Prelude of Chaos

Chaos was the First God of the Path of Chaos, the Prelude of Chaos, the madness of disorder, and the mortal enemy of Order.

His Will upheld the belief that there were no rules in the world at all, and that the universe's ultimate end should be chaos and disorder. Thus, players who believed in Him were often mentally influenced by His Will and were, to varying degrees, not quite normal.

If one were to choose the most popular players, believers of Order would undoubtedly come first.

But if one were to choose the least popular players, believers of Filth and Decay, Annihilation, and Folly would all have to line up behind them. The votes for believers of Chaos would surely be far ahead of everyone else.

That was because they not only rarely helped during trials, but often made things worse.

Of course, calling this "making things worse" was already a euphemism. Because of their disdain for rules and their belief in trampling Order, they often caused "malicious" trouble.

Yet this "malice" was, to them, born of "good intentions," because they believed they were guiding the trial toward disorder.

And disorder was the universe's "ultimate end."

Chaos's believers could not be provoked too much. It was best to let them be.

Fang Shiqing quickly skipped over Huang Bo and looked toward Bailing.

Bailing waved as well and said weakly:

"I didn't find anything wrong. If I had to say something, I guess the men here are all a little too strong."

As she spoke, she couldn't help licking the corner of her lips. "A little too strong, actually."

"None of them... This isn't right." Fang Shiqing instinctively filtered out the feverish Niao Niao's lewd remarks and lowered her head in thought.

If every corner of the memory scene was exceptionally clear, then there was only one possibility: the owner of the memory knew everyone, which was why he could fully fill in every individual within the memory.

But judging from their previous investigation, the drinkers seemed to be strangers to one another.

Yet how could strangers possibly have memories that were this clear?

Could someone be plotting something in the bar?

As everyone was deep in thought, Cheng Shi raised his glass out of boredom and complained:

"Where are the bar's servers? The drinks are gone, so why haven't they come to refill them? Aren't they supposed to keep an eye on every table and proactively serve the customers?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Lu across from him cast him a disdainful look as if he were a freeloader.

Bailing, on the other hand, agreed wholeheartedly. She shot him a flirtatious look and mentally gave Cheng Shi a new label: a pleasure-seeking freeloader.

Fang Shiqing heard him too. At first, she felt rather helpless, thinking that everyone in this round was slacking off except for the secretive little Assassin, A'ming.

But for some reason, as she watched Cheng Shi poke his head around in search of a server, a flash of inspiration suddenly crossed her mind. She slammed the book in her hand onto the table.

"Bang!" The sound startled everyone.

"The servers!"

"Huh?"

"?"

Fang Shiqing said excitedly:

"The servers! Cheng Shi is right. Only the servers would pay attention to the movements of every guest at every moment, and only they would be familiar with these guests. That's why the memories in every corner are so clear—because they already know everything here!"

Xu Lu widened her eyes and looked at Cheng Shi. Seeing that he was equally bewildered, the shock in her heart lessened somewhat.

It seemed he hadn't expected that either. He had probably just gotten it right by accident...

Cheng Shi indeed acted extremely confused. He tried his best to widen his eyes, blinked several times, and said blankly:

"Did I say that?"

Fang Shiqing gave him a meaningful look, then quickly rose to her feet, preparing to speak with each of the servers.

During her previous investigation, it wasn't as if she hadn't heard the servers talking. It was just that, compared to the drinkers, the servers spoke too little and provided too little useful information, so she had skipped past them quickly.

Seeing how swiftly she moved, Cheng Shi kindly reminded her:

"Take it easy, boss. The drinkers here are so strong, and they've had so much to drink. They probably have bad tempers. Don't rush over there and provoke them. If they start fighting, we'll be in danger!"

His words sounded like he was trying to hold her back. Xu Lu, following behind Fang Shiqing, looked back with a trace of anger on her face. Even A'ming, who had just risen to his feet, awkwardly glanced back at Cheng Shi.

"Cheng Shi, you..."

But when Fang Shiqing heard those words, her entire body suddenly froze, and another flash of inspiration lit up her mind.

Human memories were not entirely objective reproductions. They often carried a subjective bias.

As the saying went, "I observe things through myself, so everything bears my colors." That was the best description of memory.

If the drinkers in this memory scene were all generally strong, it meant that the owner of the memory had most likely subjectively felt that they were very strong when interacting with them.

Working backward from that, this person was probably very frail—frailer than an ordinary person!

A frail server was very likely the answer to this layer of memory!

Fang Shiqing's eyes shone. She glanced at Cheng Shi again and saw that he was still pretending to be stupid. She did not expose him, merely taking A'ming and hurrying upstairs.

"I remember you said there was a sleeping server in the lounge upstairs?"

A'ming immediately recalled it and answered, "Yes. He was fairly tall and thin, and one of his legs was somewhat disabled."

"That's him!"

Without turning her head, Fang Shiqing continued upstairs. The other two followed close behind, and when Bailing saw that she seemed to have found the answer, she immediately rose to chase after them.

As she passed Cheng Shi, she lightly ran a fingernail over the back of his hand and giggled:

"I underestimated you, big shot."

At the same time, she mentally gave Cheng Shi another new label: an expert at catching fish in troubled waters.

Cheng Shi smiled but ignored her.

Fang Shiqing led everyone to the lounge, whose door was firmly locked. A'ming merely pointed a finger at the keyhole, and the door opened with a click.

"What is this?" Xu Lu asked in surprise.

"Professional Talent: Finger Key," A'ming replied shyly.

Cheng Shi silently raised A'ming's rating in his mind. This talent was A-rank, and it was one of the harder A-rank talents to farm.

Moreover, this talent truly belonged to the Assassin profession, which meant that he had not lied about his profession.

He had hidden his score.

If that was the case, did he believe in Order or War?

Fang Shiqing stepped into the pitch-black room and immediately tore a page from the book in her hand. She shook it in the air, and the paper instantly shrank into a lantern, illuminating the entire room.

A melodious song came from the Paper Lantern: "Oh, gods~ bring us light~ mortals~ sing in delight~"

The Erudite Poet's magic trick had finally appeared before everyone's eyes.

"Tsk, tsk. That's actually pretty nice."

The voice was clearly Fang Shiqing's own. Cheng Shi had not expected this English teacher to have such a pleasant voice when singing a ballad.

But the opening of the door and the singing still woke the resting server. He opened his eyes in confusion and saw a group of people standing before him. Somewhat frightened, he said:

"You... If you need help, go find Zado. I'm off duty."

Fang Shiqing smiled faintly at the server.

"We came to find you."

"Find me?" The server was somewhat afraid. He clutched his blanket tightly and said in a trembling voice, "I don't think I know you..."

"Don't be afraid. We aren't here to cause you trouble."

As she spoke, she glanced back at Cheng Shi and signaled him with her eyes.

Cheng Shi understood what she meant. He casually cast a Calming Technique on the server, then followed it up with Hypnosis.

He was a Priest, after all. He had every basic skill.

Fang Shiqing gave him an approving smile, then turned back and said:

"Calm down. Think carefully. Everything you've seen is only a memory of yours. This place is already in the past. You shouldn't be lost in your memories now, right?"

The server's eyes grew increasingly unfocused. Then he nodded and said:

"That's right. Yes, I remember now. This is my memory."

"Whoosh—"

"Crash..."

As his voice fell, the server suddenly shattered like a mirror and dissolved into countless points of light. They slowly gathered into a passage door as deep and blue as a mirror's surface.

The answer was correct. The players had found the way out of this layer of memory.

Everyone let out a long sigh of relief. Fang Shiqing raised her eyebrows, signaling that they could leave in an orderly fashion.

"Huang Bo hasn't come up yet..." A'ming reminded her cautiously.

"Forget him. We'll go first."

Cheng Shi curled his lips and stepped through first.

Before leaving, he turned his face to meet Fang Shiqing's eyes. They understood each other's gaze.

Fang Shiqing's said: I know you're pretending to be stupid.

Cheng Shi's said: Ababa ababa.

Seeing Cheng Shi, who had done nothing, rush ahead, Xu Lu clasped her hands behind Fang Shiqing and muttered in a deliberately shrill voice:

"What kind of person is he? He's only enthusiastic at times like this."

Hearing that, Fang Shiqing smiled. But inwardly, she complained:

What kind of man would like someone who talks like that? He's so silly. It's almost pitiful.

Everyone followed one after another. A'ming brought up the rear, looking down at the floor below with hesitation. After a long while, he turned around and stepped through.