Foolish Game of the Chapter 842: A Hilarious Comedy Often Ends as Tragedy

With Crown's rallying cry, San Dales' residents saw a beam of light — divine radiance that might scatter the cold.

The entire town mobilized. They spread faith. They worshipped Deceit. Everyone pinned their hopes on Deceit bringing warmth to this place forsaken by the gods. Even Crown himself believed it.

This was probably the happiest stretch of his clown career. He practiced Deceit's will with every fiber of his being, preaching the Benefactor's na to all who ca to the theater. Under his leadership, when the people gathered for collective prayer, it was Crown's wooden sculpture and portrait that stood at the very front!

In this abyss that had never known faith, Crown beca the person closest to the divine in everyone's eyes — Deceit's emissary descended upon San Dales. His living spokesperson.

"It really is Him."

Now Ai Si was certain: she'd found Lord Yu Xi's past — or perhaps the past Lord Yu Xi.

Cheng Shi and Zhang Jizu offered no comnt on her excitent. They simply watched in silence.

Soon, faith swept the town. So did an even fiercer blizzard. Everyone's face blood with joyful smiles — even though their hearts held no certainty, even though their minds brimd with dread. They had to smile, because He was the god of joy.

But soon, they couldn't smile anymore.

Because as faith consolidated town-wide, the divine gift that had stood on the Joy Theater's stage — the second Crown — grew more and more transparent.

Crown noticed first. When he saw the Benefactor's "gaze" seemingly fading away, he panicked. He locked the theater's new doors, barred all worshippers, and tried everything he could think of to reclaim the Benefactor's attention.

Every attempt failed.

Bewildered, he knelt before his other self. No tears. No wailing. Only reflection — had he done sothing wrong? Had his petty vanity in claiming the identity of divine emissary caused his Benefactor to look away?

He swore to the deity he would confess to everyone that he wasn't an emissary. He'd assud the title solely to spread Deceit's na and save his holand. He begged forgiveness and offered to accept any punishnt for his "blasphemy." But no matter how he pled, confessed, or prayed —

Nothing worked.

The other Crown's form grew fainter with each passing hour. Crown truly panicked now.

But it was far from over.

Locked out for days, the San Dales residents couldn't hold their worship gatherings. Worry crept in. The sky hadn't cleared. The blizzard only worsened. They believed their recent laxity had displeased Him. So once again they broke down the doors — this beautiful new entrance the entire community had donated timber for — and "stord" the stage.

And when they saw that the Deceit guidance behind the curtain no longer looked blank and puppet-like, but had grown more vivid and animated — thunderous cheering erupted.

Deceit had acknowledged San Dales!

How else to explain it? This was clearly the deity's response to the town's growing faith. Why else would the puppet-Crown have beco so full of vitality?

They chanted Deceit's divine na, praised the Benefactor's gaze, and thanked the hero who'd brought San Dales hope. They roared Crown's na in unison —

But Crown was nowhere to be found in his own theater.

Soone suggested that perhaps their faith had earned Crown an audience with the god, and He had summoned him. It fit the narrative. Many believed it.

But all three Players' hearts sank with a thud.

Seeing this developnt, they already glimpsed the ending.

"The clown's in trouble." Zhang Jizu squinted, voice heavy with rue.

Cheng Shi said nothing, but his grim eyes said everything. Indeed — a hilarious cody often ends as tragedy. Yes, the clown was in deep trouble.

The residents didn't know what that figure behind the curtain was. But the three Players did — because it was clearly not Deceit's gaze. It was the "No-Faith God" that faithless San Dales had once nurtured.

So when the town's faith shifted to Deceit... the No-Faith God lost its soil. It dissipated before their eyes.

What the townspeople now saw behind the curtain wasn't a more vivid "divine guidance." It was the real Crown himself.

He had no way to stop his other self from vanishing. But he couldn't bear to crush San Dales' hope. So he fell back on his old profession — impersonating his other self, standing behind the curtain at center stage.

He wanted to give people hope this way, buying ti to figure out what had happened. But he'd overlooked one thing: people in extremis are sensitive. Their nerves are fragile.

They didn't dare go back outside to brave the storm. They'd rather huddle near the deity and beg for more protection. So they moved in — into the theater, pressed together for warmth, waiting for the divine emissary Crown to return.

All so "heartwarming." Until... Crown truly "returned."

The Crown on stage — standing too long — stumbled and collapsed. The crowd panicked, forgetting the boundary between mortal and divine. They leapt onto the stage to help the "divine guidance" — and the mont the first person touched Crown's wrist and felt real flesh —

San Dales' sky collapsed!

"You... He... You're not the Benefactor's gaze — you're... Crown?"

In truth, had this happened anywhere else — any place with established faith — devout followers who discovered sothing "wrong" with their deity would never have questioned it openly. They'd protect divine authority. Guard their own theological interests.

But this was San Dales. This faithless land had only adopted Deceit for a handful of days. People hadn't yet internalized their new faith as genuine personal conviction.

So the worst-case scenario unfolded. The first accusation may not have been the loudest, but it sounded the horn for a mass assault.

As more and more people realized everything Crown had built might be a fraud, the Joy Theater went mad.

They seized Crown's hair, clothes, limbs. They demanded to know why the deity's blessing hadn't arrived. Why he was standing here while "divine guidance" had vanished. Why the god's na was Deceit — of all things, a na dripping with mockery.

Every suppressed doubt and every swallowed suspicion detonated at once. The tidal wave of fear capsized the little boat again. Only this ti, the boat's luck ran out.

The wave crashed. The shoals broke through the hull.

The boat was swallowed by its own confusion and the world's terror.

So the three Players saw only a spray of crimson — repainting the dark red curtain anew. The Joy Theater's master, Crown the clown, was on the very stage he'd been so proud of just days ago —

Torn apart. Literally. Limb from limb.

Three sets of eyes blew wide. Pupils contracted to pinpoints. The truth of the "fracturing" had beco visible.

Cheng Shi's heart churned with five flavors.

Faith truly had nothing to do with timing. It only mattered whether it was sincere.

And the irony was — San Dales' sincerity had been aid at the wrong place.

But there was even greater irony to co.

Because just as the bloodied curtain fell halfway from the stage's chaos — the deity truly descended.

Right there at center stage. Right atop the pool of blood where the clown had beco splinters.

A pair of starlit eyes from the Void...

Slowly opened!

...