The Blind One fell silent.
Indeed — in a room of five, three people shared the sa tiline. Only she was the outsider.
As for the other outsider... the Doctor's function right now didn't really qualify as "person." He was the experint's surveillance-reminder device — soone everyone would protect with eyes closed. As long as he could organize the experintal steps and ensure its completion, it didn't matter where he ca from.
And judging by his behavior, he didn't seem to care about the tiline question either. After all, he was just a slice. "Ho" was... he couldn't even say he had one.
But Qin Xin didn't let the silence linger. He moved to the Blind One's side, standing in front of her in a subtle protective posture.
"Ming Yu — you've been cooped up in your own world too long. A change of air won't hurt.
There are still six days in the trial. We'll find a way back. Don't worry — Destiny will guide your path.
Besides, numbers don't make truth in this world. We may be few, but we're on the truest path.
And who even knows which world this belongs to? Maybe we're the foreigners. Maybe you're the one who belongs here."
Though well said, Cheng Shi still made a face.
'What a warm-hearted big brother — consoling his Fire Seeker so beautifully. But what about the clown?'
'The clown barely had a sliver of hope, and your pep talk just crushed it.'
'So whose world is this, dammit?!'
Indeed — even though Cheng Shi had untangled the logic behind the discrepancies and verified his theory with the smoke trick, he still didn't know which world he was standing in.
Because a doubt lingered — one he'd discussed only with the original Blind One, never shared with anyone else. The logic behind his own and the Blind One's "discrepancy" seed different from everyone else's!
Cheng Shi had ntioned that — prompted by Jiang Chi — he'd been wary of every hour mark throughout the trial. So at every single hour mark, he'd ensured his teammates were within sight.
See the problem?
Every hour mark.
That ant from start to finish, Cheng Shi had always had players sharing his line of sight!
Yet he'd still been thrown from his tiline — a fact the original Blind One had told him.
The Blind One said she hadn't changed during her first resurrection, and she'd been with Cheng Shi nearly the entire ti afterward. Yet the tiline still shifted once they reached the mine.
This ant the trial contained a second layer of tiline logic — one that didn't manifest through player interaction, but lurked in so corner Cheng Shi hadn't discovered.
Cheng Shi even suspected Ti had foreseen his caution and added an insurance policy to this hard-to-detect discrepancy logic — a fail-safe designed to trap the clown in the ti labyrinth!
This worried him, but not excessively.
If the first rule could be found, the second one would surface before long.
He was grateful this was a genuine peak-level ga. Every player could supply the team with vast amounts of deduction and intelligence. Without them, he might never have identified two teammates from his own tiline this quickly.
"Why make it sound so tragic?
Nobody died — ugh, no, spit spit spit — it's just one more hour with us.
Chosen One, I don't know whether your next tiline will be safe. But I have to remind you: keeping yourself moving is the key to finding the way ho." Cheng Shi offered this friendly advice.
The Blind One broke her silence. She seed less fazed than everyone had expected.
"I think Qin Xin is right. You can't even confirm whether this world belongs to you. What makes you so sure it isn't my tiline?"
"..." 'What is this — I try to comfort her and she starts getting feisty?'
Cheng Shi shook his head with a wry smile. This Destiny Chosen's ntality was holding up well — at least she wasn't like the "fire-carrying is hard" An Mingyu, desperate to rush ho.
And just as everyone was talking, Wang Mou — who'd been silently observing the experint — suddenly spoke. His brow was deeply creased:
"If you really care so much about which world you're in, go down the mountain and check the Abyss Rainbow Orchids. Identify their colors. Then hurry back to your own worlds.
I admit my experintal focus isn't perfectly stable. But your chatter is making it impossible to concentrate.
So leave. I don't need you to anchor this world for
— because no matter where I am, Truth is always Truth."
"!!!"
'Wait, Doctor — this isn't about whether you'll get swapped. It's about us being afraid of you getting swapped!'
'If the apathetic Doctor the Blind One described shows up — sure, you can carry on admiring your experint in whatever world you land in. But what about us? If we get stuck with that version, we can't exactly prop up a wall of wet mud!'
Moreover, Cheng Shi had a suspicion. He believed that during the first investigation split, the Wang Mou who'd returned empty-handed — bringing back only Alo Manni — was precisely that apathetic Doctor.
Running the numbers after several swaps, this Wang Mou could genuinely turn into that "wet mud" again.
'Terrifying!'
But wait...
What did the Doctor an about the Rainbow Orchids?
Everyone's brows knit tight. Cheng Shi whipped around in shock, staring at Wang Mou's profile with dead seriousness:
"What's wrong with the Abyss Rainbow Orchids?"
Wang Mou didn't even look at him. He continued monitoring the experint.
Cheng Shi's expression froze. He quickly slipped sothing into both Mo Rabic and Allendor's coat pockets. The motion caught Wang Mou's attention. Seeing the Doctor stare at him with cold severity, Cheng Shi smirked:
"Two Corruption candies. Carnal pleasure flavor. One snap of my fingers — next second — these two Folly believers will abandon their experint, wrap themselves around each other, and beco permanent slaves to Corruption.
At that point, I can't guarantee whether the experint continues. But I can promise this: this state? You absolutely cannot dispel it, Doctor. Because these are gifts bestowed by Him personally — sedint dredged from the bottom of desire, from the deepest depths of the Sea of Desire."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Everyone present went silent. They'd never heard of such a thing. But that didn't stop them from believing Cheng Shi might actually possess it. From a Fate Weaver who played tricks on his own teammates, there seed to be nothing he wouldn't do.
Wang Mou glanced at Cheng Shi, then at Allendor — whose face was now beaded with sweat. A sigh:
"Mortals cannot set foot in the Sea of Desire. Corruption has never summoned players there. Your item is fake. But the Folly believer bought it — he doesn't dare gamble.
As expected, the sprout of Folly only relates to 'foolish' and 'idiotic,' not to true Folly.
Fine. If he doesn't dare gamble, then neither do I.
Fate Weaver — I tell you the truth, and you give
peace?"
"You also need to tell
how you discovered the truth, and what exactly is going on with the Rainbow Orchids."
"Because of Truth. As I said — the circulation of knowledge allows more ignorant minds to discover truth.
The Abyss Rainbow Orchid was originally used by the Tower of Logic as a biological thermoter for locating Abyss Colorful Crystal deposits. It has its own systematic logic for changing color based on temperature."
"I know that. The volcano's temperature changes, and so do their colors. Today the orchid blossoms cycled through several color phases: red, orange-yellow, green, and blue-violet. Four states. That ans the volcano's temperature has been dropping steadily.
Hm? Wait — that's not..."
Cheng Shi stopped. He realized the current temperature seed to have risen back to the scorching heat of when they'd first arrived. Standing here for a mont, he was already sweating.
Had the Abyssal Volcano's eruption intensified again?
He peered through the window at the distant Abyssal Volcano. And at that mont, Wang Mou shook his head with a detached expression:
"You just listed four colors for the orchid yet remain oblivious to the implication. That alone proves you know nothing about the Abyssal Volcano.
As the most mysterious spatial conduit on the Land of Hope, the Abyssal Volcano's cycle of change is asured in centuries. If the cycle spans that long, how could Falling Gate — situated right next to the volcano — experience such dramatic temperature fluctuations within a single day?"
"!!!!!"
The instant Wang Mou pointed out this phenonon — overlooked by everyone — every player present realized the marker for world-shifts had been staring them in the face all along.
The little ball-flowers!
If the volcano's state was essentially stable on a day-to-day scale, then Falling Gate's Rainbow Orchids should never have changed color at all!
So every color change they'd witnessed today had happened because the world beneath their feet had changed!
Indeed — Ti never wrote foreshadowing. He placed the answer in the most obvious spot. And even so, they hadn't escaped His trap!
Cheng Shi stared in the direction below the mine, wiping the hot sweat from his forehead with an indescribable expression.
'Oh no — this really is the episode where the bad student scores a zero!'
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