As for the other two...
"La Quis and Lid Yara—what?! How can they possibly be here?!" Li Zhen's eyes went wide, an involuntary cry of disbelief tearing from his throat.
Cheng Shi's gaze sharpened but he didn't act rashly, staying hidden behind Yu Mu as he frowned and asked: "Who are they?"
Li Zhen still hadn't recovered from the sheer shock. He pointed stiffly at the elderly figure hanging in the middle and said in a trembling voice: "La Quis. The Grand Tribunal's last Grand Justice."
Then he pointed to the haggard-looking woman on the far right: "Lid Yara. The Grand Tribunal's second-to-last Grand Investigator. According to historical records, she was ambushed and killed by Truth followers while investigating a Tower of Logic Grand Scholar incursion. In this current tiline, she... should already be dead."
Cheng Shi felt his heart lurch. If this Grand Investigator wasn't actually dead but instead locked away in the Howling Iron Prison, then her story involved many people—and might well point directly to the Grand Tribunal's dirty secrets.
Coming here today had truly been the right call. But things were going a little too smoothly.
His eyebrow rose as he suddenly turned to study Li Zhen's profile: "Are you sure you're not mistaken?"
"I'm not! There's absolutely no way I'd misidentify them. I've seen them in countless historical records. As a follower of Order, I know the Grand Tribunal's history well enough."
"Mm, I can tell. But Li Zhen—I suspect you're not just an ordinary Investigator, are you?
Order is still your Benefactor, after all. Even if you suspect sothing's wrong with him, I'd think you wouldn't use such extre asures to investigate a god.
Your devotion is eroding, and that ans your power could vanish—but you don't seem afraid at all.
So what conviction drives you to pursue this investigation so relentlessly, even at the cost of hiring ?
Faith? No, clearly not.
I've been mulling it over the entire way down and couldn't figure it out. Now I think I finally understand.
You're... part of the History School?"
Li Zhen went rigid. He stole a sidelong glance at Cheng Shi and nodded with visible anxiety.
"Yes... I'm from the History School."
"Heh, no wonder. No wonder you despise those history-erasing hacks." Cheng Shi let out a self-deprecating laugh. "I should've guessed sooner. Clever, though—you told half-truths the whole ti."
"Boss, I wasn't deliberately hiding anything. My identity has no bearing on our arrangent, and it's not important."
"It's true it doesn't matter much. But I don't like being deceived.
Who knows what other half-truths you've told .
That Dream Peeping Candle of yours—is it real?"
Li Zhen froze, taken aback by the leap in logic. How did the conversation suddenly circle back to the Dream Peeping Candle?
"Of course it's real."
"Take it out. I want to see it with my own eyes." Cheng Shi's voice was quiet and cold.
Li Zhen didn't refuse—he was about to use it anyway—and pulled it from his personal storage.
"How does it work? Tell , word for word. And rember—don't even think about deceiving ."
Li Zhen nodded in bewildernt and rattled off the explanation:
"Light the Dream Peeping Candle near the target. When everyone is enveloped in its smoke, we'll be able to trace back through the target's dreams and see the most deeply hidden, most morable secret in their heart.
It works almost identically to the Dream Peeping Ranger's talent."
Truth. The Investigator wasn't lying—and this wasn't a conclusion drawn through Master of Deception. Cheng Shi already knew what this item was. He'd simply wanted to test whether the man was concealing anything, but nothing surfaced.
Cheng Shi nodded, then feigned ignorance: "So we'll all fall unconscious?"
"Yes. But there shouldn't be any danger in here. Besides, you've got your... bodyguard. As long as he stays back a distance, he should be able to wake us if trouble cos.
As for the three in the cell—under Order's suppression, once we knock them out, they shouldn't be able to wake for quite a while."
"Thorough. Seems you've thought of everything. In that case—let's go." Cheng Shi gave an appreciative clap.
Li Zhen's face brightened now that the boss had finally stopped questioning him. The tension eased slightly as he gripped the Dream Peeping Candle and strode into the stone cell.
But he'd barely taken two steps before Cheng Shi lunged forward in a flash, a scalpel sliding from his sleeve into his fingertips. Without a word, he drove it toward the back of Li Zhen's skull.
The surprise attack was so fast that the Hunter ahead had zero ti to react. Just as the blade was about to end his life, the scalpel's tip grazed Li Zhen's hair—and Cheng Shi frowned, pulling the blade back. In a split-second shift of force he converted the thrust into a knife-hand strike, chopping down on Li Zhen's neck.
Thwack!
Thud—
Li Zhen hadn't even processed what happened before he was on the ground.
Looking down at the felled Investigator, Cheng Shi's brow furrowed tightly.
Sothing was wrong. Profoundly, deeply wrong.
This man knew too much. He could identify faces on sight, was well-versed in history, and—most critically—he was intimately familiar with the Howling Iron Prison.
Not "familiar" in the sense of knowing the route or the location of the final level. No—he had clearly studied this dungeon extensively beforehand.
Because just now—just now, when Cheng Shi had invited him to enter, a man who was a Hunter by class had walked toward a cell holding three of the most important prisoners without a shred of caution or fear!
Wasn't he worried about Order traps inside the cell? Or Grand Tribunal chanisms?
Even a player who wasn't part of the steady-and-cautious school of thought would show so wariness in an unfamiliar place—let alone a Hunter whose defining trait was supposed to be keen awareness!
Cheng Shi had been suspicious of him all along. The only thing about Li Zhen that had slightly lowered his guard was that he was a genuine Order follower—in this ga, Order's followers were generally dependable.
But he was a little too dependable. He hadn't told a single lie.
This wasn't Li Zhen's fault for being honest. The problem was that Cheng Shi now suffered from "full-truth PTSD"—he was genuinely wary of the "All-Truth Sect."
So he'd struck preemptively as a test. And the results...
This Li Zhen did seem ordinary enough.
But as a veteran advocate of caution, Cheng Shi wasn't about to let it go at that.
He looked at the unconscious Li Zhen, pulled out a handful of knockout drugs from his storage, and sared them all over the man's... entire body.
Then he took out the Umbilical Shackles, asured them against Li Zhen a few tis, but after a mont's thought put them back for so reason, swapping them for several thick ropes and binding him tight.
Even that wasn't enough. He positioned the tree-servant Yu Mu in a drawn-bow stance with the arrowhead aid squarely at Li Zhen's back. Only after completing all of this did he pick up the Dream Peeping Candle and carefully make his way into the stone cell.
Cheng Shi advanced with extre caution, scattering dice behind him while tossing bricks ahead. A distance that should've taken a dozen steps sohow consud nearly a hundred.
Not until he saw Chernosly's familiar face hanging above him did he finally exhale, confirm that everything was safe—and grow even more certain that Li Zhen had to have a problem.
The man had known all along there were no traps in this cell!
But Cheng Shi couldn't afford to dwell on Li Zhen now. The three feeble prisoners before him had sensed soone's arrival and simultaneously opened their eyes, slowly turning their heads toward him.
Cheng Shi's heartbeat quickened slightly, though his expression remained calm as a breeze:
"Chernosly. La Quis. Lid Yara. It's been a while."
The three prisoners frowned faintly, seemingly unable to recall this "old acquaintance." Their lips parted weakly, but no words erged.
Seeing this, Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow, took out a healing potion, and poured it over Chernosly's body.
But before the liquid even touched him, threads of holy scripture-light blazed to life, instantly weaving into a golden-radiance cocoon around Chernosly—a Holy Cocoon that sealed him tight and blocked every drop of the potion.
Worse still, within that cocoon of radiant scripture, the thunderous tones of divine judgnt began to resonate. As the holy light circulated, the chains binding Chernosly grew tighter and tighter, cutting into his flesh until they squeezed the pale, enfeebled Inquisitor into unconsciousness. Only then did the Order light dissipate with a rumble, and the stone cell fell silent again.
"..."
Cheng Shi watched the scene unfold, the corner of his eye twitching violently.
He never imagined his well-intentioned gesture would trigger Order's punishnt on Chernosly.
The situation had turned awkward.
Bad news: his only acquaintance was unconscious.
Good news: when it ca ti to light the candle, he might not need to figure out how to knock the man out first.
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