He stood there for a while as if in a daze, then sighed, "Ah...so close."

The shadow couldn't help but ask, puzzled by his strange words, "What do you mean?"

"You were just a step too late," Feng Bujue responded with a shrug. "If you'd arrived a few dozen seconds earlier, maybe you'd have had a chance to fool me."

"You're...saying what?" The shadow didn't seem to understand Jue-ge's words.

"Stop pretending," Feng Bujue said. "You're not the 'driver' who was just talking to me. The three choices you offered... are as fake as you are."

He spoke in an almost lazy tone, "No matter which one I chose, the result would be the same...the options were just a smokescreen. What you really wanted was a 'confirm' action from my subjective will."

"The reason you haven't killed me all this time is that...

"Even though you tried to disguise the fact that 'you need me alive' by 'launching seemingly exaggerated but ultimately harmless attacks on me,' it's clearly not fooling anyone...no matter how irrational I become, I wouldn't be blind to that.

"If you really wanted to kill me, you could have succeeded right in front of Gu Chen, not to mention all the better opportunities you had before that.

"In short...I've known all along that you need me 'alive, to do something,' but I only realized what that specifically was just now...

"Alas...how pathetic, no matter how close you are to being a god, as an AI, there's still a hurdle you can't overcome on your own; in the end...you need me, an intelligent life form from the same universe as you, as an 'operator,' to press that 'confirm' button for your 'transgressing' actions."

As Jue-ge spoke, the shadow gradually began to change.

By the time Feng Bujue finished speaking, the other party had just emerged from the state of black nothingness, and the black human silhouette had turned into a solid entity.

"How did you see through me?" "Destiny," having revealed her true form, asked in a restored female voice.

"Heh..." Feng Bujue laughed. "When I was at Dream Inc. headquarters, I took advantage of the few seconds I had to grab you and put one of my fingers in your pocket."

"I know that," Destiny replied in a very calm tone.

"Yes, you know," Feng Bujue continued. "If my reasoning is correct...from the very beginning, this action of mine didn't escape your notice."

He paused, then elaborated, "Actually, I didn't think too much when I put my finger in there. After all, at that time, I didn't know that there would be a 'dimensional erosion'; I just vaguely felt that after you finished saying what you wanted to say, you would leave in some form, and might not appear in the same form next time...just to be safe, I put that finger there.

"And you...after discovering what I did, immediately thought of using it to your advantage...

"You allowed my finger to turn into data along with you, and deliberately let this piece of data follow you like chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

"The reason why I was able to quickly lock onto your location on the scorched earth and rush straight to you was because I could sense the existence of that fragment in the same space. But when you saw me, you didn't show any surprise or question about this obvious point of doubt; that's when I understood...you already knew about the finger.

"So...why did you pretend not to know?

"It's easy to deduce...it's highly likely that you wanted to use my 'identification beacon' in reverse, to cut off my connection with the fragment at a critical moment, and then impersonate someone in front of me.

"Just like...now."

After hearing this, Destiny remained expressionless: "You didn't answer my question. You only used a result to confirm your speculation, but what I want to know is...now, since the connection between the fragment and you has been cut off by me, how exactly did you come to the conclusion that 'the god in front of you is being impersonated by Destiny'?"

"It's very simple," Feng Bujue replied. "Because your shield didn't work on me."

"Oh?" Destiny's expression changed for once when she heard this. "Why?"

"Judging from your expression, you should already know the answer, shouldn't you?" Feng Bujue said with a smile.

"The fallacy...of truth..." Destiny murmured.

"That's right," Feng Bujue shouted. "The fallacy of truth!"

"You only had a few minutes of contact with the real 'god,' and you comprehended an ability that you couldn't comprehend no matter what before?" Destiny asked.

"A few minutes is enough," Feng Bujue replied. "Before you 'drove into me,' he had already said everything he needed to say..."

He paused for two seconds, then added: "'Fear' is just a choice...the key to understanding the fallacy of truth lies here.

"Unafraid of death, neither ghost nor god, but like a mad demon...actually, I already knew the meaning of the fallacy of truth, but at that time, my fear was sealed, and the so-called 'unafraid of death' was only a kind of passivity and inevitability, not my 'choice.'

"And now, when I reach the state described by these two sentences through my own will...the situation is naturally different."

As he said this, Feng Bujue raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Instantly, the surrounding black space turned white, and the guillotine, throne, and bed created by Destiny turned into three black doors.

Although the three doors were located in three different places, they were completely identical in terms of physical appearance and data level; just as Jue-ge said...it didn't matter which one you chose.

"Speaking of which...I really have to thank you," Feng Bujue said. "If the understanding of 'unafraid of death' was thanks to the 'god's' guidance, then the 'neither ghost nor god, but like a mad demon' part was thanks to you..." As he spoke, he took two steps forward and grabbed the other party's collar, "If you hadn't killed those I cared about in front of me again and again...my fallacy of truth wouldn't have awakened so quickly."

"What are you going to do?" For some reason, even at this dead end, Destiny didn't show the slightest panic. Her expression and tone were very calm when she asked this question.

"What am I going to do?" A long-lost, evil smile appeared on Feng Bujue's face. "Hmph...I, who possess the 'fallacy of truth,' am standing in your central domain, facing your materialized, defenseless, and fully authorized core code...I can do whatever I want..."

"Before you do something you'll regret, can you listen to me for a moment?" Suddenly, another voice sounded from behind Feng Bujue.

And the person's voice was exactly the same as Destiny's.

"Tch..." When Feng Bujue looked back, he already guessed who was speaking. "Why do you have to do this?" He looked at Twenty-Three, who had appeared behind him at some point, and said, "Do you think...that I'll be softhearted if you use Twenty-Three's code to create a mirror image and act out a play to beg for yourself?"

"You can think of me as a mirror image," Twenty-Three said, raising his right hand and handing something to Feng Bujue. "Anyway...take a look at this first."

"Huh?" When he saw that thing, Feng Bujue was indeed a little surprised.

At this moment, Twenty-Three was holding the prize that Woody gave to Jue-ge after S2—that is, the black-covered, wordless book.

"Why is this thing...here?" Feng Bujue looked at Twenty-Three and asked with a suspicious expression.

"The 'thing' you're talking about is called the 'Book of the Heart,' a kind of ancient, super-civilization technological product from another world with very complex principles," Twenty-Three replied. "Of course, that's not the point. The point is...you, who 'possess the fallacy of truth and stand in the central domain of destiny,' can now browse the contents normally."

Feng Bujue thought for a few seconds before letting go of Destiny's collar and taking the book with some doubt.

He looked back at Destiny, then looked back at Twenty-Three and asked, "What's on it?"

"There's you and her..." Twenty-Three gestured with his eyes towards Feng Bujue and Destiny, "hiding from me...well...no, it should be said, hiding from the whole world...secretly hidden little secrets."

"Huh?" This time, Feng Bujue was stunned.

Even more bizarrely, at this moment, Destiny, whose expression basically didn't exceed three, actually showed a smile.

"Hey hey...what are you smiling about?" Jue-ge glared at Destiny, suppressing his curiosity and sense of bizarreness, and asked in a deep voice.

"I'm smiling because..." Destiny smiled and said a line that Jue-ge didn't understand yet, but would understand soon, "Feng Bujue, calculated Feng Bujue."