Foolish Game of the Chapter 831: Someone Died

The gale couldn't scatter the fog, and it certainly couldn't scatter the doubts in the Players' hearts.

The Devout Land was indeed anything but simple — far more treacherous than the scavengers let on.

Halfway through the fog, Zhang Jizu had completely lost all sense of direction. He couldn't confirm whether he was still heading toward the Faith Theater.

To stay on course, he calibrated by the howling wind, maintaining a fixed angle relative to its direction as he pressed forward.

But direction was the least of his problems. The real problem was...

Cheng Shi had vanished.

Cheng Shi had been close behind him, yet sohow — while both had their eyes wide open — they'd separated. Even the trail of firefly lamps scattered along the way had been snuffed out and swept away by the wind. In this eerie fog where visibility barely reached a dozen paces, all contact was severed.

Zhang Jizu couldn't tell whether the fog had severed their link or Cheng Shi had deliberately slipped away. Regardless, he was alone now, advancing toward the Theater by himself.

The distance shouldn't have been long, yet he walked and walked and walked — until he stopped mid-stride, brow furrowed, increasingly convinced that rely progressing in silence would never reach the other side. There had to be additional rules hidden in this twisted fog.

That was when a figure re-entered his field of vision.

Ai Si!

That towering wine-red ponytail swayed through the mist like a beacon.

But the War Supervisor wasn't walking toward him. She was approaching him backwards — in a thoroughly absurd reverse-walking posture.

She'd been watching the sides, paying no attention to what was behind her. Only when a powerful arm pressed against her back did she jolt, hoisting the great sword in a reflex slash.

Zhang Jizu squinted. A single small scalpel caught the savage chop.

Seeing that cold-glinting scalpel, Ai Si's eyes flew wide. She spun around.

'Surna Cheng!?'

'Oh — Zhang Chosen. Also good.'

She was about to open her mouth to express relief — then snapped it shut, blinking furiously, apparently telegraphing her anxiety through so kind of eye-code.

Strangely enough, Zhang Jizu deciphered the random blinking. He decided she was saying: 'We can't get out.'

He didn't respond. Instead, he studied her with guarded eyes, and wrote a number in the frozen snow with his toe: 30.

The question: the thirty seconds are long past. Why do you still have the Silence effect?

But Ai Si had no idea what he ant. She dragged her blade across the ground, writing:

?

Seeing the question mark, Zhang Jizu smiled. He'd identified her.

She wasn't the fake Ai Si — she was the genuine War Supervisor. Because nobody else in this team would be reckless enough to walk backwards through a fog with zero guard up.

Her logic was easy to guess. 'If walking forward doesn't reach the end, try going backward.'

Not wrong, exactly. Just... not brilliantly right. Classic War-follower thinking.

But encountering an Ai Si beat encountering a Cheng Shi. So he smiled, erased the "30" and the "?