"It's really you!! Huang Bo!!! Then where's the real A'ming?"
"How could this be?"
"Boss, this..."
Cheng Shi smiled as he capped the potion in his hand, finally letting out a sigh of relief.
"Truth of Confession" was naturally fake.
Other than Cheng Shi, there were only four people present. Sacrifice to the Void couldn't possibly activate.
But that didn't stop it from tricking the "truth" out of him.
The truth hidden within falsehood, and falsehood hidden within truth—that was the key to victory.
With his scheme successful, Cheng Shi clicked his tongue and continued guessing:
"I guess you used some method of delaying death or some life-preserving item to keep A'ming confined in the tavern, didn't you?"
Huang Bo stopped hiding. Wearing A'ming's face, he threw back his head and laughed maniacally:
"That's right. My Lord granted me an S-rank talent, Shared Appearance, Shared Heart. Cheng Shi, you're clever, but there's nothing you can do to me."
Huang Bo's tone was utterly crazed, yet full of confidence.
"If I live, that little Assassin can live too.
But if I die, he'll die as well!
So what if you found me?
It doesn't feel good to be toyed with, does it?
Hahahaha, aren't you frustrated?
The only thing I underestimated was that this Singer could actually revive you all.
But so what? I schemed against you, yet you can't..."
"Slice—"
"Cheng Shi!"
"Boss!"
"You, Cheng!!??"
Before Huang Bo could finish, Cheng Shi pulled a knife from somewhere and drove it straight into his heart.
Feeling the blade tear through his heart, Huang Bo looked up in disbelief and gasped in shock:
"...You... you're crazy... he... will die..."
Cheng Shi let out a cold laugh:
"Whether he dies or not is none of my damn business. You stabbed me, so I'll let you experience what it feels like to be stabbed through the heart."
With that, Cheng Shi swiftly pulled out the knife and plunged it into Huang Bo's throat again.
Only after seeing Huang Bo breathe his last did he skillfully sever the corpse's head, set it alight, and finally snap his fingers in relief.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
If you can still revive after that, then you're damn impressive.
The three women stared dumbfoundedly as they watched everything unfold, their minds a complete mess.
Fang Shiqing was the first to recover. She looked at Cheng Shi with a complicated expression. "You..."
"What about me?" Cheng Shi asked with a smile, wiping the blood from his hand. "I told you long ago that I'm not a good person."
Fang Shiqing said nothing. She took several deep breaths, glanced at the time on her hand, and returned to her usual capable state.
"We're down two people. From here on, our search will become extremely difficult..."
"Miss Fang, wait."
Xu Lu suddenly tugged at Fang Shiqing's sleeve.
Fang Shiqing turned around, and the icy look in her eyes startled Xu Lu. Even so, Xu Lu summoned her courage and said:
"There's something wrong. Cheng Shi is a Priest, and Bailing is a weak... I mean, not particularly powerful Hunter. With Huang Bo's abilities, he wouldn't have needed to go to so much trouble to kill them. Why borrow the hands of an NPC?"
"?"
Xu Lu was right.
Cheng Shi was also taken aback. He hadn't expected Xu Lu to be the first to realize it.
Perhaps Fang Shiqing and Bailing both viewed him through rose-tinted glasses, so his decisive act of killing had shocked them more deeply.
Xu Lu, who had always watched coldly from the sidelines, had instead become the one to solve the puzzle.
Fang Shiqing pondered for a moment, seemingly realizing something. Then she suddenly looked toward the room.
"Chaos might have given Huang Bo an edict to eliminate us, but it wouldn't have told him the answer to the trial. So it's not that he didn't want to act. He needed someone else to find the answer.
"And this answer... is...
"That guard?"
She looked at Cheng Shi, seeking an explanation.
Cheng Shi clapped his hands in approval, then laid out the entire chain of events and his own conjecture.
"Clever. Maybe he overheard the guard talking with me outside the door. Or maybe he saw that ring long ago and was simply waiting for me to solve the riddle.
"I did find an answer. If I'm not mistaken, that guard isn't dead. Huang Bo's next plan is to take him somewhere you won't be able to find, then leave this place alone.
"Of course, I don't know how he learned that this was the Final Act. Or perhaps his Lord of Grace gave him clues about the next act in advance."
Fang Shiqing's expression was complicated.
"You guessed there was something wrong with 'A'ming' from the very beginning? Even before the fog?"
Cheng Shi smiled. "It was only a guess."
As he spoke, he glanced into the room.
Bailing understood at once. She rushed inside and began checking the guard's vital signs.
Sure enough, a wisp of "turbid light" protected the guard's heart meridian, preventing him from dying immediately.
"He can still be saved!"
Fang Shiqing followed close behind. Looking at the guard, who had only a breath left in him, she turned and said:
"Cheng Shi, it's your turn again."
Cheng Shi didn't refuse. He struck the man who had tried to kill him with Healing Art, then, just as the guard began to wake, slammed another Hypnosis at him.
This time, Xu Lu didn't wait for Fang Shiqing to speak. She called out anxiously:
"Hey, you! Is it Memory? Hurry up and say something!"
The crude prompting made everyone's faces darken. Fortunately, the frail guard had already lost his clear mind. After wandering in confusion for a long while, he nodded.
Immediately afterward, the guard who had just been saved exploded with a boom, transforming into a sky full of points of light.
The points of light gathered again, forming the Memory Gate.
Only this time, the Memory Gate had an additional golden doorframe.
The Final Gate!
Its appearance meant the trial was about to end.
Once they stepped through it, everyone would survive and receive rewards.
"It... it's over?"
Xu Lu hadn't expected it to be so easy. With plenty of time remaining, they had already found the final exit.
Only a little over eight hours had passed since the trial began. Nearly a third of the time still remained.
"Miss Fang?"
Xu Lu happily turned around, only to find herself facing Cheng Shi's tightly furrowed brows.
She recoiled two steps in fright.
A man who casually killed others, a man whose beliefs opposed hers—would he attack her at the exit?
She didn't dare think about it. She only wanted to leave immediately.
Xu Lu swept her gaze over everyone's positions, gritted her teeth, and charged straight toward the Final Gate.
But just as she was about to leap out of the trial, a powerful hand seized her arm and forcibly dragged her back through the gate.
"Ah!!!!"
Xu Lu screamed in terror and instinctively released the Singer's skill, striking Cheng Shi directly in the head.
Cheng Shi failed to dodge. With a dark expression, he dispelled the negative effects, then flung her onto the ground to one side.
Seeing this, Fang Shiqing stepped in front of Xu Lu, barely suppressing her anger.
"Cheng Shi, that's enough!"
Bailing was stunned with fright. She didn't know why Cheng Shi wouldn't let Xu Lu leave, but she still moved over, drew her bow and arrows, and stood behind Cheng Shi.
Fang Shiqing stared at the scene, her brows tightly furrowed.
"Miss Fang, save me!"
"Cheng Shi, you..."
"Something's wrong!"
Cheng Shi ignored the chaos around him. He knitted his brows and thought:
"Something's wrong! If this leads to the next act, then perhaps there's no problem.
"But if this is the Final Gate, the answer is far too simple.
"The Prophet's prophecy hasn't come true yet. Where is the hand holding the teacup?"
Fang Shiqing froze. Hearing him mention that, she relaxed.
It seemed Cheng Shi wasn't trying to kill anyone. He appeared to be questioning whether the answer was correct.
But the Memory Maze had always contained only one Final Gate. How could this one be wrong?
Xu Lu sat on the ground, trembling. Her eyes were filled with fear and hatred as she glared at Cheng Shi.
Fang Shiqing glanced back at her, sighed, and quietly explained to Cheng Shi:
"We climbed over the outer wall and entered the second floor, where we found the Duchess's room. We did indeed see that cup.
"Cheng Shi, what the Prophet saw isn't necessarily a scene from the current timeline. The Duchess might truly have used that cup.
"But I think that rather than depicting the prophecy itself, it was more like something directing us here.
"To the scene of the Duke's death, or to finding the Duchess's lover."
Cheng Shi frowned and shook his head.
"Something doesn't feel right. Where is the Duchess?
"We've wasted nearly an hour here. Is the banquet not going to begin?
"Or are all the guests still patiently waiting for the Duke to arrive?
"The guests don't seem to have left. Why?
"Where did the Duchess go to find a way to cover up the Duke's death?"
The doubts in Cheng Shi's heart grew stronger.
Everything before him seemed like an invisible hand delivering the answer right to their mouths, impatiently urging them to swallow it.
But Cheng Shi didn't like that faintly coercive feeling.
What exactly had gone wrong?
He began to think it through carefully.
The entire Eternal Night Maze wasn't complicated.
In the first act, they found the tavern's server. He had probably recalled that night at the tavern after seeing the many drinkers he had encountered before.
Then, in the second act, they found the Duke's coachman, Yorke.
They had found him because they saw the true appearance of the service worker, the Orc girl, and the dwarves beneath the beast hide.
Yorke had been controlled by the dwarves and forced into the memory. And in the third act, they had indeed seen those dwarves... or rather, their corpses.
Then he found the guard's token—the ring—and confronted the guard.
The guard admitted that the ring existed and was guided into becoming the Memory Gate.
It all seemed to make sense.
But...
When the guard admitted it, he seemed to have mentioned a broker?
A flash of inspiration struck Cheng Shi, and he suddenly realized that he had fallen into a blind spot in his thinking!
"That broker!"
Before you continue