Gold Heart, Warm Soul

14| Spirit Energy and Curses

Grandpa started explaining about the jade in the beginning. He gave me the basics of spirit energy and some history about the past. Apparently, spirit energy is like storage energy. It is produced in the past by the priest and priestess during monthly prayers. In short, any vessel, such as jades, stones, hair ornaments and metal can store spirit energy. Spirit energy can help ward off evil and give protection to a person. However with stronger infused spirit energy in a stone, it can even protect a nation if placed correctly at an altar as a sacrifice to the gods above. Also, everyone has spirit energy. It can be describe as our life source. The jade that the Zhangs and Lous had to protect was the King's jade. It was infused with the king's spirit energy by the Holy Priest to ward off the curse placed by the snake demon during the era. It is said if the jade is no longer in the hands of the royal family or their protectors, it might bring devastation and can cause many deaths. A country might go up in flames because of the curse. Also, the curse is tied the royal family and the General families. The General families is the 5 family in X country which are the Zhangs, Lous, Lees, Peng and Hongs. There is a reason why these 5 families could rarely give birth to daughters. Look at our generation now, the Zhangs, Lous and Pengs do not have daughters, only sons. While the Lee and Hong family only has a daughter each. Giving birth to a daughter is considered a blessing and shows that a curse is weakening. The only way to break the snake demon's curse is to keep the jade for generations until the curse disappears.

"So what happens now? The curse is still present since the jade was broken into pieces." I asked Grandpa. "Well, I guess they have to quickly transfer the King's spirit energy to a vessel for the curse to be ineffective," grandpa replied. However, it is hard to transfer the spirit energy to another vessel. Since, King Da has long died, there's only the priest and priestess that were blessed by Gods could do it. Even so, they have to find the right vessel to transfer the energy. "So do you think the Lous and Zhangs have found the right vessel?" I asked grandpa. "They probably haven't, since they could only have an audience with the priestess in Mountain Nan when all 5 families have gathered, which is during our Big reunion," grandpa said solemnly. "Besides, I think the curse is already getting stronger, once they found out it went missing," he said solemnly as he looked at me sadly. "Why do you think so?"
"It's because of you." I was confused. Why am I involved in this matter. "Don't think you think your accident is too much of a coincident when the jade went missing? It may have been because of the jade that you were in this predicament. Daughters born in the five families are like a reflection of the curse. The more daughters there are, the weaker the curse is. It can also work vice versa. The stronger the curse is, the lesser daughters are born and daughters that are born many face the brunt of the curse. The curse can cause the death of the daughters in the family. Haven't you heard, the daughter from Hong family was also in an accident while she was training in the army? Luckily she got off lightly and only had broken bones." By this point, my mother had tears streaming down her face while my dad tried to comfort her. "So, you're saying, because of the King's jade, I'm going to die," I said. My grandpa shakes his head. "Unless, we can weaken the curse, you're going to be fine. That's why, you have to be in the Maiden's ritual when we visit the priestess in mountain Nan."

Everything was absurd. From spirit energy to curses. It felt like I went into another dimension of the world. "What if, I get a stone infused with spirit energy to protect me from danger?"
"It depends on how strong your spirit energy is, but it's very rare that a spirit energy is strong enough to prevent death. Only the King had the power to produce the jade with spirit energy strong enough to protect the nation," grandpa explained.

"Has there ever been a human vessel for spirit energy of someone else?" I asked. It took a moment for grandpa to reply. "I believe there was one. The Empress of Qi Dynasty. She was a vessel for the Holy Priestess' spirit energy. She was used to win the Dark War for X country." "However, it is dangerous. It can cost your life to store someone else's spirit energy." The atmosphere in the dining hall went dark and tense. "The royal family had already perished when the advancement in our country started to progress. In place of royal families ruling, we know have a fair system where a government takes the job. How do we find spirit energy strong enough to substitute the King's jade?" Kace asks grandpa. "There must always be a sacrifice whoever something goes awry. We will know what we have to do during the priestess' visit. Besides, the Lou and Zhangs have not contacted us yet. We might as well pretend that everything is alright," grandpa said ending his speech and signalling that the conversation was over. We have a big day tomorrow and had many thing to prepare for the reunion. It was no use overthinking as my fate was already decided in my past life and in my current life. I still had 4 years left to live. If the curse catches up to me first, I'm sure there's nothing for me to do but to wait for my death. Also, no one would know whether if I was dying because of the curse or because of my illness. It's just a matter of time before I lay in the coffin.

I wanted to laugh really badly. My life is like a sad comedy show. It's a joke really. What use is to give me a second life when I could not even live freely while fate ties me up in their wake?