Chapter 1128: You Mean the Black Long Wang Didn't Return to the Mirror?

"You mean the Black Long Wang didn't return to the mirror?"

The Long Wang had no choice but to share with Cheng Shi the surface memories of the Fool that he had witnessed.

Yet most of them were trivial matters from the past, nothing thought-provoking, and what he heard matched the dreamlike phantasms Cheng Shi had seen on the labyrinth's surface and the pasts of those people he already knew.

Hearing it all, Cheng Shi pursed his lips, thoroughly underwhelmed.

Who would have thought the greatest gain from this Dream-of-You-Nightmare-of-Me was watching a bit of the Long Wang's entertainment.

Rare indeed — this devotee of 【Memory】 actually slipped up for once.

"Didn't you go check out the seventh path?"

"The seventh path?" Li Li Jingming's voice on the other end of the phone hitched, then he said gravely, "Where would a seventh path come from?"

"!!??"

The Long Wang didn't see the seventh path!?

Cheng Shi's pupils contracted, his expression stiffening slightly.

No wonder!

I was wondering why, among the 【Existence】 creations stuffed full of memories, there was a path leading to 【Void】 — turns out the Trickster God really did open a back door for me!

But why can He even influence 【Existence】's creations?

Did 【Memory】 get its home raided? He wouldn't even notice if his authority was stolen, would he?

【Deceit】 can't be that powerful either — if it were, what would He still be waiting for? Why hasn't He unified the whole world yet?

In that instant, Cheng Shi recalled the words Wei Mu had once spoken to his patron 【Folly】: If you are so wise, how can you still let the other fifteen gods sit as your equals?

Right here and now, swapping "wise" for "powerful" fits perfectly.

Seeing the long silence on the other end, Li Li Jingming asked again, puzzled:

"Cheng Shi, is this seventh path you found the reason you escaped directly?"

Cheng Shi pulled his thoughts back, not flustered in the slightest, and improvised offhandedly:

"That's right, I walked out along the seventh path.

I didn't expect that path to lead straight to the void outside the mirror."

Li Li Jingming's brows knit as he carefully recalled the labyrinth's layout inside the mirror, confirming he hadn't missed a single path, and grew all the more curious: "Where is this seventh path?"

Cheng Shi smiled mockingly:

"Long Wang, you seem to have gotten dumber — I bet you left your brain inside the mirror.

Think carefully. You and I entered the same labyrinth. When you can't see that path, shouldn't you stop and consider whether you overlooked something?"

Li Li Jingming was certainly no fool — the path simply wasn't in front of him, so naturally he couldn't see it. But once Cheng Shi prompted him, he immediately thought of the one direction in that labyrinth besides east, south, west, and north: up!

A sharp glint flashed in his eyes, and he said solemnly, "The wall!? You climbed out from the mirror wall of the labyrinth?"

"Exactly!" Cheng Shi curved his lips and, running with the other's line of thought, spouted nonsense: "I nearly got lost in the memories too. With no other choice, I had to gamble everything, desperately climbed upward, and in a daze found an exit on the wall and dropped into the void.

But when I woke up and tried to recall it, I couldn't remember how to find that path again."

"......"

That was practically a blatant declaration that he was lying, yet Li Li Jingming couldn't question it — the power of 【Memory】 truly could produce such an effect.

But the main thing was, he was lying too, so he had no standing to expose Cheng Shi's lie.

Silence fell on both ends of the phone again. After a long while, Cheng Shi asked curiously:

"Has a situation like this happened before?

If the person swapped in got themselves out, does the nightmare shadow automatically get pulled back into Dream-of-You-Nightmare-of-Me?"

"No, and it can't."

Li Li Jingming's tone shifted, taking on a rather suggestive note: "Because my nightmare shadow — the fake Li Li Jingming who impersonated me — has already left."

"?" Cheng Shi blinked, a bit dumbfounded. "What do you mean, left?"

"He left Cloud Wild Monastery, and before he went, he even left me a letter."

"Wait, hold on — you mean the Black Long Wang didn't return to the mirror, and on top of that turned into an independent being and left your rest area!?"

The Black Long Wang......

Li Li Jingming's eyelid twitched, and he hummed an acknowledgment.

Cheng Shi was dumbstruck: "Ah? Then the mirror......"

"I don't know if it's because of his departure, but I no longer have a nightmare shadow in the mirror. Dream-of-You-Nightmare-of-Me seems to have stopped working on me."

"!!!"

Stopped working?

No way — then how am I supposed to contact the Flames of Hope from now on?

Cheng Shi's brow darkened, and he hurriedly asked: "Did it stop working just for you, or......"

"I don't know, because I haven't had the chance to test it on anyone else yet."

Before Li Li Jingming could finish, Cheng Shi cut in:

"I'll do it, I'll test it. Just bury the mirror in the Fool's gathering graveyard like you did with the Black Long Wang — I'll go fetch it when I have time.

Don't worry, I won't get any funny ideas about your mirror. I'm simply having a bout of the helpfulness addiction."

"......"

I think it's the lying addiction you've got.

Li Li Jingming shook his head with a rueful laugh and agreed:

"Fine. But since this mirror is of no further use to me, it can be 'confiscated' as a common asset of the Fool's, so you lot can visit His archive anytime.

I've tried it — the archive is still accessible."

The moment the words fell, Cheng Shi said shamelessly: "What a coincidence — the Fool just appointed an asset manager, and it's none other than yours truly. Don't worry, I'll take good care of this first piece of public property."

"... When was this appointment made? How come I didn't know about it?" Li Li Jingming's eyelid twitched again.

"Well, you know now, don't you? And you're the first to know, too."

"..."

Li Li Jingming's mouth twitched sharply, thinking to himself that this was indeed just like him.

Though he was still chatting casually, Cheng Shi hadn't forgotten that the Black Long Wang had also left a letter for the Long Wang. He wanted to ask what was written in that letter, but heard the Long Wang say meaningfully:

"This won't count as part of the earlier 'repaying a debt of gratitude.' If you want to know what's in the letter, make a trade.

Tell me what you saw on your way out of My Dream, My Nightmare, and I can tell you what message he left for me."

"?"

Cheng Shi opened his mouth and rattled off: "The patterns on the back of the mirror, the endlessly repeating engravings, and boundless darkness. Alright, I'm done. Your turn."

Li Li Jingming chuckled lightly: "What I want is the truth, not lies. Cheng Shi, you can't fool me. Think it through before coming back to me. I'm off to handle some things."

Saying so, the Long Wang hung up the phone.

Cheng Shi stared at the phone in his hand, his expression strange, and muttered softly:

"I can't exactly tell you that the Fun God opened a back door for me inside My Dream, My Nightmare, can I? If a follower of 【Memory】 like you found out, how would I keep your heart from feeling out of balance?

Sigh, being a grandfather means always worrying about one's grandson..."

Reality, a Daoist temple in some unknown province and city.

Li Li Jingming sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, with six thick sutra-folded books laid side by side before him. Each folded book bore a person's name, and upon closer inspection, they were precisely the six members of the Clown, including himself.

The ink beside these sutra-folded books was dense and rich — clearly filled with writing — and judging by their thickness, the stories recorded within were likely far more than the brief account he had given Cheng Shi.

He stacked all the sutra-folded books together, carried them into the sutra repository, pressed them under a stone, then returned to the hall, lit incense, and offered prayers:

"All mortals suffer, whether the gods descend or not.

All deeds are good, whether the world is wicked or not."

He bowed three times, inserted the incense into the censer, and his gaze swept over the white paper on the table, on which eight characters were written:

"To have desire is no crime; I'll spare you this once."

Li Li Jingming frowned slightly, pondered briefly, and silently uttered a name.

A new trial is coming, folks — no-prize guessing game. Guess who's in the next trial.

I'll go first: Cheng Shi.