Chapter 169: "When the Embers Fade"

Chen Ling nodded slightly, then asked in confusion,

"What is Senior Bai Ye's identity?"

"Me? I don't need an identity." Bai Ye smiled lightly. "As long as I don't want to be exposed, who can catch me in this Aurora City?"

"Currently, a group of Twilight Society members have entered Aurora City, but most of them don't have a public identity. The intelligence I can collect alone is limited. We need a larger intelligence network." Chu Muyun looked at Chen Ling and said seriously,

"Although you haven't been in the society for long, you are the only one who can quickly exert advantages in this regard."

"Intelligence, huh..." Chen Ling was thoughtful. "I understand."

Chen Ling did need a new identity. After all, he couldn't hide in Chu Muyun's mansion forever. But after his observation, continuing to be an Enforcer was no longer suitable...

On one hand, the steps to re-enter the Enforcer system starting from a newcomer were too complicated. And if he found an Enforcer to secretly attack and replace, the risk would be too great. After all, he couldn't inherit the other's memory, and this was Aurora City, where strong people were everywhere. Once discovered, the consequences would be very serious;

On the other hand, there were too many high-level Enforcers in Aurora City. With his current strength, disguising himself as a two-striped or three-striped Enforcer was the limit, but this was only the bottom level in Aurora City's Enforcer system. Even if he successfully disguised himself, it would be difficult to access any key intelligence.

So how to choose this new identity was a difficult problem Chen Ling had to face.

"Before you find a new identity, just stay here with me." Chu Muyun pointed to the distance. "That courtyard is for you, but there are no servants here, and you need to solve your daily meals yourself."

"Okay."

Chen Ling was about to leave when something flashed across the sky. He narrowed his eyes. A bright moon was hanging high in the night sky.

"That is..." Chen Ling asked in confusion.

"It's the Gray King." Chu Muyun answered calmly. "The Gray King is using the moonlight to establish contact with us... No, it doesn't seem to be 'us'..."

Chen Ling looked back along the hazy moonlight. A ray of moonlight, like white snow, was spilling in front of Bai Ye... Bai Ye raised his head slightly, his gaze looking through the brim of his flat cap to meet the bright moon, and sighed helplessly.

"It seems, it's looking for me..."

……

Bai Ye left overnight.

Chen Ling returned to his courtyard. Although it was just a courtyard, its area was equal to three of his original homes in District 3. He pushed the door and walked into the house, where daily necessities were all available.

Chen Ling tidied up simply, then lay back on the bed and quickly entered a dream.

When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the familiar stage. The audience's eyes were staring at him as always, like countless scarlet stars in the darkness.

After burning himself on the train before, Chen Ling had been back once, but the situation was critical at the time, and he had no time to do anything else. He returned to the real world as quickly as possible to hide himself to prevent being discovered. Only now did he have time to carefully check the harvest of this performance.

He walked to the screen in the center of the stage and flipped through them one by one:

[Audience Expectation +5]

[Current Expectation: 83%]

[Actor connection lost, performance interrupted]

[Audience Expectation -50]

[Current Expectation: 33%]

After scrolling to the last message, Chen Ling's eyebrows raised slightly.

After this death, there was still 33% expectation, which was thanks to pushing the expectation to 83% before... This was the first time Chen Ling had raised the expectation to this level, which could be considered creating a new history.

If Chen Ling remembered correctly, after the expectation exceeded 80%, he should have an additional random skill draw right.

Chen Ling reached out and tapped the treasure chest.

Ding ding ding—!

Accompanied by passionate music, a table appeared out of thin air in the center of the stage. On the white paper in the center of the table, a few lines of small characters quickly emerged:

"Detected that audience expectation has exceeded 80% for the first time, achievement unlocked—'Acclaimed'!"

"You have obtained one additional draw right."

"After use, you will randomly draw a character skill from all the characters who appeared in this play to learn."

Chen Ling scanned these words, and as he expected... But compared to the reward after completing the play, this random reward was still much worse. After all, this was "character" and "skill" completely random. As more and more characters appeared in the play, the uncertainty of the draw would be stronger. Moreover, this draw had no probability increase based on the play, it was purely luck.

The white paper on the table suddenly disappeared, replaced by playing cards placed on the table.

The colors of these cards were different. Most of them were white and gray, and some were blue. Chen Ling even saw a few purple cards... This meant that among the characters who appeared this time, some possessed relatively high-level divine path skills.

The next moment, these cards were turned over at the same time, revealing uniform card backs, and then overlapped at an astonishing speed, finally stopping neatly on the table.

Chen Ling knew it was time to look at luck.

He took a deep breath, randomly clicked on a card in the corner, and saw a flash of white light when the card flipped over. Chen Ling's expression suddenly stiffened.

"Skill: [Fist of Justice]"

"Affiliation: None."

"Character: Wen Shilin."

This was not a divine path skill card, but an ordinary ability that couldn't even be counted as a "skill". From the rank, its level was basically at the same level as "Cooking" and "Housework Proficiency".

When this card merged into Chen Ling's body, an introduction also naturally appeared in his mind,

"Even if my body is like an ant, my fist of justice will still firmly swing toward all the darkness and injustice in the world... even if I am reduced to ashes."

Chen Ling was a little confused. He didn't know how this skill, which was weak to the point of being outrageous, had such an overbearing introduction, and he didn't know who this "Wen Shilin" was... In his impression, he had never seen or heard of this person.

And at this time, Chen Ling realized another problem... Although this random reward had great uncertainty, it allowed him to draw skills of people he had never seen, while the designated reward after the play ended required knowing the names of the characters in the play to draw.

Looking at it this way, it wasn't that this reward was weak, but that his luck was too bad.

Chen Ling shook his head. Although he only drew an ordinary skill, he wasn't too depressed, because he knew he still had one chance.

After the cards dissipated, a piece of white paper appeared on the table out of thin air again.

"Congratulations on completing the play, 'When the Embers Fade'."