The Feng Shui Detective - By Nury Vittachi Page 0,1

means will soon happen.’

‘There is already a pay rise, but not for you-lah, for the office. Retainer is going to be raise’ to cover the boy’s wages.’

‘When?’

‘When he comes.’

‘No. When is he coming?’

‘Nex’ week. Monday.’

‘Oh. We can just give him some filing to do. Keep the child busy. Out of the street. That’s all he wants, really. Mo baan faat. What to do?’

The problem soon started to recede in Wong’s mind. He slowly let out his breath ch’i-gong style, and his fears were expelled with it. There was something about today that was preventing him getting worked up about anything. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it might be. He just seemed to be in the grip of a general feeling of wellbeing.

This positive feeling was more likely to come from inside than out, he knew. The offices of C F Wong & Associates were on the second floor of Wai-Wai Mansions, an old Chinese shophouse in a less fashionable quarter of Telok Ayer Street. The small road outside was becoming a busy thoroughfare, and the floor regularly shook as heavy vehicles rumbled past. This morning, traffic had been bad. Slow movement meant there was less rattling of the windows, but more horn-thumping by impatient commuters.

The feeling of calm certainly did not come from the environment of the main room itself, which was crowded with tables, cabinets, shelves and bookcases. It was a disgrace for a feng shui master to work in such a chaotic space, but Wong had long since given up any attempt to control the architectural decisions of Ms Lim. Many powerful business-people in Singapore would eagerly await his oracle-like pronouncements on how to order their offices, but he dared not proffer similar advice to Winnie. A fiery twenty-six-year old from a Kuching Chinese family, she believed that since she was the office administrator, all physical aspects of the office were hers to administrate. In reality, her principal daytime interest was to practise and refine the techniques of make-up and nail polish application.

Some four years ago, when the company had opened, one part of the single large room they had leased had been blocked off to make a separate room for the chief (and only) geomancer. Wong had initially tried to make it into a ch’ienergy-focusing workroom for himself, but it had proved too small and badly positioned.

In feng shui terms, following the School of the Eight Houses, the office was a Tui Kua dwelling, its back facing west and door facing east. His cubby-hole was between southwest (good—indicating blossoming health) and south (bad—the Location of the Five Ghosts), so he had had a lot of work to do to make it usable. Worse still, it was close to Winnie’s desk. The judicious positioning of a metal chime served to ward off the worst of her excess of fire ch’i.

Nevertheless, these days Wong worked in the main office at a desk at right angles to Winnie’s and used his room only for meditation, thinking, ancestor worship, auspicious-day rituals and afternoon naps.

No, the feeling of peace definitely came from within, he decided. It came from the good night’s sleep he had had. It came from the satisfying oil stick doughnut he had eaten at the breakfast noodle cafe on his way to work. It came from the cheery babbling of the kettle in the corner of the office. It came from the fact that today was his fifty-sixth birthday, although he had never celebrated birthdays, not even as a child. It was a good number, fifty-six, far better than the awful fifty-five, with its strongly negative numerological connotations. No, fifty-six was good, a number denoting age and maturity and statesmanship. A year of wisdom. A time when he surely had something worth saying, and ought to be listened to. He really must get that book of his finished.

With that thought, he pulled his journal out of a drawer and started to write again.

Monday dawned hot and hazy, with the air itself seeming tired and listless. The sun rose slowly and seemed to draw a curtain of opaque mist from the ground. Constellations of dust, lifted by the drifting air, spiralled upwards in the crisp white rays leaning through the windows. The neighbourhood was temporarily woken at seven o’clock by a minor emergency: a small fire in the building opposite, apparently caused by a joss stick falling out of a shrine dedicated to the God of Safety, according to the watchman. Sirens shook the buildings until a