"Cat got your tongue? You've laid out the whole plan—don't tell
that at the very end, you can't actually alter this contract?"
Hong Lin's words sounded like mockery, but she was secretly breathing a sigh of relief, as if she was having second thoughts.
But they'd co too far for Cheng Shi to let her back out now. He spoke with absolute confidence:
"I can. But..."
"But what?" A foreboding clench gripped Hong Lin's heart, as if she sensed sothing unpleasant coming.
Cheng Shi shot her an odd look: "But you'll have to endure a little indignity."
"Huh?"
With that, he pointed at his tongue.
"I just communicated with the Tongue of Eating Lies in my storage space. It says it can eat the signatures off this contract, but only if the unfinished truth-or-dare ga from before is completed first!
In other words, Baldy—either you take a slap, or... you answer one of my questions."
The instant those words landed, Hong Lin sprang to her feet in a fury. She grabbed Cheng Shi and pinned him with a death glare:
"You're lying to ?
That tongue was clearly given to you by the Puppet Master. How could you know its functions so well?
When I was holding it, I didn't discover it could do any of that!
And I definitely didn't discover it could talk!"
"..."
Cheng Shi hadn't expected such an explosive reaction. He chuckled awkwardly:
"I'm not that talented. It told
everything itself. When I picked up the contract, it suddenly spoke up from my storage space and asked if I could feed it the contract. So I chatted with it for a bit..."
"Bullshit. You liar. I don't believe you. Take it out. If it can talk, then I'll believe you!"
This put Cheng Shi in a bind, because everything he'd just said was indeed fabricated. He'd been trying to trick so gossip out of Hong Lin, but the ploy had backfired spectacularly.
Not that it mattered much—he could just admit his mistake and play it off as a joke to ease the tension. But just as he was about to speak up, his mouth beat him to it:
"Sure."
"..."
"..."
Both of them went slack-jawed.
Hearing the voice, Cheng Shi imdiately realized Brother Mouth was helping, not sabotaging him. Fighting back laughter, he looked at Hong Lin: "So... shall I take it out?"
Hong Lin's eyelid twitched. Her suspicious gaze swept Cheng Shi up and down for a long mont before she snapped: "Do it! I refuse to believe a tongue can speak!"
Without another word, Cheng Shi tossed the Tongue of Eating Lies out. The mont it hit the ground, it let out a satisfied burp.
"Burp—I'm full."
"..."
'This is way too creepy—a talking tongue!'
Staring at this tongue that had genuinely produced sound, Hong Lin's mind went blank. She was completely out of options. She glared at the disgusting tongue, her expression cycling through several changes, until she finally blurted out:
"Fine—I'll agree to join this gamble. But I have conditions."
Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow, already guessing what she'd say.
"Have this tongue modify the contract first. When we win the gamble, I'll finish the incomplete truth-or-dare ga.
Otherwise—no deal!"
"..."
Who said Baldy was dumb? She knew better than to lose both the battle and the war. If they lost the bet, she didn't want insult added to injury with a slap on top of it.
Cheng Shi genuinely didn't know if the tongue would agree. But the entire plan hinged on the Tongue of Eating Lies' contract-altering ability. So he looked at the tongue with bated breath, and watched it writhe in two lazy circles on the ground before drawling:
"Deal!"
"..."
"..."
Upon hearing this, Cheng Shi grinned and scooped up the tongue. Hong Lin's face, anwhile, looked like she'd just eaten sothing foul.
'Indeed—you always end up paying for your own sins. An unchanging truth since antiquity.'
Cheng Shi thought the sa thing. He suppressed a laugh and mused: 'Praise [Truth]—actually, no. Better praise [Folly]. We might be picking a fight with [Truth] any mont now.'
His mind racing with a thousand thoughts, he scratched his nose and continued:
"I know you don't strongly believe in [Prosperity]. But as long as you're in this ga, you can't survive without Their protection.
This tribute to Him might an little to you personally, but you need to think about the future.
If you believe in fate, then it ans you're destined to be with us. When we join forces and win this gamble, your Benefactor [Prosperity] will stand alongside my Benefactor [Fate]—to confront the [Decay] sheltering the Sighing Forest and the [Truth] watching over the Faith Grafting experint.
That's all I'll say. Think it over."
With this, Cheng Shi finally dropped the most information-dense sentence in this entire hustle. He hadn't explained everything, but with Hong Lin's experience, just hearing about a divine power struggle should be enough for her to piece things together.
Hong Lin thought it over with furrowed brows, then asked with so uncertainty:
"You're using a gamble to force His hand—to make Him agree to let
walk the path of [Fate]?"
"This isn't forcing His hand. This is...
[Fate]'s choice."
Hong Lin studied Cheng Shi with a complicated expression, thinking this man's scheming was truly formidable. No wonder he'd managed to...
'Forget it. Let's not bring up that Bad Luck thing.'
"You really are a charlatan!"
"Thanks for the complint. So—have you decided? Shall we begin?"
He raised both hands: one holding the Tomb End Stone, the other gripping a languid tongue.
Hong Lin frowned, as if sothing had occurred to her. But before long her brow relaxed, and after a flash of resignation, she shot a disgusted sideways glance at the Tongue of Eating Lies and snatched the stone brimming with [Decay].
"How do we do this?
Let it corrode away all the [Prosperity] in ? If so, I'll be powerless. Cheng Shi, are you sure a Priest like you can protect ?"
Cheng Shi shook his head:
"No—we can't simply let the Tomb End Stone drain your [Prosperity]. I'm thinking you should try using [Prosperity] to catalyze the [Decay] inside this stone—like Eposka's blood. We don't need to convert [Prosperity] into [Decay]. We just need to 'volatilize' the power outward. That way, the disguise effect will be large enough.
We can worry about whether I can protect you after we've completed this step."
"If I had Eposka's blood, I could try. But I don't have—"
Sentence cut short ×3. Hong Lin shut up ×3.
Watched in stunned silence ×3.
Because Cheng Shi produced a small jar of Eposka's fresh blood right before her eyes.
"You..."
"Don't misunderstand. I dismantled the Desolate Lamp."
"..."
Hong Lin went completely silent.
She wordlessly took the bottle of Eposka's blue blood and began experinting with using [Prosperity] to catalyze a denser concentration of [Decay].
Cheng Shi wasn't idle either. He used the tongue to effortlessly lick away the nas of Eposka and the Mushroom-Footed People from the contract. Then he took Hong Lin's hand, dipped it in the blood, and pressed a handprint where Eposka's na had been.
As for the other signature...
Hong Lin looked at Cheng Shi, her eye twitching: "Don't wait for
to ask. Just take it out."
Cheng Shi bead. Sure enough, from his storage space he produced a branch of a Twisted Night Python.
"..."
"Don't look at
like that. I picked it up when the trial first started. A person should always plan ahead. It's decent wood, too—even if it turned out useless, I could've burned it for warmth. Right?"
"Right, right, right. Sure, sure, sure. Fine, fine, fine. I never imagined the day would co when I'd be lectured by a scrap collector." She laughed in frustration.
Hearing this, Cheng Shi paused for two seconds.
" neither."
"Huh?" Hong Lin didn't quite catch his aning, but she didn't dwell on it. Instead, she continued: "Disguising as [Decay] is fine, but we must not expose any flaws. I have many other types of Divinity sealed within my body. What do we do about those?"
Cheng Shi snapped out of his brief daze, expression turning serious: "If you don't mind... those Divinity fragnts could, ahem, be temporarily..."
"Loaned to you?" Hong Lin sneered disdainfully.
"Such harsh words! Temporarily stored. I'll hold onto them for now—it'd be a waste to just let them dissipate."
Hong Lin's scrutinizing gaze swept over Cheng Shi. Without a word, she extracted every sealed fragnt of Divinity from her body.
[Prosperity], [Birth], [Order], [War], [mory]—and even a few wisps of [Deceit]!
Watching these multicolored fragnts of Divinity float in the Void, Cheng Shi's mind went blank.
'Huh?'
'So this is the power of a Chosen One?'
'Why does she have [Deceit] Divinity too?'
"What—surprised?
You guessed one thing right. I do enjoy sealing Divinity. But my usual container is myself—not so weakling teammate who barely escaped my grasp!"
"..."
'Sis... please stop flogging the corpse. It's already beaten to a pulp.'
Cheng Shi laughed awkwardly, then pointed at the Divinity fragnts before them:
"I might need your help... sealing these in the body of the weakling teammate standing before you..."
At this, even Hong Lin was dumbfounded.
Her expression darkened: "You don't know how to seal Divinity? Wait—do you not even collect Divinity?"
"..."
'I want to, believe ! But Divinity doesn't run into trees like rabbits...'
So Cheng Shi honestly shook his head.
Hong Lin sized him up for a mont, then began working with a scowl, muttering resentfully as she went:
"If I find out you're playing —hmph!"
Cheng Shi's expression tightened. He sighed.
'What a ss...'
But at least the plan was finally underway.
Now all they had to do was wait.
'Co on, night—fall already.'
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