Fang Xiang

This is both a work of science fiction and an exploration of the meaning of life, love, literature and art. Brainpower is no longer the main ingredient for being human in this far distant future world.  Spirituality, physical balance, and diligence all come together as integrity for Chen Mu, the Card Apprentice.  The cards which Chen Mu masters in his own scrappy way, distill all the powers of the cosmos –  human and nonhuman –  into something that is not a book, not technology, and neither art nor magic, but is these and more.  Learn about these strange cards, which can embody everything you might imagine for the future of technology, but also a future beyond technology which promotes the best, and sometimes the worst, from mankind’s past.

The Card Apprentice

<p>"Why don't you think it over a little more, Yanbai?" Zhi Lian sighed lightly. Jie Yanbai wasn't that highly valued at the school; if it weren't for having good relations with Mi Xiaqing, his situation in the Central Repository of the Classics would probably have been still worse. That could be seen from the Rouged Finger legacy he'd studied, which wasn't more than a perfectly ordinary legacy.</p>

<p>But, in fact, Madam Zhi Lian had always been rather critical toward the so-called direct line of legacies who studied directly under the master. It was just that it hadn't been such an issue previously when Qiao Yuan and the rest had been there. Now, following the deaths of Qiao Yuan and Mi Xiaqing, and with an aging and frustrated master, the Central Repository of the Classics had been suddenly plunged into a situation approaching a crisis.</p>

Doing a Little Regrouping