Having retrieved the mirror from the Joker Gathering Place, Cheng Shi recalled what Dragon King had once said:
'Black Dragon King is free now.'
He still had no idea what the Black Dragon King inside the mirror actually was—sothing that could walk right out of its own reflection.
But upon reclaiming the mirror, Cheng Shi confird one thing: with the Black Dragon King's departure, That Dream My Nightmare truly could no longer reflect a person's innermost desires.
At this point, calling it a mirror was a stretch. It was more like a door—one leading both to mory's Collection Hall and to the Dreamless Mirror.
Cheng Shi waved at it for a while. Seeing no mirror-image whatsoever, he pursed his lips in mild regret. This had been a perfectly good "anti-Doctor weapon." Now that it was gone, if the Doctor ever pulled his Eye No One stunt again, probably nobody would be able to spot him.
No ti to waste. Cheng Shi touched the mirror's fra, silently recited the mory prayer, and ascended once more to mory's Collection Hall.
In the vast, empty hall, he bellowed without restraint:
"Great God of mory, I co here boldly to propose a deal!"
"A deal involving the most spectacular mory of this era."
"Would You be interested?"
His voice echoed. No response.
Cheng Shi blinked in surprise. He mustered his courage and shouted again—but after a long wait, the Collection Hall remained silent save for his own echo.
The master of this place seed to have completely ignored the intruder's "insolence," leaving him to his own devices.
'What?!'
'What's going on?'
Cheng Shi was baffled.
'Last ti I ca, mory was desperate to catch every liar who broke in. And now He just... doesn't care?'
'I figured "stranger the first ti, friends the second" would apply to uninvited , but mory adapted this fast?'
'This forgiving...'
'Don't tell
You caught Fate's bug too?'
Utterly mystified, but unable to give up on that crucial vote, Cheng Shi wandered the halls, shouting as he went.
At this point he probably didn't even realize that to an outside observer, he looked exactly like The Prisoner had—equally insufferable.
But he wasn't the only one enduring this noise. Ti was suffering too.
Because mory wasn't in His Collection Hall.
Right now, those ancient eyes—saturated with the history of countless stars—were open at the very edge of the universe, gazing at the eyes before Him: irises where ti itself collapsed into black holes.
Neither spoke.
After a long silence, Ti finally couldn't take His follower's racket anymore. He sighed, cut the "live feed" from the Collection Hall, and asked with neither joy nor sorrow:
"Why have You co?"
mory chuckled softly—and answered the question with a question:
"Does Existence have aning?"
Ti looked at His sibling god and shook His head with a gentle sigh: "If Existence itself has begun to doubt its own aning, then Existence truly has no aning."
"Is that why You draw close to Deceit?"
"No. I'm simply answering Your question."
"Deflecting."
Though mory didn't understand many of Ti's choices, He hadn't severed ties with His sibling the way the two Void gods had.
From the very beginning, even when He disagreed with Ti, He'd never once blocked any of Ti's decisions. Because He'd always believed that all forms of Existence carried aning.
He was simply curious: why had a sibling who'd always been closer to Origin than Himself now turned to stand on Origin's opposing side?
The traces scattered across the universe had long made Him realize a cataclysm had once occurred—one that had been suppressed by so force.
The Void alone couldn't possess the power to reverse everything. At minimum, They couldn't overly influence Existence. So mory's first suspicion fell on His sibling, Ti.
That was also why He'd wanted to search for the erased universal mory through Cheng Shi—because the gazes of both the Void and Ti converged on this Clown.
Of course, mory wasn't solely interested in collecting that lost mory. More than anything, He wanted to know what these gods who sought to distance themselves from Origin were really planning.
So He asked again:
"Drawing close to Him... is that not good?"
Ti was no Deceit. He wouldn't lie through His teeth. He averted His gaze toward whatever lay beyond the universe, and after an eternity spoke in a weary voice:
"How do you know which direction is 'close'?"
mory was taken aback, then smiled: "As I thought—after getting close to Deceit, even Your speech sounds like His. You an to say that what I've been doing is actually moving away, while what You've been doing is drawing closer?"
A rare flicker of confusion appeared in those black-hole eyes—there and gone in an instant, but mory caught it.
"Perhaps. I don't know either."
mory's brow furrowed. A bold conjecture suddenly ford in His mind. He looked at His sibling in astonishnt:
"Who is trying to replace Him?"
"You? Or Deceit?"
"Or is it... Fate—the one who pretends to be at odds with Deceit?"
"Replace Origin?"
Ti laughed bitterly. "Who could replace Him? Who would dare?"
"Even if soone must eventually take His place, it will never be any of the gods present."
"Deceit has His sches, but His sches are wrong."
"Fate is the one who's right. This universe... will ultimately return to the Void."
With those words, the ti crystallized into a black hole in the void shattered and dispersed—as though all of ti had been sucked into a singularity.
mory stood frozen, chewing on His sibling's words for a long while before departing with furrowed brows.
He reappeared behind a certain noisy Clown.
No matter how sharp Cheng Shi's senses were, he couldn't possibly detect a true god's approach. By now, after several laps, equally hoarse and exhausted, he'd lost all patience. His shouts had devolved into sothing extrely blunt—and blasphemous.
He'd changed tactics, trying to provoke mory into showing Himself. He was certain that given mory's hunger for mories, He couldn't possibly ignore this deal.
If He'd just co out, Cheng Shi was confident he could secure the vote.
And so, in the empty Collection Hall, the following sound rang out:
"mory! Co out and see ! I'm counting to three! If You don't show, I'm calling the Fun God!"
But before the echo faded, he shouted "THREE!" and then cackled ominously:
"Heh heh heh, You forced my hand!"
"Cannot distinguish true from false, never debate void from real."
"Benefactor! mory's not ho! Get over here, quick!"
Having reached a dead end, Cheng Shi turned around—
—and found himself face-to-face with his boss's face, inches away.
The boss's expression was cold, hovering between a smile and not:
"Keep counting. I'd like to see if He dares co."
"!!!!!"
Cheng Shi's brain went blank. His hand, hanging at his side, pinched his thigh with white-knuckle force. Only one thought scread through his mind:
'Stupid leg—STOP SHAKING!'
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