Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 341 Theater Echoes
Fate won't tell you whether it's closing a door or a game of cards.

Some people are trapped in a cycle by the world.

—Excerpt from *An Introduction to the Study of Planetary Calamities: Annotated Volume on Fate*

【Thirteenth Silent Island, Silent Layer, Cell Z013-A001】

This "island" has no dawn or dusk, no tides, and even dreams are forbidden to be spoken of.

Only the slowly shifting lines of incantation on the wall, like a fate chart that has been repeatedly altered but can never be accurately corrected, are attempting, stroke by stroke, to correct something that should not exist.

Si Ming sat on the edge of the gray stone bed, gazing up at the sky.

That wasn't the sky, but rather an unflipped World-type card diagram—sixty-six equally divided regions sealed off by a construction technique, each square resembling a page of a script with its title torn off.

He can't hear the wind.

What he heard was the echo of fate walking between his fingers.

That was not language, but the breath of an unknown writer softly reciting his unfinished manuscript.

At that moment, he knew—

The Lord of Destiny has awakened.

It did not appear, but its whisper reached my ear:

"You think you're imprisoned here because of something you did."

"wrong."

"It's because they drew your name."

"And this Jingdao Island... is just a card they played."

Si Ming's lips twitched, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

"A 'World-type Construction Card' is used to seal me?"

He chuckled softly, not questioning fate, but responding—it had finally come.

—

A very light footstep came from outside the door.

Her skirt swept the ground, and her steps were steady.

Before Si Ming could turn around, he smiled first.

"Your Highness, you arrived a little later than fate."

Beyond the iron bars, the dream lamp flickered with a faint light, and Liseria stood there.

She wore a dark blue formal dress for a foreign visit, her long golden hair hidden under the hood, with only a wisp of pale gold life pattern moving on the cuff, like the light of words passing by in a dream.

She held a lamp in her hand; the flame was extremely still, yet it seemed as if it might burn through the night at any moment.

“I shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, “but I can’t bear to watch you be erased from this world without a sound.”

Siming slightly raised his eyebrows:

"You still believe that every name should be remembered."

He walked slowly to the iron gate, his voice low and deep, like the curtain falling in a theater:

"But now they want more than just me dead."

"They are closing your eyes too."

Liseria's expression trembled slightly.

He gazed at her, his voice utterly still:
"You want to confirm if I'm still alive."

“And I want to tell you—this is not a prison.”

"It's a card."

"World System Structure Card".

She froze for a moment.

"Whose card is it?"

Si Ming smiled faintly: "Not the warden, not Medici."

He paused for half a second, looking at the shock in her eyes:

"Yes—it belongs to the throne."

Liseria looked at him, as if about to speak, but then bit her tongue.

She was afraid that her breath might break something.

"...Are you testing me?"

Si Ming approached the iron bars, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible:
No. I'm waiting.

"Wait until the throne... becomes empty."

She gasped, her voice almost choked with fear:
How do you know—that moment will come?

Si Ming gazed at her, his eyes as still as an old sheet of paper, then suddenly chuckled softly:
"Because you're here."

—

Her fingers trembled slightly under the lamplight.

The candlelight flickered, as if burning a page hidden in her heart.

After a long silence, she spoke, her voice almost a whisper:

"The authority of the island is vacant only when the king dies and a new king has not yet been established."

"At that moment, the life tablet was unclaimed. If you could move, no one could catch you anymore."

Si Ming bowed slightly, like a screenwriter submitting their script for review:
"Thank you, Princess Liseria."

She stood still, her eyes flickering with light and shadow, forcing a calm:
"If you really manage to walk out of here alive..."

"Don't forget—leave an exit for me."

Si Ming nodded.

no promises.

But that one glance seemed to have etched a title into her heart that no one dared to write.

She turned and left, her skirt brushing against the shadow of the iron railing, the lamplight flickering softly.

The wind made no sound.

But she knew:

She has become a variable in this script of fate.

He sat down again and looked up at the ceiling constructed of World-type cards, where a huge rune structure spread out like an unflipped card.

The air was pressed down by an invisible ritual; he murmured to himself, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper, yet carrying an irresistible summons:
"You didn't make a mistake."

"This is not imprisonment, this is—a turning of the page in a theatrical performance."

He closed his eyes, waiting for the dream lamp to be lit again, taking him back to the dream ship called "The Lost One".

Because the theater—has already opened.

In the cell of the Thirteenth Quiet Island, Si Ming closed his eyes.

He wasn't asleep; he was "dreaming." His fingertips lightly traced the sealed life mark on his chest, brushing against the remnants of the cursed nails—a mark from before his imprisonment.
A tiny core thread was secretly implanted into the core of the Dream Lantern.

Even beneath the seal, it still trembles slightly, like the undercurrent of fate trying to break through the barrier.

Dreams don't come from sleep. Dreams unfold quietly as a page of the world is turned in silence.

——The Lost Ship of the Dreamy Sea.

A breeze swept by, and on the side of the ship where he stood, an old compass was tied with a bandage, which tapped lightly like a wind chime, as if adding a spell to the voyage.

Suddenly the compass turned, the dream lamps were relit, and the ship was instantly brought back to life.

As Si Ming stepped onto the deck, the theater's silence sounded like a deity's whisper, the air thick with the lingering warmth of fate.

The deck was deserted, but the low murmur of the waves crashing against the ship's hull echoed through the air.

The star wheel floating above my head rotates slowly, each rotation seemingly reflecting the flow of a lifetime in silence.

The star map reflected on the sea surface shattered into golden flames, like the final pulse of a lifeline igniting.

Not far away, Calvino sat beside the brazier at the bow—the one who had once protected the lamp on the brink of the Starscramble.

He carried the salty, briny scent of the sea and the rust of metal, a piercing veil of nothingness. Seeing him return, Calvino grinned:

"Here we go again, you gambler."

"The dust on you is more real than a dream."

Si Ming smiled faintly, shook off the dust from his cloak, and spoke in a deep and firm voice:
That's because I no longer gamble on right or wrong.

"What I'm betting on is—when it will be my turn to play a card."

In an instant, Lilia appeared, holding a cup of hot wine, her steps light yet not abrupt.

She gently placed the wine glass on the deck, the sound of her drinking perfectly timed, like the beginning of a ceremony.
"Over at the night class, the number of lights on the Dream Lantern has increased by thirteen."

"Rex said that if we didn't reply, the kids on Pota Street would start their own classrooms."

Si Ming nodded slightly, a hidden glint in his eyes:
"That's not bad."

"Fate—someone has to teach it."

Soon after, Allison stepped lightly up the dream ladder that winds around the ship.

Her expression was clear, yet she exuded a calm and silent air.

She handed him a folder, her voice as calm as still autumn water:

"Here's what you wanted—a panoramic view of the Jingdao structure."

Then, Celian shook a thick envelope, her tone calm yet leaving no room for argument:

"Lin Wanqing also replied."

Si Ming took the documents, gently placed them aside, and then opened the envelope containing the letters.

The handwriting inside is meticulous, revealing an almost obsessive-compulsive rational wisdom between the lines:
"The biggest illusion of the 'planetary disaster' is that it makes people believe they can control it."

"However, it uses that sense of control to lead you into an inner abyss of collapse."

"Please remember this: your name, your convictions, your purpose—these must remain clear."

"That is your only anchor point in the Star Calamity Entropy Stream."

Otherwise, you will no longer be yourself.

He looked up. The distant theater, a tapestry of lights, starlight, and incantations, seemed to be silently beckoning him. He murmured to himself, his voice steady yet authoritative:

"I remember."

"I must live and finish writing this chapter."

The wind blew past the stern, seemingly echoing the covenant of fate.

And the deck beneath his feet was gradually leading him toward an unprecedented and bizarre fantasy—a struggle between the sea and the stars, light and darkness, the true curtain rising on a theater of destiny.

"A second scholar also wrote."

Baroque approached, stepping on the enchanted wooden planks of the ship's hull, carrying a long chest with a gray copper clasp.

"Leng Ji sent this through someone—she said, so that you won't rely on 'toughing it out' next time you advance."

The box landed on the deck with a muffled thud.

Si Ming raised an eyebrow slightly: "She's starting to be polite?"

Rex leaned against the ship's roof, a puff of smoke escaping from between his knuckles: "It's not about politeness, she's afraid that if you really die, there will be no one to reply to your letter."

The crowd chuckled softly, as if it were a brief moment of earthly solace unrecorded by the gods.

Si Ming opened the box and took out three books.

None of the covers bear any publication mark; they are all forbidden copies rarely circulated among esoteric practitioners.

"Falsehoods and Lies", "The Beginning of a Cataclysmic Event", and "The Autobiography of a Poker Player Playing with Fate".

He opened one of the books; the first page was blank, except for a faint, almost invisible mark:
"A lie, once recorded, has a definition."

"And definition is reality."

He gazed silently, as if not reading, but waiting for a name that had not yet been spoken to echo in his mind.

—

By the ship's railing, Calvino gazed at the floating projection of the entire map of the island, like an old, long-deceased theater actor, wondering if it would be his turn to play the next scene.

"So your strategy isn't to destroy your hand, but rather... 'turn the page'?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

Si Ming nodded, his tone as cold as a wind tearing through paper:
"I don't need to destroy the world."

"I just want to—make this world wonder who will write my story on the next page." For a moment, silence fell.

Until Celian lazily uttered a sentence:
"I heard that the King of Trelian is about to collapse."

"If he really is dead...when do you plan to play your card?"

The God of Fate narrowed his gaze slightly, like a burning star pressing an inch into the crack in his destiny lines:
"It wasn't my turn to play the card."

"I'll wait for them—I'll shuffle the rounds myself."

"I want to make sure the throne doesn't belong to anyone else."

Lilia's voice was as low as a pin drop:
“You need to create a ‘royal void’.”

Si Ming stood up, and an old playing card slowly spun between his fingers.

He gazed beyond the lamplight at the sea where the flames had not yet burned out:
"When the king is not present, the gods are silent."

"That moment is when fate is at its most vulnerable."

The wind died down, as if even the dream was listening intently for the next line of this battle of writing.

He sat back in the Lost One's library cabin, where a still-lit dream lamp illuminated the cabin as if it were a silent temple.

The sea of ​​dreams lapped against the ship's hull, its rhythm like a mysterious heartbeat—or rather, the heartbeat that the world was maintaining for him.

He spread out three books, as if opening three narrow gates of destiny.

—

The first book: *Falsehoods and Lies*

The first page contains a phrase that sounds like a curse:

"Every lie that is believed will eventually become the truth."

The entire book is written with a spell-like grammar, gradually deconstructing the mechanism of "how language becomes reality".

Each chapter is followed by a model of the life runes, which records how they backfire on one's identity, alter memories, and construct falsehoods.

"Multiple narrative structures are the initial gateway to 'truthful lies'."

Si Ming stared at the page and murmured:
"As long as I can construct a stable narrative structure... the world must acknowledge my existence."

The life lines on his fingertips had not yet been ignited, but a new "logic of writing destiny" had already quietly begun to grow.

—

The second book: *The Beginning of the Cataclysmic Disaster*

The cover is yellowed like a shroud, and the pages contain fragments of notes from dozens of high-level mystery practitioners who "failed to advance."

Time distortion. Logical inconsistencies. Language deterioration. Personality fragmentation.

Each case is followed by the entropy rate of the fate map at the time of death—the self-destructive resistance of the fate pattern.

Si Ming turned the pages one by one, finally closing the book on the last page and whispering:
"who am I?"

"I am the writer."

—

The third book: *The Autobiography of a Poker Player Who Plays the Game Against Fate*

The only account written in the first person, its style is sharp and its tone seems to rise from cursed fire.

"I lived the longest in the fifth personality."

"That personality is called 'The Playwright of the Theatre.' He won't go mad because he knows all the postures of madness."

"I survived to the end because I wrote my own script."

“Whenever I’m about to break, I open it—and it says: You called 'me'.”

—

The God of Fate closed the book.

He got it.

It's not about "staying rational," that's just wishful thinking on human part.

What he wants is to "write his identity".

In the cracks of the collapse of fate, he was no longer the "fate master".

He will become:

A narrative that, in the name of structure, can stably burn like a star amidst the entropy of fate.

—The head screenwriter of The Theater of Destiny.

The curtain has not yet fallen, and the story has only just turned to its own page.

He slowly stood up, and the Destiny Chart silently unfolded in the dim light, with the Star Chart appearing one by one in the hazy halo of the Dream Lamp.

Ten of the eleven stars are already brimming with the potential to ignite, but the last one remains lurking in a script yet to be read.

He spoke softly, in the shadows of the deck:
"If the Cataclysm is a theater..."

“Then I will write this script myself.”

"If entropy is the collapse of a narrative..."

"Then I will let every life, in my writing, be transformed into burning words."

As he finished speaking, the dream lamp flickered on and off, and the cabin fell silent like an altar. In the projection of the destiny chart, what he illuminated was not just the stars, but the will of a "self-regenerating structure."

Dreamlike images swirled within the cabin, as if Lin Wanqing's words had transformed into whispers:

"...The true symptoms of the catastrophic event are not just blazing flames, but also profound ice."

"It won't devour you; it will make you forget who you are—gradually and silently."

"My advice remains: build your 'anchor'—a cognitive paddleboard that constantly reminds you 'what you are doing'."

"Don't try to defeat it; learn to layer yourself within the ice."

Si Ming closed his eyes, exhaled as mist, and used his fingertips to write the vow he had to fulfill on the cabin wall:

"I am the God of Fate."

"I will not become someone else."

"I am that hand—the hand that wrote the script of his life."

Deep on the deck, seven dream lamps, like night watchmen, gaze upon the seven unturned "cards of fate" on the round table.

He sat upright in the center, his knuckles lightly tapping the table, each tap like a test of the impending explosion of energy, as if a playwright were conducting a final check before the curtain falls behind the stage.

The wall of light slowly rose up, and a structural diagram of the thirteenth Silent Island was reflected on it. It was no longer a cage, but rather—the "reverse structure" of a World-type card, declaring that he was the one who would rewrite the game of fate.

Rex leaned back in his chair, a cold glint in his eyes: "...You already knew?"

Ian leaned against the round window, his faint smile like a cold wind sweeping across the ocean: "What he knew was never 'now,' but rather—whether the ending could unfold according to his version."

Baroque threw down his pipe and muttered, "Speak like a human being."

Selene slowly raised her eyelids, lightly tapping the edge of the table with the tip of her shoe, her voice extremely low, yet like the trembling of steel wire in the air:
"He wasn't waiting for an opportunity."

"He's making the opportunity seem to come to him."

Lilia sighed and said:
"Stop treating him like a god."

"What we need is a plan, not a myth."

Allison remained silent, only gazing at Si Ming and nodding gently, her gaze seemingly having already approved the new play from behind the scenes.

Si Ming finally spoke, his voice restrained yet sharp, each word like a shadow awakening in the cracks of the stage:
"The Thirteenth Quiet Island is always just a card."

"It belongs to the Throne of Treon."

"And now—the king has been torn apart by the wind."

He had no direct evidence of power behind him. There was no royal document to legitimize his claim.

There was only a sense of destiny and a sensitivity to the surging rhythm of the capital:
"He is quite ill, and it seems he can no longer even attend the routine morning meetings."

"This in itself means that the throne has lost its real power of writing."

"But—no one dares to declare: 'He is dead.'"

He slowly raised his hand, and a card symbolizing the master of destiny appeared faintly, its halo spinning in circles.

His gaze seemed to be locked onto a coded path.
"—With the monarchy still in power, there remains a void in the control of the domain."

Ian whistled softly, his tone barbed:

"In other words, as long as no one dares to announce that the king is dead..."

"So you can manipulate this card and break free from the control of the monarchy?"

Rex agreed:
"In other words, as long as the successor is not announced... that is the perfect time for you to open the escape window."

Si Ming nodded quietly, his voice so low it made the wooden board tremble:

"I will never let anyone know—this was an escape I arranged myself."

"I want the world to believe that Jingdao Island itself voluntarily relinquished its grip to me."

At this moment, everyone is trapped in the theater, and a crack in fate is quietly unfolding.

The sealed star map, a tapestry of ice and fire, within which he will tear open his own destiny's script, entrusting it to the stardust and the embers of words.

Silence glides across the deck, like the whispers of fate.

Ian was the first to stand up, his steps brisk and unmistakable.
“I will infiltrate Orion’s camp. They have recently introduced foreign nobles in an attempt to infiltrate the military.”

"It's time to change to a different mask."

Rex slowly fastened his gloves, his voice low yet carrying the calm of a night hunter:
“I will infiltrate the church’s indictment department. They are secretly investigating so-called ‘heresies’ there.”

“I can ‘polish’ them—let the truth show cracks during the censorship.”

Celian tucked the night class notebook from her black clothes, her tone icy yet warm:
"I left behind the children who guarded Broken Tower Street, the Dream Lamp, and those night classes that opened up hearts."

"No seedling will be left to face the judgment of autumn alone."

Even if I'm the only one left.

Baroque grinned, his fists clenched tightly:
"I'm going to find my old buddies."

"There are still desperate men and rebels in the port of Fog City who refuse to surrender."

"They don't believe in 'fate,' but they are willing to light lamps again for the 'deceased.'"

Lilia and Calvino exchanged glances, and the latter took out a Dream Lamp Crystal from his pocket and placed it in the center of the round table.

Siming slowly raised his eyes, his gaze sharp, as if reading destiny from a chart:
"You are not pawns."

"You are the flames."

"The dream lamp and the dream are no longer just a means of seeking solace."

"These will become our night lessons; passed down from generation to generation before the throne is extinguished."

Calvino spoke first, his voice like ironwood crushing the waves:

"The Lost One will sail to the Dream Circle."

"From there, we will protect every light that is lit."

Lilia continued:
"Calvino and I will each set a 'dream anchor' for Celian and Baroque."

"Once someone lights the dream lamp—we will appear immediately."

Alison slowly approached Si Ming, her voice as steady as if carved from stone:
"You did not enter Jing Island alone."

“I will stay—and carve an exit from the prison.”

Seven people stood on the ship's railing, the dream lamp flickered, and the map of destiny emerged in the shadows.

Seven dotted lines radiate from the center in their respective directions—like an unpainted curtain of fate, waiting for each of them to take their own lamp and move forward.

Just as they were getting ready to take their positions, Celian raised an eyebrow slightly:

"...Siming, your star chart is burning very quickly."

"Are you—trying to tough it out?"

Si Ming's lips curled slightly, but after a moment, the smile deepened, revealing a resolute determination:
“In order to maintain the ‘Corridor of Illusion’, I must ignite eight stars every day.”

"We must also maintain the 'threads of fate' and the 'pen of the anonymous'..."

He spread his arms wide, as if settling a debt of destiny:
"I am only one match away from 'eleven stars'."

In an instant, the seven dream lamps trembled slightly, like hidden treasures emerging from a deep-sea clam.
The curtain of the theater slowly falls, hinting at something—a new star-infested being is infiltrating the script of fate to complete the final rehearsal.

Sometimes, a world collapses because...
It's not because anyone went too far.

It's not because someone's fire burned too brightly.

—From *The Star Chart: The Chapter on Self-Immolators*

(End of this chapter)