Hong Lin was extrely tense at this mont. Seeing smoke blanket the area around them, her heart leapt into her throat.
"What are you doing?"
Cheng Shi tossed smoke bombs thodically, stating with perfect solemnity: "Blocking the Creator's line of sight. So He can't see us touching [Silence]'s corpse."
"???"
'What?'
If it weren't obvious that Cheng Shi was speaking Chinese, Hong Lin would have thought she'd lost her ability to comprehend language.
'Whose line of sight are you trying to block?!'
'Is it your mouth that slipped, or my ears that broke?'
Hong Lin stared at the scene before her in disbelief. Several seconds later, enlightennt dawned: "Is 'deceiving yourself and others' a talent? What does it do?"
"?" Cheng Shi silently glanced at her and shook his head.
Hong Lin's face stiffened. Then another epiphany struck: "Then you must have struck [Death]'s Bone Bell again? Is He protecting us? But I didn't hear any sound."
Cheng Shi's expression grew stranger still. He shook his head again: "What does this have to do with the Boss of [Death]? This is just ordinary smoke. The most basic kind."
"The most basic smoke?!?" Hong Lin's face crumbled. Her voice warped, and she seized Cheng Shi's shoulders, shaking him back and forth: "Do you even know what you're doing, Cheng Shi? Have you lost your mind?
No — are you possessed?
Is there sothing unclean in the Real Universe ssing with your head, or are you pulling another sche I can't possibly understand?"
Hong Lin's brow furrowed deeply, suspicion filling her eyes. "Wait — you're fooling soone, aren't you? Fooling whom? Those two Real Universe imposters?
What are you trying to deceive them about — pretending we've touched [Silence]'s corpse so we can trade fake intel for real information about the Real Universe?"
At this point, Hong Lin's eyes suddenly lit up.
Not because she was confident in her guess — but because she saw Cheng Shi's face crumble too.
Indeed: crumbling was only ever transferred, never destroyed.
With confirmation that Cheng Shi wasn't possessed, Hong Lin's spirits lifted: "What's the plan? How should I support you?"
"..."
'Not figuring it out would have been the best support.'
Cheng Shi sighed. Having been deceived enough tis, Big Cat had grown a brain. She could even read a liar's mind now.
But her every move was still far too "green" when asured against top-tier tricksters. Cheng Shi didn't dare gamble on whether a Big Cat who knew the truth could convincingly feign ignorance and fool those two. So he had to change plans. With an apologetic look, he said:
"Is your neck tough?"
"?"
Big Cat froze. Before she could react, Cheng Shi chopped the edge of his hand against her neck, and then...
Nothing happened.
"..."
Cheng Shi's smile froze on his face. He had just personally "chopped out" the answer to his own question:
Tough. Very, very tough.
In that instant, a colossal wave of embarrassnt engulfed the entire fog. Cheng Shi's facial muscles twitched uncontrollably, caught between laughing and crying.
Fortunately, Big Cat understood his intent. She gave him a long look and said, sowhat indignantly:
"I can't fool anyone at all?"
"..."
It was self-deprecating, but to Cheng Shi's ears, the sarcasm in it was thicker than so [Folly] followers'.
Not wanting to be overly blunt, he could only wrestle his stiff facial muscles into a forced smile: "Weren't you the one who said we should be steady..."
As he spoke, he shrank his neck.
He saw Big Cat raise a hand chop of her own.
Hong Lin was furious. Her brows shot up and she burned to return the favor. But she didn't. She knew the smoke's cover was limited. If they didn't race against the clock now, Cheng Shi's entire plan might fall apart.
The hand she raised wasn't a "threat" aid at Cheng Shi. She turned it on herself, chopping her own neck in one swift stroke.
THWACK—
With a crisp impact, Hong Lin's eyes rolled shut and she collapsed instantly.
Cheng Shi flinched in surprise. He caught Big Cat before she could float away into the starry void, his expression a masterpiece of conflicting emotions.
'Look — this is Hong Lin. Even in the completely unknown Real Universe, she can trust her friend this absolutely.'
'Who else could hand their life over to soone in a strange place like this?'
Cheng Shi gazed at the unconscious Big Cat with steely resolve. He knew he could not betray her trust. So the plan began the instant she lost consciousness.
He hoisted Big Cat over his shoulder, waited for the smoke to dissipate, and kept his eyes locked on the space beyond the fog — never once glancing at the colossal Silent Puppet.
He had no intention of climbing that enormous puppet corpse right now!
Yes, the Greed Lord's greed had stirred. But what he coveted most was his own life.
He needed first to gauge the level of danger on the corpse from the two tricksters' reactions before risking any further exploration for "treasure."
He was certain that swindlers who could operate in the Real Universe would be "greedy" too. They wouldn't abandon their targets just because of a wandering corpse. So long as they were still watching him — still trying to edge closer to see if he had truly climbed [Silence]'s remains — it ant that even if the corpse carried risks, those risks weren't guaranteed to be fatal!
The logic was simple: if every living thing that approached the Silent Puppet died or was erased without exception, the two would have cut their losses and left this area entirely, with no further thoughts.
But if they still attempted to close in, it could only an they knew there was a chance of survival on the corpse — and that anyone who climbed it might bring sothing valuable off it. They wanted to intercept, to claim soone else's prize without lifting a finger.
And that was exactly what Cheng Shi wanted to confirm.
'You're using
— but little do you know, I want to use you too.'
A ga of wits, divided by a curtain of smoke, quietly began. And just as Cheng Shi predicted, the two shaless swindlers were slowly inching toward the smoke.
They weren't walking together. They maintained a wide separation, keeping themselves far enough from the corpse while staying close enough to support each other in an instant.
In a wide-flanking formation, they "encircled" the dissipating smoke from afar, waiting for Cheng Shi to bring them good news.
They were confident their approach would ignite Cheng Shi's gambler's instinct. And no matter what he retrieved from this long-drifting corpse, they would intercept it — and glimpse the secret of a god's death.
They had a thod of long-range communication. The cheerful figure watched the distant smoke begin to thin and smirked:
"Careful — the liar is clever. Even if he finds sothing, he'll never surrender it willingly.
Watch the smoke. Don't let him fool you."
The cold figure nodded and was about to respond when — sudden chaos erupted from within the smoke.
Plus that had been on the verge of fading suddenly burst open in fresh explosions, thickening once more and concealing the figure barely visible inside. More than that, the new smoke blossod in a deliberate straight line — like a "covert" tunnel, hiding whoever traveled within.
It was obvious: soone was trying to use the smoke as cover to flee the scene.
But the technique was laughably crude. The two outer figures spotted the ruse instantly. In perfect unison, they snorted a laugh, then — without a glance at where the smoke tunnel led — whipped their heads in the opposite direction.
You must never trust the surface. Because everything you see is what the liar wants you to see.
To track a trickster through the dazzle, you must understand a trickster's heart — must know what all the flashy misdirection is actually for.
The target in the smoke was clearly trying to escape. And given his caution, he would never expose his actual escape route to his enemies.
So the smoke tunnel was definitely a decoy — a textbook feint, east while striking west!
The cheerful figure laughed aloud and vanished in the opposite direction:
"He won't get away!"
The cold figure matched his course. He, too, was certain Cheng Shi couldn't escape.
...
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