Chapter 1442: I Refuse!

Foolish Game of the Gods

Qin Xin carried Qin Xin away.

After bidding the Flame of Hope a final farewell, An Mingyu left alongside Zhen Xin.

Cheng Shi did not hand over everything of Fate to the Blind One at this point. In his view, the Void of old had once taken the stage together — and the Void of today should do the same.

Deceit had waited an entire era for Fate. At the era's end, it was only fitting that Fate pause for a moment to let Deceit catch up and walk forward side by side.

The Dragon King lingered behind, clearly with more to say. But before speaking, he suddenly broke into a wistful laugh.

"Ever since I was a boy, copying the chronicles of my grandmaster, I admired him. Envied the freedom he lived with.

In peace, he'd sit in a pavilion watching cranes and weathering storms. In chaos, he'd seize a spear, slay the enemy, and die for a righteous cause.

After all these years of transcribing scriptures, I've finally found my chance to follow his example."

"?"

Cheng Shi didn't understand. He furrowed his brow at the Dragon King, only to see Li Jingming raise a hand with utmost solemnity and draw a memory from his own mind. He pushed it toward Cheng Shi, speaking with exceptional gravity.

"I shouldn't know these things. Fortunately, apart from me, no one else could see them either.

Qin Xin believes the Crystal Coffin only contains Fate's lost memory, but that memory is merely a surface — something to conceal the essence buried beneath. And that essence, too, is a memory.

The Flame of Hope recorded everything It wished to say right here. I still have questions about how It was able to manipulate memory, but I imagine It used methods Deceit left behind — after all, He once stole Memory's Authority, and as you said, the False Curtain Call was entirely of His orchestration."

Hearing this, Cheng Shi suddenly felt a foreboding chill.

Why was the False Curtain Call involved again?

Li Jingming did not stop. He continued:

"Cheng Shi — have you considered why the Flame of Hope took Sun Miao away?"

"I know why. He's impersonating Wei Mu, spreading news about the Origin." Cheng Shi frowned. "I can imagine that letting the world know about the Origin might be connected to the world's future, but I haven't grasped the key. Is the reason in this memory?"

"It is.

Deceit truly was the greatest chess player in the universe. It seems He never made a single wasted move — not even the False Curtain Call!"

"!!!" Cheng Shi's pupils contracted sharply, his heart clenching.

"Even after inheriting Memory, I never could have imagined that a past only you remember was left lying here, naked and exposed, in Memory's junkyard!

The False Curtain Call was never false — it was a Change that had been memorialized.

What Sun Miao is spreading isn't a rumor either. It's something that truly happened during that Change.

The Origin truly did come. But that pair of eyes seen by the world — they don't necessarily belong to the Origin. They could also be..."

Li Jingming didn't say the final word. He simply stared, burning, into Cheng Shi's eyes — tracing the contours of those irises, stroke by stroke.

Not merely similar. Identical.

And seeing the Dragon King's reaction, Cheng Shi suddenly froze where he stood.

In that moment, he remembered the way Wei Mu had looked at him before leaving. When he himself had brought up the False Curtain Call, Wei Mu had gazed into his eyes in exactly the same way.

So what had truly happened at the end of that False Curtain Call?

Cheng Shi looked at Li Jingming, suspicion and alarm swirling in his eyes. The Dragon King pointed to the cluster of memory hovering before Cheng Shi and said:

"You'll find out. But I must not know.

Cheng Shi, promise me — extinguish the memory in front of you. Let me forget all of this.

The purpose of the Memory Delusion is to make Memory forget what He should not know. I will merge the Dreamless Mirror and That Dream My Nightmare, then forget my discovery — keeping the Flame of Hope's true Final Oracle a secret for all time.

This is the only way out. Even if it demands a price, it's one I'm willing to pay.

And I believe they would be willing too!

This may not be the future I envisioned, but at least we shouted and we fought. That's enough.

Do it, Cheng Shi. To prevent me from 'cheating,' you must personally extinguish this memory that was never meant to be mine.

Once you've done that, you'll be able to see what the Flame of Hope engraved on that Crystal Coffin — Its 'Final Oracle' for you."

Cheng Shi could feel the Dragon King's resolve. But without knowing what the "Final Oracle" contained, he couldn't understand this solemnity or gravity. After a pause, he said:

"It's just a memory. Is it really worth all this?

You are Memory. Your very purpose is to preserve the past for the world. What could possibly be forbidden for you to know?"

"It is necessary," Li Jingming smiled. "As you said yourself, what I preserve is the past — not the future.

And the choice before us now concerns the future.

I do believe that even if I knew everything, I would still cooperate. But cooperation is a form of trust, not absolute belief!

At the very worst, once you learn what the Flame of Hope has arranged, even if I've forgotten all this, you can still choose to tell me again.

Everything hinges on you — but it cannot hinge on me.

Fate Weaver, you keep asking me to trust you. So now — can you trust me, just this once?"

"..."

Cheng Shi was no fool. The Dragon King's strange demeanor and his tone of peaceful acceptance left Cheng Shi deeply uneasy. He wasn't afraid of what the other might forget once the memory was extinguished — he was afraid that extinguishing it would carve not just a gap in memory, but a chasm of trust between himself and the Dragon King.

Die for a righteous cause...

Those words sounded noble, but for Cheng Shi at this moment, they sounded anything but good.

The Dragon King was so determined to forget — which meant he was certain that, after forgetting, Cheng Shi would never tell him these things again.

But the moment something was hidden, wouldn't trust become nothing more than a deception?

At the threshold of the era's end, was he really going to deceive his own friends?

Cheng Shi hesitated — but soon, he nodded with a resolve as firm as the Dragon King's.

If deception could bring hope, then why not deceive?

'I was always a deceiver, wasn't I?'

Cheng Shi made his decision. He extinguished the memory before him. While the Dragon King closed his eyes and merged the Memory Delusion, Cheng Shi retrieved every trace of memory the Flame of Hope had left upon the Crystal Coffin.

But when he saw what this so-called "Final Oracle" actually was, the color drained from his face and his entire body went rigid.

'How can this be...'

'How can this be?!'

'This is the future Deceit found for the world?!'

'But if this is the future — then what was the meaning of everything I've done to get here?'

Perhaps for Deceit, it did hold meaning. Resistance had to have a result. Even if the Origin could never be defeated, at least in one moment He had escaped the Origin's gaze and achieved defiance.

'But what about me?'

'What is this — ripping out every anchor I've cast into this world, retracting every thread that binds me to it, and then drifting away with this world into lonely exile?!'

'No. I won't accept this. I refuse!'

While Cheng Shi's expression shifted violently, the Dragon King slowly opened his eyes. He looked at Cheng Shi with puzzlement, uncertain.

"What are you thinking about? Shouldn't we get going?

I seem to recall you were about to tell me something. Cheng Shi, you...?"

Cheng Shi turned to the Dragon King. He opened his mouth, ready to reveal the truth about the world's future — yet before the words could leave his lips, he forced them back down with painful effort.

After a long silence, he lowered his head, shook it, and spoke in a tone impossible to read.

"It's nothing.

Let's go. It's time to leave."

...