But with this burial, a major disaster befell the The Brooks Family. Just as the The Brooks Family was placing the old master’s coffin into the grave, a young man at the The Brooks Family residence six miles away suddenly collapsed and died for no apparent reason. By the time the burial at the Dragon-Riding Grave was completed and the group returned to the The Brooks Family, the house was already filled with wailing—the truth was, in just half a morning, three people from the The Brooks Family had died suddenly.

Of course, this was far from over. That very day, the The Brooks Family lost three sons, and before the grief had even subsided, disaster struck again three days later. While the The Brooks Family gathered in the ancestral hall to hold funerals for the three deceased, suddenly dark clouds blocked out the sun, a violent wind arose, and a great gust toppled the ancestral hall, killing dozens more from the The Brooks Family in an instant.

After that, the deaths became more frequent, never ceasing. Strangely, all those who died in the The Brooks Family were men, while the women were largely unharmed.

The calamity that struck the The Brooks Family came swiftly and left just as quickly. In less than half a year, nearly all the men of the The Brooks Family had died. With the men gone, the women either remarried or returned to their maiden families. In the end, the once-prosperous The Brooks Family was left with only a widow and her orphaned son in a side room.

The locals believed that the The Brooks Family had offended a vengeful spirit and brought disaster upon themselves. It was thought that even the last remaining orphan would die, but strangely enough, once only this orphan was left, the deaths stopped, leaving the The Brooks Family with this sole descendant.

As for this widow and her orphaned son, with no other men in the household, life was extremely difficult. In order to raise her son, The Brooks Family endured countless hardships. The locals, seeing their plight, would often lend a helping hand, but it did little to improve their situation.

One day, a feng shui master suddenly sought out the mother and son. He arrived at the The Brooks Family, said nothing, left behind a hundred taels of silver, instructed The Brooks Family to hire a tutor for her son so he could study and pursue officialdom, and then departed.

Of course, this feng shui master was the very one who had chosen the burial site for the The Brooks Family. The hundred taels of silver were exactly what the The Brooks Family had previously paid him.

Eighteen years passed in a flash, and the boy grew up. That year, he actually passed the imperial examination and became a jinshi, later rising to be a high official in the late Qing dynasty.

A single feng shui grave destroyed a clan, yet also brought prosperity to a clan. Ever since this orphan from the The Brooks Family became a high official, the family flourished under his hand, gaining power and influence, and the ancestral estate was passed down to my grandfather, David Brooks. The words of the feng shui master—that a great official would emerge from the The Brooks Family eighteen years later—were all fulfilled. Yet, whether this power and fortune, bought at the cost of the entire clan, should be a cause for sorrow or joy, who can say? One can only say, it’s all the work of human hearts!

By the time the The Brooks Family reached my grandfather David Brooks’s generation, they were already great landlords. In this family, he could be said to have lived a life free from want, and the family hoped he would pursue scholarly honors to bring further glory to the ancestors. But for some reason, David Brooks took a wrong turn—he refused to study proper books and instead ran off with a passing yin-yang master, devoting himself wholeheartedly to learning feng shui. This nearly angered my great-grandfather to death.

As the saying goes, a prodigal son spends money like dirt, while a family builder treasures even dirt like gold. A few years later, my great-grandfather passed away, and the runaway David Brooks returned to the The Brooks Family, inheriting the family estate that had been built up over a hundred years.

Perhaps something had gone wrong with the ancestral tomb, for the The Brooks Family produced such an unfilial son as David Brooks. After returning home, not only was he lazy and gluttonous, but he also indulged in every vice—eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling, all five poisons in full. To support his vices, David Brooks sold off houses and land, squandering the family fortune in just a few years.

At first, well-meaning elders tried to persuade him to stop wasting his life, reminding him that he was no longer young and needed to settle down and start a family. But David Brooks paid no heed, insisting that the family estate could not be kept, that it would always bring disaster if left intact.

And so, at his lowest point, David Brooks was so poor he barely had a penny to his name. At that time, the relatives of the The Brooks Family treated him like a plague, avoiding him at all costs, afraid to get involved with this prodigal. People from all around the area often mocked him, calling him a fool. After all, who but a fool could squander an entire family fortune? And this fool even claimed that keeping the family estate would only bring disaster.

No matter where he went, others laughed at David Brooks as if he were a fool, but he didn’t care at all, always chuckling as if he took great pride in being a prodigal.

Perhaps to prove David Brooks’s words, not long after, the country’s situation became unstable, and a decade-long civil war broke out. A wave of “strike down the landlords, divide the land” movements and land investigations swept across the nation—this was the so-called Land Revolution of the time.