"When did he disappear?"
The first to respond to Cheng Shi was the Blind One. But she didn't answer his question directly — instead, she voiced her own doubt.
Cheng Shi glanced at her impassively. He understood her aning and nodded: "So you are from the sa world as that Qin Xin. Then what about you, Qin Xin — which version are you?"
It was a bizarre question. Qin Xin was obviously Qin Xin — who else could he be?
Yet this Qin Xin showed no confusion at the situation. He seed to have guessed sothing, furrowing his brow slightly: "Your friend. Qin Xin."
My friend?
Cheng Shi paused, then understood: this Qin Xin was saying they'd communicated and cooperated successfully before. So...
He was the Qin Xin who'd witnessed Cheng Shi blast the Blind One with the Fun Ring and explored the Shanty Area together?
He was back?
"..."
Cheng Shi's eyelid twitched. How absurd — they hadn't found the cause of the discrepancies, hadn't found the original tiline, had lost the Blind One — and yet the Qin Xin he was "familiar" with had circled back.
What was this — a cody?
He'd barely recruited a new mber of the Destined Ones and she'd vanished?
Was this Destiny's joke, or Ti's mockery?
Still, Cheng Shi didn't dare assu the Qin Xin before him was definitely the one who'd walked with him. He needed verification. After all, Ti's hint had specified three periods: past, present, and future.
So he looked at Qin Xin, held out his hand, and made a straightforward test.
"My request may be forward, but I think my friend would help
cut through the trouble. If you are my friend, Qin Xin, please hand over your—"
Before Cheng Shi could finish, Qin Xin stepped forward, pulled out the Master of Deception Card, and placed it directly in his palm. Then, expression grave:
"I'm not your friend."
A lie!
That was a lie!
He was indeed the Qin Xin who'd walked the Shanty Area with him!
Cheng Shi's sunken heart floated back up slightly. At least — amid all this temporal chaos — he still had one trustworthy teammate.
Though this bond of trust, after being washed by Ti's discrepancy, might need rebuilding from scratch.
But just as Cheng Shi was re-evaluating Qin Xin, the Blind One suddenly spoke again, asking Qin Xin a seemingly random question.
"The trial keeps getting stranger. Qin Xin — in the prophecy I made at the start of the trial, the four players who survived to the end... who do you think the fourth would be, besides us three?"
"???"
Qin Xin hadn't even processed the question when Cheng Shi was already floored.
Wait — four? The prophecy showed five, not four!
Cheng Shi was stunned. Then a chill erupted from beneath his skin, covering him in goosebumps.
He whipped his head toward the Blind One to confirm whether this was one of her discrepancies — and imdiately heard Qin Xin muse behind him:
"You're serious?
I'd say it'll be the three of us — though not the current three of us. Sorry, Ming Yu, but the ones who'll win in the end must be the Ming Yu, Cheng Shi, and Qin Xin from our own world.
As for the fourth... I can't guess."
"!!!"
'Dude… you actually answered? And you don't see anything wrong with four people in the prophecy?!'
Oh no!
This was correct!
Qin Xin apparently didn't think this question had a problem — which ant he was the one with the problem!
Cheng Shi's pupils were practically numb from all the contracting. His gaze darted between the two Torchbearers from different worlds. Monts later, catching the "just as I suspected" expression on the Blind One's face, he felt the tension that had just barely eased snap taut to the breaking point!
He saw it now: the Blind One was correct. Qin Xin was wrong!
This had been a probe by the Blind One, and Qin Xin had revealed his flaw. Of course, for him it wasn't a flaw — the prophecy in his world genuinely had only four people.
The current Qin Xin was not the one who'd walked the Shanty Area with him!
He closely resembled the previous Qin Xin, but he carried a cognitive discrepancy — the so-called Ti "discrepancy."
"The result of the initial prophecy wasn't four people. It was five." The Blind One sighed, then turned to Cheng Shi. "Your expression tells
your understanding matches mine. So, Fate Weaver — this Qin Xin is not the friend you were hoping for. He... also cos from another world."
"..."
"..."
Case solved. The Blind One before him was from the "fire-carrying is hard" world. The Qin Xin before him was from the "wrong prophecy" world. And this Qin Xin from the wrong-prophecy world closely resembled the original Qin Xin.
At minimum — they both dared to hand over the Master of Deception Card, which was critically important to the Torchbearers!
Cheng Shi's brow sank. He gripped the card tightly.
If the "fire-carrying is hard" tiline was more like so kind of future, then the "wrong prophecy" tiline was more like the past — since the prophecy was made at the trial's beginning.
So the current situation: the original Blind One had been replaced by a future Blind One, while the future Qin Xin had been replaced by a past Qin Xin.
But even with the situation mapped out, Cheng Shi's brain still felt utterly scrambled. He took several deep breaths, then turned suspicious eyes on the Blind One once more:
"How did you know Qin Xin's version of the prophecy was wrong?"
"I didn't." The Blind One shook her head. "I simply wanted to verify."
"That doesn't add up. If you didn't know, you couldn't have probed with the prophecy specifically!"
Cheng Shi's expression turned cold. With so many possible variables in the past, a random probe couldn't have pinpointed one particular error so precisely. The Blind One must have known sothing.
She didn't deny it — because she, too, wanted to find her way ho.
Just as the previous Qin Xin had said: this true Torchbearer An Mingyu from his world had no designs on other worlds' beauty. What she wanted was to protect her own.
"It was Li Wufang who let it slip. The Order follower shared his expectations about Destiny with . He's the one who said he'd heard only four in the prophecy. So I noted it."
Li Wufang?!
The "Destined One" had changed too?
No — not necessarily. A single prophecy error wasn't enough to determine his state. The "Destined One" identity and the prophecy error might belong to the sa Li Wufang, aning this Investigator who'd joined the Destined Ones could be from so version of the past, not the future.
But all of this required Cheng Shi to go up to the mine and verify in person.
Before that, though, he needed to understand one more thing: exactly how had the Blind One rescued him and Qin Xin, and whether her rescue thod had inadvertently carried Ti's magic — causing Qin Xin to be swapped right before his eyes.
So Cheng Shi turned to the Blind One again, eyes burning with the question.
Her answer stunned him all over again. She gestured at the surrounding alleys, houses, shaken passersby, and the flower beds of blue-purple Abyss Rainbow Orchid swaying in the courtyards:
"Return of the Past.
By the ti I arrived, this area had already self-repaired through Existence's automatic restoration. I could only sense traces of War and Destiny intertwined here but had no idea where you'd gone.
So, to find... him, I used a page inscribed with Return of the Past.
The Destiny die you saw was the one from within the recreated past — frozen at the instant reality shattered, monts before falling.
In other words: a Destiny die from mory saved you. Your original Destiny die may have already plumted beyond Existence and vanished.
You blasphed against Him. Yet He forgave you.
Praise Destiny — He is... so very forgiving.
At least toward you."
"..."
This relic... He had sent it back personally?
Cheng Shi stared at the crimson pip on the die in his hand, his expression indescribable.
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