Chapter 1096: I Will Lend You [Dream of You, Nightmare of Me]

I will lend you 【Dream of You, Nightmare of Me】

Dream of You, Nightmare of Me is mine now?

Cheng Shi blinked, momentarily unable to collect himself.

The logic should be right, shouldn't it? Dragon Well lent the Tongue of Food Lies to Did Zhen Yi, so Tongue-bro's ownership transferred to Did Zhen Yi. Applying the same principle, the Long Wang lent Dream of You, Nightmare of Me to himself...

Heh, got a mirror for free.

Cheng Shi smiled. Although he knew this fake Long Wang must have some scheme behind lending the mirror, this was Dream of You, Nightmare of Me—a fragment of a divine-grade creation from 【Memory】, comparable to a relic left by the gods!

Who could refuse that?

Whoever could, could. I definitely can't.

"How could I possibly accept that?" Cheng Shi made a show of politely declining for one second, then the next second said, "Will you send it over, or...?"

"Come get it yourself. After all, Dream of You, Nightmare of Me is our Benefactor's creation, and during the handover I need to make sure nothing goes wrong along the way."

I go over to get it?

Isn't that obviously a trap?

Cheng Shi frowned slightly, rolled his eyes, and said: "I've been a bit busy lately, can't spare the time. How about this—leave the mirror in the gathering graveyard of the Jesters' Assembly, pick any tombstone, dig a hole and bury it underneath, then tell me the tombstone's location.

The moment I have time I'll go dig it up. Once I've shone the mirror on the Doctor..."

At this point Cheng Shi stopped himself. Even if this mirror was lent to him by the fake Long Wang, when the real Long Wang came to ask for it back, he couldn't leave any handle against himself.

The word "return" was absolutely out of the question, so Cheng Shi merely gave a light cough twice, the implication being: I'll definitely return it.

Li Jing on the other end of the phone clearly heard Cheng Shi's true meaning, but he still didn't mind, merely saying with a smile:

"You're as cautious as ever.

Fine, I'll leave it under 【Memory】's tombstone and wait for you to retrieve it.

If the Doctor's identity really has a problem, remember to contact me again. I'm very interested in this memory."

Saying this, Li Jing actually hung up first. Cheng Shi stared at the handset in his hand with furrowed brows, his heart filled with uncertainty and suspicion.

He had originally guessed that the Long Wang speaking with him was very likely a nightmare-shadow that had crawled out of the mirror, which would mean Li Jing had fallen for the nightmare-shadow's trick and made the exchange with it.

But the more he thought about it, given the Long Wang's shrewdness, how could the other party have possibly fallen for the mirror's ploy?

And if it really was the Long Wang's nightmare-shadow on the other end of the line, why wouldn't it be afraid of him getting the mirror and helping the Long Wang escape?

Could it be that this mirror really is a trap?

For a moment, Cheng Shi became uncertain about the other party's identity.

To determine whether Li Jing really had a problem, Cheng Shi had no choice but to contact several other Jesters and exchange information with them to cross-verify.

But then again, how is it that the moment the Jesters' Assembly opened, so many problems cropped up among the Jesters?

Is 【Fate】 making a move?

Cheng Shi called Zhang Zhang Jizu first. Old Zhang, squinting, said the Long Wang—who had quite a bit of contact with him—hadn't been in touch lately. This undoubtedly further corroborated the matter of the fake Long Wang.

Then Cheng Shi contacted Dragon Well. Dragon Well actually knew quite a lot about the fake Long Wang's situation. He also felt the Long Wang had been swapped, though as to by whom, he wasn't certain yet.

The two exchanged their views. By the end of the conversation, Dragon Well tried several times to open his mouth and say something, but held back each time.

He figured that until it was confirmed that Jieshu and Mo Shu were targeting Cheng Shi, there was no need to inform the person involved. If it turned out to be a false alarm, his identity as the clown among the Jesters would truly be impossible to wash clean.

So he decided to wait and see a bit longer—at least until the other party contacted him and infiltrated, then he'd tell the Jester Jieshu about their plan.

After the two ended their exchange, Cheng Shi held the phone and hesitated for a long time. The last Jester was Seeing Zhen Xin. He didn't know whether he should make this call; he was afraid the other party would pick up on something.

But if he didn't consult the opinion of this head of the Historians' School, relying solely on his own understanding of Dream of You, Nightmare of Me, he couldn't determine what the fake Long Wang was scheming.

After much back-and-forth deliberation, he still called. And the first thing Seeing Zhen Xin said upon picking up was:

"What's wrong with Mingyu?"

Those words made Cheng Shi's heart clench at once, but he didn't panic, nor did he fall silent. Instead, he immediately replied: "Huh?"

He felt Seeing Zhen Xin might not have necessarily guessed anything. Given the other's cunning, this was very likely a probe!

Sure enough, after his seamless counter-question, the other's tone shifted, and she said with considerable puzzlement:

"After she contacted you, the whole person became strange. Did you say something to her?"

That was close...

Cheng Shi's heart chilled, and he felt Seeing Zhen Xin was not easy to deal with.

Had he hesitated for even one second, he would have definitely let this 【Fraud】 Chosen One guess that another An Mingyu had a problem.

Cheng Shi wasn't deliberately hiding anything. He simply understood the pain of losing a certain kind of dependence, so he wanted to find a gentler way to tell Seeing Zhen Xin about this matter—except he hadn't found that method yet.

"She didn't tell you?

The gods have entered a new round of contest. 【Civilization】 suffered a great defeat, yet no one won."

Seeing Zhen Xin guessed at once that this contest likely concerned matters beyond the cosmos. She furrowed her brows and exchanged words with Cheng Shi for a moment. Until Cheng Shi brought up the matter of the fake Long Wang, Seeing Zhen Xin said uncertainly:

"The Historians' School doesn't know much about Dream of You, Nightmare of Me. We only know it's a mirror that can swap places with a nightmare-shadow. As for what other effects this mirror has, the limited historical fragments don't record them.

However, we have a vice president who hypothesizes that when the nightmare-shadow is outside, if someone else looks into the mirror, they might swap out the person previously imprisoned inside the mirror. This way, Dream of You, Nightmare of Me could obtain new memories by swapping 'hostages.'

So, if the one talking to you really is the Long Wang's nightmare-shadow, is it trying to lock you inside?"

"?"

It's helping its Benefactor search through my memories?

Not impossible!

Cheng Shi suddenly understood and immediately asked: "This vice president wouldn't happen to be Sun Miao, would he?"

Seeing Zhen Xin laughed and said: "Not him—it's another 【Memory】 believer. But this is still his guess. No one knows what the nightmare-shadow wants to do. Cheng Shi, be careful. The current Jesters can't do without you."

"?"

What do you mean the current Jesters can't do without me?

Cheng Shi's face darkened. He couldn't shake the feeling that what this meant was: once the Jesters have drained your information and intelligence channels dry, you can go play somewhere else.

Eating someone clean and dry is nothing more than this—how "poisonous" of you, surnamed Zhen!

Cheng Shi curled his lip and gave an acknowledgment, then asked for Wei Zhi's contact information before hanging up the phone.

Since no one understands 【Bimeng Woyan】, it looks like he still has to make a trip to Dolgeld first; it seems the tribulation of facing Afloros's interrogation is inescapable.

He only hoped that after paying such a "great" price, the road ahead would be a little easier.

What exactly went wrong with the Doctor? Has a second personality fanatical about 【Truth】 sprouted within him?

And was the Long Wang locked inside the mirror? And what exactly is this Shadow of Nightmare, who doesn't seem to be hiding his identity at all, plotting?

Trivial matters piled up, and Cheng Shi's head swelled to the size of a bucket. He lay down on the rooftop, gazing at the sky, and felt that a great door had faintly appeared in the heavens.

That doorway leading to Dolgeld seemed to be calling out to him from the abyss of desire.

"My brother, why haven't you come yet?"