The thought turned everything I knew upside down.
Yet everything I had experienced had felt so real, so real...
As I struggled with my emotions, the passage my grandmaster had left me surfaced in my mind:
"Ordinary people are clear-eyed, while I alone am muddled. Ordinary people are discerning, while I alone am dull."
The literal meaning had been translated word by word hundreds of times already: the world was shrewd, while I seemed dazed and ignorant; the world fussed over every detail, while I alone seemed honest and unpolished.
Those were the original words from the Dao De Jing. Even if they were translated a hundred times, that was still what they meant.
But in this moment, it felt as though I had gained some insight from those words.
But to prove that this was an illusion, I still needed confirmation.
I looked at Hass, the Black Shaman before me, in agony and asked hoarsely,
"If I die, Xiao Yu will kill you. She'll raze all of Tatar."
The moment I finished speaking, Hass tightened his grip around my hands.
"Ah..."
The pain sank into my bones, and cold sweat poured from me.
"Hahaha! The Xiao Yu you speak of is just like you—a mere chess piece in the hands of those important figures!
Tonight, you will meet your end here once and for all."
"Ke ke ke..."
With that, he kicked me in the stomach.
"Pfft!" I spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed helplessly to the ground.
The pain intensified, sweeping through my entire body.
Yet I laughed.
"Hahaha! Fake... So it was all fake."
"Fake? What's fake?"
Hass, the Black Shaman, asked.
But I ignored him completely, even as I felt endless pain.
I recited the words my grandmaster had left me:
"Ordinary people are