The Loose Cannon (擦槍走火)

Some of my friends are businessmen though I must confess that I can never become a businessman as I don’t like to entertain people. My cunning pals normally use tricks to seek my advices in solving their business issues and all of a sudden I found myself seated amongst a group of business people during supposedly a ‘private’ dinner.

 

There was a case when Yuan invited me to attend a dinner with another acquaintance, Charlie from Hong Kong. According to Yuan, Charlie was his business partner in Hong Kong. As narrated by Yuan, Charlie wasn’t doing too good in his business and had been seeking advices from a renowned Feng Shui master for help.

 

Apparently the master has charged a high price for all his consultations. At first, the master said Charlie’s name wasn’t good so he suggested a new name. After the name change, the master said he needs to ‘empower’ Charlie’s name with special rituals; hence another payment was requested. Later, the same master also suggested that Charlie’s house Feng Shui wasn’t good, so he found Charlie a new house somewhere in suburb area. For that service, the master has charged a high price again as he said that only him can choose the most auspicious date within this decade. Since Charlie was the most obedient person I have ever seen, he paid what the master wanted.

 

Well, things seemed to be stabilizing after the said changes; it only lasted for six months or so. After that, Charlie’s business continued to go down hills faster than the rollercoaster. Now Charlie wanted to have a joint venture with Yuan in the hope that this new venture will revive Charlie’s business. Needless to say, Charlie was Yuan’s best pal.

 

Now it transpired that my reason of sitting between Yuan and Charlie over dinner was to advise them if they should continue with the joint venture. Frankly, I was a little nosy to find out the truth behind Charlie’s ordeal or you won’t have this posting to read about…

 

So I told Charlie to give me the facing direction of his house; to my surprise as if Charlie has anticipated my demand, he pulled a stack of Feng Shui report and handed to me promptly.  I flipped over the report and only to find Charlie’s house was riding on “between lines” (騎線).

 

According to Flying Star Endowed <飛星賦>:

 

“豈無騎線游魂，鬼神入室。”

“Sitting between lines is as if wandering spirits entering a house.”

 

Apparently these between lines houses are as if loose cannons; they swing as they like and they may erupt quite unprecedented.

 

Having that in mind, I made an excuse to talk to Yuan alone about my concerns and asked him to be careful when working with Charlie. True enough, a year later; Charlie was in great debt and now in hiding and could not be contacted. Since Yuan was warned before hand, he only lost a small amount of money.

 

More on between lines:

 

http://liewsp1-magicsea.blogspot.com/2010/09/must-avoid-between-gap-lines.html