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Day 5 – Grandmasters Yang & Lai
Last update: 17th April 2008 12:35pm (GMT+08:00)
Reported by Sherwin Ng.
16th April 2008 (Wednesday)
The Guan Family Ancestral Hall at Lu Du overlooks a river. While the Table Mountain is of right height, both embraces are absent. Qi cannot collect. Could this indeed be the work of Grandmaster Yang Yun Song? After all, we saw the works of his disciples yesterday and they managed imperial Feng Shui advisors with less-than-perfect land formations.
The Village Elder filled us in today: the Guan Family Ancestral Hall was not an ‘official’ Feng Shui work of Grand Master Yang. Apparently the hall was built to face the wrong way over some misunderstanding over a ‘bench’. The Hall does not receive the Qi directed by the river. Guan descendants were mostly sailors, failing to achieve imperial officer status.
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 Grand Master Yang did attempt later to rectify this flaw by building an artificial embrace with loads of soil, but the soil used to form the embrace did not hold against the river water. Joey recommended an alternate method: a gateway arc can be used to establish a Qi Mouth to tap into the incoming water. In fact, based on the old stories, this was probably what Grand Master Yang had originally intended as the facing of the building.
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Next, the highlight of the day: Grand Master Yang’s very own tomb. And we found it!
This is a story every Feng Shui enthusiast should know: Yang Yun Song was employed by a rich and powerful person to do Feng Shui. While it was effective, he feared that Yang Yun Song could make others more powerful than him. The next step is obvious: Yang had to be assassinated.
Invited to dinner, Yang knew that the wine was poisoned. He came prepared, and poured the wine into a leather pouch he hid under his shirt. The client was dumbfounded – was this Feng Shui master so powerful that he was immune to poison?
 Yang left alive, but the poison was so potent that it burned thru the leather pouch and got absorbed into his skin. Realizing that his time was up, he, along with his disciple quickly went in search for a burial spot.
Now, his young disciple Liao, while brilliant, had always been the defiant one. So when they found the spot, Master Yang instructed Liao to bury his body 9 feet deep into the ground – knowing that Liao would intentionally bury 6 feet in just to spite him. 6 feet is the right depth to hit the Dragon Vein.
But here’s the twist: Liao, always defiant, started feeling remorseful upon seeing his teacher die. He decided for once to follow his given instructions. 9 feet was too deep in. There henceforth, it is said that the grave was subsequently flooded. All that’s left today is a sign said to be pointing towards the direction of the burial spot.
We tracked along the river banks and stood at the opposite shore looking toward the sign. The main Dragon that stopped at the water was steep – the vein would be sunken underground. Near the centre of the mountain was a dip, a bowl. A nest formation. It is very likely the site chosen by Grand Master Yang himself. The Table Mountain, unique it’s shape and distance, would be at the right height, the right embrace sufficient. The left embrace carried along a Sky Horse and Gourd formation – his name and knowledge will be carried far and wide.
How about the story that the burial site has been submerged under water? Consider this: first of all, a Feng Shui Master would select a site on a release of dragon vein. The only vein in the vicinity lies on this mountain – which comes with right Table Mountain and excellent embrace. Most of all, the incoming water of the river directs all Qi toward the site.
No Feng Shui expert could miss this one.
Also, any Feng Shui student would know that a flooded grave or a submerged site means the end of it. Thus, it is likely a rumour used to protect the burial site of Grand Master Yang.
Happy with what we learnt and discovered, our next stop was the grave of Sun Chan. In case the surname sounds familiar, this is the ancestor of Sun Yat Sen 30 generations before.
The tomb faces a cardinal line, which is rarely used by ancient Feng Shui master, even more Grand Master Yang. We climbed up to the Dragon head to qualify the release vein. While it was extremely windy at the top of the Dragon head, all wind ceased at the neck, or the ‘crossing of the gap’. This meant that the neck was stable; therefore the Qi crossing was good. Some tried counting the lumps on the Dragon back, but there were simply too many. This was a superior quality Dragon, overlooking a Chastity Star.
Of course we asked: why did the Qi take 30 generations to take maximum effect? There were some manmade flaws at the tomb. For example, the Bright Hall was insufficient.
Our last stop of the day was the tomb of Lai Bu Yi’s great ancestor. Master Lai is known for his ‘Advancing Officer Scrolls’, a well as pioneering the Land Embrace (28 Constellations) method’.
The site is unassuming at first. The Table Mountain was average, the embrace was average. All the firepower stood behind the tomb at a distance: A Chastity Star released a vein, passing thru a ‘Cloud Water’ formation. Because it was a low level vein, many of us missed the vein until Joey pointed it out. The direction to the spot was not ideal, but the Lai ancestor cleverly used the Tombstone to establish the Facing/Sitting to tap the vein. Several Lai descendants were Feng Shui masters and astrologers, as promised by the ‘Monk Hat’ Chastity Star. Lai Bu Yi is perhaps the best known of all.
By the way, did I mention that I ‘crossed the gap’ today? Wow. You really had to be there…
Cheers,
Sherwin Ng
Reported by Sherwin Ng.
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