"That Ye boy could divine your fate precisely because you are 'his' successor, not 'him' himself. The closeness of those ties and the weight of their karma are the keys to divination. If a diviner cannot even see through such connections, how could he dare claim to glimpse heaven's secrets?"
Lu Changfeng understood a little more, yet grew even more puzzled. "Then what exactly is divination? Does everything in this world truly follow a course fixed from the very beginning?"
"Fixed? Not so."
Yuan Tiangang shook his head slightly and turned his gaze toward the murmuring stream. "Look at this water. It flows here from its source, seemingly along a fixed channel. This is its 'momentum,' much like a person's innate destiny."
"But in the next instant, will a falling rock divert it, or will a fierce gust whip it into waves? Divination is not peering at a predetermined course. It is observing the water's 'momentum' and deducing where it is most likely to flow under the present conditions."
"All things between heaven and earth are constantly moving and changing, producing countless 'signs.' Cracks in tortoise shells, arrangements of yarrow stalks, shifts of the stars, even your every word and deed-all are 'signs.'"
"We diviners interpret these 'signs' in conjunction with the 'Dao' governing heaven and earth to deduce the most likely outcome of interwoven currents of qi. This is observing signs and pondering their judgments, inferring heaven's principles to understand human affairs."
"And so..."
Yuan Tiangang concluded, "A divination reveals the greatest likelihood, not the only possible outcome. Destiny is like this stream's source and general direction-a 'constant.' But your every thought, every choice, even every person you encounter, is a 'variable.' Constants establish the framework; variables decide the details. This is the true face of heaven's secrets."
Understanding