Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 443 The Tower of Fragments
"When I was beaten into countless pieces, I couldn't even find a direction to cry;
If you're willing to come, please pick up a piece first and call my name.

—A Lament for Fate Amidst the Cataclysmic Disaster

The door creaked softly.

The cold light retreated from the crack in the door, as if politely making way.

Si Ming stepped inside, and the white mist followed his calves in.

This is a hollow tower. At its core is a well that rises straight up, and overhead you can see rings of stars, motionless, like nails nailed to a black curtain.

The tower wall is surrounded by broken steps, each section missing a corner, as if someone deliberately avoided a certain beat.

Many "fireflies" were floating in the air. At first, Si Ming thought so too, but when he looked up, he realized they weren't fireflies, they were faces.

The same face.

Liseria's face.

Small and shiny, like pieces of paper pasted in the night.

They flew around the center of the tower, and occasionally one of them would go out with a "pop," turning into a white fragment that fell to the ground.

Beneath the candlestick at the heart of the tower, a girl in blue was squatting.

Her blonde hair was draped over her shoulders, wet, as if she had just been pulled out of the water.

In front of her lay a pile of white fragments, like starlight shattered and scattered at her feet.

She was crying, and as she cried, she carefully pieced the fragments together on a huge jigsaw puzzle, her hands trembling violently.

Hearing him, she looked up, her eyes red: "I'm so sorry... I really wanted to help you, but it's too much."

She grabbed a handful of fragments, as if she were grasping a handful of snow: "Aiming said, every piece here is me... I have to piece them together, and only after I'm done can I leave."

She frantically searched for the next piece, making mistakes as she put them together, then pulled them off again, crying even louder:
"But, but, there are too many of them... Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? No, no, perhaps more... I'm sorry, Siming... I'm sorry, I can never get out of here."

Si Ming stood an arm's length away, looking down at the pool of black water at his feet.

The water was shallow, yet the bottom was invisible; with each step he took, a tiny white feather would emerge from the edge of his shoe, spin halfway around, and then sink back down.

He looked up at the "fireflies"—each time one went out, another patch of white fragments appeared on the ground.

He understood: Ai Xing had torn her apart.

Not just once, but countless times.

It poured its sorrow on her like a flood; she was shattered into pieces and then forced to piece herself back together.

"Don't rush." ​​He squatted down, his clothes falling into the white mist like a cloth covering the firelight. "Don't think about 'all' yet. Let's just pick up one piece."

He looked at the handful of messy fragments in her hand, reached out and picked out the most intact piece, and handed it to her: "Put this piece in the corner for now."

The girl paused for a moment, still sobbing, and obediently did as she was told.

The piece clicked and got stuck, and a tiny light shone from one corner of the puzzle, like someone had turned on a small lamp.

Si Ming smiled, his voice soft: "You just said, 'I'll never get out.' Let's piece that back together—'I can get out.'"

The white mist gathered around, like a small circle of spectators, holding their breath.

The stars that were pinned to the sky remained motionless, but their halo softened slightly.

Liseria didn't understand his words. She just shook her head and wept, like a child whose chest was flooded, her lips pale and her eyes red.

She held a fragment up to the light, as if cradling a tiny bird: "This piece... is from when I was very young."

I leaned on my father's shoulder; his beard was so prickly. I laughed until I hiccuped, and he roared like a lion to scare me, then hugged me tighter. I remember it so clearly.

She put that piece down and pointed to another one: "This one... Door Mirror Academy."

It was my first time going on stage alone, and I pulled my hat brim down low.

People say the princess came to gain prestige, but I scratched my nails raw backstage, yet I still finished reciting the report. The teacher nodded, and I was so happy I couldn't sleep that night.

She pulled out fragments, like private little trinkets, one by one from the light:
"This is the first book review I received. I pretended not to care, then went back and cut it out and hid it in my violin case."

"This was the first time I was praised. They said I sang like the wind, and I secretly laughed in the hallway."

“This is the place where, when no one is watching me, I stand by the window and say, ‘Look at me,’ but the window doesn’t respond.”

Her voice rose and fell, as if she were tearing her entire youth into pieces and trying to put them back together in the most rudimentary way.

“They booed me here.”

"I'm still laughing at this one."

“I actually want someone to hug me and say ‘you did a great job’...but they only look at my last name.”

She spoke more and more urgently, and her hands flipped through the plates faster and faster. The white pieces clattered to the ground, like someone tapping a small spoon on an empty plate.

She forced a fragment of a "father" into an empty space in the "academy"; she crammed a corner that was "praised" into the side that was "booed." She couldn't get it in, so she pulled it out again, stuffed it in again, only to go further astray.

Where exactly should I put "wanting to be seen"?

She looked up, tears streaming down her nose. "Was it on the stage? Or in the hallway? Or on my father's shoulders?"

"If I misspell it, does that mean I'm not myself anymore?"

Her lament was like a song. The candlelight in the tower flickered on and off with her sobs, and tiny ripples spread across the surface of the dark water.

Embedded within each ripple is a tiny face—it's her, she's the one who deserves to be loved.

"See?" she said, clutching the shards to her chest, her voice hoarse.

“I just want to be seen, to be told ‘you are good.’ But outside, they only want the Queen, not me.”

She looked up, as if peering through the heart of the tower at the battlefield outside.

Outside, the sound of gunfire reflected white flowers in the black water, blooming and fading away one by one.

As if rushing to a performance, she crumpled the pieces into a ball with her fingers and pressed them firmly onto the puzzle piece—

Rip—a long tear was made in the fabric of the puzzle by her fingernail.

"No, no, no..." Her voice trembled violently, almost as if she were singing, as if she were accompanying herself.

She grabbed more fragments and pressed them up, but when she pressed the wrong ones, she pulled them off and haphazardly stuffed them back in.

One by one, the "fireflies" on the steps went out, and white flakes fell like rain, faster and faster, covering her knees, the backs of her hands, and the hem of her skirt.

Si Ming didn't reach out to snatch it; he just looked at her and swallowed back the words "Don't rush."

The candlelight, reflected in the tears, made the entire tower look like an open box.
All sorts of thoughts about wanting to be praised, hugged, and called by name were popping into my head.

The black water rose an inch, and Bai Yu rolled over and sank back down.

Her cries echoed along the heart of the tower, turning every little story of "I tried my best" into "I made a mistake."

The next moment, she would stuff that "father's beard" into the "audience's boos," and then stuff the "teacher's nod" into the "back view in the corridor"—everything would be wrong.

The war drums outside shake in the fog, unable to reach this place. Here, there is only her, the endless her, and countless more of her.

Liseria's cries grew louder, her knuckles turned white, and her tears fell one by one onto the shards, splashing out tiny specks of light.

Ten thousand fragments were scattered around her, like an endless calamity.

Her voice was choked with anxiety: "There's too much... I can never finish piecing it all together... I can never get out of here..."

Si Ming did not immediately reach out to hug her, nor did he rush to comfort her.

He simply sat down leisurely opposite her, leaning against the stone base of the candlestick, his posture casual, as if he were drinking and chatting with an old friend. A slight smile played on his lips as he said:

"Low probability—I'm very familiar with this matter."

His voice was soft, but it resonated clearly in the heart of the tower.

He told a story:
"I once walked through a labyrinth hidden in the belly of a giant serpent. There lived countless failed futures, each of which was once me, and each of which wanted to devour me."

At that time, I asked the dream weaver of fate, "What are my chances of reaching the exit?"

He paused, looked at the few stars peeking out from the top of the tower, and grinned.

"The answer is, one in a billion."

Liseria's breath hitched, tears still clinging to her eyelashes.

“I made the bet,” Si Ming continued, as if describing an ordinary card game.

"I placed my bet, I put it on and I won all the way to the exit. One in a billion is both small and large. As long as someone dares to bet, it's not zero."

His words, like a candle flame, drew her gaze back to what was before her eyes.

Siming then pointed a finger at the fireflies dancing in the sky, then at the fragments scattered on the ground, his smile turning serious:

"And you, Liseria—your chance of getting it right isn't one in a billion, not one in ten thousand, not one in a thousand, but one hundred percent. Because you've forgotten?"
Fate forces you to fight, and that fight is your own doing. Every single piece here represents you.

He said, slowly and deliberately, "Pick up any piece, and shout to Ailing, 'That's you,' and you've won."

Liseria froze, her fingers trembling as she gripped the shards. Her voice was like a broken string in the wind:

"But...it means I have to give up so much...memories? Myself? The past? Everything I care about..."

Even my most authentic self... Without them, would I still be me? Who would I be?

Her voice was sharp and helpless, hitting right at the deepest point of women's struggles:

Wanting this, yet unwilling to give up that, wanting to keep every piece, yet unable to bear letting go of every piece.

Si Ming smiled gently.

"They are not your 'true self'."

He reached out and pointed to her wet blonde hair, to the real girl who was crying.

“Don’t you understand now? You are Liseria, Princess of Trelian, daughter of Henrian, sister of Edel, the princess trusted by the people. You—you are you.”

He said firmly, "You have to be willing to give up something in order to gain something."

Those fragments are simply your memories, your past, your sorrow, your stress, your scars. As for which pieces to keep and which to discard, that's your choice.

Liseria was still trembling, tears wetting the back of her hands: "But... I don't know... I really don't know how to choose..."

Si Ming raised his hand and slapped it.

In an instant, the fireflies in the sky and the fragments on the ground all shattered and transformed into black and white tarot cards, which spun and flew into his palm.

Siming opened his hands, skillfully shuffling and cutting the cards; the playing cards spun between his fingers like a miniature magic trick. Then he smiled and said to her:
"Tarot, a divination game, you've played it before, haven't you, Your Highness?"

Liseria nodded gently, her eyes brimming with tears.

The God of Fate spread out the cards, flicked them with his fingertips, and the backs of the cards gleamed coldly in the candlelight.

"Alright. Today, I'll be the dealer for you, the gambler of fate."

"You nod—it flips over and stays."

You shake your head—it disappears and never comes back.

His gaze was earnest yet light, as if he were inviting her to dance.

"How about it? Want to take a gamble, Princess Liseria?"

Liseria carefully pressed her finger on the first card, tears still clinging to the corners of her eyes.

She murmured softly, "A cold feeling... that must be a bad thing for me... no."

"very good."

Si Ming snapped his fingers lightly.

The card shattered instantly, transforming into countless snow-white petals that drifted in the wind, landing lightly and serenely on her hair and the hem of her skirt.

Liseria paused for a moment, then burst into laughter through her tears, her lips finally curving into a smile, like a child who had finally been comforted.

She reached out to touch another card and said softly, "This one... feels warm, like when I was little and holding my father's hand. I want it."

As the cards were turned over and illuminated by the candlelight, her smile became even more genuine in that instant.

So she picked through them one by one, deciding whether to take them or not.

She wrinkled her nose and said, "Ugh, no."

She smiled and said, "I like it, I want this one."

His tone was light and cheerful, as if he were picking out candy.

Unbeknownst to her, Si Ming had quietly transformed those hundreds of thousands of fragments into a total of seventy-six tarot cards.

Each piece is no longer a solitary fragment, but a collection of countless Liseria fragments, condensed into seventy-six complete possibilities.

She was unaware that she was reducing a vast sea of ​​information to a manageable game.

All she knew was that she was finally able to make a choice.

The tower no longer echoes with mournful songs.

Only the blonde girl's laughter and soft voice echoed like wind chimes swaying in the tower, like a clear spring flowing through the mountains.

Si Ming looked at her quietly, a familiar smile on his lips.

When she stopped crying and started laughing at her choices,

The fragments of fate began to piece together her name.

—Excerpt from "Gleanings from the Foggy City: Remnants of the White Swan Manuscript"

(End of this chapter)