"This is the true face of Physiognomy."
"Something even more impressive is telling people how to avoid disaster. That means giving them a method... or telling them outright what they should do. That's another concept altogether.
"For example... reminding you to head west to avoid disaster and telling you outright which place in the west you should go to... those are different. There's a fundamental distinction;
"Telling you to burn incense and telling you to burn three sticks of incense are also very different. Can you understand it when I put it that way?"
Li Chenglong looked grave. "I understand."
"Let's take another example... if you were the Heavenly Dao, and someone's fortune was deficient during a certain period, resulting in a life-or-death crisis, but someone gave him guidance and he weathered that crisis safely, how would you deal with that life-or-death crisis?"
Li Chenglong knitted his brows. "Could it simply be withdrawn?"
"Perhaps it could, but would the Heavenly Dao withdraw it for someone who, in its eyes, was an utterly insignificant nobody?"
"Probably not. Heaven and earth are without benevolence; they regard all things as straw dogs!" Li Chenglong's expression grew distant. He had already begun to dimly grasp what Zuo Xiaoduo meant.
"No need to get so sentimental. I'm only illustrating with an example. Back to the question: would that life-or-death crisis remain unresolved? Like a blade already swung-the person beneath it is gone, but the blade hasn't been drawn back. Then where is the blade, and where will it land?"
"The blade is in the air, and where it will land is undecided?"
"Even if the blade is in the air, it will fall sooner or later. There will always be somewhere for it to land, and there will now be two people who might take