As it turned out, after Le Le'er's death, the Sinking Land held no more dangers.
The Sea of Desire's tides still sounded far away. As long as fear remained and one stayed cautious, falling prey again wasn't easy — a lesson Cheng Shi had distilled after traversing this stretch of land for the third ti.
He shuffled back to the foot of the Mother Tree of Fear in small, asured steps. When he saw that the gash from his single axe blow was spreading on its own, he realized this colossal tree — which had once pierced the universe to drink in fear — was truly rotten to the core.
The withered trunk could no longer support this gargantuan mass of gnarled branches. Cheng Shi was convinced that one more swing of the axe would bring the whole thing crashing down before him.
And so — for the sake of his colleagues in the Fishbone Hall — Cheng Shi threw caution to the wind. He resolutely pulled out his axe and delivered another blow at the fissure.
BOOM—
The strike rang out like a blade striking a chi, producing a deafening hum. Before Cheng Shi could react, he saw cracks spontaneously erupt across the heaven-piercing colossus, racing outward like serpents, covering its entire body in an instant, and then—
CRASH — it exploded.
The giant tree didn't produce debris. Instead, it dissolved into countless motes of light, like stars scattered into a river, transforming this barren, cold Sinking Land into a dazzling galaxy.
The shockwave sent Cheng Shi flying. His pupils shrank as he tensed every limb, plowing the ground with all fours and skidding dozens of ters before barely coming to a halt. But when he looked up, every muscle in his body was wound even tighter than before.
Because there, hovering in the mist-cleared, star-dusted air directly ahead, was an hourglass strikingly similar in shape to a gnarled tree — radiating brilliant light, swirling with erald green, endlessly alive!
"This is—!!??"
Cheng Shi was thunderstruck. If the Corruption container had required careful identification, then this container's allegiance could be nad at a single glance.
Prosperity!
Who could have imagined that today — after Prosperity's fall — he would find a Prosperity container?
And who could have imagined that the boss, upon falling, would drop not one gold coin but two?
If this had happened with any other Envoy, Cheng Shi might have harbored doubts about the second container. But this was Le Le'er — She had been Prosperity's Envoy, the Daughter of Prosperity. Even after falling to beco the Mother Tree of Fear, She'd maintained a form remarkably similar to Prosperity's. Wasn't that alone proof enough that this container's existence was perfectly logical?
Yet now, Cheng Shi wasn't as quick to grab it as before. He was thinking — thinking about whether this was Deceit's illusion or Fate's gift.
That Benefactor who'd practically parted ways with the Fear Faction — could He have had a change of heart?
Otherwise, how could his luck be this good?
Saying the Clown wasn't greedy would be an outright lie, but being this greedy... even the Clown was getting nervous.
Taking without asking was stealing. He could still stretch the excuse for the last container — call it paynt for witnessing Le Le'er's "innocence." But this one? How was he supposed to spin that?
Cheng Shi was frantic. He feared delay would invite complications and sothing would happen to the container. He feared it was a trap and so entity was exploiting his greed to sche against him. The panicked Clown gnawed at his lip and clenched his fists again and again, until he finally decided to dump this pot squarely on his Benefactor's head.
Greater power ant greater responsibility. Greater responsibility ant a bigger pot to carry!
What kind of Benefactor refused to take the bla for his follower?
So Cheng Shi went for round two, whispering again — only this ti his voice was even quieter than before, his lips moving without parting.
"A Benefactor's gift cannot be refused. Since my Lord Benefactor thinks so highly of , I shall repay Him with the utmost devotion!"
He didn't even leave the Fun God ti to give tacit approval. He simply kicked off the ground, rocketed forward, snatched the container — and snapped his fingers, teleporting himself back to... outside the dream.
Yes — outside the dream!
The talent Ti Has Path, bestowed by Ti, allowed Cheng Shi to set the dice-swap temporal anchor outside the dream, back in the trial. But the sheer ntal energy required for such an enormous temporal leap was beyond what Cheng Shi could normally muster. So how had he succeeded?
Because — "Praise Prosperity!" No — praise Big Cat!
It was the Thorn Weeping Rite that had worked another miracle. When Cheng Shi had first been preparing to flee the Sinking Land with the Corruption container, he'd looped the Thorn Weeping Rite around his arm as a precaution against running out of ntal energy mid-sprint.
He hadn't needed it then, but the fully charged ntal reserves had now beco his key to escaping the dream.
And in the very instant the Clown departed this grotesque and beautiful dream, a pair of star-like eyes opened in the sky above where the Mother Tree of Fear had once stood rooted.
Those eyes gazed toward the Sea of Desire with an ambiguous, half-smiling expression and spoke in a cryptic tone:
"It seems you're quite the cold-hearted one yourself — watching your own follower die right before you without batting an eye. Where's your desire, then?
"You preach the confluence of all desire in the universe, yet you yourself have forsaken desire. If your followers ever found out... would you still have their faith?
"Oh wait — you don't need faith. You only need desire. But what do you want with so much desire?
"I'm genuinely curious now. Is it really you hiding in the Sea of Desire?"
The mont the words fell, those eyes blinked twice, and in an instant the sky of the Sinking Land shifted from clear to dark. The Void violently tore into reality, painting everything within those eyes' field of vision in the hollow blackness of Void.
That blackness relentlessly consud the Sinking Land, spreading toward the Sea of Desire at a speed invisible to the naked eye!
But just as true Void was about to descend upon the Sea of Desire... those eyes vanished without warning!
He took with Him every trace of Void, leaving behind only a single sentence:
"Wait for . Soon, I'll co to find you.
"But not yet..."
...
Cheng Shi was back. He snapped his eyes open and found himself in the dream again — and awakening alongside him was Keinlaur.
As for Lid Yara, she slumbered eternally, collapsed upon the long table, her hand still resting on the branch of the Mother Tree of Fear, now crumbled to dust.
Interestingly, Cheng Shi and Keinlaur had opened their eyes at nearly the sa instant, as though the stretch of ti during which they'd crossed paths in the Sinking Land had left no trace within the dream.
When Sun Miao saw Cheng Shi first slump lifelessly then jolt awake alongside Keinlaur, she assud he'd found a way in and witnessed an even greater secret. But just as she was about to ask what he'd seen, her keen eyes caught the deliberately suppressed flicker of mischief at the corner of his eye, and she stopped herself.
Seeing her reaction, Cheng Shi fought to contain his grin and asked: "Aren't you going to ask
what I saw?"
Sun Miao scoffed coldly, tearing apart his ruse without rcy:
"A boring trick.
"A follower of Deceit shouldn't waste these flashy deceptions on his own people. You did a decent acting job — if you'd just managed to hold back that smirk at the corner of your eye, I might've actually fallen for it.
"Let's focus on what matters, Vice President Cheng. You'd better pray that our Supre Inquisitor feels sentintal enough to share sothing, or Lid Yara's death becos another cold case.
"History will only record that she died during a consciousness exchange. But as for how she died... I hope we find the answer today."
'The answer is already there — you just don't know it.'
Cheng Shi smiled faintly, feigning rapt attention as he perked up his ears to listen, though the taut strings in his heart slowly loosened just a fraction.
'Fooled her...'
This way, no one would know he'd obtained two containers in that absurd dreamscape extension.
Who could imagine that the man who'd only just learned about containers was now a "container wholesaler"?
Feeling the two motionless containers in his personal storage, Cheng Shi smiled with delight...
And unease.
...
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