While Hong Lin was bestowing prosperity upon herself, and while Qin Xin was passing the fla to Qin Xin — what was Cheng Shi doing?
He was sleeping.
The Clown had laid flat.
Seeing that the white light was impassable and the darkness posed no danger, he simply closed his eyes and enjoyed a good rest in the endless dark.
Cheng Shi never dread. But perhaps the Real Universe had affected him, stripping his self-hypnosis of its effect. Today, he had a grand dream.
He dread he had already leapt into the white light — and t soone. No, not soone — a mouth...
Perspective shift: Shadow Cheng Shi.
When the dark silhouette lted into the white light, Shadow Cheng Shi had genuinely believed his main body was dead — because he could no longer sense it.
Of course, "main body" was rely a label distinguishing the original from the shadow. It implied no hierarchy. In his own consciousness, he was Cheng Shi — the one and only Cheng Shi. It was just that this ti, excessive caution had cost him his physical body and half his faith within the dark storm.
The [Deceit] faith was gone. He was now a pure [Fate] follower.
Though no expression could be read on his pitch-black face, there was no denying: right now, Cheng Shi's expression was extraordinarily grim.
He was facing the greatest crisis of his life.
He had been "abandoned" by the Fun God...
Or rather — through his extrely cautious choice, he had voluntarily shed [Deceit] from himself.
This was undeniably fatal. A pure [Fate] adherent seed only capable of marching toward fixed destiny.
Thoughts raced through his mind. The situation before him was no more optimistic.
He had no idea where he was. Beyond the white light lay another starry sky — one that felt both familiar and foreign.
This sky wasn't as desolate as the Real Universe. At the very least, the stars still twinkled — and they were growing brighter.
From that alone, Cheng Shi could determine that the black storm had hurled him into a slice universe.
He just didn't know whether this slice universe was his own world. So he began cautiously probing through the starry expanse.
Soon he saw countless strears falling from the zenith, transforming into hazy white silhouettes that enveloped the universe.
Cheng Shi was profoundly tense. At first, he thought these were weapons deployed by this sky's inhabitants to capture him. But he quickly realized the white silhouettes weren't "weapons" at all — they were "starting points"!
Path Starting Points!
Cheng Shi's eyes went wide in disbelief:
"I've actually arrived at the beginning of another world?!"
After experiencing so much "fixed destiny," Cheng Shi's understanding of [Fate] had long diverged from everyone else's.
His gaze dropped to the mask and die in his hands. His expression turned infinitely complex.
'Has losing the [Deceit] faith turned
into a cast-off piece — one that can only fulfill its purpose by "passing on hope"?'
'Otherwise, why would a "failed" Clown be dropped at another world's starting point?'
'My Benefactor — whichever Benefactor You are — do You... want
to place this mask and die before the eyes of the Clown who hasn't yet entered his Starting Point?'
'So my die and mask were always "relics" left behind by a failed version of myself?'
For a long mont, Cheng Shi was silent.
He still couldn't understand how the reasonably smooth Real Universe journey had suddenly turned into this. He couldn't help but suspect the Fun God's — no, [Deceit]'s — purpose in shoving him into the Real Universe.
'Was it really to disrupt [Fate]'s fixed destiny in this way?'
'Then what about this scene before ?'
'Did [Fate], in order to preserve the fixed path, give
this chance?'
'But how could He possibly influence the Real Universe's dark storm?'
'The [Fate] of his world might not even be aware the Real Universe existed. How could He extend His hand beyond the universe to influence fate within the Real Universe?!'
'But if it wasn't Him... who else could it be?'
'The only entity capable of orchestrating all this in the Real Universe seed to be that lofty Creator. No — that was too absurd. What would the cold-hearted Creator have to do with any of this...'
Cheng Shi forcibly cut off his spiraling thoughts. He looked down at the countless white silhouettes below. Among them, one was radiating a familiar and fatal pull toward him.
In the end, he couldn't resist curiosity. He drifted silently downward. The instant he touched the white silhouette, his dark body was assimilated. Like Hong Lin before him, he beca the "ceiling" of this "room."
Cheng Shi was certain this was the sa Path Starting Point he had once experienced. But strangely, there were no faith tokens inside this room.
Not a single one.
He looked again at the mask and die in his hands. The sensation of "fate" urging him forward grew stronger.
But at the sa ti, he thought: 'If I don't place these tokens at the Starting Point, does that an this world's Cheng Shi won't have to bear such crushing pressure? Won't beco part of the so-called fixed destiny?'
Cheng Shi hesitated. Never before had he been so deeply torn.
Was it better to be a Prisoner — shackled, stumbling forward, never seeing daylight? Or should he keep shouldering the gods' heavy gaze and remain the Clown — shackled and dancing on stage to entertain the audience?
The choice wasn't about right or wrong. It was about Cheng Shi's state of heart.
As figures gathered beyond the room and a blurred silhouette drew closer, a flash of resolve crossed Cheng Shi's eyes. He decided to...
...do nothing.
He hadn't chosen the forr. He had simply recognized that the person outside wasn't truly himself.
That person was a brand-new, untainted, bewildered Cheng Shi — not a downtrodden, half-faithful, suffocating Cheng Shi.
This new Cheng Shi shouldn't carry his past. He had no right to beco soone else's vessel of hope.
He hadn't yet experienced [Deceit]'s deceptions, [Fate]'s fixed destiny, or Origin's terror. The direction of his path was still in "flux."
A Cheng Shi like that should walk his own road.
As an "outsider," he could follow the example of other Cheng Shis and offer help. But the one thing he must never do was make the choice for him.
Because Cheng Shi was Cheng Shi. He was no one else's vessel of hope.
Except for Old Jia.
Thinking of Old Jia, Cheng Shi finally smiled.
Only — the smile carried a bitterness that perhaps no one but he would ever know.
He hid inside the room, watching as the Cheng Shi outside pushed the door open. And in the very instant that the door to faith was about to swing wide, two streaks of light fell from above.
[Void]'s tokens had arrived. Nothing had changed.
Cheng Shi looked at the tokens beneath his feet and suddenly wondered: would he et another Brother Mouth here?
At the thought, a pang of sorrow flickered through him.
The Fool's Lips here would be brand new. The old, well-worn Fool's Lips that belonged to him had vanished alongside his body in the dark storm...
Cheng Shi's expression turned unreadable as he pulled out his last remaining Eye of Mockery. And at that very mont, another streak of light sliced through the air and plunged straight onto the mask.
Almost imdiately, a puzzled voice sounded from the mask:
"Hm?
That's weird. I could've sworn I sensed that stinky eyeball around here sowhere. Where'd it go?"
It was Brother Mouth!
It had been drawn here by the aura of the Eye of Mockery in Cheng Shi's hand?!
Cheng Shi was stunned. He never imagined that his casual action had already influenced this world's "flux." And it was precisely as the Fool's Lips' voice fell that the Cheng Shi outside pushed the door and stepped in.
Another player was about to receive the baptism of faith. But this player was clearly different from the rest.
He stood before the two tokens, agonizing for a long ti, before finally asking the exact sa question Cheng Shi had once asked:
"What should I choose?"
The Fool's Lips, having arrived here by "accident," naturally wouldn't pick a host with "no mind of his own." So, with mischief in its heart, it spoke up in its mysteriously conspiratorial tone:
"Choose the Die of Fate."
The player very "obediently" chose the Die of Fate.
The Fool's Lips curled into a sneer on its mask, seemingly full of contempt for the player's "naiveté."
But very quickly, that sneer froze in place — because the player, in the sa instant he picked up the Die of Fate, reached out his other hand toward the Lips itself.
In that mont, the Cheng Shi who had hidden inside the room and done nothing at all finally let a smile break across his face.
'To hell with fixed destiny. That was his own choice.'
'And it was my own choice too.'
...
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