Things had indeed been going quite smoothly.
Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin were still perched on the rooftop, eavesdropping on the conversation inside the office. The two people below had no idea that a pair of deceivers was crouching right above their heads.
Lake was a sowhat short clown perforr. He was in full makeup at the mont and showed not the slightest remorse for his disappearance. No matter how Ringmaster Fate roared, he stuck to a single line:
"As long as I'm here, the Sunset will win."
These words were like a reassurance pill for Ringmaster Fate, gradually calming his fury. He pulled up a chair, sat down directly in front of Lake, stared at him unblinkingly, and asked, word by word:
"What have you been through recently?
Did you sneak out to find a new act? Or did you figure out the other side's routine and co up with a way to beat Masford?
You definitely didn't run off after going into seclusion, did you?
When you said you were going into seclusion, I knew you weren't actually secluding yourself—you were going out!
I thought you just needed to relax and ease the nerves. I never expected you'd be gone this long!
Tell , Lake—what's your new act? I can help you refine it. You don't seriously think I'd leak it, do you?
No one in this world wants the Sunset to win more than I do!"
Even from the rooftop, Cheng Shi could feel Ringmaster Fate's desperation. Yet Lake maintained his lukewarm deanor, patting the ringmaster on the arm with a smile:
"You're the one who needs to relax. Trust —we're going to win.
As for the rest, it's a secret.
Ringmaster, it's not that I'm afraid you'll leak it. I want to give you a surprise.
You've been too exhausted. Your nerves are wound too tight. You need a proper rest.
Let this curtain-call performance lead us to victory, and at the sa ti, let it be an 'award' of gratitude for all the years you've devoted to the Sunset.
Trust . I won't let you down."
Ringmaster Fate was moved. He looked at Lake, lips trembling for a long mont, before everything dissolved into a single sigh.
He gripped Lake's hand tightly and nodded heavily:
"Fine. I trust you—I can only trust you.
But don't disappear again. We don't have that much ti to waste.
Tonight at six, co here for a eting. I'll notify all the perforrs so they can prepare for your hosting segnts.
Also, when do you want your own act placed?"
"The finale."
"The finale?" Ringmaster Fate's voice jumped several octaves. He shot to his feet in disbelief. "You're a clown. What kind of act could possibly warrant giving a clown the closing slot?
David's new magic tricks are showstoppers with spectacular results. Unless you perform for
right now, I can't risk putting you last."
Lake didn't insist either. He thought for a mont and smiled: "Then the penultimate slot works too."
"You..."
Watching his star perforr insist on playing mysterious right before the showdown, Ringmaster Fate's expression shifted several tis. In the end, he chose to trust his old partner.
"I'll go talk to the beast tar about moving his act up. Lake—I hope your new act lives up to the Sunset's na."
With that, Ringmaster Fate pushed the door open and left.
The instant Ringmaster Fate departed, Lake slipped out through the back door and headed straight for his tent in the rest area.
His tent was tucked away in a corner far from the rest area—a standalone structure, quiet enough. The arrangent was likely ant to give the clown a peaceful environnt for rest.
On top of that, most perforrs were currently working and performing inside the park, so the rest area was nearly deserted. That spared the two stalkers quite a bit of trouble.
The mont Lake entered, he walked toward the bed with clear purpose—and then pulled out a long row of stinger needles and daggers from beneath it!
Cheng Shi knew these tools all too well. During the Civilization Era, assassins in many cities used these basic weapons to eliminate their targets.
He had used them himself, though he'd eventually ditched them for being too conspicuous and switched to thods that were more colorless, odorless, and formless.
But what was a clown doing with assassination tools?
Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin froze in unison, then instantly understood what Lake's "guaranteed victory for the Sunset" actually ant.
'Well, well—so you're planning to play dirty.'
'Those days you were missing... you weren't scouting the eastern side of the city, were you?'
If Lake's idea of victory was to secretly assassinate Morning Joy's clown, then the "ending" this trial spoke of—should their job be to stop Lake from letting Morning Joy have a perfect ending, while the Sunset lost its honor and watched a new king be crowned?
For a mont, even the two deceivers were a bit confused.
But there was one thing they weren't confused about: regardless of what the ending might be, as long as they got control of this clown first, they could extract his true plan from him.
And once they knew the plan, they could trace the full course of events.
So the two struck without hesitation, dropping their concealnt. They materialized behind the clown in an instant, and before Lake could finish organizing his gear, they pinned him down without a word.
Cheng Shi was about to tell him not to struggle when sothing bizarre happened!
The very mont they each gripped one of his shoulders, the person between them—Lake—simply vanished!
That's right. He just disappeared into thin air, right under the noses of two players!
Cheng Shi's gaze hardened. Zhen Xin's expression shifted.
Not because they'd been fooled, but because they recognized the technique. This was absolutely not sothing an ordinary circus clown could do. It was unmistakably a Master of Trickery's phantasm!
Was Lake a Master of Trickery?
Of course not!
He was just a circus clown. The question was whether the "Lake" they'd just been facing was the real Lake at all.
Rember—so far, only four players had appeared in this trial. The other two hadn't been seen anywhere.
So could this Master of Trickery be one of their teammates in disguise?
Perhaps that person had already figured out the chain of cause and effect and was trying to clear the trial this way, once and for all?
It wasn't impossible.
But that was an unusually lone-wolf approach. If you had such a good plan, why not discuss it with your teammates?
This didn't look like soone who preferred working alone—it looked like soone who was hiding from sothing!
Who was this person hiding from?
In that mont, the two deceivers who'd just been given the slip exchanged a glance, a strange light flickering through their eyes.
Things had suddenly gotten interesting.
Cheng Shi scanned every direction, a mocking grin playing on his lips:
"Co to think of it, Master of Trickery is your little sister's class. Should be your comfort zone, right? And yet you couldn't even spot it—you actually let soone pull one over on you...
Tsk. You're the Deceit Chosen One. Isn't that embarrassing?"
Zhen Xin listened in all directions, a sardonic smile on her face:
"Wasn't a clown just deceived by another clown?
It seems only when two clowns et does anyone find out which one is the real clown.
Before you complain about others, maybe take a look at yourself first, Mr. Clown. Your nose fell off."
As she spoke, Zhen Xin nudged Cheng Shi's arm with her elbow. The two fingers holding a magic playing card subtly pointed downward.
Cheng Shi glanced where she indicated and noticed an extra patch of shadow nestled between their own two shadows. His eyebrow arched, and he instantly commanded Shadow Chengshi to trace the shadow upward, yanking the cloaked figure hiding on the tent's main beam down to the ground.
The mont the figure fell, the magician's cards flew from her hands like rain, forming a cage that locked the person in midair.
"Got you."
Zhen Xin chuckled softly and moved to tear the cloak from the figure. But Cheng Shi grabbed her arm and pulled her into a rapid retreat.
"Watch out—it's a trap!"
Sure enough, before his words had even finished echoing, the cloak imprisoned by the playing cards unfurled on its own, revealing what was inside—a neatly bundled package of explosives.
The fuse had clearly already been lit, yet it burned in absolute silence.
Both their pupils contracted. A split second later, the detonation blasted them clean off their feet.
...
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