After bidding farewell to Kataro, Cheng Shi returned to the rooftop rest area.
He'd been mulling over how to orchestrate the revelation that Ultraman was actually Yu Xi, but no matter how he turned it over, this kind of trick would at best enlighten the players currently in the ga. The Chaos followers who had long since vanished into the river of history obviously couldn't convert to Yu Xi.
But that was enough. Compared to the long-lost Land of Hope, in this era, the players' faith clearly mattered more.
This had to be done without a trace—leaving just enough breadcrumbs for the ga's sharp minds or the History School to discover the inconsistencies on their own and expose Ultraman's true identity. Only then would the players believe that history had already been tampered with by Deceit.
Cheng Shi pondered this for a long ti, until a phone call interrupted his train of thought.
He glanced toward the warehouse. Though he hadn't picked up yet, he seed to already know who was on the other end.
He raised an eyebrow, strode over to the warehouse, and answered with an opening line that left the other party speechless:
"It's ."
"..."
Silence followed those two words. After a mont, soft laughter ca through.
"So you really did escape the mirror!"
"I sat outside it for ages without seeing any sign of you, so I figured you might have found another way out. That's why I called."
"So tell , Cheng Shi—how did you do it?"
Cheng Shi was amused. He wanted to drop a breezy "Grandpa has his ways," but thought better of it.
Dragon King had clearly spent a good while sitting outside the mirror, moved by Cheng Shi's self-sacrifice in swapping places with him. A rare personal favor like that shouldn't be squandered. So he smiled and said:
"Does this count as the first mory exchange?"
"..." Li Jingming paused briefly on the other end, then chuckled and shook his head. "No. I'm rely voicing my curiosity. Whether you choose to answer is up to you."
"?"
'Hey, that's not how this is supposed to go.'
'What kind of new-age con is this?'
'Playing the emotional card to freeload other people's mories?'
'Just because you sound magnanimous doesn't an I have to bare my soul. Do you know how hard it was for this old grandpa to rescue his grandson on these creaky old bones? If you don't cough sothing up today, it won't do justice to the Fun God's tornt of .'
Just as Cheng Shi was figuring out how to ask what Li Jingming had seen, Li Jingming spoke up first.
"Since you've already escaped, I imagine you're wondering what mories I witnessed."
'?'
Cheng Shi's expression froze.
'I am not! Stop making things up—I'll sue you for slander!'
"Mm, it was always ant to be shared with you. The thing is, what I witnessed is sothing you already know. If you don't mind, I can tell you again."
"What do you an?" Cheng Shi frowned, a note of surprise creeping in. "You revisited your own past?!"
Li Jingming nodded, a misty nostalgia filling his eyes.
"Yes. I chose my own past."
"!!!"
Cheng Shi was stunned. He'd assud Dragon King would never choose his own mories over the Jokers' mories—after all, the whole point of entering had been to sche for the Jokers' mories and commit them to record. He'd even been preparing for how to respond if Dragon King had chosen his mories, and how to navigate that revelation.
Yet against all expectations, this mory follower who perpetually sought new mories to record had chosen to re-record one he'd experienced before.
"Why?" Cheng Shi asked, genuinely curious.
Li Jingming replied with a light laugh:
"I've said before—I constantly record the world's mories because I want to do sothing for this world."
"But at the end of the day, I'm just an ordinary person. Though I ca from a Daoist temple, I can't cleave away my seven emotions and six desires. I have my own joys and sorrows."
"And when I stood before the Jokers' mories—when I saw my master's face appearing in a different form before my eyes—I realized that sotis, it's worth making a record for myself."
"I don't have perfect recall. I can rember eight or nine tenths of my days at Cloud Field Temple, but even that remaining one or two tenths holds a beautiful mory."
"So I chose to step back into my past and grow up at Cloud Field Temple once more. I committed to mory every blade of grass and tree, every flower and grain of soil, every roof tile and wall, every master and disciple—so that my longing would be free of regret..."
"I imagine you chose to return to your past as well."
"I could see the love in your father's eyes. So all this ti, everything you've been fighting for... it's been for him..."
Dragon King's voice was thick with emotion and wistful sighs, but to Cheng Shi's ears, it painted a completely different picture.
The mory at the starting point had been nothing more than the scene of Old Jia coming to adopt him. The two had only just t. Even if Old Jia had taken a liking to him, where was this profound, visible-to-Dragon-King fatherly love supposed to co from?
So Cheng Shi punctured Dragon King's lie imdiately, snorting:
"Alright, alright—so you're a sentintal guy, I get it. But before you circled back to Cloud Field Temple, you peeked at quite a few other people's mories, didn't you?"
"You probably walked a good stretch of the maze, freeloaded plenty, and only then doubled back to pick Cloud Field Temple, right?"
"Now I understand why you warned
on your first trip into That Dream My Nightmare to pick one path and stick to it. You couldn't find your way out through soone else's mories and had to retrace your steps, didn't you?"
"Tsk, Dragon King, oh Dragon King—look at you now. What, did you develop an interest in my profession?"
"..."
The scene turned excruciatingly awkward. On the other end of the line, even breathing stopped.
When Dragon King stayed silent, Cheng Shi knew he'd hit the mark. His eyes glead with mischief, and he deliberately let a few stifled "pfft" laughs leak through from his end, making the other party's predicant even more unbearable—payback for Dragon King's little fib.
He didn't actually care how many surface-level mories the other had seen. What he cared about was: however many you saw of others', that's how many you owe .
Li Jingming was quiet for a long ti. Then he sighed, let out a resigned laugh, and conceded:
"I admit defeat this ti."
"I knew this gambit was risky, but I insisted on taking the bet because I didn't want you to see my sorry state."
"I got lost in the mirror with no way out. I didn't manage to dig up any of the Jokers' deep mories, and I burned through a lot of my items. In the end, I had no choice but to retrace the old path before I could finally et up with you..."
"But through this experience, I've also realized sothing. Recording mories is one thing, but indiscriminately recording every last detail of soone else's mories can destabilize a person's consciousness."
"It's not like acting—it's more like splitting."
"Perhaps it's a thod for splitting off a new personality, but it's far too dangerous. Even a god wouldn't dare attempt it."
"Otherwise, His Collection Hall would be cramd with complete, uninterrupted mories of every kind, instead of only select masterpieces."
This actually struck a chord with Cheng Shi.
He'd just traversed the mory Junkyard, and the kaleidoscopic mories there truly could blur a person's consciousness—even contaminate them until they beca mory refuse themselves.
But he obviously wasn't about to let Dragon King's deflection slide. He gave a chuckle and said:
"So? Don't change the subject. Tell
what you saw and how much. I'm quite curious—what exactly is lurking in the Jokers' surface-level mories?"
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