When Garvin heard Li Wei's strangely familiar warning, his thoughts couldn't help drifting back to the long talk he'd had with Boss that night after the turmoil at Water-Drawing City's harbor years ago.
Boss had suffered from problems similar to his own, and had once proposed a theory of entropy increase.
And the warning Boss had given him that night remained as vivid as ever—spoken as though to Garvin, yet also as though warning himself:
"Don't rush. Things may be difficult for us right now, but the road ahead is still long. So don't be hasty in making decisions—especially decisions made amid temptation or in a moment of impulse."
"While you're young, try more things and build up more experience. Only then, when you reach a point where you must choose, will there be more options laid out before you—and among them, perhaps, an option that leads to a Happy End."
"Rather than having no choice, being forced into it, or finding yourself at the end of the road."
"Garvin, do you know why most people who get rich overnight eventually fall back into poverty, often ending miserably?"
"I once heard a saying: the chips you win through luck will sooner or later be lost back through skill. I think that makes a great deal of sense."
"So don't become a gambler lightly. Even when there isn't a better choice, make sure you have sufficient odds of winning before you go in."
"Gambling when you have nothing and gambling when you hold a hand full of king bombs are not the same thing.
"The former is called gambling with your life. The latter is called management."
"I may be going into slumber soon. If you encounter a difficulty you can't solve, wait for me—wait until I wake up."
Yet in