Silence. Eerie silence. So silent that only the sounds of breathing and heartbeat remained.
When Cheng Shi's consciousness flooded back, his first thought wasn't where he was — but what the Fun God was up to now.
Why had He thrown him into the mirror?
For a fleeting mont, Cheng Shi even wondered whether the Fun God he'd just seen was actually [mory] in disguise. Otherwise, he truly couldn't fathom why He'd use him to swap for the Dragon King.
Was this a rescue — or imprisonnt?
It surely couldn't be a "reward"...
With that doubt lingering, Cheng Shi slowly opened his eyes. A sliver of faint light squeezed through his eyelids first, followed by a cascade of intricate engravings filling his vision.
The strange patterns were deeply familiar. He imdiately recognized them as identical to the etchings on the back and fra of That Dream My Nightmare — just magnified countless tis over.
Recalling how the mirror had rushed at him monts ago, he wondered: could there be an even larger mirror inside this world within the mirror?
He cautiously stepped back and looked up — only to realize it wasn't a mirror at all.
It was a wall. A wall that pierced the clouds like the barriers of Truth — a sky-reaching mirror-wall with no visible top!
And this wasn't the only one. Behind him, to his left, to his right, even around the corners — walls everywhere!
Cheng Shi was stunned. After surveying his surroundings, he reached a conclusion: he was standing at the starting point of an enormous labyrinth.
No wonder the Dragon King had warned him about "getting lost inside." So the secrets within That Dream My Nightmare were hidden in this maze.
It made sense. Even [mory]'s trials took place in dream labyrinths where seekers searched for exits. A labyrinth concealed within a [mory] creation wasn't exactly far-fetched.
But!
The labyrinth's existence might be reasonable — but the Fun God's actions were not!
Why throw him into the mirror?
Originally, he could've waited safely outside for the Dragon King to erge, then traded that "debt of gratitude" for all the secrets — zero risk. Now? The secrets were still out of reach, but the risk had arrived ahead of schedule.
What was the point of this?
Was it because his prayer over the dice had offended [Fate], causing [Fate] to surging power that put the Fun God at a disadvantage in the [Void] civil war — and so He punished Cheng Shi under the guise of a reward?
'Seriously, my Benefactor — aren't you being a bit petty?'
'When I used to blasphe your twin, you weren't like this at all. You laughed and had a great ti.'
'How co now that it's your problem, you bla ?'
'Could you maybe learn from your twin's one good quality and be a little more forgiving?'
Cheng Shi felt numb. His first instinct was to "break out." He thought maybe the talent [Ti] had granted him could rewind him to before he'd entered the mirror. But that involved another question: if Shadow Cheng Shi snapped his fingers and escaped, would the real him follow?
Probably not. So, playing it steady, he first swapped faiths with Shadow Cheng Shi, then snapped his own fingers.
Snap—
Nothing happened.
"..."
As expected — against divine will, mortal resistance was futile.
He checked with Brother Mouth too — no response. For a mont, the Clown seed to have lost all his strength.
With a helpless sigh, he began investigating his surroundings.
He was already here. What else could he do? Whether this was punishnt or a so-called reward, under His gaze, surely He wouldn't let him die inside a mirror?
With safety more or less guaranteed, he might as well see what secrets the labyrinth held.
Cheng Shi's fingertips traced the enormous wall's engravings. He raised an eyebrow. 'Nice stone. Could take so ho and renovate the warehouse.'
Yet no matter how he slashed, hacked, or blasted the walls with lightning, they didn't budge — completely immune to external force. His jailbreak aspirations were officially extinguished.
So the labyrinth could only be walked.
His gaze sharpened. He began circling the starting point, and after mapping out several forks, he finally discovered what the secrets inside That Dream My Nightmare actually were.
Just as he'd suspected — the mirror held every Joker's mories!
Because at the starting point's periter, across the seven available paths, he saw the silhouettes of six Jokers — himself included!
But these weren't physical forms. They were more like mory phantoms in dream-bubbles — oblivious to Cheng Shi's approach, each imrsed in so scene from their past, performing their histories like actors on an invisible stage. They seed to be pointing the way for whoever explored the labyrinth, awaiting the seeker's decision.
Seeing this, Cheng Shi understood: following any fork would reveal that person's mories.
So the Dragon King had indeed hidden information from the start. That Dream My Nightmare didn't just reveal one's innermost desires — it also preserved the mories of whoever gazed into it. The Dragon King had most likely ventured inside specifically for these mories.
And he'd said the only way out was to choose a single path...
So whose mories had the Dragon King chosen?
Cheng Shi frowned — not only wondering what dangers lurked in these mory paths, but also calculating whether to maximize his gain by picking a different path than the Dragon King's.
Before him, the current fork led to the Dragon King's mories.
He saw a young Dragon King practicing in a Taoist temple. The scene showed little Li Jingming sitting at a table with his master, transcribing the deeds of those who ca before.
Logically, Li Jingming would never retrace his own past — it was his lived experience; he had no need for That Dream My Nightmare to rember it.
So choosing this path would definitely not conflict with the Dragon King's choice.
But... risking danger to explore a little Taoist priest's past — would that even be aningful?
Apparently not.
He wasn't a [mory] follower. He didn't practice his will by commorating the past. So Cheng Shi studied the scene with an odd expression, watched it loop — little Dragon King finishing a page only to start recopying the sa page — quietly freeloaded the page's contents, and moved on.
The second fork held Zhen Xin.
This Zhen Xin was also a child. He had to admit — little Zhen Xin looked far cuter than the current version. But the mory on display was anything but cute.
Little Zhen Xin sat at a table, brow furrowed in thought, while behind her stood the silent, wordless An Jing.
Cheng Shi, who knew this history, imdiately recognized this was the day Zhen Xin was adopted — and the beginning of her suffering.
He suddenly thought of himself. His expression turned inscrutable. He sighed and walked away.
The remaining forks showed: Long Jing drenched in sweat under his parents' coaching, the Doctor languishing in an unremarkable laboratory, and Mi Laozhang ostracized by colleagues on a lonely cetery night patrol.
Facing these Jokers' pasts, Cheng Shi gave each only a glance, committing the scenes to mory — but never chose to walk any path to its end.
Until, after who knew how many rounds of hesitation, he finally stood before the fork bearing his own silhouette. Like a traveler afraid to go ho, he watched Old Jia pointing at an adoption agreent, smiling awkwardly:
"No, no — you have a na. You have a na. I already picked one for you."
In that mont, Cheng Shi smiled. mories surged like a tide, crashing against a dam called longing. The water overflowed, spilling as teardrops.
He was smiling — yet a single tear fell. It traced his cheek, and he spoke in unison with Old Jia:
"Cheng Shi. Cheng from Cheng Jia. Shi from honesty."
This was the first ti, outside the Dream Peeping Ranger's dreamscape, that he'd seen Old Jia again. Even if the Old Jia before him wasn't real — it was enough...
A single fleeting glance was balm enough for a lifeti of longing.
He watched. The tear hit his shoe. Cheng Shi turned and walked away.
'If I want to see him, this world offers plenty of ways. The reason I don't is because I refuse to let this absurd ga taint anything connected to him.'
'Yes — I miss him. But this is decidedly not a "reward."'
...
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