[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces":3,"chapter-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-327":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dragon of a Thousand Faces",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2269973,4431,"Chapter 327","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-327",327,"\u003Cp>Silver flowers on the tree spewed fire, while monkeys below beat drums and gongs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The square, once used for grain storage and soldier drills, had been roughly cleared, and a circle of traveling carriages now formed the venue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A clumsy minstrel sang heroic epics filled with bawdy jokes, while a reckless strongman performed chest-breaking with stones and had a beauty on his fist. These traveling troupes might be mediocre, but they knew exactly what the audience wanted to see.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For most ordinary people bound to the land, these thrilling, unusual, colorful, and even slightly dangerous performances were far more entertaining than refined singing or dramatic metaphors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wah wah, delicious.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So cool! The young lady is so beautiful!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So dumb! Monkey! Stupid!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the moment Laina entered the venue, she kept exclaiming in all sorts of ways; Li En, who held her hand to keep her from getting lost, also marveled at the importance of compulsory education—this amnesia had reduced her vocabulary to such simplicity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching the little kid making faces at the monkey, Li En felt a rare sense of healing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On ordinary days, he actually liked animals very much.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Slap!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Smiling, Li En took the rotten banana that had hit his face and suppressed his anger, giving the monkey making faces the middle finger. He liked animals—but definitely not wild monkeys.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Guhah!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monkey first shrugged and patted its belly, then, upon meeting Li En’s glare, screamed and scrambled up the tree, fleeing with astonishing speed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike Li Ensu, who once had to fight a mountain of monkeys to reclaim his camera, under the faint dragon aura Li En had leaked, the small animals had already shown bravery by not immediately soil themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Dragon?” At that moment, a rabbit-girl aerialist performing mid-air acrobatics unconsciously glanced over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then she shook her head instinctively—there were so many places in the world; such encounters were far too unlikely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for why she ended up in the circus—every wanted poster on the city walls was the answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the day she entered, she helped clumsy hunters complete their hunts, and simultaneously discovered many lurking “beasts.” Naturally, she went on a massacre—and her old habit kicked in: the more she killed, the more she craved it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But some of these “lurking beasts” were still people with identities; even if they revealed their true nature after death, Emma, lacking law enforcement authority, became a wanted criminal for directly hunting them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clearly, the local garrison commanders and constables had no chance of capturing a spirit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But since she wasn’t ready to contact officialdom yet, she adopted a new identity—slightly adjusted her “Spirit Body” to appear younger and shorter—and slipped into the traveling circus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She fit in perfectly, for wandering circuses were inherently a mix of good and bad, filled with petty thieves and even serious criminals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These drifters brought joy to every town they visited, yet were never anything less than sources of instability.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No matter how she disguised herself, her physique and aura remained unlike ordinary people—yet blending into the circus, where oddities were everywhere, was effortless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Miss Mary? It’s your turn.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But now, she’d just keep performing—truthfully, she found it quite interesting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jumping around and earning cheers—it wasn’t such a bad holiday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Coming, coming!” Thus, the cheerful spirit lady enjoyed her rare vacation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, it was a rare “investigate and correct” mission. In truth, even without finding Li Ensu, Emma had already guessed what had happened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since they’d meet eventually, why not delay it a little longer and enjoy more time?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Boss, what if I perform my aerial act by hanging upside down and shooting arrows with my feet? It’d surely become a popular new act.” When it came to stunts, perhaps the spirit’s limits were higher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The circus was better than expected—Li En hadn’t imagined such variety in this dull world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though not as diverse as after the information explosion of another world, the performers’ foundational skills were high; by another world’s standards, each one was a superhuman—or even a demon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Walking horses on fists, dancing on piano wires—these were routine circus acts. Magic and trickery performances hadn’t faded due to the existence of magic; instead, under intense competition, they’d grown even stranger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These performances generally carried a hint of shock and violence—perhaps because, in any era, audiences had always loved such things.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn, I’ve never seen anything like this.”\u003C\u002Fp>",728,"2026-06-19T21:45:42.084Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","a8d5f2b228fb541818a7b892f37c6c963cefd44a62a9087f5fb4269e7bef73c3","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-328","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-326",362,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-cover.jpg"]