The Fate Master is an urban-life long web novel by the web author He Changzai (real name Cui Hao), serialized on Chuangshi Chinese from February 23, 2014, completed in February 2015, totaling about 1.42 million characters and more than 460 chapters. The story takes the folk system of fate reading as its skeleton: one who reads with an iron mouth and predicts a person's prospects is a physiognomist; one who reads with a bronze mouth and determines a person's wealth is a fortune master; one who reads with a golden mouth and changes a person's fate is a fate master. The young Shi De, having failed in business and lost family and friends, once thinks of ending his life, and in the Hui Che Lane of the thousand-year-old city of Shancheng he happens to meet an old man in white, with the white hair and childlike face of a sage, named He Zitian. He Zitian sees at a glance his fate pattern of "six parts fate, four parts luck" and his death-bound situation, and trades a meal for a promise from him, becoming thereafter the guide in his fate. Shi De, a materialist graduate of a prestigious university who believes in no fortune-telling or physiognomy, learns in one seemingly accidental yet carefully arranged encounter after another the skills of reading people, observing qi, and discerning circumstance, and from an ordinary man with no power or influence among the people he is gradually drawn into the tangled interests among two great hermits and three major factions, becoming a "hidden master" who moves winds and rains beyond officialdom and the business world yet is known to no one. Through the divergence between "defying Heaven to change fate" and "following Heaven to change fate," the novel discusses the relation between personal effort and the law of fate, and between cause and effect and balance: fate can be changed, but not seized by force; luck can be contested, but the original heart must not be lost. The work shares a source with the author's later print series Sheng Suan and is one of the more representative of his political-business writings.
何常在写都市小说，长处不在飞天遁地的奇观，而在“人情世故”四个字。他做过记者、进过机关，见惯了台面下的推手与台面上的体面，《命师》正是把这种观察放进了“命师”这个半玄学的壳子里。书里没有真正的法术和异能，所谓断命、改运，落到具体情节上都是识人、布局、把握时机：高人不替主角安排工作，只带他去公园走一圈，让他自己结识关键人物；贵人递一句话，胜过十次请托。这种写法让“都市异能”读起来更像一门手艺的修炼史，节奏是生意场上的你来我往，落点是“心底无私天地宽”的处世观。全书四十余万字的重心在前期：施得从落魄到入门的心境转变写得颇有质感，碧悠等人物也立得住。中后段派系纷争铺得较开，主线偶尔被支线拖慢，若论结构完整，作者后来重写改版的《胜算》更收敛。作为早期网文，章末常有求票、求收藏的作者附言，读时可略过。适合喜欢“智商在线”的都市故事、又不想被爽文节奏绑架的读者。
He Changzai, whose real name is Cui Hao, was born in Handan, Hebei Province, in 1976. He is a member of the China Writers Association, vice chairman of the Hebei Writers Association, and chairman of the Hebei Internet Writers Association. He has long focused on social fiction and business-war themes. The library holds nine of his works, most notably the Wending series, including Wending: The Road from Grassroots Civil Servant to Provincial Party Secretary, Wending Ji, Wending 3: Competing Among Heroes, Wending 4: Looking Far from a Height, Wending 5: Forging Ahead, Wending 6: Soaring Ambitions, and Wending 7: Beyond the Mountains. His writing is known for realistic business fiction, emphasizing characters' growth and choices amid workplace and social change, with solid narratives close to real life that have drawn reader attention. Public information is limited, and details of his early life and writing are not recorded in the library.
