Wang Xiaoliang sat beneath the light in the study, his little notebook spread open, his pen moving steadily across the paper. He copied slowly, stroke by stroke, as though carving.
Wei Zijin read slowly and carefully. She let Wang Xiaoliang finish reading an art before he copied another page, deliberately pausing in between. Wang Xiaoliang waited for her too. As they pored over the words together, exchanging their thoughts, they gained more from them.
With the final stroke, he closed the little notebook.
He turned to a fresh page in the Book of Fate.
[The methods of Fate Alteration have all been imparted to you. If you have learned them, mastered them, and adapted them, then congratulations: your fate has changed. Should you possess other methods surpassing those recorded in this volume, carefully record them herein to increase your good fortune.]
Put plainly: all the methods of Fate Changing had been given to you. Once you had studied them, understood them, learned to use them, and applied them flexibly, your fate counted as changed. If you could devise methods beyond those in this book, all the better. Please write them at the back of this book; they could increase your good fortune.
He turned another page.
The handwriting had changed, and even the ink marks were visibly different. Clearly, they had not been written by the same person. Judging by the previous page, these were methods of Fate Changing that a reader of the Book of Fate had worked out, distinct from those already in the book.
[To hold joy ever in one's heart is the highest ability for bearing heaven's mandate.]
Wang Xiaoliang read the line twice.
Only by keeping joy in your heart could you bear this so-called "heaven's mandate." If you spent every