Yes — if Ti's "discrepancy" could enable a player to cross the barriers between different tilines and reach the other side, then why couldn't it have happened in the past as well?
Li Wufang could co from another tiline. So why not Jiang Chi before him?
And this would also explain why Jiang Chi had been so mysterious — because he had never belonged to this tiline at all. He was an outsider who had stolen the identity of this tiline's Jiang Chi!
But this theory still contained one irreconcilable contradiction: why hadn't Jiang Chi recognized him? No — more precisely, why hadn't Jiang Chi recognized the "Cheng Shi" who should have been part of his original tiline's organization?
Cheng Shi's impression of the Ti walker was razor-sharp. Though Jiang Chi had called out his na during their encounter, all of it had stemd from Zhen Yi's self-impersonation farce. At no point had the Ti walker shown even a flicker of recognition — and Cheng Shi was certain it wasn't an act. He genuinely didn't know him.
So how to explain that?
A side effect of crossing tilines? Or had the "other" Cheng Shi joined their organization after Jiang Chi's "departure"?
"..."
No — he couldn't keep spiraling like this!
So far, this entire chain of speculation was a rootless water lily, backed by nothing. The trouble was that the building blocks stacked atop that lily were growing ever taller, and the higher they went, the more terrified Cheng Shi beca. He desperately needed solid ground to support it all. Otherwise, fear mixed with conjecture would spiral out of control, and the "skyscraper" he'd imagined would crush him flat.
So his gaze sharpened once more. He resolved to pry sothing useful from the other man's mouth — to play a round of "confused honesty" with Li Wufang, using Jiang Chi's identity as the thread.
"No need to look for him." Cheng Shi rapidly shifted his expression, curled his lips, and regarded the bewildered Investigator with a knowing smile. Before the man could ask, he pressed on: "He's already dead."
"Dead?!" Li Wufang's eyes went wide with shock. "Who killed him? Wait — boss, did you find the Ti breach?"
Ti breach!
Just those two words, and Cheng Shi gleaned a wealth of information. His heartstrings pulled taut — his hypothesis was about to be confird.
"No. But just because I didn't find it doesn't an no one else could."
Cheng Shi's words were deliberately vague. He knew that the mont the conversation extended to Jiang Chi, Li Wufang, or that organization, he'd be utterly incapable of answering.
So the purpose of his statent was to redirect Li Wufang's attention toward the trial's other teammates. No matter whom the Investigator then questioned, Cheng Shi could offer a response based on current information.
Sure enough, after hearing this, Li Wufang's expression hardened. He furrowed his brow:
"You suspect soone ca through the Ti breach... to our side?"
"!!!!!"
What did "to our side" an?!
'I don't understand yet, but... this is exactly what I was waiting for!'
A barely perceptible gleam flashed through Cheng Shi's eyes. Behind his back, his hand clenched into a fist. He nodded with practiced inscrutability, now virtually certain: the Li Wufang before him was absolutely one of Ti's "discrepancies"!
More than that — every earlier speculation about Jiang Chi might also be correct. The person this Investigator was hunting was indeed a Jiang Chi who had left their organization — or rather, their tiline — by crossing through spaceti!
The question was whether this Jiang Chi was the sa one he'd t.
Li Wufang wasn't finished. He pressed further: "Or did you, boss, see them pass through the breach to the other side?"
Cheng Shi didn't know how to answer that. But in the brief pause before Li Wufang continued, his mind was racing far ahead — all the way to another terrifying question: if the Investigator had truly beco one of Ti's "discrepancies," what about the others?
Ti probably wouldn't "contaminate" only one player who happened to have a "connection" to him... right?
If Li Wufang was a "discrepancy," and Jiang Chi might be one too — what about the Assassination Doctor?
Had this Truth follower been "contaminated"?
And more frighteningly — what about the two Torchbearers?
Qin Xin and... hmm, wait — Qin Xin?
At the thought of Qin Xin, Cheng Shi's fist behind his back clenched three degrees tighter.
Bad. Qin Xin seed to have a problem too.
He suddenly recalled the mont he'd commanded "Gongyang Jiao" in front of Qin Xin. The Torchbearer had asked a question he'd already once asked — whether Cheng Shi was trying to rge with Death...
But Cheng Shi had already used the Screaming Servant technique right in front of Qin Xin during the Blind One's death. Why, upon seeing it a second ti, would Qin Xin ask such a strange repeat question?
Didn't this suggest that Qin Xin — the founding Torchbearer himself — had also fallen into Ti's "discrepancy"?
Cheng Shi ticulously reviewed Qin Xin's behavior, sifting through every detail in his mory. The more he scrutinized, the more anomalous the second-eting Qin Xin appeared. And the Blind One seed to have noticed it too.
So... this founding Torchbearer, supposedly under Fraud's protection... had also been affected?
Cheng Shi didn't dare think further. With a hunter at his side, he had no ti for deeper reflection either. Seeing Li Wufang's increasingly suspicious gaze, he forced out a casual smile and offered an ambiguous response:
"I didn't see anything. But I noticed that the Blind One seems... sowhat different from who she was at the trial's start.
Don't forget — this is His trial. Who knows if the Blind One's 'difference'..."
Here, Cheng Shi took a gamble. He voiced his greatest speculation of the day, hoping to use it as a bargaining chip to extract more information from Li Wufang.
"...might also be a so-called 'discrepancy'?"
The mont the words landed, Li Wufang's expression transford — but his thoughts weren't on the absent Blind One. They were on the man standing right before him. The man he called "boss."
He seed entirely unsurprised by Cheng Shi's theory. And he knew his superior far too well. If the trial's "discrepancies" had truly fallen upon the players themselves, then the hardest one to identify would undoubtedly be the man before him!
But before Li Wufang could voice his suspicion, Cheng Shi preemptively loosened the tension on his nerves.
"That's exactly why I told you just now — I don't have a problem."
Li Wufang paused, then let so of the gravity drain from his features. He exhaled heavily.
But just as the Investigator had worked it all out and was about to relax into a smile, Cheng Shi struck. In one fluid step, he pressed his scalpel directly against the other man's throat, wearing a half-smile that was equal parts warmth and nace:
"The question is — how do I confirm that you don't have a problem?"
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