The Grand Canal, lifeblood of the empire, flowed broad and purposeful past the city of Wuxi, a place renowned for its thriving rice market and the shrewdness of its merchants and money lenders. Barges piled high with grain jostled for space at the crowded docks, their arrival and departure governed by the intricate calculations performed in the counting houses lining the waterfront. These establishments, smelling of ink, beeswax, and the sharp tang of copper cash, were the city's engines, places where fortunes were measured, risked, and secured. Among the oldest, once most respected, was the 'House of Abundant Streams', founded generations ago by the Liu family. Its reputation, built on prudence and fair dealing, had been the bedrock of their prosperity. But that bedrock had crumbled, leaving the House shrouded in decay, whispered rumors, and the chilling presence of a prosperity turned predatory.

  The current master, Liu Mingyuan, was a ghost haunting the shell of his former life. Once a robust figure known for his keen judgment and quiet integrity, he was now frail, almost translucent, his fine silk robes hanging loosely on his skeletal frame. He rarely left the dim, dusty confines of his counting house, a place where sunlight struggled to penetrate the grimy latticed windows and cobwebs draped the high shelves laden with unread ledgers. He spent his days, and often sleepless nights, hunched over a small, locked rosewood box, his fingers endlessly, obsessively manipulating something within, his lips moving in silent, frantic calculation. A perpetual, bone-deep chill clung to him, impervious to the warmth of summer or the heat of the charcoal brazier his granddaughter dutifully kept filled. His eyes, once sharp and clear, held a hunted, paranoid glint, constantly darting towards shadows, flinching at sudden sounds.

  His granddaughter, Liu Fen, was the sole remaining family member, his only caretaker. A young woman barely twenty, possessed of a quiet resilience and a sharp mind that should have been learning the intricacies of the family business, she instead found herself tending a decaying house and a grandfather consumed by a spectral obsession. She watched, heartbroken, as he wasted away, refusing food, shunning contact, lost in his silent, endless calculations. She felt the oppressive atmosphere of the counting house – the unnatural cold, the heavy silence broken only by the phantom click-clack of counting beads she sometimes heard drifting from her grandfather's locked room late at night, the pervasive feeling of being watched by unseen, avaricious eyes. She saw the fear and pity in the faces of former clients who hurried past their door, the pity quickly turning to suspicion as whispers circulated about the Liu family's ruin being somehow… unnatural, cursed.

  The source of the affliction, Fen knew with chilling certainty, lay within the locked rosewood box: the 'Prosperity String'. It wasn't an official government issue, but a string of one hundred ancient copper cash, passed down through the Liu family for generations. The coins themselves were unusual – darker than ordinary copper, worn smooth by countless hands, yet bearing faint, archaic markings that seemed to shift or vanish depending on the light. Legend claimed the string was acquired by the family founder under mysterious circumstances, perhaps from a ruined temple or a desperate gambler, and was believed to possess auspicious energy, ensuring the family's fortune so long as it was treated with respect and used only for calculations involving communal benefit or charitable works.

  But Fen remembered the change, five years prior. Her father, facing unexpected losses after a series of disastrous floods disrupted trade, had grown desperate. Against her grandfather's (then still lucid) warnings, her father had taken the Prosperity String and, Fen suspected, used it in some forbidden ritual, or perhaps simply began using it for increasingly risky, self-serving calculations, hoping to harness its legendary luck. A brief period of startling success followed – loans repaid, profitable deals secured. But then the tide turned. Her father fell gravely ill with a wasting sickness the physicians couldn't explain, dying within months, muttering about cold coins and endless debts. Her grandfather, Master Liu, inherited the business and the string, initially locking it away. But as misfortunes mounted – loans defaulting, investments failing – he too, in his grief and desperation, had eventually turned back to the Prosperity String. And now, it was consuming him.

  Fen had seen the string only a few times when her grandfather briefly brought it out, his hands trembling. The coins felt unnaturally cold, seeming to draw the warmth from her fingertips. Looking closely, she thought the shifting patterns on their surfaces resolved momentarily into leering faces or grasping claws. Holding it induced a brief, intense surge of avarice, a desire for wealth so strong it was nauseating, followed immediately by a crushing wave of despair, the feeling of being buried under impossible debt. And always, there was the faint, phantom clicking, as if the coins themselves were endlessly counting, tallying some unseen, inescapable balance sheet of ruin.

  When her grandfather, in a rare moment of lucidity clouded by paranoia, accused her of trying to steal the Prosperity String, his eyes filled with a coldness she had never seen before, Fen knew she had to act. The string wasn't just unlucky; it was cursed, possessed, an anchor for a Qian Gui – a Money Ghost, or perhaps something worse, a parasitic entity born from the accumulated weight of centuries of greed, desperation, and financial ruin associated with the coins themselves. It offered the illusion of prosperity while feeding on the user's vitality and fortune, trapping them in a cycle of phantom calculation and real-world despair.

  Remembering hushed conversations overheard between travelling merchants about Xuanzhen, the Taoist master known for confronting strange curses and spectral afflictions tied to objects and emotions, Fen gathered her courage and the last of her meagre funds. Leaving her grandfather locked in his chilling communion with the coins, she journeyed downriver, seeking the Taoist's aid.

  Xuanzhen, found meditating in the quiet sanctuary of a riverside temple, listened with profound stillness as Fen poured out her story. The details – the cursed object passed through generations, the link between its use and subsequent misfortune, the physical and mental decline of its users, the phantom sounds, the specific sensations of greed followed by despair, the coldness, the connection to debt – painted a clear picture of a potent spiritual artifact acting as a parasitic anchor.

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  "Objects that witness or facilitate countless transactions involving intense human emotion – especially greed, desperation, and ruin – can become saturated with that energy, Lady Fen," Xuanzhen explained, his voice calm and reassuring despite the grim tale. "This coin string, particularly if its origins are tied to misfortune, has likely become a vessel for concentrated resentment and avarice. The entity clinging to it, the 'Calculation Ghost' you sense, offers the illusion of control, of fortune, while binding the user in chains of spiritual debt, draining their essence to fuel its own existence."

  Recognizing the danger to Master Liu's dwindling life force and the potential for the curse to spread further if mishandled, Xuanzhen agreed to return to Wuxi with Fen immediately. He entered the House of Abundant Streams under the guise of a potential buyer for the property, allowing him to observe the environment and Master Liu without raising immediate suspicion.

  The counting house felt colder, heavier, more stagnant than even Fen's description had prepared him for. The air was thick with the psychic residue of financial despair, a palpable weight pressing down. Master Liu sat in his inner office, the door slightly ajar. Xuanzhen could see him hunched over the rosewood box, hear the faint, dry click-clack from within, see the tremor in the old man's shoulders. Master Liu's qi was dangerously weak, flickering like a guttering candle, almost entirely overshadowed by the cold, grasping energy emanating from the box.

  Xuanzhen knew direct confrontation with Master Liu in his current state might be ineffective, even dangerous. He needed to address the source directly – the coin string. He instructed Fen to prepare specific items: a bowl of uncooked black beans (known in folk magic to absorb negativity and counter ghosts), coarse sea salt (for purification), strong vinegar (to dissolve energetic attachments), and several sheets of yellow paper and cinnabar ink for talismans.

  Waiting until Master Liu finally succumbed to exhaustion, slumping asleep at his desk, Xuanzhen and Fen entered the inner office. The cold emanating from the rosewood box was intense. Xuanzhen carefully, respectfully, lifted the lid. Inside, nestled on faded, brittle silk, lay the Prosperity String. The one hundred dark copper coins seemed to absorb the dim lamplight, their surfaces unnaturally smooth, the faint markings seeming to writhe almost imperceptibly. The clicking sound ceased, but the feeling of cold, calculating hunger intensified, focusing on Xuanzhen.

  He didn't touch the coins directly. First, he had Fen place bowls of the black beans and salt around the box, creating a neutralizing field. He then lit incense containing purifying herbs like artemisia and peach wood smoke, letting the smoke cleanse the immediate area. He chanted softly, invoking guardians of clarity and protection, establishing a sacred space.

  Then, using wooden tongs, Xuanzhen carefully lifted the coin string from the box. It felt heavier than it should, radiating a soul-deep chill. The air thickened, and faint whispers seemed to echo around them – phantom calculations, promises of wealth, threats of ruin. He placed the string carefully into a sturdy ceramic basin.

  He instructed Fen to pour the strong vinegar over the coins, visualizing the acidic liquid dissolving the psychic grime, the unhealthy attachments, the accumulated energy of greed and despair. As the vinegar touched the coins, a faint, greenish mist rose, carrying a foul, metallic odour, and a thin, high-pitched whining sound filled the air – the protest of the disturbed entity.

  Xuanzhen then took his brush and cinnabar ink. On strips of yellow paper, he swiftly inscribed powerful Taoist talismans designed specifically to subdue Qian Gui, sever parasitic bonds, and release trapped resentful energy. He focused his intent, pouring his own balanced qi into the strokes. He carefully affixed these talismans onto the ceramic basin, surrounding the submerged coins.

  The whining sound intensified, the coins seeming to vibrate within the vinegar. The cold in the room became biting. Xuanzhen began a stronger chant, a formal rite of severance and pacification, calling upon the celestial ministries to witness the release, guiding the trapped energies towards dissolution or transformation, commanding the parasitic entity to relinquish its hold. He struck a small hand-bell, its clear tone cutting through the psychic resistance.

  For several minutes, the struggle continued – the whining, the vibrations, the intense cold battling against the purifying ritual, the talismans' power, Xuanzhen's focused intent. Then, with a final, shuddering sigh that seemed to ripple through the very air, the resistance broke. The whining ceased. The vibrations stopped. The unnatural cold dissipated rapidly, leaving only the sharp scent of vinegar. The coins lay still at the bottom of the basin, looking like nothing more than old, tarnished copper cash, their dark energy neutralized, inert.

  Master Liu stirred at his desk, groaning softly, then settled into a deeper, more peaceful sleep than Fen had seen in months.

  Xuanzhen carefully drained the vinegar, advising Fen to dispose of it far from the house, preferably into running water. The coins themselves, though cleansed of the active entity, still carried the weight of their history. He recommended they not be kept or used. The safest course, he suggested, was to melt them down, transforming their substance entirely, or to bury them deep within the foundations of a newly consecrated temple, where the sacred energies could slowly transmute any remaining residue over time.

  Fen, weeping with relief, chose the latter option, arranging for the coins to be respectfully interred during the upcoming renovation of the very temple where she had first sought Xuanzhen. Master Liu, upon waking, felt weak but clear-headed, the obsessive calculations and gnawing paranoia gone. The memory of his actions, and his father's, remained, a heavy burden of guilt, but the curse's grip was broken. He willingly relinquished the coins, focusing instead on simple recovery and reconciliation with his granddaughter.

  Xuanzhen departed Wuxi shortly after, leaving the Liu family to slowly rebuild their lives, free from the spectral debt. The Merchant's Coin String Curse served as a chilling reminder of how objects intimately tied to human desire, especially the potent allure and despair surrounding money, could become powerful anchors for misfortune. Generations of greed and desperation, concentrated into cold copper, had created a parasitic hunger that consumed its keepers. True wealth, Xuanzhen knew, was measured not by the clicking of beads or the heft of coins, but by the balance within the heart and the clarity of the spirit – currencies immune to the curses that lurked in the shadows of avarice.