I’m Danny, half-Brit, half-hope, all skint. I bought the fourth floor of 66 Stone Nullah Lane because the agent swore the number meant “everything flows.” What flowed was the toilet, the roof, and my bank balance. For three months no tenant lasted more than a week; they all said the flat felt “heavy,” like someone standing on their chest. I told myself it was just summer humidity and bad luck, but the agent whispered one word: feng shui.

Now, I can’t read Chinese, but I can read desperation. I googled “fast feng-shui hacks,” and the same tip popped up everywhere: hang a round mirror facing the door to bounce the sha chi—killer energy—right back out. Amazon same-day delivered a ten-dollar “bagua” mirror, plastic frame painted gold, made in somewhere that probably also makes Happy Meal toys. I whacked it above the letterbox with a rusty nail and waited for miracles.

Next morning the hallway smelled like incense and wet dog. The mirror was cracked, a single hairline running top to bottom, but I’d never heard it smash. Whatever, I thought, still counts as reflective. I snapped a pic for Instagram—#beforeandafter #goodvibes—then went downstairs to spam potential renters.

That night I slept on an air-mattress in the empty flat because my own lease was up and I was too cheap for a hotel. At 3:07 a.m. something pulled the blanket off me, slow and deliberate, like a butler who hates his boss. I sat up, heart doing drum-n-bass, and saw the mirror glowing, the crack shining brighter than the ceiling bulb. In the split glass I wasn’t alone: a woman in a cheongsam stood behind me, her hair dripping rainwater though the sky outside was clear. She lifted her hand and pointed at the floor.

I spun around—nobody. When I looked back the mirror was normal again, just me looking like a guy who hasn’t slept since the Handover. I told myself it was jet-lag hallucination, but I still dragged the mattress into the stairwell like a coward.

Next day the building’s mop-wielding auntie, Mrs. Chan, cornered me. She jabbered in Cantonese, then in broken English: “Mirror wrong side. You invited, not repel.” She drew a little picture in spilled mop water: door on the left, mirror on the right, arrow going in instead of out. I laughed—superstitious old lady—then realized she was the only neighbour who hadn’t called me gwai lo behind my back, so maybe worth listening.

I flipped the mirror around so the reflective side faced the wall, basically the opposite of every website tip. That night nothing tugged my blanket, but the temperature dropped until my breath fogged. I heard slippers shuffling across the cement, each step matching the drip of the leaking pipe. A voice, soft and gurgling like water down a clogged drain, said, “Return.” I answered, stupidly, “Return what?” The word echoed back, louder, inside my skull: “RETURN.”

I ran out at dawn, found Mrs. Chan smoking downstairs. She took me to Temple Street where an old man in round glasses sold me a chipped ceramic bowl and three sticks of incense for fifty US—tourist price, but I was past haggling. “Put bowl under mirror, burn incense, say sorry, then seal crack with red string,” he instructed. “After sunrise, throw mirror into harbour. Never look back.”

Back at the flat I followed the recipe: bowl, incense, apology that sounded like a bad Tinder break-up text. I tied the crack with red Christmas ribbon nicked from the lobby trash. The mirror hissed, actual steam curling out of the fracture. For a second the woman’s face appeared again, sad rather than angry, and I swear she mouthed, “Thank you.” The glass went dark, like someone switched off a TV.

I yanked the mirror off the wall, marched to the Star Ferry, and hurled it into the grey water. It spun, caught the sunrise, then sank. No splash, almost polite. My phone buzzed immediately: a text from a viewer who’d seen the flat that morning—wanted to sign a two-year lease, no haggling. I stared at the screen, then at the harbour, half expecting the mirror to float back up like a horror-movie boomerang. Nothing but plastic bottles and salty chopsticks.

Lease signed, rent flowing, I finally googled the building’s history: 66 Stone Nullah Lane, built 1966, number 4 means death, number 66 means double death—great branding. A seamstress hanged herself in ’73 after her lover left; the next owner went bankrupt; the one after vanished. Each time the flat stayed empty exactly forty-nine days, the length of a “hungry ghost” month, until some foreign sucker (me) broke the cycle with a ten-dollar mirror.

I kept Mrs. Chan on payroll as unofficial property manager. She burns incense in the stairwell every Friday, mumbles stuff I don’t understand. The tenant pays on time, claims the place feels “light,” like sunshine after rain. I never told him what happened; I just raised the rent politely and fixed the toilet.

Sometimes, crossing the harbour on the ferry, I see a little golden circle glinting far below and wonder if the mirror’s still down there, crack sealed by salt, bouncing something back and forth between worlds. Then the boat horn blows, the city skyline blinks, and I remember the first rule of real estate: location, location, superstition. Just don’t hang cheap mirrors, and if aunties warn you, maybe—just maybe—listen.