On a summer night, Yang Renzhu climbed to the third floor of the Mystic Star Pavilion and turned to ask him, *"People's fates are predetermined and unchangeable, aren't they?"*
Bai Changming ignored the human despair and sorrow in his voice, instead offering a mysterious smile and a slow nod.
This was what he believed. When he first arrived in this foreign world, he had gathered information on Yang Renzhu while earning his keep by telling fortunes. He had analyzed no fewer than a thousand fate charts, and in each one, the major events of a person's life were locked in place as if carved in stone. The Eight Characters and the Grand Cycles were like roads and rivers, while individuals were merely fish swimming in the current—no matter how fiercely they struggled, they could never escape the river of destiny. And most people, muddling through life in a daze, never even realized the water existed.
In any case, decades passed in the blink of an eye, and fate, whether kind or merciless, would carry everyone to their destined end. This was how he viewed people, and this was how he viewed fate.
He had no intention of being a ferryman, nor did he possess any particular compassion. If sacrificing half the population of this world could open a path back to Saher City, he would not hesitate to do so.
But occasionally, he encountered individuals who defied the rules.
The young woman before him was no more than twenty-three or twenty-four. Yet when he examined her fate chart, half of her life diverged sharply from what the Grand Cycles dictated.
In a year governed by the *Three Harmonies Seal*, she should have been enrolled in studies—yet in reality, she had delayed her education by a year. Conversely, during a *Wealth Shatters Seal* calamity year, she had excelled academically. Her chart showed a solitary, unbroken *Official Star*, and in the *Gui Mao* year, when the *Official Star* emerged and resonated with her Grand Cycle, any halfway competent fortune-teller would have predicted romantic prospects, or at the very least, a career breakthrough. Yet not only had she abandoned her studies that year to travel, but she also remained single to this day, with almost no romantic entanglements—rejecting every suitor her parents introduced.
Bai Changming couldn't help but take a deep breath.
*"Master, I read in a book that just a few characters can determine a person's fate. I found it fascinating, so I came to seek your guidance. Would you enlighten me?"*
The woman's face was lovely, her eyes clear, her voice like the cheerful chime of a spring. There was no accusation in her words, yet they left Bai Changming at a loss.
She introduced herself as Xi Xuerong, from the watery south of Qinan, born to a prosperous family. Her father was a prominent merchant, her mother a scholar with a passion for ancient texts and esoteric arts. At twenty-three, she had accompanied her father east to Liuzhou and was staying there temporarily.
Exploiting the gap in their knowledge, Bai Changming fed her a stream of vague, empty platitudes before sending her on her way. Once her back was turned, he cast a spell to read her memories. Her experiences matched what she had said—but before the age of thirteen, her life had followed her fate chart precisely. Delving deeper into her memories of that year, he found a two-week period that was completely blurred, as if sealed by magic. After that, the wheel of her fate had gradually veered off its predetermined course, becoming utterly unpredictable.
To be thorough, he secretly gathered information on her parents—their lives aligned closely with their own fate charts.
*How could such a strange thing exist?* Bai Changming closed shop early that day, utterly baffled. The woman's face lingered in his mind like an unsolved riddle.
*Did she know the operating rules of this world? Had she grasped some law akin to fate calculation?*
The word *"player"* flashed through Bai Changming's mind.
Time flew. Later, as usual, he threw himself into the pursuit of power and rank, paying no further attention to Xi Xuerong. Her memory gradually faded into the background.
Though he was naturally brilliant, capable of inferring the whole from a single detail, his initial unfamiliarity with this world had still led to setbacks—even sacrifices.
Before his anger could fully dissolve into emptiness, it had once dulled his own pain. He was his own blade, with nothing to lose and nothing to cherish.
Pushing back the sleeve of his white robe, he revealed the skin of his left arm—where a half-arm-length scar, dark and faint, traced its mark.