Shen Zhizhai said with feeling, "A Grand Fate Arts Master is indeed a Grand Fate Arts Master. If Grand Fate Arts Masters thought the same way we ordinary people do, then this world would be finished."
Li Qingxian said, "On the contrary, every Grand Fate Arts Master is an utterly ordinary person. There is no distinction between ordinary and extraordinary. People are all the same."
"This old man does not understand," Shen Zhizhai said.
"In the Yuanhai Notes, a disciple once asked what distinguished Grand Fate Arts Masters from ordinary Fate Arts Masters. Do you remember how Xu Yuanhai answered?"
"I remember. It was rather vulgar. Master Yuan Hai said: eat when there is food, fart when there is gas—that is the difference between Grand Fate Arts Masters and ordinary Fate Arts Masters. Yet it seems I understand, and it also seems I do not."
"Master Yuan Hai's words were neither knowledge nor action, but knowing what one knows and doing what one does. A Grand Fate Arts Master is not extraordinary, but has returned to the purest form of ordinary. Let us take today's matter as an example. Elder Shen asked what methods should be used if the disciples were members of Heaven's Mandate Sect. Now, let us suppose that every one of us lived alone on a deserted island. From the day we were born, no one harmed us, no one restrained us, and no one taught us Fate Arts. We simply grew up alone, able to eat our fill and keep warm, living reasonably well."
Everyone listened quietly.
"Very well. Now, while fishing at sea, you are blown by the wind to Gold and Silver Island. You see all sorts of people on the island. You know they are not living well, and they themselves feel they