The Amazing Art of Changing Fate

Eleven o'clock at night, Liucheng.

A poor student gives up his place by a taxi to an old man leaning on a cane. The old man slips him a yellowed ancient book, then turns and disappears into the night.

The next day, he realizes it was no coincidence.

A book called The Marvelous Art of Changing Fate turns him into someone who can "see" things:

One glance at a shop's layout tells him the owner is lying in the ICU;

One feel of a patient's pulse tells him they have been struck by an evil force, not an illness;

At a dinner party, six bosses take turns humiliating him. He smiles, sips his tea, and says a few words, laying bare one by one the dirty secrets each of them has hidden for years, secrets even their bedmates never suspected.

But the more he divines, the more afraid he becomes.

Because the readings tell him:

His father’s fall down the mountain was a false alarm, the result of an absurd misunderstanding;

Hidden in the ceiling above the district party secretary’s office is a tiny coffin pointing to an old grudge from six years ago;

A village Taoist priest has chosen the wrong time for a funeral, intending to trade the lives of everyone in the village for money.

And every clue he passes along eventually leads to the same name: Jinding.

More terrifying still is the origin of the ancient book.

The old man who gave it to him has lived for 186 years.

His senior fellow disciples control a colossal enterprise whose boss has not been seen by anyone in 136 years.

And the third senior brother, expelled from their sect, is using the very arts he taught him to plot his death.

Mystic arts can change fate, but they can also take a life.