"Because the Extre Desire Brotherhood permits everything, supporting anything that aligns with desire, the Corruption followers provided Morning Joy with enormous backing—including everything you can see here...
And everything you can't.
They corrupted the younger mbers of the royal family, swaying the new generation of royals toward trendy circus arts. With the royals setting the example, the nation's youth naturally ca to prefer Morning Joy over the Sunset.
But before long, Mada Freud realized this kind of victory wasn't what she truly wanted. So she began to rein in her thods, restrain her approach, and focus single-mindedly on surpassing the Sunset through the quality of her circus alone.
She managed the troupe, unearthed talent, and ntored the next generation. Under her bold and aggressive leadership, Morning Joy flourished rapidly—and eventually produced the genius who could succeed her as the star clown: Masford.
Masford was the child of two of the perforrs who had originally left the Sunset with Mada Freud. Raised in the circus since birth, he was prodigiously gifted. Mada Freud recognized his potential and cultivated him into Morning Joy's most talented clown, one who drew in audiences by the thousands.
By then, the Sunset had finally realized it was falling behind the tis and began its own revolution.
What happened at the Sunset—you've been there, so you know more than I do. In any case, everything culminated in the current 'Imperial City Showdown.'"
Zhang Jizu's investigation was more thorough than Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin's. Yet after hearing all of it, Cheng Shi's expression turned distinctly odd. He had nearly interrupted several tis to ask questions, but he waited until the very end before pursing his lips:
"Old Zhang, you didn't bury Mada Freud, did you?
Where else would you learn all this?"
Zhang Jizu shook his head with a smile: "I didn't ask these questions. Don't forget—there was soone else who ca to Morning Joy with ."
Speak of the devil. Before Cheng Shi could react, a burly, strapping man pushed through the crowd and appeared before the three of them. Seeing two Zhang Jizus standing so close together, he was still trying to tell them apart when the real Zhang Jizu narrowed his eyes and casually pointed—straight at Cheng Shi.
In his view, the fact that Cheng Shi and Zhen Xin had co to find him ant they were ready to lay their cards on the table. And since the Grand Marshal had already admitted he wouldn't interfere with the puzzle-solving, Zhang Jizu could finally drop the tedious job of playing Cheng Shi.
When Cheng Shi saw Old Zhang point at him, he thought he'd been sold out and started to formulate an excuse. But then Hu Wei clapped him heartily on the shoulder with a roaring laugh:
"Brother Cheng, you can drop the act. I know it's you.
Relax—there won't be any other agendas this round. Focus on clearing your trial, and just say the word when you need anything.
I only want one thing, and you know what it is. Whether I get my wish depends entirely on how well you perform!"
The Grand Marshal's heavy slaps on Cheng Shi's shoulder made his eyelids twitch.
'Great, so you two had already co clean and have been strolling around without a care in the world this whole ti?'
'Then what was the point of my performance?'
'Pure clown duty?'
Cheng Shi's mouth twitched violently. With his cover blown, he naturally shed his disguise and reverted to himself.
When the real Cheng Shi appeared before him, Hu Wei suddenly felt a bit disoriented.
He gripped Cheng Shi's shoulder and muttered to himself:
"This ti... this really is the real Brother Cheng, right?"
Cheng Shi nearly lost it. He'd actually given the big guy PTSD.
Beside them, "An Mingyu" saw everyone coming clean and naturally removed the black cloth from her eyes as well. But the mont Hu Wei caught sight of that tailored little suit, his reflexes kicked in—he leapt back half a step and drew his greatsword in one fluid motion.
Zhen Xin smiled with fox-like eyes, tilting her head at Hu Wei:
"Is the Grand Marshal about to perform so acrobatics for us?"
"Zhen Xin?"
'Not Zhen Yi!'
'Thank goodness.'
Hu Wei's face twitched. Looking at the three deceivers before him, his temples throbbed.
But a battle-hardened Grand Marshal didn't do embarrassnt. Facing the bewildered stares of the surrounding onlookers, he roared with laughter:
"If it puts you all in a good mood for exploring the trial, why not give you a performance?
Though I'm no expert. For real acrobatics, you'd want President Gong."
"?"
Hidden in the crowd and minding his own business, "Su Yida" silently absorbed a critical hit that was never ant for him.
'What does any of this have to do with ?'
Cheng Shi's face had turned red from holding back. He couldn't shake the feeling that the clown legacy was alive and well. Then again, his big brother really was going all out to rge with Deceit—throwing dignity to the wind. Who knows where he picked that up.
After the brief "chaos" subsided, the group returned to the trial at hand. When the conversation turned to the events at the Sunset and Lake's disappearance, Hu Wei raised an eyebrow, turned on his heel, and walked off, waving for everyone to follow.
They assud Hu Wei had found the missing Lake—but instead of taking them to so obvious destination, the Grand Marshal led them through a winding route to a deserted stretch of wilderness outside the circus grounds.
The area was barren, forming a stark contrast to the bustling energy just a short distance away inside the circus. The Grand Marshal raised his sword and pointed at a patch of visibly disturbed soil:
"Want to guess what I found here?"
Cheng Shi blinked. 'Shouldn't we be guessing how you found this place?'
Seeing everyone's puzzled looks, Hu Wei laughed heartily and cleaved the fresh earth open with his sword, revealing a palm-sized box buried beneath the dirt.
He used the tip of his blade to flip the lid. Inside was a handful of burned ashes.
Just as everyone assud these were soone's cremated remains, Zhang Jizu shook his head. He crouched down, pinched so of the ash between his fingers, and examined it carefully:
"No bone ash. These are the remnants of fabric and wood shavings. This is a cenotaph."
The Grand Marshal looked thoughtful:
"Soone buried this here. It looks like a morial for soone.
I have a theory, but I'm not sure. That's why I brought Brother Zhang here—so he could investigate what 'person' is buried in this 'grave.' This is his area of expertise, after all."
Unfortunately, Death was only useful for actual dead people. Tracing objects required mory. Cheng Shi instantly looked at Zhen Xin.
Given what he knew about deceivers, now that they were aware the Dragon King held Joker secrets, there was no way they'd only squeeze one asly story out of him. If they didn't extort a couple of extra things, they'd be unworthy of the Joker na.
Even Long Jing, who spent all his ti aspiring to be a clown, knew to dangle a carrot in front of the Dragon King—let alone Zhen Xin, who was the ultimate expert at resource collection.
Sure enough, unable to withstand Cheng Shi's questioning gaze, Zhen Xin sighed helplessly and produced yet another mory artifact from her personal space.
It was a small pinch of sothing resembling grains of sand.
"Who's extorting whom, exactly?
Object-Gazing Reminiscence. This little trinket can restore the original form of damaged objects—only as a projection, of course. It's a B-rank artifact designed for commorating mories.
I've always believed rank doesn't determine everything. Used in the right place, a B-rank artifact can produce S-rank results.
SS-rank, though—let's not push it. The gap is too wide."
With that, Zhen Xin sprinkled the sand over the ashes. Azure mory energy surged forth, enveloping the remains, and before long, the ashes were restored to their original form.
They were several articles of clothing and a small wooden plaque.
The clothing was ordinary—slightly showy in style, like sothing a perforr might wear. But the plaque was anything but ordinary, because it bore a single line of text:
The Sunset's Eternal Clown: Lake.
This was clearly Lake's "na tag"!
This was Lake's grave!?
Was he dead?
Everyone froze, eyebrows furrowing.
Cheng Shi's gaze sharpened. He turned to Hu Wei: "How did you find this?"
Hu Wei smiled mysteriously: "Care to guess who I caught paying their respects to this Sunset clown?"
Judging from the Grand Marshal's expression, the person's identity was certain to be highly "illogical." Zhen Xin's eyes spun in thought. She tilted her head and guessed: "Don't tell
it was Mada Freud?"
"Even more interesting than that." Hu Wei laughed uproariously. "It was Masford—Morning Joy's clown!
Surprising, right? I don't know if it's because they're both clowns and Masford empathizes with Lake's situation, but when I noticed him slipping away from everyone, passing by this spot while casting a strange, anxious look at it—I knew there had to be a story here."
"This goes beyond just a story."
Cheng Shi studied the projection at his feet, his voice grave.
"What we need to figure out first is how Masford knew about Lake's death.
The Sunset and the Golden House are still searching for him, yet Masford has already started holding a morial.
It's hard not to suspect that Lake's death was Morning Joy's doing."
Zhang Jizu narrowed his eyes, puzzled: "But Mada Freud's wish is to win fair and square. That doesn't seem—"
"There's no contradiction. She wants to win fair and square, sure. But does everyone under her share that sentint?
Take this Masford, for instance—the one who ca to 'pay his respects' in secret.
Until we've t this clown face to face, we can't say whether this was a genuine morial or a silent act of mockery.
It seems it's ti we paid a visit to this clown who knew before anyone else."
...
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