in Minli’s head. As they search, they come upon the goldfish man, who listens to their troubles and tells them his story. When he was a teenager, he learned that he was going to die young. He spoke to the Old Man of the Moon, who changed the Book of Fortune to give him ninety-nine years of life instead of nineteen. The goldfish man says that Minli, too, may be able to change her fortune. Ma and Ba say that Minli is too little to do such a thing. “Perhaps…you need to trust her,” the goldfish man says.

Ma and Ba camp in the forest, and Ba tells the story of a greedy magistrate who tried to steal the secret of happiness from a poor but otherwise perfect family. The elder of the family gave up the secret readily. He wrote a single word on a sheet of paper, but the magistrate’s soldiers lost it on the way home. When the magistrate heard about this, he decided that the family must have been trying to trick him. He resolved to kill them for this impertinence, but when he and his army arrived at their house, they had mysteriously disappeared. At the end of the story, Ba says that he thinks nobody is meant to find Minli, just as the magistrate was not meant to find the paper that explained the secret of happiness.

Still following the goldfish’s instructions, Minli sets out for the City of Bright Moonlight. She is supposed to find the city’s Guardian and ask for something called “the borrowed line.” She assumes that the Guardian is the king, so she leaves Dragon in the forest outside the city and goes in alone. She meets an orphan boy who lives alone with only a water buffalo for company, and she tells him that she needs to see the king. The boy finds out that the king is supposed to appear in the Market of Green Abundance. He takes Minli there, and she tries to give him the one copper coin she has left. The boy laughs and refuses to accept it. Minli watches him go, feeling puzzled that he is so happy. His fortune is even poorer than hers, but he does not seem discontent.

While waiting in the Market of Green Abundance, Minli spends her coin buying a peach for a beggar. She notices that he is wearing a piece of golden dragon jewelry, and she follows him. It turns out he is not a beggar at all, but the king in disguise. He allows Minli to eat with him in his castle, and she tells him her story. When she explains that she needs something called the borrowed line, the king shows her a magical sheet of paper his family has owned for generations. The single line of text upon it is usually unreadable, but sometimes during historically important moments, the words are intelligible—and they always say something different. This time, it says, “You only lose what you cling to.” After thinking this over, the king decides that giving the paper to Minli is the only way to avoid losing it. Unable to believe her luck, Minli accepts the paper from him.

While Minli has this adventure, Dragon waits outside the city. He speaks to a stone statue of a lion, who explains that he is the Guardian of the city. They have a line of red thread that was once given to them by the Old Man of the Moon, who told them to keep it until it was needed. Dragon realizes that this must be the borrowed line, so he tells them about Minli. The stone lion gives the thread to Dragon.

When Dragon and Minli reunite, each is surprised to learn that the other has found a borrowed line. Neither is sure which line is the one they need, so they decide this is another question for the Old Man of the Moon. They travel onward, and after an encounter with a vicious tiger, they meet the family that used to be famous for its perfect happiness. A-Fu and Da-Fu, twins who are a bit younger than Minli, explain that a vicious magistrate once planned to kill the whole family out of jealousy over their happiness. However, at the last moment, the Old Man of the Moon transported the family magically to a new home, where they continue to live—poor but content—today.

Da-Fu and A-Fu lead Minli to Never-Ending Mountain, where the Old Man of the Moon is said to live. She invites them to come with her to see the Old Man, but they laugh and say, “Why would we want to change our fortune?” Minli is left to ponder these words as she flies a kite—made of both the paper and the thread from the City of Bright Moonlight—into the sky. The kite magically transforms itself into a rope bridge, but it is too thin to carry Dragon. Minli realizes she has to go on alone, but before she leaves, she promises to ask Dragon’s question for him.

At the top of the bridge, Minli finds the Old Man of the Moon sitting in the center of a large room full of small clay figures. Each figure tied to the next with the fine red thread of fate. The Old Man explains that, once every ninety-nine years, someone comes to ask him a question. He tells her that she must hurry up and ask what she wants to know. He warns her that he only has time to answer one question.

Minli remains silent, absorbing this new information. She realizes that she cannot ask Dragon’s question—unless she chooses not to ask her own. As she debates what to do, she looks down at the Book of Fortune on the Old Man’s lap and sees that he has added in the paper she received from the king. The line written there has changed again. It says the word “thankfulness” over and over—and nothing else. Suddenly understanding what she needs to do, Minli asks the Old Man why Dragon cannot fly.

Back in their hut by Fruitless Mountain, Ma tells Ba a story. She describes a poor woman who was blessed with loving husband and a beautiful, happy daughter. Not understanding that she was rich in love, the woman—who is clearly Ma herself—only felt bitter about her poverty. She spent all her time wondering why she did not have more money and better food and prettier clothes. Seeing her mother’s unhappiness, the daughter grew discontented and went away to try to change her family’s fortune. Now the woman can see that she had fortune all along, but that she lost it when she lost her daughter. Ma sits down at Ba’s feet and says that it is not his fault Minli left, but hers. She says she is sorry.

Without even asking the Old Man of the Moon, Minli has come to understand why people like the buffalo boy and A-Fu and Da-Fu seemed so happy: they are thankful for what they have rather than bitter about what they do not. She returns to Dragon and, following the Old Man’s instructions, helps him pull a big, heavy bump off the top of his head. This allows him to fly, and he takes Minli back to Fruitless Mountain. When he lands, he says that he feels like he is home. There, he meets the first dragon he has ever seen, a female dragon with bright orange skin.

It is late at night when Minli tiptoes into her family’s hut and crawls into bed. In the morning, her parents are overjoyed that she is home. They rush to make her breakfast, and then Ba sees the bump from Dragon’s head, which Minli has brought home with her. He alone recognizes it as a dragon’s pearl, a treasure worth as much as the Emperor’s fortune. Amazed, Ma observes that the fortunes of the family have changed. Ba smiles and says that Minli’s return is the best fortune of all.

One year later, the goldfish man returns to the town at the base of Fruitless Mountain, and he cannot believe how much it has changed. The people and the houses look happy and prosperous. He remembers a story he has recently heard about a family from the area giving a dragon’s pearl to the king of the City of Bright Moonlight—who responded by bestowing the family’s whole town with generous gifts of seeds and equipment for farmers. The goldfish man asks a child in the street to direct him to Minli’s house. When he arrives, he is amazed to be greeted as an old friend. Many children are gathered there, and Ba is about to tell the story of Minli’s adventures. As the novel ends, the goldfish man glimpses Minli in a courtyard, looking up at the place “where the Mountain meets the moon.”