Chapter 262: Love Comes Too Fast Like... a Boomerang!

Love comes too fast like... a boomerang!

(Today's super long!)

Hearing Zuoqiu speak, the cold-faced man beside him, who had remained silent all this while, finally spoke:

"Zuoqiu? Real name?"

"Does true or false matter for He Ceng? It's just a code name."

"Heh, since you've already changed it, why not just call yourself Zuoqiuming?"

Zuoqiu smiled casually: "History is unclear, I dare not claim 'bright'."

"Interesting." Brother Niaomao picked up the thread, sizing Zuoqiu up with a look. "A historian of the History School — looks like there's no need for confusion in this round. May I ask what your research focus is?"

"Underground changes!"

Oh-ho!

What a coincidence!

This trial round had unexpectedly landed them underground, and now it had delivered a historian who studied underground changes!

The moment Cheng Shi heard this, he finally snapped out of his numb state and was instantly energized.

One had to know that the history of Zhizhou was far too long; within limited time, no player could be thoroughly familiar with and master all of it. So players of the History School, just like the research societies of the Reason Tower, had divided themselves into many different historical research directions.

And underground history was famously a direction so worthless that even dogs wouldn't sniff at it.

Because, as the saying goes: no records to reference!

The tribes and clans underground were sparsely scattered — mere clumps and clusters of beings eking out a living, hardly qualifying as a true civilization, so there was essentially no documented history.

Players researching this direction were purely thankless toil, because to piece together the underground story, they had to personally ask those vanished people and events during trials.

But the problem was, trials related to the underground were far fewer than those on the surface, which further increased the difficulty of tracing origins for "underground historians."

So upon hearing Zuoqiu was an underground historian, Cheng Shi was even wondering whether he should give this 【Memory】 believer familiar with the underground some face this round and just overlook his faith.

Zuoqiu's research direction clearly surprised everyone. Hong Lin also grew interested; she raised an eyebrow and asked:

"Brother Brother Shiguan, would you mind sharing what you've witnessed?"

Zuoqiu smiled and declined: "Classified, my apologies."

"Sigh, with doomsday at hand, there are always people who like to lock themselves inside their little circles — impressive, truly impressive!" Hong Lin cupped her fists, sighing with feeling.

Cheng Shi couldn't hold back a laugh, amused by this passive-aggressive skill.

Zuoqiu's expression turned awkward, but he didn't get angry — seemed his temper was decent.

After the historian finished introducing himself, the cold-faced man behind him finally squeezed in a line during a lull in the conversation:

"Jiang Jiang Wu Mei, Trap Master, 2319."

The moment the words fell, Cheng Shi lowered his head and curled up the corner of his mouth.

Interesting — at last, someone had started lying.

Last round he'd spent the whole game guessing under the noses of five Deception Masters; this round he'd found a Deception Master back, so at least he could spare his brain a bit.

But just what was this cold-faced teammate hiding?

Everyone was already used to the cold, taciturn teammate, so after Jiang Jiang Wu Mei finished introducing himself, their gazes immediately shifted to the other female player in this round.

This seemingly thirty-ish mature beauty stood far away in front of a twisted Night Boa, quietly watching everyone — from the moment she'd opened her eyes till now, she hadn't uttered a single word.

Seeing everyone's gaze turn to her now, she gave a slight smile — and suddenly knelt down.

And it was precisely this lowering of her body that allowed everyone to finally see clearly that there was actually another woman standing behind her!

A Miss far thinner and smaller than the kneeling mature beauty!

Everyone's gaze sharpened as they guessed her identity!

Hong Lin even whistled and clapped directly, saying:

"Clap clap clap clap!

Impressive — even I didn't notice. So this round has a Puppeteer too!"

Puppeteer — an assassin of 【Silence】.

They are assassins lurking in shadow, killers walking within 【Silence】, but their method of killing differs from ordinary killers.

Puppeteers will wrap their control strings around their target, then amid the target's speechless shock and silent terror, turn the target into a puppet that can never speak again.

What they kill is not the flesh, but the soul.

Therefore, the mature beauty who had just smiled and knelt was not a living person, but should be a lifelike puppet.

Of course, "lifelike" isn't quite the right word, because this puppet was made from a person to begin with, so naturally it was no different from a person at all.

Hong Lin's praise drew no excessive response from the Puppeteer. The mature-beauty puppet in front of her sprang back up with a "whoosh" to shield the little girl behind her, then smiled and nodded to everyone — a greeting of sorts.

A puppet roughly expressing goodwill on behalf of its master was also a kind of signal — it meant this 【Silence】 assassin wasn't antisocial, and might even be willing to cooperate.

But Cheng Shi still looked at the puppet with cautious eyes, a faint solemnity welling up in his heart.

This round was fraught with danger.

Although he didn't know how many points this Puppeteer had, anyone who could evade the perception of a 【Prosperity】 Chosen surely had no shortage of points.

Looking at it this way, among these five teammates: two were peak players with personal grudges, two were cold onlookers of the Silence faction, and the remaining one was the rival of one of his own faiths...

No matter how you looked at it, it didn't seem like a round one could coast through.

The bold, heroic words spoken before entering the trial had only been minutes ago, and already they'd become a delusion.

Had to say — fate, huh... maybe not fate, but someone sure was a bitch!

Cheng Shi shook his head, utterly speechless. Seeing everyone's gaze turn to him, he sorted his thoughts and squeezed out a standard fake smile.

Since he couldn't be a freeloader, he'd just be a little wallflower in this tense round.

"Cheng Shi..."

The moment he began, Hong Lin beside him whipped her head around to stare at him, cutting in directly:

"Cheng Shi? Which Cheng, which Shi?"

"......"

Damn!

Cheng Shi's heart sank, and he immediately realized he was in for trouble.

Although he hadn't yet been able to quickly pinpoint exactly which trial had leaked the news and let his name reach the ears of the 【Prosperity】 Chosen, clearly from this teammate's gaze he could tell that what she wanted to ask about wasn't that "Seeing Cheng Shi" (honest) homophone, but a person called "Cheng Shi"!

Not just her — the instant Cheng Shi spoke, it seemed all his teammates had taken an interest in this name, a fiery gleam shining in every one of their eyes.

Wait, what's going on here?

Cheng Shi's heart tightened, but on the surface he forced a casual tone: "The Cheng of Cheng Shi, the Shi of Cheng Shi."

Hearing this tai-chi-fist-style answer, Hong Lin raised an eyebrow, her expression playful:

"So you're a... Fate Weaver?"

!!!!!

Crap!

Big problem!

From that one sentence, you didn't even need to use your brain to guess which round had gone wrong!

Hu Wei! Bai Fei! The round where he'd impersonated Did Zhen Yi and fooled two peak players!

Being recognized wasn't even the most terrifying part — the most terrifying part was that in that round, to solidify his cover and protect himself, he'd babbled a whole pile of nonsense, which included saying, under Zhen Yi's identity, that he was Zhen Yi's new favorite!

Ah, this......

But Cheng Shi knew that any tiny expression or movement of his was already being magnified infinitely in everyone's eyes, so there was no way to hide it — he could only switch tactics and struggle a bit.

So he raised an eyebrow, looking at Hong Lin with a fairly surprised expression:

"That's right, I'm a Fate Weaver. What of it — my name has already reached the ears of peak players? Then that's truly my honor."

Hong Lin hadn't expected Cheng Shi to dare own up to it directly. She looked him up and down with slight surprise for a long moment, then clicked her tongue in admiration:

"No wonder you could become Zhen Yi's new favorite — you really are good-looking."

The moment these words left her mouth, of the six people present, everyone except Hong Lin had a sudden spark explode in their eyes!

Even the follower of 【Silence】 drove the puppet in front of him to kneel once more, revealing a pair of bright, dewy big eyes!

Clearly everyone present knew Zhen Yi, and had all heard Zhen Yi personally admit to having a new male favorite — something that had never happened before!

As for exactly whose mouth this "rumor" had come from didn't matter — what mattered was that when the biggest melon of the entire 【Faith Game】 was right in front of them, no one could resist taking a bite!

【The new favorite of the most annoying Archmaster of Tricks】!

That title — even if it were bestowed upon a pig, the pig would shine with boundless radiance.

Let alone that Cheng Shi himself was already quite good-looking.

The team's piercing gazes raked over Cheng Shi like a harrow, and the more they looked, the more they felt... hmm, he does look like it, very much so.

Their expressions grew more and more wonderful one by one.

But looking at Cheng Shi......

He had a face like his mother had just died.

"......"

Sure enough.

Karma comes so fast, just like a tornado.

Every lie a person tells flies about in the void for a while, then turns into a boomerang and flies back, stabbing itself in the forehead!

Only this time, the boomerang came back a little too fast!

Look at the boomerang stuck in my forehead — doesn't it have two big characters written on it in gleaming gold:

Bad luck!

What's going on!?

Exactly whose mouth is this loose?

I can understand your urgent psychology of wanting to get back at Zhen Yi after being screwed by her, but aren't you all just a little too urgent?

It's only been a few days, and already everyone knows!

Two faces flashed through Cheng Shi's mind — one was Grand Marshal Hu Wei, the other was Little White Strip Bai Fei. He thought it over and still felt it was most likely Hu Wei, who had been broken by being fooled and then spread the story.

After all, that cold-faced Bai Fei, who wasn't close to anyone, didn't really look like a big mouth.

But Cheng Shi reacted quickly too — after hearing Zhen Yi's name, his face visibly darkened, and his gaze grew so gloomy it nearly dripped.

"She... said that?"

Hong Lin was clearly holding back laughter in her eyes. She nodded, beginning to feel sympathy for this new favorite personally acknowledged by Zhen Yi.

Everyone knew this Cheng Shi couldn't possibly be Zhen Yi's new favorite, because her new favorites were simply too many — it was just that this was the first time she'd given that title to a man.

But that only proved this person must have offended Zhen Yi badly, otherwise she wouldn't have used her own such "fine" "reputation" to take down a complete stranger.

So Hong Lin was very curious — or rather, all the melon-eating masses present were very curious — just what kind of person was this Cheng Shi that Zhen Yi had taken notice of?

Cheng Shi watched the team's melon-eating gazes grow more and more outrageous, and instantly felt as if he were back under the Conjugate Whisper Tree, having once again swallowed a bitter fruit of 【Fate】.

Bitter, so bitter!

As expected, the karma you plant yourself is always the bitterest!