The path I’m bound to means I can “only tell lies,” but only half of each one.
Cheng Shi, a former financial con artist, is now an unlucky player in a game run by gods.
The [Swindler] path he’s bound to requires every sentence to be half true and half false. Tell the whole truth and he dies. Tell a complete lie and he dies, too.
In a deadly wager involving sixteen gods, he’s the “perfect vessel” everyone has their eye on, and also the bug they most want eliminated.
Then he discovers a loophole: during game duels, the restriction disappears.
From then on:
Outside the game, he treads carefully: “I’m actually... not very good at lying.” (Half true, half false.)
Inside the game, he strikes hard: “I know every one of your weaknesses.” (Entirely true.)
When the gods enter the game themselves to remake him into a vessel, Cheng Shi touches the two-centimeter scar on his right hand, left by a victim of one of his cons three years ago.
He smiles.
“The truest thing I’ve ever said is this...”
“I’m going to trick every last one of you so-called gods into your deaths.”
