“Alas! Heaven has brought me low! Heaven has brought me low!”
These were Confucius’s final words. The seventy-three-year-old sage lay on his sickbed, looking at his disciples kneeling around the room, the flickering candlelight reflected in his cloudy eyes. Zigong was crying, Yan Hui was crying, and even Zilu, who was usually so tough, was secretly wiping away tears.
“Don’t cry...” Confucius tried to raise a hand, but found he no longer had the strength. “My Way... has been passed on...”
Before he could finish, an unprecedented feeling of ease swept through him. He felt himself floating up, looking down at the old body below and watching his disciples rush forward, wailing in grief. Strangely, he felt no sadness. Instead, there was a sense of relief, as if he had been set free.
Then darkness fell.
“Hey, hey, hey! Wake up! Stop pretending to be dead!”
A grating voice yanked Confucius out of the void. He suddenly opened his eyes and found himself floating in a starry sky, facing a... difficult-to-describe being. It looked like a contorted mass of light and shadow, shifting between a human shape and some indescribable geometric form. Most bizarre of all, a line of glowing text floated above its head: [Mr. Universe VIP 12].
“Who are you?” Confucius instinctively used his sleeve to cover his face. This was the etiquette prescribed by the Rites of Zhou when confronted with an unknown being.
“Pfft, ha ha ha!” The mass of light and shadow laughed so hard it rolled around. “You’re still saying ‘Who are you?’ Old Kong, you’re my new player now!”
