"What exactly does that mean?"
The surrounding noise abruptly ceased. In an instant, the bustling street froze—everything stood still, even Rachel Lan beside me. It was as if time itself had stopped.
000 wiped the strange smile off his face. He swept his fingers in a circle, gesturing at everything around us.
"You should understand by now. What’s happening inside you—it’s not me who created all this, but Lan Yin himself. I just want you to know, so there’s no reason for you to keep resisting. It won’t do you any good."
My heart was pounding, the sound like a clock striking inside my head. My mind went blank, buzzing. Ever since entering the Four Sacred Realm, everything had defied my expectations. But now, with the truth laid bare, I couldn’t help but think—I had never doubted Lan Yin.
"No, all of this..."
"You want to say it’s subconscious? That’s possible. But in this world, there are no coincidences—only the inevitabilities you haven’t noticed. When this place was still called the Four Sacred Realm, humans were strictly forbidden from entering. Even those from the Underworld weren’t allowed. Do you know why?"
I stared quietly at 000. He began to walk slowly, stopping beside a person. He patted the person on the shoulder—smack!—and the street’s abandoned soul instantly turned to dust, dissolving and vanishing. The black dust settled bit by bit into the ground and disappeared.
"Everything you see here is called ‘thought’. Dead faith becomes something like this. You should understand better than I do, Ethan Zhang."
A surge of anger welled up in my chest. Lan Yin’s image in my mind began to darken, as if ink were slowly coloring him in.