Recaps

Cheng Shi survived the prison’s deadly trial by exposing Ji Er’s deception, then escaped into an underground laboratory with Li Yi and Gao San. There they discovered cloned versions of people and learned that the Grand Inquisition had used the Death Sentence to obtain subjects for the Divinity Sprouting Experiment.

• Cheng Shi entered the prison’s Special Trial, where he and the other red-clad prisoners planned to exploit a chaotic identity swap to escape.
• Ji Er orchestrated a prison ambush, killing Su Wu and seemingly Gao San before Cheng Shi realized Gao San had faked his death and escaped.
• Cheng Shi defeated Ji Er in the arena by using Destiny’s favor to overcome his defenses and kill him.
• After explosions collapsed the arena, Cheng Shi escaped into the ruins, met Li Yi in rat form, and agreed to help him find a corpse and an escape route.
• Cheng Shi broke through into an underground laboratory, where he reunited with Gao San and discovered documents bearing the Tower of Reason emblem.
• Cheng Shi, Li Yi, and Gao San questioned Nisik and learned that the laboratory used Death Sentence prisoners in a supposed Life Assimilation Experiment.
• The three found tanks containing numerous identical copies of people, then encountered Therius and learned that the Grand Inquisition had engineered Death Sentence to supply subjects for the Divinity Sprouting Experiment.

Cheng Shi uncovered Therius’s Slice Experiment, discovered that the trial’s divided selves were fragments of his own identity, and helped the other subjects recover. After clearing the trial, he was summoned by Chaos and began climbing the steps beyond the shattered Door of Order.

• Cheng Shi learned that Therius had restarted the Slice Experiment to seek Sprouted Divinity, broke free of his Prison Helmet, and killed Therius, whose soul was devoured by the entity inside him.
• Cheng Shi escaped the laboratory with Melina’s help while Galiusha blamed the Tower of Reason for Therius’s death, and Therius’s slices killed Li Yi and Gao San.
• Cheng Shi found Zhao Si among the presumed dead, exposed him, and discovered beneath his Prison Helmet that Zhao Si had Cheng Shi’s own face.
• Cheng Shi awoke bound in Therius’s laboratory and realized that the five selves from the imagined civil war were his own personality slices, whose failure to recognize one another had broken the experiment.
• Cheng Shi killed Therius and many of his slices, then took Sprouted Divinity from Therius’s body and watched it vanish when he touched it to Lele’er’s ring.
• Cheng Shi and Li Zhi helped the awakened subjects recover their personalities, but Song Yi killed Galiusha, Huajiao rewrote the event in his history book, and Cheng Shi demanded compensation before the trial ended.
• Melina burned the laboratory after finding Galiusha dead, while Cheng Shi cleared the trial and later learned that a Therius slice had killed Li Zhi without producing Sprouted Divinity.
• Chaos summoned Cheng Shi to the shattered Door of Order, where he climbed through visions of disorder until a voice called him upward.

Cheng Shi refused Chaos’s offer, learned more about his ties to Destiny and Deception, and entered a Prosperity trial in the Sighing Forest. He helped Hong Lin and the others reach the Fungus-Footed People, where he rekindled their hope to fulfill the trial’s goal.

• Cheng Shi rejected Chaos’s offer to become its emissary, then learned from Deception and Destiny that he had become a surviving Oathbreaker with the Mask of All Beings.
• Cheng Shi entered the Prosperity trial with Hong Lin, Zhen, Zuo Qiu, Jiang Wu Mei, and the Puppet Master, whose goal was to ignite a fire across the wilderness within five days.
• Hong Lin rescued Cheng Shi from the Sighing Tide, recognized his connection to Tao Yi, and helped him return to the mist after Decay transformed him into Cheng Xiaoshi.
• Cheng Shi and his companions followed a fluorescent trail to a Mist Gate, using the Desolate Lamp to pass through a decaying spatial passage.
• The group emerged in a hidden Fungus-Footed village beneath the Isle of Hope, where the villagers believed their lost companion Abul had been taken by Eupusca.
• When the Fungus-Footed People despaired over Hong Lin’s silence, Cheng Shi claimed Prosperity had sent a divine revelation and presented the Baptism of New Life.
• Aluveni led the Fungus-Footed People in praising Prosperity, and Hong Lin questioned Cheng Shi after he explained that he had reignited their hope to fulfill the trial.

Cheng Shi led the Fungus-Footed People through Prosperity’s trials while investigating Eupusca and the tribe’s hidden history. After uncovering the bargain behind their faith, he began to suspect the prophecy remained unfinished and that the Historian had searched for its future through his shadow.

• Cheng Shi passed the Fungus-Footed People’s first trial by restoring the newborn’s baptism and declaring that their faith had endured despair.
• Cheng Shi learned that the Everlasting Desolate Lamp drew Eupusca, then led the players into the Sighing Forest to find it.
• Hong Lin fought Eupusca while the players supported her, and Cheng Shi used the Desolate Lamp to draw the creature toward them before escaping through the Mist Gate.
• Jiang Wu Mei entered Cheng Shi’s dream and witnessed the memories of Cheng Shi’s childhood with Old Jia, then Cheng Shi killed Jiang Wu Mei after discovering he was watching.
• Cheng Shi exposed Zuo Qiu as An Jing’s puppet and negotiated with the Puppet Master, receiving the Tongue of Lies and the golden card while Hong Lin sealed Prosperity Divinity.
• Hong Lin used the Tongue of Lies on Cheng Shi in the Mist Gate passage, collapsing the passage and scattering them into Eupusca’s territory.
• Cheng Shi found Abusfu’s contract showing that the first chief had pledged worship and sacrifices to Eupusca in exchange for shelter, while Hong Lin fought the creature.
• Cheng Shi realized Eupusca’s power came from the Fungus-Footed People’s faith and suspected the Tower of Reason had experimented on them.
• Cheng Shi connected his altered shadow to the prophecy and concluded that the Historian had entered the void through it to search for the prophecy’s future.