Gazing at the mountaintop's return to silence, Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin wore complex expressions in their own ways.
No matter how Cheng Shi speculated, it remained a hypothesis. For both of them, whether to stop the Wise Man or let him go was a gamble staked on courage.
Nobody knew whether the departure of the Wise Man was ultimately good or bad.
Perhaps so would ask: it's only a mortal — does it really warrant this much caution and gravity?
Perhaps not. Perhaps the concern was unnecessary. But Cheng Shi didn't dare bet on it.
When you walk in ignorance, you stride boldly forward. Once you learn the truth, you step with exquisite care.
The greater the pressure, the more you fear a wrong step. That, too, was why Cheng Shi had insisted Long Jing flawlessly replicate everything he'd experienced in the other world.
A world that had lost hope needed only to transmit its wrong choices outward. But a world that had gotten every answer right didn't dare alter a single variable on the road ahead.
To other worlds, they were the lucky ones — but how far that luck would carry them, nobody could say until true Misfortune arrived.
"What's done is done.
Now that the Wise Man has left the stage, we should head back and welco our triumphant hero."
Cheng Shi smiled and gestured for Zhen Xin to return together to the Joker Gathering Place. But Zhen Xin's expression shifted. She shook her head and, with a wave, summoned the Dragon King and the other two directly to them.
When Cheng Shi saw three Jokers standing before him with grim faces, his gaze sharpened. He realized sothing had gone wrong.
"Zhao Qian and Su Yida... where are they?"
Long Jing opened his mouth, unsure how to begin. He looked toward Old Zhang. Zhang Jizu gently laid down a charred corpse, then sighed deeply:
"The Torchbearer... can't be revived."
"!!!" Cheng Shi started. "Why?"
"His thod of suicide destroyed his own soul." Zhang Jizu narrowed his eyes. "At first, I thought the spaceti barrier had blocked his soul's transfer.
But then I reasoned: since he died in this world too, my Benefactor's Fishbone Hall should at least hold the soul from his death in this world.
The truth is — it doesn't!
He left no soul at all when he died."
The instant those words landed, every sharp mind present understood.
Zhao Qian had done it deliberately.
Perhaps fearing that a version of himself capable of resurrection might sohow endanger the Cheng Shi who safeguarded the torch, Zhao Qian's death was not only absolute — it was "clean."
The flas of War had burned his soul to ashes, leaving a corpse with not a single thread for anyone to pull.
Of course, he hadn't made this choice for Cheng Shi the person. He'd made it for the most beautiful dream of passing the torch that burned in his heart.
That was simply who the City Builders were. When they saw soone who could hold the torch higher, every last one of them would willingly beco a stepping stone beneath that person's feet.
Cheng Shi was moved once again. Ti and again he thought he'd seen too much, that nothing could shake him anymore — and ti and again, the Torchbearers' flas found a way to kindle those around them.
He gazed at this forr teammate, this fallen "torch-carrying comrade," with infinite sorrow. He bowed his head in silent tribute and murmured:
"Sparks fade, but the torch burns on.
Farewell, my friend. May you be free of suffering. May your wish be fulfilled. May the new world you all dread of... be on its way.
To the greatest of Torchbearers."
Every person present lowered their heads, eyes brimming with respect: "To the greatest of Torchbearers."
The atmosphere turned solemn and heavy. Cheng Shi closed his eyes, exhaled hard, and broke the silence:
"Even a spray of sparks that will inevitably die leaves traces of light through the darkness it crosses.
Zhao Qian's story ends here. But what about the other one?
Where's the Su Yida that President Gong brought back?"
At the ntion of Su Yida, the three faces grew even more peculiar.
The Dragon King spoke, his expression grave:
"A third party intervened. Soone intercepted our plan. I threw two corpses off the rooftop, but only Zhao Qian landed in front of the Gravekeeper.
Su Yida's body... vanished."
"???"
Both Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin froze. "What do you an, vanished?"
Zhang Jizu's eyes were narrowed to slits, his expression none too pleased. The Fire Passing Plan had gone smoothly from start to finish — except at his step, where two accidents struck. Neither was his fault, but it was infuriating all the sa.
"It disappeared mid-fall.
I investigated the area imdiately afterward and found no traces whatsoever.
Whoever did this was powerful, bold, and ticulous. They didn't just take Su Yida's corpse — they even extracted the Epiphytic Wood from his body and stuffed it into Zhao Qian's remains.
Based on that, they bear us no ill will. They simply had a keen interest in the Master of Trickery."
The Dragon King added: "The power of mory couldn't locate the true past either. That ans the perpetrator either has a thod to evade mory, or they're a..."
"Deity?"
Cheng Shi frowned. At this point, it didn't seem like any deity would do sothing like this.
When Deceit was still around, this was exactly the sort of thing that'd get pinned on Him. But the number of gods still alive in the Universe was dwindling — who would bother paying attention to a Master of Trickery at a critical juncture like this?
Zhen Xin raised an eyebrow and offered a guess:
"What if it was Jie Shu?
What if the true needle and thread isn't Jie Shu alone, but him and Su Yida together?
Don't forget — everyone assus Su Yida was soone he brought to this world. Could he have taken Su Yida back, heading with the Master of Trickery to the next world?"
It sounded plausible, but Cheng Shi still shook his head:
"That doesn't add up. You were right there. If the Wise Man could slip past your gaze and double back, that level of power rivals a god's — so why bother with sches at all?
Unless he had help. And help of that caliber would need at least Hong Lin's level of strength, or perhaps even...
Wait!
Wei Mu?"
A flash of insight lit Cheng Shi's eyes. "Earlier, what was it you discussed with Jie Shu — he didn't attend the Audience eting because he was afraid Wei Mu would see through his confidence?
What confidence? Knowledge of the Real Universe? The ability to leave the world?
But is Wei Mu really that easy to handle?
Wouldn't Jie Shu's absence from the eting make the number-one on the Folly Ladder suspicious?
We're talking about Wei Mu. The mont he starts suspecting sothing, can Jie Shu's sches really stay hidden?
I doubt it!
So it wasn't just us watching the Wise Man — the other Wise Man may well have been watching him too.
Bold yet ticulous. No trace left behind. Even mory's power can't find anything... If there's one mortal who could pull that off...
Do you think Wei Mu could?"
Of course he could!
No one doubted Wei Mu. Such was the reputation and strength of the undisputed number-one on the Ladder of Ascent.
Cheng Shi's speculation was sowhat baseless, yet the Jokers found no holes in it.
After all, Su Yida was linked to the unveiling of the Universe's truth within their world. If Wei Mu had taken him, that made sense.
"But for what purpose? Just to probe what we've been doing, or — like us — to figure out what Jie Shu is after?
Besides, Wei Mu's on good terms with all of us. There's no need for him to be this secretive, is there?" Long Jing voiced his confusion.
"Who cares why. We'll go look and find out."
With that, Cheng Shi turned to Zhen Xin. She understood imdiately and activated her true god's vision to survey the Universe from above — but this ti, her search ca up empty.
"Can't find him?"
"It's not that I can't find him. He's been shielded.
And the only thing that can shield Authority... is Authority."
"..." Cheng Shi froze, then sothing clicked. His expression turned incredulous.
...
anwhile, elsewhere.
A corpse lying on the ground jolted awake, eyes snapping open, gasping for air. His face was tense, drenched in sweat. Before he could make sense of his situation, a chanical, puppet-like voice reached him from above:
"Master of Trickery Su Yida?"
...
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