Yu Ke's mind raced, his thoughts in turmoil.
The choices from earlier simulations surged back like a tide. Master Dong, whom the prompts had mentioned again and again, was the one who had plotted all of this from behind the scenes.
As Xie Guan's first teacher in this life, Master Dong had given him many Confucian School classics before he came of age. Many had shaped him profoundly.
For that reason, Xie Guan held Master Dong in deep respect.
There had also been the Second Master's calligraphy copybook. Without Master Dong's gift, Xie Guan would never have had the chance to "fish characters from the lake" at Grand Vista Courtyard, much less encountered the fortunes tied to Lu Hua and the Three Truths Lineage.
Yet when news finally came, Master Dong had died at home from excessive drinking.
Several choices had been triggered for Xie Guan over that death, and every one had pointed toward Master Dong.
Yu Ke had never imagined that the man secretly watching everything behind today's banquet was Master Dong himself.
Master Dong had long been watching Xie Guan in secret.
Yu Ke had a faint suspicion about the man's identity.
The old man on the carriage spoke slowly, a hint of ruefulness in his voice.
He sounded like any ordinary elder.
"This is the first time we've truly met."
Yu Ke nodded. Faced with a figure like this, he did not panic.
After all!
To him, this world was like flowers in a mirror and the moon reflected in water—illusory and impossible to grasp.
Even if this old man was the person Yu Ke suspected.
In Yu Ke's senses, he was like a fathomless black hole, his cultivation so high it defied measure.
The instant Yu Ke's divine sense touched the old man, it vanished