[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-foolish-game-of-the-gods":3,"chapter-foolish-game-of-the-gods-foolish-game-of-the-gods-chapter-424":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Foolish Game of the Gods",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},579395,829,"Chapter 424: Prosperity's Prosperity Became Evidence of Decay's Fall","foolish-game-of-the-gods-chapter-424",424,"\u003Cp>Cheng Shi still didn't move.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He sat obediently in his seat, not even giving the stage excessive attention.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Right now he acted like a true mediocre person — glancing around, opening his mouth then closing it, as if wanting to say something but afraid to invite argument.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were many people like him. Plenty had opinions but wanted to hear others' takes first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Cheng Shi wasn't imitating them just to avoid attention. He was using the act to carefully survey his surroundings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>'If President Gong is Zhen Yi — or Zhen Xin — then I have every reason to suspect that all of this is another \"Dream from Nothing\"!'\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The thought was terrifying. Cheng Shi had already fallen into that trap once. Remembering the back door he'd pushed open in the Void Church of Far Dusk Town — it bore an uncanny resemblance to the Mediocre Person Society door he'd just pushed open!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only difference: this time there'd been no memory flashback, and an empty corridor had been added.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But who could guarantee this wasn't the Master of Trickery upgrading her prey's trap?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But scared or not, he could only feign calm and hold position.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The hall's players had been thrown into turmoil by President Gong's bombshell, but things remained manageable overall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Folly's eye-rolls, Decay's tirades, Deceit's jeers, and assorted hotheads' profanity wove themselves into a net that crashed over President Gong's head. Yet the man who'd dropped this explosive news seemed unfazed. He continued sharing his \"friend's\" deductions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I know such unthinkable news is hard for everyone to accept. But someone will believe me — because I also know that this hall is full of clever people who 'happened to find' the invitation cards I personally issued.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I won't probe how you 'found' those cards, and I won't question your motives for sneaking in. But these people probably already know: I'm right.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>See, mediocre ones? Clever people can unravel the truth about Them from mere traces. But us? If we lose sharing and mutual aid, we'll be abandoned by the era entirely — lost in the sea of memory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I'm not being melodramatic. After everything we've been through, you know my words ring true.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Enough talk — let's get back on topic. Let me continue about Decay's fall.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>President Gong clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing the stage. After a moment, he posed a question with theatrical mystery.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I know most of you have probably never had an audience with a deity. I certainly haven't. Everything I know about Them comes secondhand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So let me ask: based on everyone's connections and intel — can we first confirm one simple thing?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Starting a few days ago... Prosperity followers' scores seem to have been rising across the board. Is that correct?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"!!!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Honestly, true mediocre people were too consumed with survival to track leaderboard shifts. Below 2000 points, there wasn't much to watch anyway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But President Gong was right — this hall didn't contain only mediocre people. Plenty of sharp minds had infiltrated, and they were now chewing over what President Gong meant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An older player who'd apparently noticed the same thing spoke up to confirm:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That's right — I noticed it too. At my point range, the Prosperity followers around me on the Ladder of Ascent have all been climbing lately.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You might wonder how I could notice others rising or falling in a range where a single point separates tens of thousands of ranks. I'll tell you.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not long ago, I got lucky in a trial and scored big, pulling far ahead of several Prosperity IDs I'd been tracking. But recently, they've caught back up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, I have a... ahem... a friend who told me that Prosperity followers in their Mutual Aid Society have been receiving large quantities of trial rewards lately.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not all of those rewards are useful, but the volume has undeniably increased.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I'm no shill for President Gong. You can see what I am — a Decay follower. So I too am very curious about what's happening to the Prosperity crowd.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There must be Prosperity people here. Anyone brave enough to stand up and enlighten us?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old player's words ignited another wave of heated discussion. Several Decay followers stepped forward to corroborate, but not a single Prosperity follower dared speak up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Obviously — anyone with half a brain knew this wasn't the time to \"flaunt wealth.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching this, Cheng Shi shook his head with a wry smile. He suddenly appreciated how difficult it was for Big Cat to play den mother to that whole crowd.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By this point, he'd basically figured out President Gong's angle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clearly, the uninformed President Gong — or rather, his wildly speculative friend — had taken the recent phenomenon of Prosperity followers' surging scores and used it as evidence of Decay's fall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Indeed, if Prosperity had won the so-called God War, showcasing that victory through overwhelming dominance on the Ladder of Ascent wouldn't be unreasonable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the one pumping up Prosperity followers' scores wasn't their Benefactor, Prosperity — it was Big Cat!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Who could have guessed that their recent windfall wasn't because their Benefactor won a God War, but because He'd died?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>President Gong and his friend had been deceived. Well, not exactly \"deceived\" — with the Gods keeping silent, probably no one could guess the full picture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was like a multiple-choice question with only A, B, C, and D. They'd had the guts to reject all four options and pick a nonexistent E — and that alone deserved a \"bravo for the audacity.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But reality was even more absurd than imagination. Because the actual answer was an even more outlandish, nonexistent F.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The deity grading Prosperity trials and distributing rewards had been swapped from a real god to a fake, \"selfish,\" friend-sheltering, rule-bending Envoy!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you hadn't lived through it, who would believe it?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Tsk — this is really... hard to evaluate.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cheng Shi smacked his lips. Then it occurred to him: since President Gong had gotten the answer wrong because of this misread, didn't that lower the probability he was Zhen Xin or Zhen Yi?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Objectively — perhaps because he had a bias toward his own Deceit Chosen One — Cheng Shi couldn't picture Zhen Xin as someone who'd get the answer wrong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So he circled back to suspecting the true historian who'd vanished from the start: Zuo Qiu.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And right then, President Gong spoke again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Thank you to the old gentleman for the corroboration. But the evidence I have goes far beyond this single point.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From that same friend, I also learned that Decay followers appear to have been unable to...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>have an Audience with their God for some time now.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"What?!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"How is that possible?!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>...\u003C\u002Fp>",1125,"2026-05-30T16:17:59.408Z","2026-06-01T04:31:40.442Z",1,"novelbin.me","7af0fbe9080d860138732c81539e090a0daf736c0148eb9a5fcfa675b86077b8","foolish-game-of-the-gods-chapter-425","foolish-game-of-the-gods-chapter-423",1463,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Ffoolish-game-of-the-gods-cover.jpg"]