Foolish Game of the Chapter 917: Little Seven's Probe

Du Qiyu was not stupid. Or rather — when he wasn't facing Cheng Shi, he was extraordinarily shrewd.

It was just that encountering this childhood "friend" stirred up a restlessness he couldn't suppress no matter how hard he tried, corroding his usual decisiveness and cunning.

He'd always believed this orphan — whose only asset was a pretty face — was inferior to him in every conceivable way. So why did so many people care about him?

So upon seeing Cheng Shi again, Du Qiyu felt the sa as he had in childhood: the other man was nothing but a straw-stuffed mannequin in golden robes, unworthy of his full attention. The more casually he handled it, the more it proved how beneath him Xiao Shi truly was.

'He's a Pen of Finality?'

'A Fate follower?'

'Ha — absolutely ridiculous. I stole your fate, and you still think you have one.'

But despite the swarming contempt and irritation, Du Qiyu remained on guard. He'd once heard the orphanage director's na for Cheng Shi's adoptive father, and as he recalled, the man's surna wasn't Sun.

So he probed again: "Your adoptive father's surna is Sun? I'd heard them call him Old Jia."

The instant Old Jia's na left Little Seven's mouth, Cheng Shi's radiant smile turned eerie. A flash of nostalgia crossed his eyes, followed by a sweep of ice-cold detachnt — like that downpour over the graveyard, washing away every last scrap of warmth and any lingering fondness for childhood.

Murderous intent nearly spilled from the scalpel hidden in his sleeve. But he held back. He simply maintained his smile and nodded.

"Yes. Old Jia was my father. An ordinary, yet great father."

The tone could only be described as "proud." But neither of the other two could relate; they only found his voice peculiar.

Sun Miao, knowing nothing of Cheng Shi's past, said nothing. But in Du Qiyu's eyes, the display painted a very different picture.

'A scrap-collecting bachelor — and you actually think saying that out loud earns you respect.'

'Great?'

'Before the Faith Ga descended, only power and money deserved the word "great." After the ga, stats and scores are everything.'

'Never mind whether your stinking scrap-collector father is alive or dead. With your pathetic 2,200 score, uttering the word "great" is an insult to greatness itself.'

'Compared to so shantytown family, only MY father truly deserves to be called great!'

Still, so far, Xiao Shi hadn't told a single lie. That was uncommon at this level. Did he really have no guard up around people?

'No — soone without any guard couldn't possibly survive this long.'

Du Qiyu frowned again. Splitting his attention between scanning his surroundings to ensure his own safety and relentlessly pressing Cheng Shi for more, he continued:

"I really envy you — at least you got a ho. Not like us, growing up in an orphanage, fending for ourselves, with nothing to lean on.

I used to dream about what a normal family felt like. A few tis, I even dread I'd been adopted — and the person who adopted

was Little Seven's father...

He was a big-ti businessman. If only he'd really been my dad.

Oh right, Xiao Shi — do you still rember Little Seven? I rember you two were closest friends as kids. He goes by Du Qiyu now. "Du" as in prevent, "Qi" as in anticipation, "Yu" as in jade. I've heard he's doing great — never short on food or clothes, studied abroad, graduated from a top school, took over the family business. Practically royalty..."

As he spoke, even Du Qiyu's own tone grew wistful.

"Too bad. The mont the ga descended, all of that... beca the past."

Cheng Shi listened to this self-aggrandizing monologue, his scalp nearly crawling off his head. Before this, he'd never believed secondhand embarrassnt could be lethal. But now, he felt he was on the verge of being assassinated — by weaponized cringe.

Even so, he didn't interrupt the man's imrsion in his glorious past. He simply voiced one loaded remark:

"Yeah. It's all in the past now."

From behind, Du Qiyu detected nothing unusual in the words. He seized the golden opportunity and pushed his probe further.

"Xiao Shi, are you still in contact with Little Seven?"

Cheng Shi's stride hitched. He didn't answer.

The silence sent a jolt through Du Qiyu. He feared the worst: that the other man might be avoiding any statent that Master of Deception would flag as a lie.

And that would an everything prior could have been Xiao Shi stringing him along using his own Master of Deception.

'Could he be a con artist too?'

Du Qiyu's eyes darkened. He didn't abandon the probe. Instead, he pressed harder.

"Makes sense... you still hate him, right?

They were all just rumors in the orphanage, but I heard Rong Mama say he stole your chance. Boss Du was supposed to—"

Before he could finish, Cheng Shi's expression shifted. He cut the rabbit off mid-sentence.

"Enough. I don't hate him."

A lie!

In the distance, Du Qiyu froze — then laughed out loud.

'Ha. Hahaha. I was being way too paranoid. He told a lie!'

'He doesn't have Master of Deception. He's not a con artist.'

'After all these years, he's still the sa fool. Can't even lie properly.'

The tension coiling Du Qiyu's nerves unraveled at once. He halted behind, laughing with the relief of soone who'd laughed at himself for overestimating an opponent.

But mid-laugh, his expression twisted again.

'Xiao Shi hates !'

'What right does he have to hate ?!'

'It was YOUR own uselessness that let one lie spin your head around. That's on you, not !'

'And besides — without , how would you have ever t your "great" father from the shantytown?!'

Du Qiyu's face went dark. He clenched his fists, aching to turn Xiao Shi into one of his tad beasts right then and there. But he hadn't yet determined the Silence follower's relationship to Xiao Shi. Arrogant as he was, he didn't fancy his odds against two players at once.

The scar on his face was already one warning. He couldn't afford another mont of careless cockiness.

"Is that so? Good that you don't hate him. Ha — why am I even bringing this up? Let's keep moving. Before those two catch up, before trouble finds us, we need to locate the trial clues as fast as possible."

Everyone knew that in a wish trial at this level, the trial clues were secondary — the clues you'd prayed for were what mattered. But neither of the other two contradicted "Zhao Xiaogua's" falsehood. After all, a Deceit follower's mouth was never a reliable source.

Listening to the loaded dialogue from behind, Sun Miao several tis reached for her electronic beeper, tempted to interject. But she reconsidered each ti, maintaining her devotion to her Benefactor and continuing her silent sprint.

She didn't expose Cheng Shi, because she could tell his relationship with the Beast Tar was clearly strained.

She just hadn't figured out how bad it was, or how she might leverage this tense, delicate dynamic to extract more "history." So she held still, listening in silence.

The three picked up speed. The leading mage was now moving at near-flash-step velocity — an explosive burst that resembled an assassin's. The speed itself surprised Cheng Shi, but what truly astonished him was the endurance.

An assassin's burst was fast, yes — but only for an instant. To sustain this kind of explosive output for so long ant that even an assassin would have to be ranked among the elite.

Yet Sun Miao wasn't even an assassin. She was a mage. How was she doing this?

Du Qiyu found it baffling. But not Cheng Shi. He felt the teammate was showing him a particular answer. It all but confird his guess — the current situation was far more complex than it appeared.

The accelerated sprint dramatically shortened their travel ti. Through the ongoing tug-of-war of probes and deflections, Du Qiyu gradually assembled a profile of the current Xiao Shi.

Beneath his joyful-reunion facade, the man was in fact fiercely guarded.

He'd acknowledged Du Qiyu's claid identity — but that didn't an he trusted him.

Perhaps it was the Deceit label that made Xiao Shi wary. But... 'Wary or not, I still fooled you, didn't I?'

'Heh — Zhao Xiaogua, that dinner you went to all that trouble to treat

to has finally paid off. You may be dead, but at least the identity lives on.'

'From now on, I am you. I am Xiao Shi's childhood best friend — until this trial ends, until there's no more "Xiao Shi" in this world.'

'Relax. I'll send him down to see you.'

'Best friends should be reunited. Won't that make you both happy?'

...