Recaps

Cheng Shi explored Birth’s authority and passed it to Big Cat before entering Silence’s trial in Sandlais with Zhang Jizu and Ai Si. The group uncovered Wells’s plan involving the Faith Theater and a War Machine Soldier, while impostors and a hidden Memory listener left their investigation unresolved.

• Cheng Shi learned that Birth could share Her authority with humans, used his Time Deduction Method to explore beyond the universe, and received the Authority of Prosperity, Growth.
• Cheng Shi gave the prosperity authority to Big Cat and joined her, the Doctor, and others in the search for the Clowns’ mysterious object in Sandlais.
• Cheng Shi, Zhang Jizu, Ai Si, and several lookalikes entered Silence’s trial, where Cheng Shi investigated the frozen town and discovered scavengers feared a ghost in the Place of Piety.
• Cheng Shi confronted Wells’s deputy Barto and tested the mist by throwing Barto into it, then used Barto’s corpse to confirm that the dead could not cross safely.
• Plott led Cheng Shi, Zhang Jizu, and Ai Si toward Wells’s hidden underground station, where they found an archive and a damaged War Machine Soldier.
• Cheng Shi and Zhang Jizu used the archive’s memories to learn about the Tower of Reason Experiment and considered whether a God of No Faith held the Ear of Secret Prying in the Faith Theater.
• Zhang Jizu planned to repair the War Machine Soldier, while Ai Si discovered that an impostor had taken her place and followed the group’s tracks.
• A second Ai Si replayed the archive room’s memories and heard Cheng Shi’s deliberate message to the Memory believer who was listening.

Cheng Shi and his companions entered the Faith Theater and witnessed Sandlais’s past, where Kraun’s efforts to give the town faith ended in tragedy. Cheng Shi revived Kraun, claimed the Ear of Secret Prying, and returned to the past to take Kraun’s place in his death, leaving Zhen Xin to answer whether she had deceived herself while impersonating him.

• Cheng Shi, Zhang Jizu, and Ai Si uncovered the false Ghost Tide and found that entering the Faith Theater’s fog required secrets and death.
• Lord Foolish Play recruited Ai Si to help Long Jing retrieve his ears, while Zhang Jizu and Cheng Shi became separated in the fog.
• The players entered Sandlais’s past and followed Kraun as he tried to expose the town’s experiment and give its residents a god to believe in.
• Kraun revealed the God of No Faith, but the residents turned on him after Deception appeared and vanished, and Sandlais collapsed into fragments.
• Cheng Shi and Long Jing reassembled Kraun’s body, and Cheng Shi secretly revived him before uncovering the impostors’ schemes and reaching the Place of Piety.
• Cheng Shi offered his secret to the fog, entered the theater, and claimed the Ear of Secret Prying after its audience of bloody ears withered away.
• Cheng Shi returned to Sandlais’s past with Zhang Jizu and switched places with Kraun as the townspeople stormed the theater.
• Cheng Shi died in Kraun’s place and Zhen Xin revived him, after which he asked whether she had deceived herself while playing his role.

Cheng Shi used the trial to recruit Zhen Xin into the Clowns, conceal his gains, and guide others toward new faiths. As Cheng Shi returned to Sandlais, the gods’ conflict escalated, leaving Death trapped and uncertain about Deception, Fool’s Game, and Destiny.

• Cheng Shi exposed Zhen Xin’s disguise, and she used the hard pen to make the theater’s traces support the story that Zhen Yi had taken Kraun.
• Zhen Xin joined the Clowns after sharing her past with Cheng Shi, who learned how An Mingyu and An Jing had helped her endure her abusive home.
• Zhang Jizu recounted how Deception had taken him and Kraun into the void, where Kraun offered everything he had to make Sandlais funny before God of Merriment destroyed him.
• Cheng Shi recruited Zhen Xin into the Clowns and worked with her on a plan to pursue Faith Fusion with Chaos while staging himself as Fool’s Play for Long Jing.
• Cheng Shi impersonated Lord Foolish Play, persuaded Long Jing to seek a path toward Time, and secretly swallowed the God of No Faith, a vessel tainted by Deception.
• After the trial, Cheng Shi met Ai Si, relayed Lord Foolish Play’s guidance, and received five S-rank masks and Path to Godhood and Ladder of Audience points.
• Zhen Yi found Zhen Xin’s notes about Faith Fusion and decided to help her fuse with Chaos, while the God of Death agreed to assist Deception and warned Zhang Jizu to stay away from Cheng Shi.
• Annihilation attacked Death, but Deception intervened and helped expose Annihilation’s escape trick, and Death was then trapped with Deception in a prison, and later wondered whether Fool’s Game had truly fallen.

Cheng Shi survived the gods’ conflicts and uncovered the fragments of Order imprisoned in the Chaos Divine Hall. He negotiated with Pride (Order) for a role spreading Order, then left the temple with an adjudicator’s ring bestowed by Deception.

• Silence assimilated Cheng Shi into a hanging puppet, but Destiny drove it away and rescued him before resuming his conflict with Deception.
• Destiny explained that Cheng Shi’s fate was predetermined by the Origin, then fought Annihilation and ordered their followers to battle in the trials.
• God of Merriment warned Cheng Shi that Annihilation could erase him and urged him to watch for Annihilation’s God Worshippers.
• Cheng Shi used Zhen Xin’s trial on the Chaos Divine Steps to enter the temple, where he discovered Order’s imprisoned fragment, Pride (Order).
• Cheng Shi learned that Order had split into Justice (Order), Fear (Order), the Iron Rule of Order, and Pride (Order), while Paranoia (Order) had fused with the Iron Rule.
• Cheng Shi persuaded Pride (Order) to show him the past, where Primordial declared Order the prelude to Civilization and Order descended before the other true gods.
• Cheng Shi negotiated a seat on the Order Tribunal with judicial authority, and Pride (Order) gave him an adjudicator’s ring.
• Deception stopped Pride (Order) from reclaiming the ring, bestowed it on Cheng Shi again, and dismissed him from the temple as Pride (Order) spoke of rebuilding Order throughout the universe.