
The woman's eyes dimmed. "You don't know? My husband... had a stroke three years ago, paralyzed. He hasn't practiced for a long time."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know," Chen Yao said quietly. "Then... how is Dr. Wu's health now?"
"Just like that," the woman gave a bitter smile. "Left side completely immobile, speech slurred, needs constant care. If you need medical attention, there's a community health station at the end of the street, they have doctors on duty."
She started to close the door.
"Auntie," Chen Yao hurriedly said, "I... could I see Dr. Wu? Just for a moment. My grandfather was also a TCM doctor, I've admired Dr. Wu for a long time."
The excuse was clumsy, but the woman looked him over, perhaps seeing his youth and sincere expression. She hesitated, then opened the door wider.
"Come in then. But he probably can't talk to you."
"Thank you."
The inside was more spacious than it appeared from outside, but the furnishings were simple. The main room held an old-style square table, rosewood chairs; the walls were hung with landscape paintings and calligraphy scrolls. The air carried a faint smell of Chinese medicine, mixed with disinfectant and that specific, lingering stuffiness of a long-term sickroom.
The woman led him through the main room to a side room in the backyard. The door was open, the light inside dim. Chen Yao entered, his first sight landing on the person in the bed.
Dr. Wu sat propped up against the headboard, covered with a thin quilt. He looked much older than his actual age, hair completely white and sparse against his scalp. His left cheek drooped noticeably, mouth askew, left arm hanging limp at his side, fingers curled. But his eyes were bright; hearing someone enter, he slowly turned his head.
That gaze made Chen Yao's heart tighten—it wasn't numb, not vacant, but a clear, examining calm. As if within this paralyzed shell still resided an alert soul.
"Old Wu, this young man says he's come to see you, having heard of your reputation." The woman walked to the bedside, wiping a bit of drool from Dr. Wu's mouth with a towel.
Dr. Wu made indistinct sounds in his throat, as if trying to say something but unable. His right hand pointed to a chair by the bed.
"He wants you to sit," the woman translated.
Chen Yao sat down, momentarily unsure what to say. All the questions he'd prepared—about three years ago, the timing of the illness, details of the symptoms—now seemed cruel and impolite. Facing a real, living person, he couldn't coldly interrogate like analyzing data: "When did you become paralyzed?" "Were there any warning signs?"
"Dr. Wu," Chen Yao finally spoke, voice slightly hoarse, "my grandfather was called Chen Shouyi, also a TCM doctor. He... mentioned you."
This half-truth had an effect. Dr. Wu's eyes brightened slightly, his throat making more sounds. The woman leaned in to listen, then looked up at Chen Yao. "He says he remembers Mr. Chen. Met him many years ago at a TCM exchange conference. Mr. Chen was very skilled at acupuncture."
Chen Yao nodded. This might be true; his grandfather did know some TCM—or rather, knew how to regulate "Qi," which overlapped with Chinese medicine.
"Dr. Wu," Chen Yao looked into those clear eyes, "before your illness, was your health always good?"
The woman answered instead. "Very good. He practiced Tai Chi every morning, ate light, rarely even caught a cold. It was sudden... that morning he was fine, after lunch said he had a headache, then collapsed. Taken to the hospital, they said cerebral hemorrhage. After resuscitation, he was like this."
"That day was..."
"April 18th, three years ago. I remember clearly; it was Grain Rain (谷雨, a solar term)." The woman's eyes reddened. "No warning at all. The day before he'd seen several patients."
Three years ago. April.
Chen Yao quickly calculated in his mind. His grandfather handled Mr. Zhou's site on March 7th. One month later, Dr. Wu had a stroke.
The timing matched.
He needed more information. But he didn't know how to ask without seeming intrusive or reopening wounds in front of a paralyzed old man.
Instead, Dr. Wu himself, with his still-functional right hand, slowly made a few gestures. The woman understood and said to Chen Yao, "He asks, how is your grandfather?"
"Grandfather passed away last year," Chen Yao said.
Dr. Wu's eyes showed regret. He made sounds again; this time the woman listened for a while, uncertain. "He says... Mr. Chen said something back then that he still doesn't quite understand."
Chen Yao's heart leaped. "What was it?"
The woman looked at her husband. Dr. Wu slowly, deliberately, in slurred but barely discernible speech, said:
"Borrowed... must... repay."
Five words, like five needles, piercing Chen Yao's ears.
Borrowed must repay.
After speaking, Dr. Wu seemed exhausted, closed his eyes, chest rising and falling slightly. The woman quickly gave him some water.
Chen Yao sat there, limbs cold. He looked at the paralyzed old man on the bed, the half-controlled body, the deep calm in those bright eyes—a calm that might not be resignation, but some deeper understanding.
This old man knew. Maybe not all the details, but he knew his illness wasn't an "accident," but some kind of "repayment."
"Dr. Wu," Chen Yao asked softly, voice trembling, "do you feel... who are you repaying for?"
Dr. Wu opened his eyes, looking at him. After a long while, slowly shook his head. Didn't know? Or couldn't say?
The woman sighed. "After he got sick, sometimes he'd say strange things. Said he dreamed of many people, said there were sounds underground, said he felt crushed... The doctor said it was after-effects of brain damage, hallucinations."
Felt crushed.
Chen Yao recalled what the feverish worker at the site had said: "Don't press on me," "So heavy."
Not hallucinations. Perception. Perceiving the "weight" of what was deposited underground, transferred.
He stood up. "Auntie, I won't disturb you further. This is a small token..." He took several bills from his wallet, placing them on the table.
"No need, no need," the woman quickly declined. "Your visit alone makes him happy."
But Chen Yao insisted on leaving the money. Leaving the Wu residence, his footsteps felt heavy, as if trudging through mud.
Sunlight in the alley was still warm, but he only felt cold. He walked to a small shop at the entrance, bought a bottle of water, and casually asked the shopkeeper, "Boss, what kind of person was Dr. Wu?"
The shopkeeper, a man in his fifties reading a newspaper, looked up. "Dr. Wu? A good man. In the past, anyone on this street with a headache or fever would go to him, cheap fees, good skills. A pity, such a good person, fell just like that."
"Before he got sick, did anything special happen?"
"Special?" The shopkeeper thought. "Not really. Oh, but he seemed very tired during that time, said he couldn't sleep well at night, had frequent nightmares. We advised him to rest, he said it was nothing, maybe just getting old."
Couldn't sleep, nightmares.
Chen Yao thanked the shopkeeper and walked to the bus stop outside the alley, sitting on a bench. He took out his phone, opened the notes app, and started organizing the timeline:
Three years ago, March 7th: Grandfather handled Mr. Zhou's site, set up the Four Symbols Seal.
The following month: Mr. Zhou's project proceeded smoothly, financial fortune improved.
Same year, April 18th (Grain Rain): Dr. Wu sudden cerebral hemorrhage, paralyzed.
Time difference: 41 days.
Forty-one. Did this number have significance in fate theory? Chen Yao didn't know. But he remembered his grandfather mentioning "four-nine numbers" in annotations—four times nine is thirty-six, while forty-one is close to "six sevens are forty-two," seven being the number of cycles.
Maybe coincidence.
But "borrowed must repay" was no coincidence.
Chen Yao opened photos of his grandfather's annotation book (he'd photographed them all, fearing damage to the originals), searching for keywords "borrow," "repay." He found one entry:
"Any borrowing of causality must have repayment. The repayment period is either timed (three-seven, four-nine, eight-one, etc.) or triggered by corresponding events. The vessel for repayment is often the 'corresponding person'—one whose Eight Characters match, direction corresponds, or whose fate has an 'empty slot' to receive."
Vessel for repayment.
Dr. Wu was that "vessel." Because his Eight Characters, or an "empty slot" in his fate, corresponded with the "causal debt" of Mr. Zhou's site, thus becoming the channel for repayment.
This wasn't supernatural retribution. It was a cold, structural transfer. Like in a circuit, current follows the path of least resistance. The "debt" of causality also seeks the easiest "vessel" to "receive."
And his grandfather, as the operator, knew this beforehand. Writing "already received" beside Mr. Zhou's Eight Characters didn't mean "payment received," but "the price has already been shouldered by someone." That someone was Dr. Wu.
Chen Yao felt nauseous. Not physically, but cognitively—when you discover that your respected, affectionate grandfather was actually a cool, calculating causality engineer, who would mark an innocent "price-bearer" in advance to complete an "adjustment."
Even more terrifying, such operations seemed routine in his grandfather's notes, even a sign of "professionalism."
His phone vibrated. Mr. Zhou.
"Mr. Chen, the site has been completely normal these past few days; workers say it's never been smoother. Really, thank you so much. I've transferred the fee to your card, please check."
Chen Yao didn't reply. He stared at the screen, thinking of Mr. Zhou's anxious, hopeful face. This man got what he wanted—project smooth, fortune improved. He might never know that the price for this "smoothness" was a stranger's paralysis.
Or, he vaguely knew, but chose not to know.
Chen Yao turned off his phone. He sat on the bench for a long time, watching the traffic and people on the street. A mother pushed a stroller past, the child babbling; several middle school students with backpacks laughed and jostled; a vendor selling baked sweet potatoes called out, steam rising in the cold air.
Such a normal, warm world where causal entanglements seemed less apparent.
And he knew that beneath this surface normality existed another set of rules: a cold arithmetic of borrowing, transferring, repaying. His family was one of the operators of this arithmetic.
He thought of Dr. Wu's bright eyes. That old man knew. He knew he had "repaid" something, just not for whom.
And Chen Yao knew.
He stood up, slowly walking home. The setting sun stretched his shadow long. Passing a bookstore, he stopped. The display window held a row of books; one was Marcel Mauss's The Gift, next to Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
These anthropologists studied exchange, sacrifice, debt relations in primitive societies. They interpreted those rituals as symbols of social structure, ways to maintain collective consciousness.
But what if those rituals weren't just symbols? What if they truly operated a more fundamental system distributing "fortune" and "misfortune"? What if families like "Shouyizhai" were the hidden inheritors of this ancient system within civilized society?
Chen Yao entered the bookstore and bought The Gift. He wanted to see how modern scholarship explained the triadic structure of "give-receive-repay." Maybe it could help him understand the nature of what his grandfather did.
Returning home, it was already dark. He turned on the light, sat at his desk. The annotation book lay open to Mr. Zhou's page. The words "already received" were still glaring.
Beside them, in red pen, he wrote a small line:
"Repayment bearer: Wu Mingde (Dr. Wu), stroke and paralysis on April 18th, Jiawu Year. Age sixty-two."
After writing, he looked at the words. This was the concrete content of "already received." A name, a date, an outcome.
Then, he turned to a blank page in the annotation book and began writing his own thoughts:"So-called 'causal transfer' is essentially 'reallocation of narrative weight.' Stripping A's 'misfortune narrative,' attaching it to B. Thus A's narrative line becomes smooth (auspicious), B's narrative line breaks (inauspicious). The operator (diviner) is the engineer of weight distribution.""Questions: 1. What is the basis for this allocation? (Eight Characters, hexagrams, directions—indicators for assessing 'compatibility'?) 2. How does the operator avoid being entangled? (Grandfather's records show it's impossible to completely avoid; one always bears some 'karmic debt.') 3. Is there a 'fair' method of allocation? Or does allocation itself necessarily imply unfairness?"
Writing here, he stopped.
Because he thought of himself."Borrowing life to be born"—was his own life also the result of some "allocation"? From whom did he "borrow" the weight of existence? Where is that person now? What kind of life do they lead? Or do they no longer exist?Chen Yao felt dizzy. He held onto the edge of the desk, taking deep breaths.Outside the window, the city lights were brilliant. His apartment was on the eighteenth floor, with a good view of the neon lights in the distant commercial district, the myriad lights of nearby residential buildings. Under each light was a story, a narrative line. These lines intertwined, ran parallel, occasionally crossed.And some people, like Dr. Wu, had their narrative lines artificially, brutally twisted. Just so another line, like Mr. Zhou's, could run more smoothly..
This was the work of Shouyizhai.
Chen Yao turned off the desk lamp, letting himself sink into darkness. In the dark, he could almost see those invisible narrative lines, like glowing threads, crisscrossing above the city. Some lines bright and smooth, some dim and twisted, some... abruptly cut off.
And he, Chen Yao, could now see these lines.
Not only that, he also knew how to adjust them—at least a little.
Was this a gift, or a curse?
He didn't know.
He only knew that from today, "already received" was no longer an abstract term to him. It was a name, a face, a pair of clear eyes, and a half-paralyzed body.
And records like this, in his grandfather's annotation book, numbered in the hundreds.
Chen Yao sat in the dark for a long time until his phone vibrated again. This time, it was his mother.
"Xiao Yao, really not coming back this weekend? Your dad made your favorite soup."
Chen Yao looked at the words on the screen, eyes warming. He typed a reply: "Coming back. I'll come back Saturday night."
Sent.
Then he stood up and walked to the window. His reflection in the glass looked pale, weary, eyes complex.
Borrowed must be repaid.
His life was borrowed, so what must he repay? To whom?
And the part Dr. Wu repaid, who should have repaid it originally? Mr. Zhou? Or Grandfather? Or... the land itself?
No answers. Only endless questions, and the heavy, newly understood debt.
The night deepened. The city gradually quieted down.
And in a house in some old alley, a paralyzed old man lay quietly, eyes fixed on the ceiling, a faint, unreadable smile seeming to play at the corner of his mouth.
As if saying: I know. And now you know too.
Now, what will you do?
Glossary for Chapter Seven
Apricot Grove Spring Full (杏林春满): An idiom praising physicians of exceptional skill and virtue. It originates from a story about the legendary physician Dong Feng from the Three Kingdoms period, who refused payment and asked patients to plant apricot trees instead, eventually creating a flourishing grove.
Grain Rain (谷雨): The 6th of the 24 solar terms in the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, usually around April 20th. It signifies the time when spring rains are crucial for grain growth. In the story, it serves as a specific temporal marker, making the date memorable and subtly linking it to natural cycles.
Vessel for Repayment (偿还之载体): A critical concept explaining the mechanism of "substitution" (代偿). It posits that the negative consequences ("debt") from manipulating fortune for a client do not vanish but are transferred to a third party. This third party becomes the "vessel" that bears the cost. The selection of this vessel is not random but follows a logic of "correspondence" based on shared parameters like Bazi compatibility, directional alignment, or having a metaphorical "empty slot" in their fate that can receive the transferred negative energy/narrative.
Empty Shell (空壳): A term from the Shouyizhai Regulations mentioned earlier. It refers to a person whose fate pattern is already so weak or detached from the causal web that further negative interventions could cause them to completely "detach," becoming a mere shell. This is considered highly dangerous and unethical.
Correspondence (对应): The principle by which connections are made in this metaphysical system. Things are linked not by physical proximity or social relation, but by sharing similar symbolic or energetic signatures—matching elements in Bazi, hexagram lines, directional attributes, etc. This forms the basis for targeted transfer of fortune/misfortune.
Narrative Weight (叙事权重): Chen Yao's own analytical term, borrowing from literary theory and systems thinking. He conceptualizes a person's life course as a "narrative line." "Fortune" equates to a smooth, coherent narrative; "misfortune" to disruption and breaks. "Transferring" misfortune is thus seen as reallocating the "weight" of negative plot points from one narrative (the client's) to another (the vessel's).
Structural Transfer (结构性转移): Chen Yao's realization that the system his grandfather operated is not about mystical punishment or moral justice in a religious sense, but operates like a cold, amoral structural mechanism—similar to how economic externalities or systemic biases work, redistributing costs to the most susceptible points in the network regardless of individual merit or fault.