Chapter 1317: Endings and Endings |
Reality. A museum in an unknown province.
Zhen Xin had woken up, but she hadn't moved.
She stared blankly at the mirror on the table — at her own reflection — feeling groggy, as though she had forgotten something.
Before long, a figure in a black gauze dress appeared in the museum. Zhen Xin heard the footsteps and looked up, only to be startled by the sight of the figure hiking up her skirt and sprinting toward her.
Zhen Xin was caught off guard. She rose to her feet:
"Ming Yu, what—huh?"
Before she could finish, the figure crashed into her in a desperate embrace, knocking her backward against the wall.
Feeling her best friend's tension and unease, Zhen Xin's gaze softened, though her brow furrowed tighter. She gently stroked An Mingyu's long hair and asked in a low voice:
"Ming Yu, you—"
"Xin Xin — I can't lose you again!
I refuse to accept losing you again!"
The smile on Zhen Xin's face froze. She turned solemn in an instant:
"What happened?"
An Mingyu shook her head, confusion clouding her features.
"The instant the trial ended, I think I had a strange dream. I can't remember what it was about anymore — all I know is that I couldn't find you in it. No matter where I looked, you were gone.
I fought back, I struggled, but nothing worked. Fear consumed me, and then everything went dark.
When I woke up, all that remained was a pounding heart. I was afraid it might be a bad omen, so I ran over to check on you..."
Zhen Xin studied her friend, who was clearly holding something back, and pressed her lips together. She chose not to call out the "lie."
An Mingyu was lying, yes — but it wasn't a deceitful lie. She was simply omitting certain details.
Before coming to find Zhen Xin, her fear of the darkness in that dream had been so overpowering that she "broke her vow" and cast a prophecy about the future.
She had made this prophecy once before — asking Fate whether the world would collapse.
Back then, Fate had answered with seventeen max rolls, and the Destined Ones' conference had just begun. Cheng Shi had told her it was the max-roll result of Oblivion's attempt to destroy the world, and that it had already passed.
But today's inexplicable dream had dredged up that old prophecy. She performed it again — and this time Fate's answer was...
Seventeen ones!
The world would not collapse!
This should have been good news — cause for celebration. But the diametrically opposite results left An Mingyu at a loss.
The world was not simply black and white. Neither was Fate — it wasn't only fortune and misfortune. So why would an identical prophecy produce two results so extreme and so completely opposite?
An Mingyu was bewildered. The more she tried to understand Fate, the less she did. She desperately wanted to ask the one person who truly understood Fate what this prophecy meant — but that person had yet to return...
And so she had come here first.
Both friends were sharp enough and clever enough. The moment they noticed something off about each other, they simultaneously realized that something must have happened — they had missed something monumental enough to affect the entire universe.
Zhen Xin's brow furrowed. The first name on her lips was:
"Cheng Shi."
Whatever had transpired in the universe, this Fate Weaver under the Void's watchful gaze would surely know something. Rather than sit here and speculate, it was better to go ask him directly.
An Mingyu blinked: "He's back?"
Zhen Xin nodded and recounted to her friend everything that had happened during the recent Special Trial.
It had been a trial that could not be called spectacular, yet was steeped in the essence of Deceit. With the players' help, the story within the trial had finally reached its conclusion.
That conclusion might not have satisfied everyone — but at least every participant had done justice to their own curtain-call performance.
After hearing it all, An Mingyu felt there was a deeper meaning to the trial's story, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She stopped overthinking and nodded:
"Since he's back, I suppose the Destined Ones will need to meet again. I wonder what he found in the Real Universe. Is he alright?"
Zhen Xin smiled:
"He seemed fine. But I think that before your group meets, he's probably already waiting for us there.
Ming Yu — want to come with me? Save some time."
An Mingyu paused, then shook her head: "I'd better not. I'm not a Joker, and I don't understand Deceit. Go ahead — ask him what he saw in the Real Universe. If Void really is our enemy, find out whether this world still has any new hope..."
Zhen Xin's eyes drifted to An Mingyu's hand and noticed several dice clutched in her palm. She quickly looked away, said nothing about it, and simply smiled:
"Wait for me."
As she spoke, Zhen Xin flicked out a poker card inscribed with ritual symbols, opened a door to the Joker Gathering Place beside her, waved at her friend, and stepped through.
After Zhen Xin vanished, An Mingyu opened her palm and stared at the dice — each showing a one. Her mind churned.
...
The Joker Gathering Place.
Just as Zhen Xin had predicted, when she arrived at the cluster of tombstones, Cheng Shi was already there.
The Fate Weaver stood motionless before the Death tombstone, head bowed, his face half-hidden in shadow, murmuring something under his breath.
In truth, the moment Cheng Shi realized the False Curtain Call had been nothing but a trial, his thoughts had turned to Mi Laozhang and the other world's version of himself. He needed to know whether the exchange between those two had been real.
He had rushed to the Cemetery — only to find no trace of Mi Laozhang. His attempts to make contact went unanswered. That was when he knew for certain: Mi Laozhang had truly left this world.
There was, after all, a crack in the Fun God's False Curtain Call. No matter how freely He scrawled the script, a trial was still a story told beneath this starry sky. The moment an individual left this starry sky, they naturally fell beyond the trial's reach.
And that was why Mi Laozhang had been genuinely swapped to another world.
From this, two things could be confirmed:
First — the False Curtain Call had truly occurred. Though the timeline had skipped past the tragedy, it was not truly "false."
Second — the other world's Cheng Shi might not be dead. Since everything was a script, the Fun God should not have actually killed another clown.
But these were all guesses. Cheng Shi did not even know how the trial — of which he had zero memory — had actually ended. So he had come to the Joker Gathering Place.
He knew someone would come looking for him.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before that person arrived.
When Cheng Shi sensed someone behind him, he spoke without turning around:
"Thank you."
Zhen Xin, finding the mood too heavy, let her eyes wander and said in an imitation of Cheng Shi's voice: "Verbal thanks aren't very sincere. How about something tangible?"
Cheng Shi chuckled softly. By the time he turned, the heaviness had lifted from his face, replaced by a crooked, teasing smile:
"That 'thank you' was for Mi Laozhang. What does it have to do with you?"
Zhen Xin folded her arms and stood firm, seeing through his lie. She shook her head:
"Some people may be called Cheng Shi, yet they are never honest.
But it's fine — I'm collecting on Mi Laozhang's behalf."
"..."
Cheng Shi froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
'How wonderful. This is what it feels like to be alive. This is what a living Joker looks like!'
But the fact that Zhen Xin's first instinct was to tease rather than express shock or confusion meant she had already forgotten everything about the era's end in the trial.
As expected — not everyone had retained the true memories.
Cheng Shi's brow creased slightly. He looked at Zhen Xin and said, sincerely this time, "Thank you." Then, in a grave tone:
"Miss Magician — the questions I'm about to ask may sound unthinkable, but I need to ask them:
What exactly happened inside the trial?
Please recount every detail of the story you remember."
The moment she heard this, Zhen Xin's pupils contracted sharply. Her first thought was: 'Who is the Cheng Shi standing in front of me?'
But an instant later she realized Cheng Shi was Cheng Shi. The problem was more likely herself!
That nagging sense of emptiness, Ming Yu's racing heart — both seemed to suggest that something enormous had occurred during the trial. And yet she remembered nothing of it. And Cheng Shi had lost all his memories of the trial entirely?
No — judging by his reaction, he hadn't forgotten anything. He seemed to have remembered something. Was she the one who had lost her memories?
But she had been lucid from start to finish during that trial. How could she have amnesia?
Zhen Xin's expression slowly hardened. She thought for a moment, then asked, not entirely certain:
"Time — or Memory?"
Cheng Shi said darkly: "Probably both."
"Both?!" Zhen Xin's eyes went wide with disbelief. "Then is it Existence — or... the Origin?"
"Perhaps both as well.
Let's start with the trial, Miss Magician. What I have to tell you is probably nothing like what you're expecting."
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