"I wonder if you are right about that. In some ways, I'd have to agree. Elves believe in Fate, and I suspect that I was always destined to live the life I lived. But at the very end of my life, I seized control and chose a different path. You are strong, Xue Yang, and maybe it takes more than one attempt to alter your fate, or maybe the different path is the one you are walking now, in this new life."

It did seem that Fate might have been playing with Xue Yang when it allowed him and Xingchen to be friends. And yet, to have that memory -- maybe that is part of the new path.