I was exhausted, bewildered; my mouth burned. Fang Gang's tone eased a bit and he asked me to explain exactly what happened last night, after apologizing for being too drunk to remember a thing I told him yesterday. I stumbled over the details of what happened, pausing to shovel down the last of the hot peppers on my plate.
"Do you know what amulet it was in the pictures you sent me?" he asked.
"Amulet? What are you talking about? I just know that picture of the bride makes me uneasy. Also, what was this 'yinling' you were on about when I called you yesterday?" I asked.
"A yinling is a spirit of a person who generally has passed away before their time. They have… unfinished concerns on this plane. That bride was a young girl who lived in the north of Bangkok. She got run over by a speeding car on her wedding day. Since then her spirit was kept at an Achan's home, until it was made into amulets with resonating materials. Because of the limited amount of this special material available, only 14 copies were made. Each amulet turned out extremely powerful. These types of amulets can hold emotions, and this yinling turned out to hold a powerful resentment that can easily overwhelm the wearer, unless he or she has the correct spells gifted by the Achan who made it; anyone else who touches it will suffer misfortune!" Fang Gang replied, his voice raising and wavering again.
My face lost all colour as I dropped my spoon to the table. "That was...a spirit amulet? Why didn't you tell me earlier? I've touched it already!"
"When that kid took it home, you said it was in a red cloth bag. Red cloth has the property of misdirecting spirits. The amulet being left in a red cloth bag means that someone has already suffered great misfortune and decided to throw it away. They covered it in red cloth in hope of the spirit losing track of them, but the kid took it home instead. Not only that, he put it on his neck as well. Males have more pure yang in their bodies which could resist this yinling's yin, but because a boy who is not 12 yet is weak in yang energy, he is still a good conduit for attracting the yinling. basically, the yinling within the amulet has possessed him and will be very, very hard to get rid off now.``
"But why did I meet the ghost when the boy's father was fast asleep?" I followed up quickly.
"I don't know? Maybe the ghost liked to bully strangers." Fang Gang grinned wickedly.
I was almost crying at this point but he is still laughing. Stressed and frustrated, I asked him how to deal with this issue. Fang Gang collected himself and said, "The only way is to find the achan who made this amulet. Ask him to provide the spirit guiding spell. This is the only sure way to make the spirit leave the boy's body."
I was relieved that there was a way to stop the spirit, but when I asked Fang Gang to help me to contact the achan he asked me how much money the customer can afford to pay.
"The customer is my cousin's friend, but he is quite poor and can't afford much."
Fang Gang sneered. "If I remember correctly, your cousin not only opened a jewelry factory but also a fruit processing factory. Why are all his friends a bunch of peasants? You wanna do a non profit business, do you. I'm not interested."
I panicked a little. I told him that my cousin had said he was willing to pay for all expenses. Fang Gang's eyes glittered, and the smile returned to his face. "Aiya! Why did you not tell me that in the first place? I don't care who pays, as long as there is money it's fine. You wait for my phone call. I will sort this out as soon as possible."
I thought to myself, my cousin was right. Fang Gang only sees money, not people. I bet he cared about cash more than his mother. After I returned home and recounted the ordeal with my cousin, he sighed. "Seems like that's how life is sometimes, ehh? You don't go look for trouble but trouble finds you. What a world, a kid playing games can bring home a dead spirit! How can we deal with this?"
"I am waiting for Fang Gang's reply. He said it's fine as long as we have money." I said. Cousin Wu looked a bit worried. "Look Tian, I don't know Fang Gang very well. I only know that he knows money better than kin. So, be careful, and don't get scammed by him!"
The next afternoon, Fang Gang rang. He told me that he contacted the achan already. This problem can be dealt with, but the process is very complicated. Because of the power of this amulet, someone must be the medium and attract the yinling from the person's body using a special spell, before sealing it back into the amulet. The amulet will then be returned to the achan who made it, and only this original achan could stabilize the bride yinling. This will cost around seventy thousand baht.
Seventy thousand baht is around fifteen thousand RMB, an astronomical amount of money even for us. There is no point to even ask Li, he would have to sell most of his organs. "How much do you want to make out of this?" Fang Gang asked.
I said I don't intend to make anything from this. Fang Gang scoffed, "Why do you not want to make anything?" he asked. "Are you not working?"
"Mr. Fang, this business is paid by my cousin. I don't think I should make money off him. After All, he covers everything from my stay to my food in Thailand. He is so good to me. I don't think I have the face to make money off him." I replied meekly.
Fang Gang burst out laughing. "This is what you don't understand about being a businessman. You cannot have any deficit. You have a deficit one time, you will have a deficit a hundred times. Even if you give back the earnings to your cousin in red packets, you must make revenue. Get it?"
I didn't really understand Fang Gang's kind of thinking. He told me to put the price at a hundred thousand baht and he will buy me a seafood dinner later. I was not happy. 'Seafood is so cheap in Thailand, did you really think I needed you to buy me dinner? 'I thought to myself.
I called up Li. Of course, he couldn't afford it, telling me that he sent all the savings home to buy medicine for his aging parents. He asked sheepishly if he could pay thirty thousand baht and borrow the rest from Mr. Wu. He said he will pay him back as soon as possible.
At lunch, I mentioned this to my cousin. "If you can completely solve the problem, I can lend money to Li and have him pay back slowly. But you be careful okay? Don't get scammed by Fang Gang." he reminded me.
After lunch, Cousin Wu took out eighty thousand baht. Seventy thousand is for Li, and ten thousand is for me as my labour payment. That night, when I drove to Li's house and told them that my cousin had paid the seventy thousand baht for them, the Li couple cried. Yong stood behind them timidly, not understanding what had happened.
I called Fang Gang, telling him that the payment was ready. "Very good, young man. Now I see you are a skilled businessman, unlike me who has to deal with incessant soft-heart bargainers. Transfer me the money tomorrow and I will arrange the meeting as soon as possible."
The next morning, I went to the bank to transfer the money. In the afternoon, I received an email. It was a scroll of Thai with phonetic Chinese pinyin marked on top and a sound file. The email said that the pinyin is the pronunciation for the spell and the sound file is the correct pronunciation recorded by the achan. The email says that we need to find our own medium, memorize this spell, and complete the spirit guidance with instructions from the Achan.
I was pissed and immediately called him. "A hundred thousand Baht and all I get is a bunch of random characters? Why didn't you ask the Achan to send a disciple to assist us? "
Fang Gang sneered, "I knew you would nag. What? You think you are my daddy just because you threw some cash at me? Aiya! Just relax. I will come to Rayong to direct you through the procedure."
"While you're here, why don't you be the medium." I snapped, at which Fang Gang laughed and said that that service was another hundred thousand baht. I was sure that if Fang Gang had a knife he would be standing over me emptying out my wallet as we spoke, but he was willing to come to Rayong to help me and I am not going to refuse any help I can get.
The next day, Fang Gang arrived in Rayong, still driving that old pickup truck. I thought it was strange for him to drive such an old car, since people said Amulet dealers make a lot of money. Fang Gang has been working in Thailand for well over ten years, he must have made at least enough to live in a good neighbourhood and have a decent car. Why does he still drive such a beater, I wondered? But, then again, I hadn't seen any sports cars on the streets of Thailand. There were a few high end BMW and Audi sedans, but that was only in Bangkok. Most other vehicles were the more simple, low end Japanese models, and those were far overshadowed by the swarms of scooters and motorcycles flooding the streets like locusts.
Fang Gang, being an expert on reading people, looked at me then back at his pickup. "Japanese cars are more cost efficient and easier to maintain. Pickup trucks can hold lots of merchandise in the back and can even pull large buddha statues." he said, smiling.
I noticed three eccentric amulets hanging on the windshield of his car. The first one looked like a chain of Star Moon Bodhi, but held a golden amulet with a spider on it. The second one was a silver chain with an amulet that looked more like a mosquito coil than a piece of jewelry, and the third one was even more strange. It was a small bottle that held some sort of yellow liquid in which floated a couple holding each other. The male one of the two had a long red stick under his waist, thicker than his leg and which pierced through the female's leg.
After we walked into my cousin's yard, Fang Gang made curt greetings with Cousin Wu who was on his way out for work, then we sat down in the yard and chatted over a glass of fresh papaya juice. I had a lot of questions for Fang Gang because I still felt I had a lot to learn about Thai Culture, Kumanthong, and Ghost Babies. Fang Gang focused mostly on himself, talking about his background in Huizhou, China. He had been in Southeast Asia for over ten years, and worked in a wide range of professions, even trying his hand at being a pimp and drug dealer, anything to get by. But after a while he found his calling: The amulet business after being introduced by an associate who was… indebted to him. The amulet business turned out to be a lot less risky, a lot more profitable, and more people got to keep their fingers on their hands and their heads on their shoulders. Many Asians recognized the power of amulets. You see most Asian celebrities wearing them, and some even own thousands, collecting them like a child would collect Pokemon. It is a big market.