Chapter 1152: The Statue's Ravings |
"He left?"
Ji Yue was already half sitting up in bed, smiling at The Prisoner as he pushed through the door.
The Prisoner nodded, dragged a chair over, sat by the bedside, and stared unblinkingly at Ji Yue—stared until her skin crawled.
In that moment, she remembered what Cheng Shi had said:
"Don't forget—this man is one of your Torchbearers. Still laughing?"
'Not funny at all!'
The smile froze solid on her face.
But she couldn't stay frozen forever. Unable to bear that guileless stare any longer, she looked away and changed the subject:
"Why did you join the Torchbearers?"
The Prisoner blinked, fell silent for a moment, then said with absolute seriousness:
"Granny said the world had more good people than bad. But I never found them. So I figured the world was wrong, and I needed to fix it."
"..."
Ji Yue hadn't expected such a reason. She stared at The Prisoner in surprise, and before long, a smile blossomed across her face:
"So that's the kind of beauty you want to protect. Not bad at all."
"Qin Xin's eye for people is as sharp as ever."
Whenever the topic turned to the torch, The Prisoner actually dialed it down. He laughed awkwardly, rubbed his head, and said:
"And you? What's your reason?"
"My reason..."
Ji Yue's eyes went hazy for an instant. She shook her head:
"Honestly, it was an accident."
"Fang Shiqing—the City Defenders' Fire Seeker—let something slip during a trial, and I accidentally learned about the Torchbearers."
"She probably figured I wasn't a bad person, so she invited me."
"Logically, with my temper, someone as gentle and calm as Shiqing would never have been able to convince me. But there was a fire burning inside me. I always felt like some impassioned speech had persuaded me, pushing me onto the path of passing the torch."
"But whenever I tried to recall and savor it, it would vanish."
"So I assumed it was fate, guiding me from the shadows."
"But today... I dreamed of chaotic fragments again. Those fractured images suggested that impassioned speech really did happen at some point... which is why I'm confused now."
"Though even without any grand speech, I believe in what the Torchbearers are doing."
"When Fang Jue and I founded the Mutual Aid Society, I said it then: the harder and more dangerous things get, the more people need to stick together."
"Too many have already lost themselves in pointless faith and misplaced devotion. But those gods sitting high above... they don't necessarily see us as people."
"And if that's the case, then humanity must stand up for itself!"
"I refuse to grovel as a worm. So I said yes to Shiqing and joined the torch."
"Even if taking that step only transforms a worm into a moth, I'll accept it."
"Because there cannot be no fire in my life!"
Clap clap clap!
The Prisoner actually started applauding. Ignoring Ji Yue's embarrassment, he said admiringly: "Is that why you chose War?"
Ji Yue's expression froze. She turned away: "That was also an accident."
"Another accident?"
"Lots of variables in your destiny, huh." The Prisoner clicked his tongue. "Do you think our next plan will have any accidents too?"
"...I'm not a Fate follower."
"But the plan you're talking about... what plan?"
The Prisoner sat up straight:
"The Find Yu Xi Plan!"
"You must've heard the news about Yu Xi by now. Since we know His position, we should be reaching out even more proactively!"
"My brother-in-law responds to soft approaches, not hard ones, and he's the linchpin of this whole plan. So to get his help, we need to make him owe us another favor."
"When can you recover? Once you're back on your feet, I'll take you to settle the score!"
"Kill the Historian and the Scavenger?"
"Not just those two—every clueless Oblivion follower too! This time we keep killing until my brother-in-law agrees!"
"..." Ji Yue studied The Prisoner with a strange look for a long moment. "I assumed you were a City Defender. I never expected you'd be a City Builder too?"
The Prisoner thought about it, then shook his head:
"No, I think I'm a Cheng Shipper. He and my sister are just too perfect together."
"..."
...
By the time Cheng Shi returned to the statue, the night sky was already fading.
The town streets in the hour before dawn were at their most deserted. Even the patrols had thinned. Not a soul was in sight, giving him room to work freely.
Cheng Shi tapped and prodded around the statue, growing more certain it was hollow. Something was definitely hidden inside.
His earlier reconnaissance had already revealed the statue's properties. Despite being a stone sculpture, it was impervious to force, immune to fire and water, and beyond the reach of the void. No ordinary person could break through, let alone peer inside.
But Cheng Shi wasn't ordinary. He'd thought of a method.
Since the statue's eyeballs could move, there had to be a gap between the eyeball and the socket. If he could squeeze a die into that gap, he could use his talent to swap himself inside.
So Cheng Shi climbed to the statue's peak, hung from the eye socket, and after some groping around, actually found a small hole worn into the socket's seam—apparently from years of erosion.
And that hole just happened to be big enough for a single die!
Overjoyed, Cheng Shi tossed in a handful of dice for insurance. But when he activated his skill—nothing happened. He was still hanging outside.
"?"
This only strengthened his conviction: the statue possessed some mysterious force that severed all divine power.
What now?
He dropped from the statue and frowned in thought. Dawn's glow was already creeping over the mountains. If he couldn't figure something out, he'd have to wait until the next night—but with Mo Shu and Zhao Xishi lurking nearby, anything could change by then. He didn't want to wait.
After a moment's deliberation, Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow and produced from his personal storage a... shovel.
He was going to abandon all power and dig his way in using nothing but human muscle!
He could touch it. He could stuff dice into it. That meant the statue didn't reject all contact—it likely only blocked divine power. So if he willingly forfeited his powers, wouldn't that open a path inside?!
No sooner planned than done. Cheng Shi eyed the direction of the coming dawn, pried up the first paving stone from the plaza in the statue's shadow, then spun his arms like windmills, racing against the rising sun.
Perhaps the people of Redi Core had never imagined someone would come to undermine their statue's foundations—and that this someone would be remarkably efficient at it.
In no time at all, Cheng Shi had excavated a "coffin camp" beneath the statue.
Only this time, the coffin camp wasn't the underground shelter players built against danger. There was literally a coffin down here!
Cheng Shi had dug into the tomb of the so-called first Fool Hunter, buried beneath the statue.
Seeing a coffin under a statue would make anyone nervous—that was just human nature. But Cheng Shi had seen enough in his day. He fought down the urge to retreat and gently tapped the coffin wall with his shovel.
And then he understood what the statue's ravings truly were.
"Save... save me..."
"!!??"
Cheng Shi's pupils contracted. He vanished from the spot in an instant.
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