Hong Lin's first thought was:
'This world has gone insane.'
A Fate Weaver who had just tried to recruit her into the Destined Ones was now, after an audience with her own Benefactor, asking her: do you want to beco the Envoy of [Prosperity]?
What kind of deliriously prosperous ntal state did it take to even ask that question?
'Are all you Destined Ones this unhinged?'
Honestly, upon hearing Cheng Shi's words, Hong Lin wasn't all that shocked. She simply felt his brain might be a little scrambled.
But after watching him carefully for a long ti and finding that his expression showed no sign of deception, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
"You're serious?"
Cheng Shi nodded with absolute gravity:
"Yes. I'm serious. I'm asking you—do you want to beco a god? Do you want to wield [Prosperity]'s Authority as proxy in His stead?"
"..." Hong Lin felt like she was the one going crazy. Unable to contain herself, she shifted into Big Cat form right on the spot, vigorously scrubbed her face with those thick paws, then transford back into human shape and repeated what she'd just said.
"You're serious?"
Cheng Shi had absolutely no idea what the point of the Druid's little routine was, but he nodded solemnly all the sa:
"Dead serious!"
"And just because I want it, it can happen?"
Cheng Shi chose his words carefully: "With Their support, probably."
Hong Lin's pupils contracted sharply. She seized Cheng Shi's shoulders in a vise grip, her expression a tangle of emotions:
"Whose support?"
Cheng Shi paused for a mont, then told the truth: "[Death], [Deceit], and perhaps [Fate] as well."
When she heard those three Divine Nas, Hong Lin's pupils contracted yet again. Her heartbeat accelerated wildly, threatening to burst from her chest.
Staring at Cheng Shi's solemn, opinion-seeking expression, a torrent of thoughts raced through Hong Lin's mind. She froze suddenly, then blurted out in disbelief:
"The Divine Envoy?"
Cheng Shi grinned: "Smart! Exactly—that Divine Envoy. So, do you want it?"
This ti Hong Lin didn't hesitate. Suppressing the monuntal shock roiling inside her, she gritted her teeth and nodded:
"Yes!"
?
Even Cheng Shi hadn't expected Hong Lin to agree so readily. Before, when he'd tried to win her over, she'd always been full of reservations and considerations. Yet now the stakes were infinitely higher, far more insane—and she just agreed?
Hong Lin caught Cheng Shi's surprise and smiled as well, though tension still leaked through the edges of her grin.
"Your question is too terrifying. So terrifying I nearly lost the ability to think—it felt like being thrown back to the mont the Faith Ga descended, when everything bizarre and uncanny appeared right before my eyes."
"What, you thought I wouldn't want this?"
"No, I just didn't expect you to agree so quickly. Didn't you have misgivings about [Prosperity]?"
Hong Lin shook her head and let out a heavy breath.
"What I resisted was the helplessness—being unable to fight back. What I feared was being played by Him."
"But if you're asking whether I want to beco an Envoy with greater power to protect myself, then of course I do."
"Otherwise, why would I still be struggling in this ga? Isn't it all to beco stronger?"
"Becoming one of Them—oppressing others, outmaneuvering others—wouldn't that feel a hell of a lot better than just enduring the pressure myself?"
"..."
'Well, that's certainly... a refreshing perspective.'
Cheng Shi laughed. He should have known Hong Lin was never the indecisive type. She was a warrior—a warrior who fought with everything she had.
Seeing that Cheng Shi's expression had finally relaxed, Hong Lin dropped down beside him with a thud, gasping for breath:
"Quick—tell
what happened. While my sanity is still intact, tell
everything."
Cheng Shi was amused. It was rare to see Hong Lin lacking confidence. He held nothing back and laid out every detail of the plan.
Monts later, Hong Lin's expression had grown incomparably complex.
Cheng Shi watched his friend furrow her brows in deep thought. Just as they had the last ti they'd stepped out of the void together, he asked that question once more:
"Now—do you still want to?"
Hong Lin didn't answer. Instead, she asked:
"Is there still enough ti?"
Cheng Shi blinked. Although his Benefactor had said ti waits for no one, He hadn't pressed or co to hurry them—which naturally ant there was ti.
Perhaps the gods were still brawling atop the Canopy Sea, and it would likely take a while before their battle concluded.
So Cheng Shi nodded, signaling Hong Lin to speak her mind.
Hong Lin exhaled another turbid breath. She looked at the Fate Weaver friend she'd only recently made, and a serene smile spread across her face.
"Cheng Shi, do you know why I believe in destiny?"
"Why?"
"Because... my luck is too good."
"?"
'Co on now, friend—opening with a critical hit right to my face?'
Hong Lin seed less tense now. She flopped back onto the grass and gazed up at the lush canopy towering high overhead, then began to tell her story.
"When I say my luck is good, I actually an it literally."
"Originally, my fate wasn't good at all. At least not in childhood—it was downright abysmal."
"From the mont I was born, I had an irreversible form of atypical progeria. Can you imagine? By the ti I was twelve, I had more wrinkles on my face than my eighty-two-year-old great-grandmother, yet my hair was even thinner than hers."
"Every doctor declared I wouldn't survive past fifteen. But on the day I turned fourteen, a biology professor moved in next door."
"At first, we had no idea he wasn't a real professor, but a black-market dealer conducting illegal biological experints in secret. Still, his unthinkable bio-experints managed to keep
alive—even though I was reduced to a husk lying in a culture tank, plugged full of tubes, stripped of all dignity. But I lived. I made it past fifteen."
"Fortunately, my family was fairly well off. My parents earned enough to sustain the experints, so I wouldn't die in that tank."
"When I was sixteen, Tao Yi moved in and beca my neighbor."
"She was two years younger than . Pretty, with a lovely voice—lively, cheerful, and clever. Most importantly, she was healthy. Incredibly healthy."
"My mother always felt I needed a friend my own age, so with her deliberate encouragent and invitations, Tao Yi started visiting regularly. She wasn't the least bit afraid of the tank that imprisoned
like a cage."
"Having a companion my age made
happy, even though I looked more like her grandmother—or even her great-grandmother."
"But I was often jealous of her too. Jealous of how beautiful she was. Jealous of her carefree health."
"Those tangled emotions lasted for years. My body deteriorated further and further, until even the experints could no longer hold things together."
"And just when our entire family had lost hope, that black-market dealer with his miraculous connections—Professor Chen—procured a new drug. He said it could keep
alive, but it was even more expensive than the experints."
"That sa year, our family business collapsed. It looked like we wouldn't be able to afford the life-sustaining treatnts anymore. But then one night, my father hit the lottery. Six million dollars."
"Unbelievable, right? Those six million let the family business recover, and kept
clinging to life."
"But later I found out that ticket wasn't his. It was Tao Yi's. She was still in college, spending her living expenses on lottery tickets every single day—all so she could win enough money to pay for my treatnt. Who would have thought a naive college student could actually win the lottery? And that she'd hit it at the exact mont my family was on the verge of collapse."
"This girl who had absolutely no obligation to —and that sum wasn't small change for her family either—she could have simply walked away. But she didn't."
"She never told her family. She secretly slipped the winning ticket into my father's pocket. He had no idea where it ca from, but seeing that the money could save a life, he took it with a guilty conscience."
"And so I lived again. Lived for many more years. Our family business thrived, and we even had the resources to support Tao Yi in chasing her dream of singing."
"But she was... honestly, not that great a singer. So my mother suggested she try a different track. And wouldn't you know it—she landed a minor role as a servant girl in a drama, and she blew up."
"The very first paycheck she earned, she spent it on the newest dication for —even though by then my family could afford it ourselves. Honestly..."
"Later, the disease finally beca impossible to hold off. Even my mother—who'd always been the most confident about my recovery—gave up. They cried as they prepared my funeral arrangents, and then..."
"The Faith Ga descended."
"..."
"So now you can guess why I chose [Prosperity], and why I'm grateful to Him—because He let
stand on my own two feet again."
"At the Path Starting Point, there were three artifacts: [Prosperity]'s green branch, [Decay]'s dagger, and [Fate]'s die."
"The mont I learned that the green branch could restore
completely, I didn't even spare a second glance at the other two."
Hong Lin gave a self-deprecating laugh, then turned to look at Cheng Shi beside her:
"Now do you understand why I believe in destiny? The first half of my life is living proof of good fortune."
"That's why I told you I'm not afraid of dying—because every ti I've walked to the gates of hell, a hand has always pushed
back."
"First it was Professor Chen, then it was Tao Yi, and now it's you, Cheng Shi."
Cheng Shi's mind churned with emotion, deeply moved. He thought that perhaps this was the real reason [Fate] had bestowed that die—because the god had already set His eyes on this pitiable soul favored by fortune, all the way back at the Path Starting Point.
'So people truly blessed by [Fate] do exist. And Hong Lin wasn't just blindly chard by my persuasion—she genuinely believes in destiny.'
'If anything, I'm the one profiting off her good luck.'
"I wasn't crazy before, because I felt I owed it to them to stay alive. But now that I've t you, seen the Destined Ones, I realize I was wrong."
"My good fortune shouldn't be my safety net—it should be my weapon."
"So if there's a chance, why not? At the very least, standing at that height would let
better protect my friends."
"Wielding the Authority of [Prosperity] as proxy—wouldn't that let my friends flourish forever?"
Cheng Shi smiled. He smiled with genuine joy, and even clapped his hands. And as he applauded, he activated the Floating Dream of the mory Sea, inscribing the tale of the Mushroom-Footed People and the Divine Envoy into the history of the Land of Hope.
Watching Cheng Shi work, Hong Lin suddenly asked:
"Are we going to die?"
The question landed heavy, because this ti it wasn't sothing an [Order] remnant page could solve. This gamble demanded they go all-in—absolutely, irrevocably all-in.
This ti, Cheng Shi genuinely couldn't be sure. But at the very least, under his Benefactor's protection, even if they died, it shouldn't be too grueso.
So he nodded with "conviction": "No. Absolutely not."
...
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