An Mingyu's gaze sharpened, as if trying to determine whether Qin Xin was telling the truth.
Qin Xin, however, didn't dwell on the subject. Instead, he fished a golden card from his pocket and studied the small text on its surface with interest, smiling as he spoke:
"When a player dies, their personal storage vanishes, but this card falls right out— free for the next person to pick up.
"Heh, quite the diocre Person Society. After changing hands several tis, whoever ends up with this invitation card— can they really be called diocre?
"Ming Yu, who do you think created the diocre Person Society?"
An Mingyu frowned slightly and produced her own card.
The card in her hand had been given to her by Qin Xin. If not for the Torchbearers' rule requiring all unassessable mysterious items to be turned in, this sche might not have co together so easily.
The Torchbearers held three cards in total: No. 16 in her hands, No. 13 in Qin Xin's, and No. 4, which remained at the Torchbearers' secret base.
Zhen Xin had taken No. 1, which Zhen Yi had originally collected, and had given Cheng Shi No. 15.
Considering the sparse turnout, it wasn't hard to guess: perhaps the diocre Person Society's invitation cards had only ever numbered sixteen— one for each of the sixteen faiths.
"He's screening..." An Mingyu said.
"Screening? Good word. He is indeed screening, but for what purpose?
"The attendees' faiths are all different. As it stands, [Deceit] occupied two seats, which naturally excluded a certain faith.
"Among the faiths that didn't appear tonight, only two have the ans to orchestrate sothing this grand.
"So could it be one of those two?
"Ming Yu, do you have any prophecies left for today?"
An Mingyu smiled and shook her head:
"[Fate] offers guidance, not answers.
"If one blindly follows prophecy to the letter, one gradually strays from [Fate]'s true path.
"Rember— it is neither fixed destiny nor change.
"There's too little intelligence. I can't offer any conclusions. But I think you're right— this does seem like sothing those two could pull off.
"Especially him..."
Qin Xin was mildly amused by the Blind One's words, but he quickly schooled his expression. He lifted his gaze upward, eyes laden with aning.
The two exchanged a few more casual words before departing not long after.
Before leaving, the Blind One still hadn't managed to pry Qin Xin's identity from him, which only deepened her curiosity about the Torchbearers' founder.
She recalled Zhen Xin's assessnt of Qin Xin: soone who could "endure the humiliation of crawling between legs and fight his way before a god." A person of "unshakable composure who plans before he acts."
People with that temperant typically ran impossibly deep. Without special ans, deciphering their thoughts— or their secrets— was a fool's errand.
But since she'd co to collaborate rather than antagonize, An Mingyu refrained from using her [Fate] talent on Qin Xin.
She figured that perhaps, soday, once mutual trust had been fully established, Qin Xin would reveal the answers to these mysteries on his own.
After the Torchbearers departed from that space, the hall fell silent once more.
The spotlights lost their glow. The seating tiers swallowed all sound.
This venue, now devoid of any players, seed to have returned at last to true [Silence].
But was that really the case?
No. After silence had "echoed" for an unknowable stretch, yet another change stirred in the hall.
In a patch of shadow far up in the seating tiers, the flow of ti suddenly warped. The effect manifested as the entire shadow "refreshing at high speed," and before long, the shadow ca alive— its "mouth" writhing open to disgorge a...
Short figure.
Though the figure was small, his eyes blazed with keen intelligence.
He looked toward where Qin Xin and the Blind One had stood, then toward the direction where Hu Wei and the others had vanished. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"[Prosperity]? Torchbearers? Cheng Shi? [Fate]? diocre Person Society?
"Interesting— how interesting.
"Tonight's show was definitely worth attending.
"This seems to be... [Birth]'s aura. Strong, too. Better give this Fate Weaver a wide berth in the future."
The figure grinned happily. Between his fingertips, a golden card spun rapidly. A closer look revealed it to be a diocre Person Society invitation card, and the number emblazoned on it read unmistakably: No. 14.
"So Qin Xin was him?
"Well, well. [Void]'s mbers are tight as thieves, advancing and retreating together. So why is everyone in [Existence] so distant with each other?
"Qin Xin, oh Qin Xin— why didn't your little Fire Seeker co recruit ?
"[Fate] can prophesy, sure, but [Ti] can extrapolate too! Am I really worse than that blind—
"Hm?
"Who's there?!"
The figure in the shadows went silent at once, snapping his gaze toward a certain direction across the hall.
He'd heard movent. His expression turned serious imdiately.
Soone else was still here?
He'd assud he was the final mantis behind the cicada, but it turned out tonight there were two mantises?
Brow furrowed, eyes glinting cold, he drew an invisible dagger and crouched in the shadows like a leopard, waiting for his prey to show an opening.
But his wariness quickly solidified into sothing else entirely.
Because he realized the direction the sound had co from was...
The direction the Prisoner had left!
Could it be...?!
As he stood there in stunned disbelief, a hand burst through the rubble of the passageway with a clatter, shoving aside chunks of stone. A head erged from beneath the collapsed debris.
That dust-covered, rubble-flecked head broke through the surface and imdiately flashed a brilliant smile toward the shadow in the seating gallery, beaming with delight:
"Lao Deng, what are you standing there for? Give
a hand!"
"Prisoner, you didn't leave?!?" The voice from the shadows practically shrieked, its pitch cracking with shock. "Dammit, I knew it— you're just like Zhen Yi, you love a spectacle too much to ever actually leave!"
The short figure seed to recall so traumatic mory and instantly went into fight-or-flight mode.
He didn't hesitate for a single instant. The mont he confird it was the Prisoner, he dove into the flow of [Ti] and fled the space without so much as a backward glance.
"Don't go! What has the world co to— have people forgotten all decency?!
"You see
stuck like this and won't even lend a hand?"
The Prisoner grumbled for a mont, struggled to pull himself out a bit further, and when no reply ca from across the hall, his eyes rolled with sudden inspiration. He shrugged off the rubble in one burst and stood up directly.
Expression cautious, he walked over to the shadow and inspected it carefully, muttering: "He really left?"
The hall offered no answer beyond the echo of the Prisoner's own voice.
But the Prisoner refused to give up. He simply sat down on the floor and waited quietly for the other to return. After an indeterminate stretch of ti...
He finally opened his eyes again.
"So... he really did leave.
"Since everyone has left, then, Your Excellency... are you going to show yourself?
"I know you're here. If you don't co out soon, I'm going to call the authorities.
"Voyeurism...
"Is against the law, you know."
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