Zhen Xin's early departure wasn't an exit after the plan's completion — it was the key to uncovering Jie Shu's true purpose.
As one of the sixteen true gods presiding over the Universe, no mortal could elude her gaze regardless of how well they concealed their tracks.
Before long, Zhen Xin spotted Jie Shu employing a dizzying array of techniques to shake Cheng Shi off his tail, only to surface atop a barren mountain.
She chuckled softly, descended into the physical sky, and cloaked her form with the fullest extent of Chaos's power, then casually summoned the Clown — who had lost his quarry — to an audience at her side.
By the ti Cheng Shi arrived, the Wise Man on the summit below appeared to be conducting preparatory work of so kind.
Cheng Shi fixed his burning gaze on the scene below, unsurprised:
"As I thought — he's running another experint!"
Indeed. Since the Wise Man's theory had just been verified, he would naturally use the proven theory for the next stage of exploration.
Zhen Xin observed with keen interest, asking as she watched:
"How does it feel to be outwitted, Lord Yu Xi?"
"?"
Cheng Shi shrugged it off, shaking his head with a wry smile. "I've been the target of soone's sches the whole way here. I'm used to it."
Zhen Xin raised an eyebrow, not expecting him to say that. She laughed:
"This ti is different. The one who outmaneuvered you isn't a god — it's a mortal."
Cheng Shi glanced at her:
"It's not as if mortals have never outwitted
before. You and Zhen Yi conned
plenty of tis before this...
Besides, what's the difference between a mortal and a god? One just lacks a Divine Throne; the other happened to receive an Authority.
In this experint run by the Creator, mortals and gods alike are pitiable test subjects — lost beings who can't see the road ahead.
At their core, there is no difference."
"..."
When the conversation climbed to that altitude, idle chat couldn't go much further.
Zhen Xin studied Cheng Shi with a peculiar expression — not the way one looks at a friend, and certainly not at a fellow Joker, but at a "senior" — soone standing at the crossroads of the world, about to guide the Universe forward.
The feeling was subtle, gradually blurring her mory of who Cheng Shi used to be.
The Clown hadn't been like this before. He'd been carefree, cunning, lazy, always grinning, with a tongue that dripped venom.
Now he was composed and decisive, strategic and asured. He still smiled often, but the flavor of those smiles had shifted.
And his tone increasingly resembled those gods whom the world regarded as lofty and untouchable. Even without being one, a faint "divinity" seeped from him all the sa.
Zhen Xin's gaze grew complex. She studied Cheng Shi and murmured: "Always talking about 'lost souls' and 'core nature' — I feel like you're drawing closer and closer to Fate."
Cheng Shi paused, then smiled gently:
"Fixed Destiny is, by nature, Fate."
'So he's fully accepted his identity as Fixed Destiny...'
Zhen Xin said nothing, only nodded in silence.
While they spoke, the Wise Man on the summit finally completed all his preparations. He tore open another spaceti tunnel on the mountaintop, leading to parts unknown — though this one was visibly more stable than the rooftop version.
More than that, the surging mory divine power spilling from within imdiately reminded both Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin of the "Old Self in mory" Long Jing had carried in his ring.
The Wise Man had indeed reaped sothing from the earlier plan!
Seeing Jie Shu poised to leap in at any mont, Zhen Xin raised an eyebrow:
"Do we stop him?
The whole reason Jie Shu set up his counter-trap was to get his hands on our so-called 'resonance thod.' President Gong's ring was exactly what filled that gap.
Truly worthy of the number-two on the Road to Ascension, right behind Wei Mu. He made no overt move during the earlier experint, yet he still deciphered every step from start to finish and quickly replicated a similar path.
Sotis I wonder whether the brains inside these Wise n's skulls are even human.
Are they really just players? They're not all avatars of Folly, are they?"
"?"
Cheng Shi froze. Zhen Xin's offhand remark set off a flash inside his mind — a vague notion flitting through and vanishing.
He didn't manage to catch it, and instead asked curiously: "What made you think of that? Did Chaos's Will spark an inspiration?"
"Not at all." Zhen Xin shook her head. "It's just that, having observed through Chaos's lens for a while, I find a power like Folly's — one that sees through everything — rather staggering.
Folly is one thing — He is a god, after all, a true deity affird by Origin.
But Wei Mu, Jie Shu, and their ilk... compared to ordinary people, aren't they just absurdly overpowered?"
"Obviously. He's got cheats. Of course he's overpowered.
If you activate cheats and still perform worse than a regular person, what's the point of cheating?"
"?"
'My question was whether he's cheating? Wasn't I asking where the cheats co from?!'
Zhen Xin blinked, then broke into a laugh.
'The Fate Weaver really is still the Fate Weaver.' What had changed was his attitude toward the world, not the bedrock of who he was inside.
He would always be that oddly wired Clown — it was just that reality's weight no longer allowed him such lightheartedness.
"Make up your mind quickly," Zhen Xin said, her smile fading as she urged. "If Jie Shu leaves this starry sky, there's nothing I can do to help."
She then gave Cheng Shi a suspicious once-over and added cautiously: "You're not planning to follow him out there again, are you?"
"..."
'Am I really that wild? Never ho for a single night?'
The corner of Cheng Shi's mouth twitched. He gave a helpless grin.
He had no intention of going out — because going out ant getting yelled at. But he had no intention of stopping the Wise Man either, because he couldn't be sure that Jie Shu wasn't the "thread" stitching different slice universes together.
Jie Shu was too mysterious. So mysterious that all anyone knew was that he was an outsider — no one knew his origin.
"Everyone knows Jie Shu is a 'smuggler.'
He appeared out of nowhere, claid the number-two spot on the Road to Ascension, and Su Yida was the one he brought into our world.
Doesn't that strike you as strange?"
Zhen Xin tilted her head. "Strange how? It's not as if smugglers are all that rare."
"No — he isn't a simple smuggler.
Think about it. A Wise Man has appeared in the Real Universe. Where is this Wise Man's 'ho'?
He couldn't have materialized from nothing. So original world must have 'birthed' him.
But where is that world?
Or to put it another way — has our own world ever produced anyone resembling a prototype of Jie Shu?"
Zhen Xin seed to grasp where Cheng Shi was heading, though she remained puzzled:
"Every world is different. Perhaps our world simply doesn't have a Jie Shu, and the one we know ca from another world?"
Cheng Shi shook his head. "I used to think so too. But if you look back carefully, you'll notice that while beings in different slice universes may have different fates and endings, the premise is that they all exist — in every single world!
You, for example. The gods. The Jokers. The Destined Ones. Countless beings who — whether by rallying around or pressuring Fixed Destiny — helped it reach this point...
Once sothing is linked to Fixed Destiny, it cannot be a rootless drifter.
I'm not putting a crown on my own head here. This is the blood-soaked experience of countless worlds, countless iterations of Fixed Destiny. This Experint was launched for Fixed Destiny's sake, so every existence related to it must have a traceable origin.
But Jie Shu...
At least as of now, we haven't found his roots. Even his mories are severed from the mont he arrived.
Nobody knows where he ca from, nor what he's truly after.
So I suspect he may not belong to this starry sky at all. He may belong to..."
Zhen Xin's gaze sharpened. "The Real Universe?"
"Exactly!
What if he was born of the Real Universe — what if his roots are there?
I can't imagine any world birthing a Wise Man like him, who — without ever having a connection to
— left his own world to search for a starry sky without a Fixed Destiny.
But if so will — or wills — within the Real Universe created him and then deployed him as a needle and thread to stitch countless worlds together... that's the only explanation that makes sense.
Yes, we were outmaneuvered during this plan. But it's also a fact that the Wise Man helped us pass the torch.
No matter how mysterious he is, no matter his intentions — the bottom line is he's caused no damage to this world, nor committed any unforgivable sin.
The assassination was only his bait. Drawing
into the ga was his real objective.
That being the case, I have to ask: should we really risk depriving other worlds of their 'needle and thread' by keeping the Wise Man here?"
"..." Zhen Xin had never left the world. Everything she knew about the Real Universe ca from Cheng Shi's descriptions. Yet even from those alone, she could vividly imagine how wondrous that starry expanse must be — a place where nothing would truly be surprising.
"So you think he's not only a needle and thread, but a reusable one?
And that's why you're letting him go?"
Cheng Shi nodded. "That's my guess. Unless we can find the Wise Man's 'birth certificate' sowhere in our own world, otherwise—"
"No need for 'otherwise.' The Wise Man is gone."
Before her words had fully settled, the Jie Shu atop the mountain stepped into the spaceti tunnel with a grave expression.
...
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