到头来只是玩笑一场
[dào tóu lái zhĭ shì wán xiào yī chăng]
'Dao Tou Lai Zhi Shi Wen Jue Yi Chang' means 'In the end it was just a joke.' This reflects a sense of disillusionment or disappointment that something which seemed significant turned out to be trivial in retrospect. It expresses a melancholic acceptance of how events played out.