Justice's departure wasn't what anyone would call tragic — it was simply too abrupt.
After anding who-knew-how-many clauses of the Pact, the Assembly of Gods Convention was finally adjourned. Shackles still clung to him, but they had been pared down to the absolute minimum. After all, the Pact was an accord, and accords had to contain sothing. Cheng Shi grudgingly accepted that.
The gods clearly had mountains of questions about this sudden turn of events, but Death didn't seem inclined to explain. He dissolved into a torrent of white bone and departed. Silence followed close behind.
The remaining gods looked to Cheng Shi. He furrowed his brow slightly and said:
"I'll explain later. Perhaps it's ti to tell everyone what the road ahead looks like.
But first, I need to see Him.
There's one more thing I need to confirm."
With that, Cheng Shi also left the starry sky. As the Pact's Proxy, his departure took the brilliant constellations with him. The Void's darkness rushed back in, swallowing the gods' bewildered expressions.
"Who's he going to see?" Hong Lin, as always, voiced everyone's question.
Zhen Xin and the Dragon King exchanged a glance and answered in unison: "Folly."
Exactly. Cheng Shi had gone to find Folly.
Folly's vote was deeply suspicious. A deity who had the word "foolish act" on His lips every other sentence — how could He personally commit one?
In His eyes, the world had no answer. Then why had He voted in favor of replacing Justice?
Did that vote represent approval of Deceit's grand design — or contempt for the entire plan?
If the forr, Cheng Shi could breathe easier. But if the latter... he needed to know exactly where Folly saw the road ahead so he could prepare accordingly.
In the past, as a mortal, he could do nothing about Folly, nor did he want to bother with Him. But now, ard with the identity of the Pact's Proxy, he felt he had grounds to knock on the door and request one foolish act.
And by leveraging the Pact's ability to sense all gods, he quickly located—
"!!!"
'Why is it him?'
Cheng Shi's pupils shrank violently. He stopped dead in his tracks before a familiar figure.
He had co looking for Folly. Instead, at the place where Folly's presence registered, he found an old friend. This friend wasn't Folly — yet shared a thousand and one threads of connection with Him.
Cheng Shi's expression grew complex. He held the gaze of the figure before him for a long ti, then sighed deeply and asked a single question:
"Where is He?"
The figure smiled and shook his head:
"You're one step too late.
He destroyed Himself. Right beneath your feet — right where you're standing now."
"..."
If it had been anyone else delivering this news, Cheng Shi might have paused to weigh whether it was a lie. But the person before him was a follower of Folly — the indisputable number-one on the Road to Ascension — the one nobody would question: Wei Mu!
And so, Cheng Shi didn't question it either.
The Universe's situation had evolved to this point. Those who saw the full picture probably already had their answer. There was no longer any aning in deception. At most you could deceive yourself. As for deceiving others... pointless.
Wei Mu still wore his puppet guise. His identity's shift hadn't changed him in the slightest.
He studied Cheng Shi and said with a soft smile:
"You must be curious about His vote. I imagine that's why you're here.
I can answer that for you. It was a foolish act."
"..." 'Of course. In the eyes of Folly and His followers, everything anyone else did was always a foolish act.'
"I once asked Him — when are You going to die?
He never answered . Until today, when He cast that vote.
Rest easy. It wasn't wholesale contempt for Deceit's plan, nor so deeply coded warning. He simply gave Himself an excuse — an excuse to die.
Folly used to say that all acts in the Universe were foolish, yet He alone stood above them. Though He'd committed a few foolish acts of His own, in His reckoning, those weren't actually foolish — they were even cleverer than the Universe itself.
Self-deception isn't exclusive to Deceit. At the very least, Folly was a natural.
He knew this starry sky could no longer accommodate Him. He'd witnessed too many gods fall. Proud as He was, He would never let you drag Him off that Divine Throne. So He deliberately committed an 'unforgivable' foolish act — then pronounced His own death sentence.
Folly died of folly. Quite poetic, isn't it?
Unfortunately, I didn't even get to see His undignified end. By the ti you arrived, all I saw was the Void returning to stillness."
"..."
For a mont, Cheng Shi didn't know what to say.
'So that was Folly. Even in death — foolish to the very last.'
Folly's demise was more or less expected. The old gods were always going to fall; Cheng Shi had so ntal preparation for it.
What he hadn't prepared for was the identity of the friend standing before him. Could this Puppeteer who outclassed every player in the ga truly be what he suspected?
Wei Mu read Cheng Shi's mind. He nodded. "That's right. You guessed correctly. I am His Authority."
"!!!!!"
"Am." Not "found."
The difference between those two tiny words was heaven and earth.
After Zhen Xin had floated the hypothesis — "Could all Folly followers be Folly's avatars?" — a hazy notion had surfaced in Cheng Shi's mind. He hadn't caught it at the ti. But when Zhen Xin reported that her search was shielded by an Authority... Cheng Shi had ventured a bold guess about Wei Mu's identity.
Now that guess was confird.
Wei Mu was the Authority that Folly had hidden away!
'Hidden in plain sight — genius.'
Wei Mu seed to have accepted his identity. He laughed at himself, then continued:
"I know what worries you — that the world's future, once spoken aloud through , has been tainted by Folly's Will.
But this is precisely where Folly was brilliant.
In this starry sky, Deceit was never the only chess master. Folly was one too — and arguably a step ahead of Deceit.
He sculpted His Authority into a person, hidden from the entire Universe — and from .
Consciousness is a wondrous thing. When you are unaware of your true self, you carry none of your essential self's colors.
This is also why certain fools can harbor the wrong answer in their hearts yet still cannot be identified as liars by the Master of Deception.
Because they are utterly convinced — and in their blissful ignorance, they 'deceive' even themselves.
I am such a fool.
I always believed I gathered information through talent, connected clues through intellect, and saw through the Universe's secrets through brilliance.
But now the tide has gone out, and the one swimming naked... ha, turns out it was only .
My wisdom was never innate. It was god-given. Only recently did I finally wake up and notice the cracks.
That's why I say Folly was the Universe's finest chess master. He saw the world's 'future' and, through my mouth, conveyed it to you. In this way, Fixed Destiny wouldn't be contaminated by His Will, and the world was given a path forward.
But that path wasn't paved by Folly. It was sothing Deceit groped toward, inch by inch, from the era's very beginning.
He handed in the best exam paper His ability allowed. Unfortunately, Folly didn't consider it an answer. He maintained, to the end, that the Universe has never had an answer."
...
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