Chapter 1340: The Person Behind the Scenes

The Person Behind the Scenes

That's right, Cheng Shi had arrived.

The timing was just right.

After 【Time】 brought the culprit of this farce, He left without saying a word, leaving only Cheng Shi standing under the starry sky, accepting the scrutiny of the gods.

But he was completely unpanicked, no longer having his previous fear, but instead bowed slightly to the gods present and smiled:

"Sure enough, only the ascension of a new god can bring all you true gods together. Thank you all for coming to observe the ceremony. If there's nothing else, you can disperse.

We will have many opportunities to meet in the future; I hope you all won't annoy me."

The gods were all stunned. They wouldn't have seen wrong; the player before them was indeed Cheng Shi, but the player who had just accepted the baptism of flowing light was clearly also Cheng Shi. Why would...

Just as the gods were puzzled, the Cheng Shi in the 【Memory】 archive—oh no, it should be said, the new 【Chaos】—suddenly chuckled, shed his disguise, and revealed that long, jet-black hair and that highly recognizable magician's suit.

She had wanted to bow and take a curtain call before the gods present in the manner of Cheng Shi, but upon thinking of her current status, she changed it to a slight nod.

She chuckled:

"If you like watching performances, you can often come to My temple to sit for a while.

I welcome all visitors, especially those willing to discuss 【Origin】 with Me."

With just one sentence, the scene where 【Silence】 was no longer present fell silent once again.

The gods were shocked, only then realizing that the person who had just inherited the divine throne and authority of 【Chaos】 was actually... another 【Deception】 believer?

They hadn't even discovered it, having been deceived by a mortal?

No!

The one who deceived them was definitely not a mortal; did He make a move!?

"Zhen Xin!?"

Li Wufang, seeing this scene, was completely dumbfounded. He couldn't imagine why the boss had suddenly turned into that 【Deception】 God-Chosen with the subtle reputation.

At that moment, all the memories of the day flooded into his mind. He searched frantically through them, but just couldn't find any trace of the two having swapped!

How was it done?

Zhen Xin caught a glimpse of the shock on Li Wufang's face, tilted her head slightly, and winked at him:

"Secret.

The most attractive part of a substitute magic trick is that you can't think of the method. If I revealed it to you, wouldn't it lose its fun?"

"...?"

Who was the one who lost the fun?

Li Wufang's eyelids twitched slightly. Shock still remained in his eyes. At this time, he seemed to have remembered something else and turned to look at Li Jingming, only to find Li Jingming looking as if he knew everything, not surprised in the slightest.

He widened his eyes suddenly and realized in a flash: "You knew all this long ago, so you were smiling?"

Li Jingming nodded with a smile. He did indeed know everything. As early as when he read the memory of "Cheng Shi," this plan couldn't be hidden from him.

No, it should be said that this plan never intended to hide it from him; it was just that the subsequent detour to the 【Memory】 archive wasn't in the plan. However, fortunately, the result was good, and Li Jingming could be considered to have perfectly completed the task Cheng Shi had entrusted to him.

That's right, the Long Wang was also a member of the plan!

He had seen the real Cheng Shi, right under the eyes of everyone, right under the nose of the 【Iron Law of Order】 at that time.

It was just that the Cheng Shi he saw wasn't the Cheng Shi of that time, but the Cheng Shi of the past. The place where he saw Cheng Shi wasn't in the void, but in... Zhen Xin's memory!

Because all of this was a setup Cheng Shi had made with his own hands!

To explain all this clearly, we have to go back to the first time Cheng Shi failed his audience with the 【Iron Law of Order】.

At that time, Cheng Shi had already thought of the method of having Li Wufang request an audience with the 【Iron Law of Order】 and then using the dice to smuggle himself into the audience, but he had thought a bit more.

The clown had indeed aimed at the divine throne of 【Order】, but he had to face a risk, which was that the 【Iron Law of Order】 was 【Chaos】 itself.

If everything went according to the best expectations, with a friendly 【Chaos】 returning to the divine throne, or self-destructing as 【Order】, then there would naturally be no obstacles on Cheng Shi's path to seizing the divine throne. Perhaps he could even become an ally with 【Chaos】 and add another helper.

But what if 【Chaos】 wasn't friendly?

No one knew the inside story of the plan where 【Deception】 and 【Chaos】 conspired to replace 【Order】. Who could confirm what method the God of Fun had used to fool 【Chaos】?

Cheng Shi's current situation didn't allow him a single moment of negligence. He had to exert steadiness to the extreme, so in case 【Chaos】 had been tricked by the God of Fun and harbored hostility toward the God of Fun after finding His true self...

No, there was no need to even think like that. Just because He was 【Chaos】, a god so disorderly that His thoughts were fundamentally impossible to guess, Cheng Shi had to plan ahead for possible accidents and be on guard.

And keeping his status as the Fixed from being polluted was the most important part of this contingency plan!

Therefore, before preparing for the audience, he went to find someone else, who was also his first helper: Zhen Xin!

Cheng Shi met Zhen Xin in the museum and laid out all his plans. He said that based on his understanding of the rigid personality of the 【Order】 lineage, the 【Iron Law of Order】 would only have two endings after being questioned and drawing 【Justice (Order)】 into a confrontation:

Either He couldn't recognize Himself and couldn't give an account to the order of the universe, and would die by His own hand;

Or He would recognize the fact that He was 【Chaos】, abandon 【Order】, and return to 【Chaos】.

The former had no danger; at most, it required some god to protect Him when He self-destructed. But the latter faced far more trouble.

Cheng Shi was afraid that the previous cooperation was a trick of the God of Fun, and even more afraid that 【Chaos】 would directly "prove His ambition with death" in order to expand the chaos of the universe.

This was not alarmist. 【Prosperity】, 【Truth】, 【Annihilation】... with numerous precedents before them, the gods had never been subtle in the expression of their own will.

Therefore, Cheng Shi planned this substitute setup with Zhen Xin.

He wanted Zhen Xin to play him to reveal the identity of the 【Iron Law of Order】. If everything developed in a good direction, then Zhen Xin would at most be a mouthpiece, with no danger to speak of.

But if the worst-case scenario occurred, Zhen Xin... would at least be safe.

Because Cheng Shi knew that Boss 【Death】 would definitely protect "Cheng Shi." Before 【Death】, without His promise, no one would die.

Since she wouldn't die, why didn't Cheng Shi go himself?

It was the same reason: death wasn't the most terrifying thing; the Fixed having problems was the most terrifying thing.

The Final Edict!

Although Qin Xin's Final Edict had become Cheng Shi's weapon in the false finale, it was also something Cheng Shi needed to guard against. What if 【Chaos】 was chaotic to the extreme, and in a desperate struggle, insisted on using the Final Edict to start the countdown to the world's collapse? Who could stop it then?

The God of Fun?

He hadn't been able to stop the Final Edict in the false finale, let alone in the current reality.

Cheng Shi dared not gamble. To eliminate the last trace of risk on the path to seizing the divine throne, he sought out Zhen Xin.

And when Zhen Xin heard all this, she fell silent—not because she didn't want to cooperate, but because she couldn't.

She said very clearly:

"The plan is good, but there are two flaws that cannot be hidden:

One, with my disguise talent, I can play you at will among players, but in front of Them, it's not feasible...

Two, even if my performance isn't seen through by 【Chaos】, what if the ending you least want arrives, and 【Chaos】 names you, Cheng Shi, to inherit the authority? What then?

In the face of a Final Edict that specifies a target, all disguises are useless."

These were indeed the two biggest problems. It wasn't that Cheng Shi hadn't thought about them; he just thought more than Zhen Xin.

Because in this game, he wasn't just scheming against the 【Iron Law of Order】, he was also scheming against his own benefactor, 【Deception】!

He smiled and said to Zhen Xin:

"No matter, what you and I cannot solve, there will naturally be 'someone' to solve for us.

The God of Fun has been hiding and refusing to see me, so I have no bottom in my heart and dare not take big steps forward.

I don't know what He is scheming, but I know that all of this, whether approaching or moving away, is related to the Fixed.

So at this moment, the Fixed cannot rely solely on my steadiness to be guaranteed. If He wants His plan to continue, He has to put in effort for me!

You can go ahead and act with peace of mind. If any link in the middle goes wrong, I will appear on the scene immediately and pull you out of this game.

Facing risks as the Fixed, I don't believe He will just stand by and watch!"

As he spoke, Cheng Shi also deliberately knocked hard on the bone bell in his hand a few times.

That's right, he had rung the bone bell at the beginning of the conversation, fearing that the God of Fun behind him wouldn't hear his plan.

Zhen Xin was a smart person. When she knew that Cheng Shi was using his status as the Fixed to pull the God of Fun into the game, she smiled knowingly and happily agreed to the plan.

And in order to keep the matter of the 【Iron Law of Order】's identity within the smallest possible scope, so as to have more room for subsequent operations, the two also prepared to pull the Long Wang into the game.

But for the evidence to be "credible," they couldn't let Li Jingming know the whole plan from the beginning.

So Cheng Shi thought of a way. This 【Deception】 believer was best at using memory. After finishing the discussion with Zhen Xin, he specifically left a message for the Long Wang in front of Zhen Xin.

So when Li Jingming appeared before the 【Iron Law of Order】 and began to search the memory of "Cheng Shi," he saw the main body of "Cheng Shi," Zhen Xin, in the memory of "Cheng Shi," as well as the real Cheng Shi who greeted him!

"Long Wang, we meet again.

Welcome to the 【Order】 Collapse Plan." ===== CHAPTER 1341 =====