Chapter 31: The Death of Huang Bo, and the Final Gate

The Death of Huang Bo, and the Final Gate

“It’s really you!! Huang Bo!!! Then where’s the real A Ming?”

“How is this possible?”

“Big Boss, this...”

Cheng Shi smiled as he sealed the vial in his hand, exhaling a sigh of relief.

The “truth-confessing potion” was, of course, fake.

Besides Cheng Shi, only four people were present—[The Offering to the Void] could not be activated.

But that didn’t stop it from tricking out the “truth.”

The essence of victory lies in the interplay of illusion and reality.

Cheng Shi, having succeeded in his scheme, clucked his tongue and continued speculating:

“I guess you used some delayed-death method or life-sustaining item to keep A Ming trapped in the tavern?”

Huang Bo dropped his disguise, wearing A Ming’s face as he burst into mad, roaring laughter:

“Correct. My Lord granted me an S-rank talent: Shared Form, Shared Heart. Cheng Shi, you’re clever—but you can’t touch me.”

Huang Bo’s tone was manic, yet utterly confident.

“If I live, the little assassin lives too.

If I die, he dies too!

What good is finding me?

Doesn’t it feel awful to be toyed with like this?

Hahaha, isn’t this crushing?”

“The only thing I underestimated was that this poet could resurrect you.”

“But so what? I outmaneuvered you—and you can’t...”

“Pfft—”

“Cheng Shi!”

“Big Boss!”

“You Cheng!!??”

Before Huang Bo could finish speaking, Cheng Shi pulled a knife from nowhere and plunged it straight into his heart.

Feeling the blade pierce his heart, Huang Bo looked up in disbelief, gasping in shock:

“...You’re... insane... he’ll... die...”

Cheng Shi sneered:

“Whether he lives or dies is none of my damn business. You stabbed me—I’ll make you feel the same.”

With that, he yanked the knife free and drove it again—this time into Huang Bo’s throat.

Only after watching Huang Bo expire did he cleanly sever the head, set the body ablaze, then snap his fingers with final relief.

Dust to dust, earth to earth.

If you can still come back from this, you’re impressive.

The three women stared, dumbfounded, their minds in chaos.

Fang Shiqing recovered first, her gaze complex as she looked at Cheng Shi: “You...”

“What?” Cheng Shi wiped blood from his hand and smiled. “I told you already—I’m not a good person.”

Fang Shiqing said nothing. She took several deep breaths, checked the time on her wrist, and returned to her thigh stance.

“With two fewer people, our search will become extremely difficult...”

“Sister Fang, wait.”

Xu Lu suddenly tugged Fang Shiqing’s sleeve.

Fang Shiqing turned, her icy gaze startling Xu Lu—but Xu Lu still gathered courage and said:

“There’s something wrong. Cheng Shi is a priest, Bai Ling is a weak—not very strong—hunter. With Huang Bo’s power, killing them wouldn’t require such trouble. Why use an NPC?”

“?”

Indeed, Xu Lu was right.

Cheng Shi was stunned—he hadn’t expected Xu Lu to be the first to notice.

Perhaps because Fang Shiqing and Bai Ling viewed him through warm lenses, his swift killing had struck them harder.

Xu Lu, who had watched coldly from the sidelines, became the one to crack the case.

Fang Shiqing thought for a moment, then suddenly turned toward the room.

“The [Chaos] might have given Huang Bo orders to eliminate us—but not the trial’s answer. So he didn’t avoid acting—he needed someone else to find the answer.

And that answer... is...

The guard?”

She looked to Cheng Shi for confirmation.

Cheng Shi clapped his hands in approval, then laid out the full chain of reasoning and his deductions.

“Sharp. Perhaps he overheard the guard’s conversation with me outside—or maybe he’d already seen that ring, waiting for me to solve it.

I did find an answer. If I’m right, the guard isn’t dead. Huang Bo’s next move was to take him somewhere you couldn’t find, then leave himself.”

“Of course, I don’t know how he learned this was the final act—or whether his master gave him clues to the next scene.”

Fang Shiqing’s gaze was complex:

“You suspected ‘A Ming’ was fake from the start? Even before the Mist?”

Cheng Shi smiled: “Just a guess.”

He glanced into the room.

Bai Ling understood instantly, rushing inside to check the guard’s vital signs.

As expected, a “murky glow” shielded the guard’s heart, keeping him from dying immediately.

“He’s still alive!”

Fang Shiqing followed close behind, staring at the barely breathing guard, then turned:

“Cheng Shi—your turn.”

Cheng Shi didn’t refuse. He cast a healing spell on the man who had tried to kill him, then immediately followed it with a sleep spell as the guard began to stir.

This time, before Fang Shiqing could speak, Xu Lu blurted out anxiously:

“Hey, you! Memories! Speak up, quick!”

The crude prompting made everyone’s faces darken—but the fragile guard had already lost clear thought. After a long pause, he nodded.

Instantly, the newly revived guard exploded into a shower of starlight.

The starlight reformed into a Memory Gate.

But this Memory Gate bore a golden frame—unlike the others.

The Final Gate!

Its appearance meant the trial was ending.

Step through it, and everyone would survive—with rewards.

“E...ended?”

Xu Lu hadn’t expected it to be this simple—they’d found the exit with time to spare.

Only eight hours had passed since the trial began; nearly a third of the time remained.

“Sis... Fang?”

Xu Lu turned happily—only to meet Cheng Shi’s furrowed brow.

She recoiled two steps in fear.

A man who kills casually, a man of opposing faith—would he strike her now, at the exit?

She dared not think it. She just wanted to flee.

Xu Lu scanned everyone’s positions, gritted her teeth, and sprinted for the Final Gate.

But as she was about to leap through, a powerful hand seized her arm and yanked her back from the threshold.

“Ahhhh!!!”

Xu Lu screamed in terror, instinctively unleashing her Singer skill straight at Cheng Shi’s head.

Cheng Shi didn’t dodge. He grimaced as he metabolized the debuffs, then flung her hard onto the ground.

Fang Shiqing stepped forward, blocking Xu Lu with a thin edge of anger.

“Cheng Shi, that’s enough!”

Bai Ling stood frozen in shock. She didn’t understand why Cheng Shi wouldn’t let Xu Lu go—but she shifted her stance, drew her bow, and moved behind him.

Fang Shiqing watched the scene, her brow still knotted.

“Sister Fang, save me!”

“Cheng Shi, you...”

“Wrong.”

Cheng Shi ignored the chaos, frowning as he thought:

“Wrong. If this leads to the next scene, maybe it’s fine.

But if this is the Final Gate—the answer is too simple.

The Clipping’s prophecy hasn’t come true. Where’s the hand holding the teacup?”

Fang Shiqing paused, and upon hearing him mention this, she let out a breath of relief.

It seemed Cheng Shi didn’t intend to kill; he appeared to be doubting the correctness of the answer.

But the Memory Labyrinth always has only one final door—how could this be wrong?

Xu Lu fell to the ground, trembling, her eyes filled with terror and hatred as she stared fixedly at Cheng Shi.

Fang Shiqing glanced back at her, sighed, and quietly explained to Cheng Shi:

“We climbed over the outer wall to the second floor, found the Duchess’s room, and indeed saw that cup.”

Cheng Shi, what the Prophet sees isn’t necessarily a scene from the current timeline—the Duchess may truly have used that cup.”

“But I think, more than a prophetic vision, it’s pointing us here.”

“To the Duke’s death scene—or to find the Duchess’s lover.”

Cheng Shi frowned and shook his head:

“Something’s off—where’s the Duchess?”

“We’ve wasted nearly an hour here—won’t the banquet start?”

“Or are all the guests still patiently waiting for the Duke’s arrival?”

“The guests haven’t left—why?”

“What is the Duchess trying to do to cover up the Duke’s death?”

Cheng Shi’s doubts grew stronger.

Everything before him felt like an invisible hand placing the answer directly on their lips, eager to force them to swallow it.

But this slightly coercive feeling—Cheng Shi disliked it.

Where exactly was the problem?

He began to think carefully.

The entire Eternal Night Labyrinth wasn’t complicated.

In the first act, they found the tavern waiter—he likely remembered that night at the tavern after seeing the many patrons he’d seen before.

Then in the second act, they found the Duke’s coachman, Yuerke.

They found him because they saw the true face of the service worker, the “Orc Girl,” and beneath the fur, several dwarves.

Yuerke had been controlled by the dwarves into the memory, and they indeed saw those dwarves’ corpses in the third act...

Then he found the guard’s token—the ring—and confronted the guard.

The guard admitted the ring’s existence and was guided into becoming the Memory Door.

It seemed there was no problem.

But...

Didn’t the guard mention a broker when he admitted it?

A flash of insight struck Cheng Shi—he suddenly realized he’d fallen into a cognitive blind spot!

“That broker!”