Chapter 169: When The Embers Fall

Chen Ling nodded slightly, then asked in confusion, "What is Senior Bai Ye's identity?"

"Me? I don't need an identity." Bai Ye chuckled lightly. "As long as I don’t want to be exposed, who in Aurora City can catch me?"

"Currently, a group of Twilight Society members has already entered Aurora City, but the vast majority of them don’t have open identities. The intelligence I alone can gather is limited—we need a larger intelligence network." Chu Muyun looked at Chen Ling seriously.

"Although you haven’t been with the Society for long, you’re the only one who can quickly leverage an advantage in this area."

"Intelligence, huh..." Chen Ling pondered. "I understand."

Chen Ling indeed needed a new identity. After all, he couldn’t hide in Chu Muyun’s residence forever. But from what he had observed, continuing as an enforcer was no longer suitable...

On one hand, starting over as a rookie and re-entering the enforcement system would be too complicated. If he were to target an enforcer in secret and take their place, the risk would be too high—he couldn’t inherit their memories, and Aurora City was teeming with powerful figures. If anyone noticed something amiss, the consequences would be dire.

On the other hand, there were too many high-ranking enforcers in Aurora City. With his current strength, disguising as a second or third-striped enforcer was already his limit. But in Aurora City’s enforcement hierarchy, that was just the bottom tier. Even if he succeeded in the disguise, it would be difficult to access any critical intelligence.

Thus, how to choose this new identity was a challenge Chen Ling had to face.

"Alright."

Just as Chen Ling was about to leave, something seemed to flash across the sky. He narrowed his eyes—a bright moon hung high in the night.

"That’s..." Chen Ling asked, puzzled.

"It’s the Gray King." Chu Muyun replied calmly. "The Gray King is using the moonlight to establish contact with us... No, wait—it doesn’t seem to be 'us'..."

Chen Ling followed the hazy moonlight and looked back. A wisp of moonlight, like snow, spilled in front of Bai Ye... Bai Ye slowly raised his head, his gaze meeting the moon through the brim of his cap. He sighed helplessly.

"Looks like... it’s for me..."

Bai Ye left overnight.

Chen Ling returned to his courtyard. Though it was just a side courtyard, its size was equivalent to three of his original homes in District Three. He pushed the door open and entered—inside, all daily necessities were fully prepared.

After a quick tidy-up, Chen Ling lay back on the bed and swiftly entered his dream.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back on the familiar stage. The audience’s gazes, as usual, were fixed on him like countless crimson stars in the darkness.

After his self-immolation on the train, Chen Ling had already returned here once. But at the time, the situation was urgent, and he had no leisure to do anything else—he hurriedly returned to the real world and hid himself to avoid detection. Only now did he have time to carefully examine the rewards from this performance.

He walked to the screen at the center of the stage and began flipping through the messages one by one:

[Audience Expectation +5]

[Current Expectation: 83%]

[Detected loss of actor connection. Performance interrupted.]

[Audience Expectation -50]

[Current Expectation: 33%]

When he reached the last message, Chen Ling’s brow lifted slightly.

After this death, he still had 33% expectation—this was entirely thanks to having raised it to 83% earlier... This was the first time Chen Ling had pushed expectation past 80%, setting a new record.

If Chen Ling remembered correctly, once expectation exceeded 80%, he should receive an additional random skill draw.

Chen Ling tapped lightly on the treasure chest.

Deng deng deng!

With triumphant music, a table materialized at the center of the stage. On the white paper atop the table, lines of text rapidly appeared:

[Detected audience expectation has exceeded 80% for the first time. Achievement unlocked—‘Rave Reviews’!]

[You have gained one additional draw attempt.]

[Upon use, a character skill will be randomly drawn from all roles that appeared in this performance for you to learn.]

Chen Ling’s eyes swept over the text—just as he had expected. But compared to the rewards from completing a performance, this random draw was still inferior. After all, this was a pure gamble on both "character" and "skill." As more characters appeared in future performances, the uncertainty of the draw would only grow. Moreover, this draw didn’t benefit from the performance’s probability boosts—it was entirely luck-based.

The white paper on the table vanished abruptly, replaced by an array of cards spread across its surface.

These cards varied in color—most were white or gray, with a few blue ones mixed in. Chen Ling even spotted several purple cards... This indicated that some of the characters in this performance possessed relatively high-tier divine path skills.

The next moment, all the cards flipped face-down, revealing identical backs before shuffling at blinding speed. Finally, they fanned out neatly across the table.

Chen Ling knew it was time to test his luck.

He took a deep breath and randomly tapped a card in the corner. When the card flipped to reveal a white glow, his expression froze.

"Skill:[Fist of Justice]"

"Affiliation: None."

"Character: Wen Shilin."

This wasn’t a divine path skill card—it was an ordinary ability that barely qualified as a "skill." In terms of tier, it was on par with "Culinary Arts" or "Housekeeping Proficiency."

As the card merged into Chen Ling’s body, an introduction naturally surfaced in his mind:

"Even if my body is as insignificant as an ant, my Fist of Justice will steadfastly strike against all darkness and injustice in this world... even if it reduces me to ashes."

Chen Ling was stunned. He had no idea how such a pathetically weak skill could have such an domineering description, nor did he know who this "Wen Shilin" was... In his memory, he had never met or even heard of this person.

Then, Chen Ling realized another issue—while this random reward was highly unpredictable, it allowed him to draw skills from characters he hadn’t even encountered. In contrast, the selected rewards after completing a performance required him to know the names of characters in the performance to draw from them.

From this perspective, the reward itself wasn’t weak—his luck was just terrible.

Chen Ling shook his head. Though he’d only drawn an ordinary skill, he wasn’t too disheartened, because he knew he still had one more opportunity.

After the cards dissipated, another white sheet of paper materialized on the table.

"Congratulations on completing the performance:[When the Embers Fall]."