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I caught this phrase in a Chinese novel. Based on my understanding, the literal translation would be "The law of asking and discussing Heaven", which sounds really clumsy and lengthy. Is there any comfortable translation for this?

Thanks to user6065 commenting below, I decided to go with "Principles of Heaven", which sounds best imo. Feel free to reply if you have a better one.

Edit: This was just a name taken from a novel. The full paragraph is:

“这本《天论问宪》我花了一个月时间才看完，其中道理讲的都好，可唯独‘以德报怨’这四个字，我万万不能苟同！”罗征轻声低语，看着豆丁大的灯焰，脸上透出哀伤的神色：“若不是父亲宅心仁厚，信了这四个字，我长房一脉也不会落到如此下场，父亲更加不会死去……”

which I translated as:

“A month reading this ‘Principles of Heaven’, all of the principles are great. But only these four words – ‘repay cruelty with kindness’ – I absolutely cannot agree with!” Luo Zheng whispered softly to himself. Staring at the bean-sized flame of the lamp, his face revealed a sad expression: “Had my father not been kind, not believed those words, how could I, the main house’s direct bloodline, have fallen into such a situation? And he – he wouldn’t have died...”

The novel name is 百炼成神. I'm trying to make an English translation that is comfortable to the native. How is the translation? Is it fluent, correct to the meaning or something else? I would be really thankful if someone could make a nice title out of this. As of now I was planning to name it "Refining to God", which lacks a lot of meanings imo, but sounds rather nice.

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  • bkrs： 天论 I论天，论述天道。 II犹天理。 baike:《论语》是孔子及其弟子的言行记录，其中第十四篇《宪问》就是孔子的弟子原宪与孔子的对话。
    – user6065
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 17:09
  • Ugh, could you write these in English? Thanks in advance.
    – Hiếu
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 17:13
  • bkrs： 天论 I论天，论述天道。discussing natural law， heavenly law II犹天理。 esp。 heavenly principles; moral principles∶ baike:《论语》是孔子及其弟子的言行记录，其中第十四篇《宪问》就是孔子的弟子原宪与孔子的对话。《论语》 is a record of (records) words and deeds of 孔子 and his followers, of which article 14 《宪问》 is the dialogue between 孔子 and his disciple 原宪 (see web)
    – user6065
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 17:26
  • You have no answers. Obviously, what you posted is insufficient. Write at least the whole sentence, better the paragraph. The meaning will then become decipherable.
    – Pedroski
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 11:45
  • web search with 罗征轻声低语: 百炼成神 One hundred tempered gods yuedu.baidu.com/ebook/… ,（恩赐解脱所著玄幻类网络小说） baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BE%E7%82%BC%E6%88%90%E7%A5%9E/…
    – user6065
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 22:14

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I have a complex feeling about Chinese trashy-novel "fever" in the West...
OK, time for the answer.
Translating literature is far beyond correctness. I'm not an expert, so I'd just bring you some suggestions.
For the title:
Thousand Miles To Become A God
Although a thousand is ten hundreds, the meaning of this title is not away from the original one.
For name of the book:
I don't know if the book appears more than once in this novel, but if it doesn't, it will still be fine even if we just name it by our instinct. By my observation, most authors of this kind of novels don't really care about proper names.
On Heavenly Principles
宪 has the meaning of "principle" as in 宪法 (constitution).

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