"You didn't know?" It wasn't Long Jing who stepped up to explain, but Zhao Xishi.
"?" Jie Shu frowned. "Know what?"
"The Audience eting."
At those words, sothing flickered in Jie Shu's eyes. "Of course I know about it. But I didn't attend."
"???"
Jie Shu didn't attend the Audience eting?
Long Jing blinked, curious. "Why not?"
The answer ca not from Jie Shu, but again from Zhao Xishi.
The Historian studied Jie Shu with an amused smile playing on her lips:
"Why?
My guess is he was afraid of running into Wei Mu.
He's been chasing Wei Mu for ages and still hasn't caught up. If his lack of conviction got exposed again, wouldn't the whole plan... have to be scrapped?"
A flash of caution crossed Jie Shu's eyes, but he said nothing.
Everyone present knew—Zhao Xishi had guessed correctly.
The terror of the number-one seat on the Road to Ascension was such that the number-two didn't even dare attend the Audience eting!
Zhao Xishi snorted twice and stopped needling Jie Shu. Instead, she began explaining on Long Jing's behalf. "I learned through certain channels that the Deceit Audience eting descended into utter chaos. The whole lot of them got played by the Fate Weaver — including that hapless Acrobat standing right before you, who can do nothing but rage impotently.
The Fate Weaver stole his identity, wrung benefits out of every liar there, then dumped all the bla squarely on President Gong's head.
So I'm not the least bit surprised to see him here. Ha — an internal Deceit civil war. I love it."
Long Jing had been swindled by Cheng Shi?
Jie Shu turned to look at Long Jing — only to find that the humiliated and furious President Gong had already vanished from where he'd been standing. He had materialized behind Zhao Xishi, bringing a knife-hand strike down toward the Historian's neck.
"Mind your own tongue!"
Seeing the Acrobat strike so decisively actually eased Jie Shu's suspicions sowhat.
Since ti immorial, success lay in secrecy. The fact that the Acrobat had swaggered in this boldly already cleared roughly seventy percent of suspicion.
Soone with truly malicious intent would never paint a target on themselves — even if they craved the spotlight, they wouldn't choose this most sensitive of monts to do so.
And so, after a mont's deliberation, Jie Shu nodded, provisionally accepting Long Jing's presence — though his caution would keep Long Jing away from any critical step of the plan.
Nobody paid attention to what the Wise Man was thinking. Everyone's focus was drawn to the skirmish. The Historian was no pushover either — she might be a Singer-class, but she had plenty of tricks. For a brief mont, the two genuinely clashed.
As the convener, Jie Shu neither intervened nor hurried them along. He watched the altercation with perfect calm, knowing that as long as both parties still wanted the plan to succeed, neither would go for a killing blow.
And whoever did go for the kill most likely had a problem.
Sure enough, after a while of finding that neither could overpower the other, both parties grudgingly disengaged.
Long Jing pointed and grumbled; Zhao Xishi smirked and scoffed.
The Master of Trickery stood to the side in silence, as if none of this concerned him. He was steeling his focus for the dangers that lay ahead.
As for Mo Shu — his murmured mantra of "what is Oblivion?" never ceased, though his voice had dropped so low it was unclear whether he was asking himself or answering himself.
"..."
'Idiots. Every last one of them — idiots!'
At the end of his patience with these "teammates," Jie Shu addressed Zhao Xishi in a low voice:
"Let's begin. Proceed according to plan.
You will read the Master of Trickery's mories. Find the precise coordinates of the spatiotemporal singularity from when he and I first arrived. After that, the Scavenger will use those worlds on the verge of oblivion to blast open that stretch of Void and thin the world-wall.
Then I'll open a tunnel here — one that passes through the spatiotemporal singularity and can traverse the spaceti barrier — to send you through."
Jie Shu turned to Su Yida, his tone inscrutable: "Once you've entered the Real Universe, use the thod I taught you to seek out the world with the deepest resonance, infiltrate it, and find an opportunity to complete your assassination!
If you succeed, bring his corpse back. I'll use his body to build a more stable passage for all of us to leave this world.
Everyone — finding a world where the Fate Weaver doesn't exist is far too difficult. We can only create one ourselves.
I hope we can all cooperate. A bright future is within reach!
As for you, President Gong — you may participate, but do not act on your own. I'm not opposed to bringing along one more refugee, but I won't tolerate a reckless stowaway."
The plan was laid out clearly. Yet when Jie Shu's words fell, a jolt ran through every person present.
Their faces betrayed nothing, but inside, waves were crashing.
Because they had discovered a problem in Jie Shu's words. They had reviewed Su Yida's mories — which ntioned the thod but contained no specific implentation steps!
The worst-case scenario had arrived: the thod for locating the connected world had very likely been disclosed to Su Yida outside of this world.
That ant even if they used Jie Shu's spaceti tunnel to escape the world, they couldn't find the target universe they needed to pass the torch to.
For a mont, the Jokers sank into silence.
They had sched to deceive the Wise Man — and yet a single sentence from the Wise Man still had them "trapped."
Zhao Xishi frowned slightly. She imdiately activated her Authority to scramble Jie Shu's senses, ran a quick check, and then — right in front of the Wise Man — spoke directly to Cheng Shi, who was disguised as Mo Shu:
"It's not the Master of Deception at work. What he said is true — it seems Jie Shu prepared for this long ago.
But sothing's strange. I keep feeling like he doesn't actually care whether the plan succeeds. What he seems to need is simply for the Master of Trickery to make a round trip through the Real Universe... That's an unsettling feeling.
Should we dig through Jie Shu's mories for the thod?"
All eyes turned to Cheng Shi. He pondered for a mont, then nodded.
The Dragon King understood the signal. He stepped forward, placed his hand on Jie Shu's shoulder, paused briefly, then frowned and shook his head:
"He's shrewd. Most of the scenes in his mory are silent contemplation, not conversations or actions. That ans I can't see what he's thinking — can't find the thod.
Perhaps his real mory truly was left outside the world. mories that were never recorded there don't fall under mory's jurisdiction."
"As expected. A wise man with a thousand plans — he's been preparing for this for a long ti."
Cheng Shi sighed. "Jie Shu's identity is far from simple. I've always felt there was sothing subtle about his and Su Yida's arrival. What I fear most right now is that they, too, are a link in the entanglent between different slice universes, and the continuation of this plan may yet impact our world — or the next one.
After all, Su Yida's appearance was what raised the curtain on the truth of the Universe. Even if the Su Yida I t wasn't the real Su Yida, the two share a deep connection.
Seeking connections...
If Folly can locate connections, perhaps we should ask Wei Mu?"
Cheng Shi turned to Zhen Xin. "How long can you keep him under like this?"
Zhen Xin smiled:
"Forever.
The authority of a true god is hardly sothing a mortal can resist. But ti isn't the issue. As you yourself said — we can't afford delays. If we drag this out too long, the Wise Man will wake and detect the anomalies, and the effect you're hoping for won't be achieved.
Even if we had ti, do you know where to find Wei Mu?"
Cheng Shi's expression darkened. He genuinely didn't know.
Just as everyone was mulling over what to do next, Long Jing — still playing Su Yida — suddenly stiffened, eyes going wide as he stared at Cheng Shi in disbelief:
"Old Self in mory..."
"???"
Cheng Shi's pupils contracted sharply. "What did you say?"
"The mory talent you saw in your mories — Old Self in mory...
Do you rember what that future Su Yida said to you?
He used Old Self in mory to reach our world. But the spaceti tunnel Jie Shu described is clearly not a talent — so where did Old Self in mory go?
I've always been puzzled. Until you all ntioned connections..."
Long Jing raised his hand. Resting in his palm was a ring. "I, too, share a connection with you."
Everyone stared, eyes wide with uncertainty. "What is that?"
Long Jing looked up at Cheng Shi, his expression dead serious, enunciating each word:
"A ring you gave .
A ring the other world's you... gave to ."
Cheng Shi instantly realized what it ant. His face went blank with shock. "Blind Long Jing?!"
Long Jing, too, was learning for the first ti that his other self had gone blind. He recalled how the other Cheng Shi had described that other Long Jing: 'A warrior!'
It seed that Long Jing really was a warrior.
"Yes. This was the fallback he prepared for
— but I believe it should be my way forward!
I just tried activating it, and that's when I found this inside the ring."
With that, Long Jing activated the ring again, projecting a mory before everyone.
In that mory, a Cheng Shi stood on a rooftop. He turned around quietly, his expression warm, and smiled at Long Jing:
"It seems the road ahead of you isn't easy.
But that's alright. I've said it before — because Long Jing is a warrior, you don't have to be that warrior yourself.
This is a gift I received from mory when I encountered It again in the Real Universe. A talent It wanted to place into the ga but never had the chance to.
Old Self in mory.
A thod that lets you find a forr '.'
Crush this ring, and mory's lingering aura will guide you to a version of
who is still uninitiated. That world should not yet have fallen into the predicant you now face.
You'll have an overwhelming information advantage to plan, to prepare, to sche... There, whether you're the director behind the curtain or the actor onstage — the choice will be entirely yours.
But please, do
a favor. Please try your best to protect that world's Cheng Shi.
Dropping you into that world so abruptly is irresponsible of . I don't know what impact it will have on that world, but I do know that if nothing ever changes, this Experint will only produce more of
— and more of you.
So go boldly, Long Jing. Believe in yourself. Believe in Cheng Shi. And believe that all belief, in the end, will create a miracle."
...
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