Trương Dương shoved him away with one hand, then looked down at me with contempt. “I don’t care what underhanded tricks you used. Right now, get on your knees and apologize to Noãn Noãn, then get the hell out of the Tô family’s house. Otherwise, tomorrow I’ll have your whole family begging in the streets!”
Tô Minh Triết stepped in front of me and said in a low voice, “Young Master Trương, you should leave yourself some room. We may cross paths again. My sister, she…”
I pulled Tô Minh Triết away from where he was shielding me, calmly walked up to Trương Dương, and looked up at him.
“Are you sure?” I asked softly.
To Trương Dương, my calm was just a show of confidence.
He was incensed and sneered. “I’ll give you three seconds to think it over. Three…”
He had barely said the first word.
Outside the villa, the alarms on the line of supercars worth tens of millions that he’d brought suddenly went haywire all at once, blaring so piercingly that the sound seemed to reach the heavens.
Trương Dương furrowed his brow, but forced himself to keep going with the countdown. “Two…”
The clasp on the limited-edition Patek Philippe watch on his wrist, worth eight figures, suddenly snapped with a sharp crack. The watch fell onto the hard marble floor, its face shattering to pieces.
At last, Trương Dương’s expression changed.
The air seemed to freeze. The Tô family had even forgotten how to breathe.
I looked at him, my gaze as cold as frost.
He still refused to believe in the supernatural.
“Quit pretending to be some kind of mystic!”
The string of “coincidences” had thoroughly enraged Trương Dương, while also stirring a trace of fear in him.
He wanted to use even more extreme measures to hide that trace of fear.
“I said get on your knees! One!”
He roared, raised his hand, and brought it down toward my face in a vicious slap.
He wanted to use the most direct kind of violence to shatter the eerie, mysterious aura surrounding me.
The Tô family cried out in alarm.
My face remained completely expressionless.
Just as his hand, adorned with an expensive ring, was about to strike my face…
“BOOM!!!”
A thunderclap shook the heavens, suddenly exploding across the cloudless sky! It was so loud that every window in the villa buzzed and rattled.
The sudden thunder in a clear sky made everyone jump.
Trương Dương’s hand froze in midair.
His phone vibrated frantically in his pocket. It was an urgent call.
He answered with trembling hands. His father’s voice came through, a desperate wail edged with sobs: “It’s over! A Yang! It’s all over! That three-hundred-year-old golden parasol tree behind our ancestral home just got struck by lightning! A bolt came down from the sky and split the whole tree in two! We’re finished!”
That tree was a feng shui dragon vein planted for the Trương family by a master. It was a symbol of the family’s century-old fortune.
When the tree falls, the family falls.
That call drained every last bit of strength from Trương Dương.
But this was only the beginning.
As soon as he hung up, a financial news alert popped up on his phone. The headline was shocking: “Breaking! Trương Group involved in massive cross-border money laundering; core account records submitted to Interpol by an anonymous source!”
At the same time, the phones of the bodyguards Trương Dương had brought along, still bristling with aggression, began ringing one after another.
“Hello? Honey? What did you say? You ran off with someone else?”
“Mom! Why are you in the hospital? What? You lost all your savings trading stocks?”
“What! My son isn’t my biological son?!”
…
Their ranks descended into chaos.
The bodyguards, who had been full of swagger just a second ago, were now in complete disarray. They no longer had the slightest interest in their employer.
Looking at the news on his phone and hearing the thunder beside him and his men’s cries, Trương Dương felt the world spin around him.
Everything he had been proud of—his family background, wealth, and power—crumbled to dust in an instant.
Thud.
Trương Dương’s legs gave way, and he dropped straight to his knees in front of me, his face ashen.
I lowered my head and looked down at the man who had been so arrogant just moments ago. Then I asked softly, “Now, who’s the one who needs to apologize?”
At the top of the stairs, Tô Noãn Noãn witnessed this miracle with her own eyes. Her last remaining support had, in the most wretched and unimaginable way, knelt before me.
Her mind completely collapsed. She let out a piercing scream, rolled her eyes back, and fainted.
In the living room, Tô Kiến Thành, Lâm Huệ, and Tô Minh Hiên looked at Trương Dương kneeling on the floor, then at me. Their eyes held only the most primitive, unadulterated fear and reverence.
As if they were looking at a god walking among mortals.
Everything had been settled.
The Trương family, a giant that had once held sway over the city, quickly declined under a multinational investigation. It went bankrupt and was liquidated, and Trương Dương went to prison for multiple crimes.
When Tô Noãn Noãn woke up, she found she had lost everything and had completely lost her mind. She was sent to a care facility. Before long, Tô Kiến Thành and his wife finally made up their minds. They found Noãn Noãn’s biological parents, who were still engaging in petty theft, and gave them a sum of money to take her back.
From then on, there was no longer any Tô Noãn Noãn in the Tô family.
Whenever my eldest brother, Tô Minh Hiên, saw me, he no longer dared speak loudly. He always kept his distance in silence, like a mouse avoiding a cat. But every now and then, he would awkwardly ask, “Have you… eaten yet?”
My Chinese-style courtyard residence was soon completed. Every brick and tile had been personally designed and supervised by the country’s most renowned feng shui master. I named it An Tình Cư. I moved in and shut out all the disturbances of the outside world.
My parents regularly transferred generous dividends into my bank account. On holidays, they would carefully bring all sorts of gifts and ask how I was doing, but they never dared set foot inside my courtyard.
That place became forbidden ground for the Tô family—and its sacred sanctuary as well.
My second older brother, Tô Minh Triết, became my only point of contact with the outside world. He managed all the businesses held in my name and took care of every mundane matter I didn’t want to deal with.
Many years later, I felt the innate hostile energy surrounding me had nearly faded away, nurtured by the courtyard and years of peace and quiet.
I returned to the Daoist temple where I’d grown up.
My master was very old by then. He sat beneath the ginkgo tree in the courtyard, smiling as he looked at me.
“Master, what kind of fate am I destined for, after all? Am I really doomed to be a lone star that brings death to those around me?” I finally asked the question I’d kept inside for more than twenty years.
My master shook his head, pointed at me, then at the sky. “You’re not a star that brings death to those around you. Your fate is ‘the Purple Star descends to earth, carrying the universe within.’ You can tell good from evil and see cause and effect clearly.”
“Then this so-called bad luck…”
“That isn’t bad luck. It’s your càn khôn, your protection. It reflects all the malice directed at you. The greater your opponent’s malice, the stronger the backlash. You don’t have to do a thing—the Way of Heaven will punish them on its own.”
My master sighed. “Back then, I said you were surrounded by a strong aura of ill fortune because I was afraid that, as a child, you wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t know how to control your power. You might be hurt by the backlash of other people’s malice. That’s why I had you stay at the Daoist temple, cultivate in peace, and nurture your character.”
It all suddenly made sense.
So I wasn’t a jinx. I was a walking “beacon of justice,” a judge of ill intent.
“Then… what if someone truly treats me well?” I asked softly.
My master smiled and pointed to the lush ginkgo tree growing beside us. “When you first came to the temple, I had you plant this tree yourself. You watered it every day and cared for it sincerely. Look at it now. Doesn’t it seem more full of life than the other trees here?”
Beneath the sunlight, its branches and leaves were lush, its leaves shimmering with life.
I understood. Malice would be punished, while kindness would be rewarded.
When I got home, I saw my second older brother handling company business. Under his management, the Tô family’s business was thriving, and he had become a rising star in the business world—steady and capable.
When he saw me, a smile of genuine warmth appeared on his face. There was none of the fear or scheming from before, only heartfelt affection and respect. “You’re back, little sister? I brought you your favorite Yunding tea.”
I noticed he was still wearing the ordinary wooden-bead bracelet I’d casually given him years ago. He’d rubbed it so much it had become smooth and lustrous as jade.
He smiled and raised his hand. “You gave it to me. I wear it, and everything goes smoothly.”
The flowers and plants I’d grown with my own hands in my courtyard were thriving, too.
In the sunlight, I brewed myself a pot of tea and gazed at the lively courtyard.
I knew my bad luck was behind me. From here on, the road ahead would be smooth.
As long as no one came looking for trouble with me again.
—THE END—