Chapter 33: The Three Origins, One School, and the Eight Formations of the Dragon Gate

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The old man took out his tobacco pipe, crouched down, and tapped out the ash. Then he pulled a small cloth pouch from which he pinched a wad of tobacco and stuffed it into the bowl. After lighting it, he drew in a deep breath and exhaled a cloud of murky smoke before beginning his tale with great interest.

“I only heard these things from the older generation. Two hundred years ago, our village wasn’t called Stone Ox Village. It was called Lower River Village.”

“Back then, our village was desperately poor. We never knew where our next meal was coming from, and anything we tried to raise would die. We were famous throughout the surrounding countryside as a remote and impoverished backwater.”

“None of the girls from the nearby villages wanted to marry into ours.”

“Later, our village invited a feng shui master. He claimed to be a successor of the Longmen Eight Configurations of the San Yuan school. He said our village had been built on the Earth Punishment position and told us to relocate the entire village.”

When Li Chengfeng heard mention of the Longmen Eight Configurations of the San Yuan school, he was secretly startled.

The Longmen Eight Configurations of the San Yuan school first appeared during the Tang Dynasty. It was a renowned school of feng shui throughout history, serving mainly the Tang imperial family. Its innate water-observation method has been passed down to this day.

Wang Bin was listening intently as well. The old man took another puff of his pipe and continued.

“At first, no one in the village was willing to move. Nobody wanted to leave the place where they had lived for decades.”

“That feng shui master calculated with his fingers and said that the Earth Punishment was imminent and the Heavenly Calamity had arrived. He ordered the villagers to leave within three days, or disaster would befall us.”

“In those days, nobody believed him. The villagers paid no attention to his warning.”

“But who could have imagined that after three straight days of rain, a sudden flood would strike in the middle of the night and wash Lower River Village away completely?”

“Fortunately, the feng shui master had not left. In the dead of night, he ran back to Lower River Village and woke every villager, leading them to higher ground in time. That was how the people of the village escaped death.”

“Afterward, the people of Lower River Village rebuilt their homes here. The feng shui master had two stone oxen carved and placed them to the east of the village.”

“He also planted a parasol tree beside them, saying it would provide shade and shelter from the rain for the two stone oxen.”

“Once he had arranged everything, the feng shui master left Lower River Village. Before departing, he left us one final message: the two stone oxen formed a superior feng shui arrangement known as Twin Oxen Calling the Plow. When the destined opportunity arrived, it would ensure peace and prosperity for the villagers.”

The villagers did not understand what it meant for the destined opportunity not to have arrived, so they paid the matter no attention and continued living in poverty.

Then, two years later, snow fell thickly beneath a frozen sky. An old woman and a child froze to death beside the two stone oxen.

From that day onward, many villagers began hearing the cries of an old ox and a calf coming from the eastern end of the village every morning.

Thinking that someone’s cattle had escaped, the villagers who heard the cries would hurry eastward to search for them. Yet after looking for a long time, they would never find a single ox.

Eventually, they discovered that the cries were actually coming from the two stone oxen.

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The villagers were astonished. How could stone oxen possibly moo? They thought they had encountered demons.

Then someone remembered the feng shui master’s words about the superior arrangement called Twin Oxen Calling the Plow. Wasn’t this exactly what he had meant?

From then on, whenever the villagers heard the oxen’s cries, they went into the fields to work. Day after day and year after year, their harvests grew better and better.

The village soon underwent a great transformation. In years of severe drought, the surrounding land would stretch for miles, parched and barren, with not a single grain harvested.

The nearby villages would receive no rain at all, while Stone Ox Village alone enjoyed favorable weather and abundant rainfall. More and more villagers grew wealthy, and many even rose to become high-ranking officials.

Only then did the villagers fully realize that the feng shui master had been no ordinary man.

To commemorate him, many villagers proposed changing the name of Lower River Village to Stone Ox Village.

After finishing his story, the old man tapped out his pipe and stood up with a broad grin, preparing to go home for lunch.

Wang Bin still found it difficult to believe and asked doubtfully, “Uncle Six, can those two stone oxen really moo?”

“Yes!”

“When I was a child, I heard them with my own ears. I don’t know why, but nowadays I can’t hear them anymore.”

The old man sounded somewhat regretful. He hoisted his farming tools onto his shoulder and prepared to leave, then said kindly to Li Chengfeng and Wang Bin, “You two stay here and play. I’m going home to eat.”

Wang Bin stared in astonishment at Li Chengfeng, then at the old man who was about to leave. He could not comprehend how stone oxen could possibly moo.

From a scientific standpoint, stone oxen had no vocal tracts at all. So how could they produce the sound of an ox? It completely defied scientific principles and overturned the laws of physics.

Looking at the old man’s retreating back, he hurriedly called out, “Uncle Six, did you really hear the stone oxen moo when you were a child?”

“I did. More than once.”

The old man did not turn around and answered casually.

Wang Bin’s next words, however, made him stop in his tracks.

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“Uncle Six, my friend here heard the stone oxen moo just now, too.”

The old man turned around and stared at Li Chengfeng in disbelief. In an astonished voice, he asked, “Young man, can you still hear the stone oxen mooing now?”

“Yes!”

Li Chengfeng nodded, then turned to look at the two stone oxen beside them. They were still mooing. With a solemn expression, he said, “The cries of these two stone oxen sound as though they’re in great pain.”

“If I’m not mistaken, your village is currently plagued by unrest among its livestock and turmoil within its homes. It must be connected to the Twin Oxen Calling the Plow feng shui arrangement.”

“Someone must have tampered with the feng shui formation.”

The old man nodded excitedly. After one misfortune after another had struck the village, he had suspected that something was wrong with the feng shui formation and had told the village chief about his concerns.

But the village chief had refused to believe any of it, accusing him of spreading superstition.

Now that he heard Li Chengfeng say the same thing, the old man looked as though he had found a savior. He asked in disbelief, “You mean someone tampered with the feng shui?”

“That’s right!”

“Have any strangers visited your village recently?”

The old man thought for a moment, then shook his head. He normally spent his time either working in the fields or returning home to sleep. Even if someone came to the village, he might not have known about it.

Wang Bin spoke from beside him.

“Two weeks ago, two foreigners from an island nation came to our village. They found our village chief and wanted to buy the two stone oxen.”

“Our village chief refused to sell them.”

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