Chapter 838: A Grand Performance Held at the Sandles Market

A Grand Performance Held at the Sandles Market

"You..."

Though these words were not wrong, the angle was very strange for a scholar.

The young scholar was not stupid; he widened his eyes in shock, seeming to hear something from Clown's attitude, but at this moment, overwhelmed by mixed emotions, he did not expose Clown's identity, instead thinking darkly in his heart:

Since the experiments of the Void Energy Department have all failed, why can't the experiments of the Consciousness Faith Department fail?

Teacher Gelo's experiment has already lost to a "It," and perhaps the Sandles experiment is about to lose to a "He," and coincidentally, He looks like a follower of "It."

Does this mean... the experiments of the Void Energy Department that failed under the influence of higher existences are far closer to "Them" than the experiments of the Consciousness Faith Department that spent massive resources only to narrowly lose to a mortal hand?

Regardless of whether this logic stems from 【Truth】, at this moment, the distortion in the young scholar's heart outweighed his faithful practice of 【Truth】's will, so he said nothing and left with his head down.

He could not convince himself that the other party was a scholar, but he could pretend he had never seen this variable in the experiment.

Clown obviously realized that excessive excitement had given away his identity, but fortunately, the crisis dissipated on its own.

He glanced at the young scholar's back, hurriedly ran back to that vertical shaft, and climbed the iron ladder back to Sandles.

The scholar who fainted in Sandles was not discovered; Clown quickly exchanged clothes with the other party and returned to his theater once more.

The three players had already climbed out of the shaft before him; when Zhang Zhang Jizu saw Clown readjusting the well cover to cover the fact that he had gone deep underground, he chuckled softly, shook his head, lifted the well cover again, and placed it at the exact same angle as when the scholar had hurriedly left before, without a single discrepancy, leaving no flaw.

Seeing this, Cheng Shi teased, "Not bad memory, Old Zhang the Squint."

Zhang Zhang Jizu smiled in response; the other two did not probe deeper, and the three walked away quickly, entering the theater's grand door once more.

This time span was clearly no longer the previous day or two; when Cheng Shi and the other two arrived in the market again, Clown had already set up a simple stage in the center of the market and was standing in the middle of the stage, receiving the gaze of countless residents.

Everyone was very curious about the clown's actions, but the cold weather left them with little patience; a chorus of curses surrounded him, all urging him to start quickly, and many busybodies even cheered him on, deliberately obstructing the officials' actions, unwilling to let these city enforcers drag Clown down directly.

Seeing the crowd around him growing larger and larger, Clown's heart grew increasingly uneasy.

He was unsure if there were scholars or observers from underground among these people, but he could no longer endure the self-torture in his heart and felt it was time to reveal this secret.

Even if today would become the last day of his life, he was ready.

He did not want the residents of Sandles to be deceived, nor did he want his "audience friends" to live in a fake world; setting up the stage outdoors this time was precisely to make Sandles' greatest secret public!

So his first words upon stepping onto the stage were:

"Friends, we have been deceived!

We live in a fake world; we are nothing but a group of experimental subjects being observed, a group of pitiful souls being manipulated without knowing it."

With these words, the entire market fell silent; even the stall owners and customers still trading stopped their hand movements and turned to look at him.

The clown stood high atop the highest point of the wooden frame, acting with heroic determination, willing to die; he looked down at the crowd below and shouted from the bottom of his heart:

"Sandles is not a city, but a cage.

Beneath our feet, deep within the frozen earth, there is a group of observers, a group of scholars with supreme wisdom, studying our lives and monitoring our movements.

Everything we know is what they want us to know, and the world we perceive is fabricated by them for us.

There is no apocalypse, and faith has no wrong path.

The outside world is protected by the gods; only here... only Sandles has become a wasteland where no god cares to tread."

Speaking to this point, Clown choked up; the emotions of being deceived for a lifetime suddenly erupted, making it hard for him to control, but no one expected that this brief pause would actually give the audience in the market...

A chance to cheer and applaud.

"Brilliant!"

"Absolutely magnificent!"

"Oh my god, my soul is trembling; I have never heard such an interesting story!"

The crowd went wild!

Almost everyone present was cheering for this fresh story in Clown's mouth; some widened their eyes to savor the novelty and thrill within the story, some cheered and jumped as if they had finally heard something truly entertaining, and others spared no effort to praise it to the surrounding residents, saying:

"See, I said Clown had potential; he hasn't even been handing out flyers lately, and the time saved has finally created such a brilliant story!

We are prisoners? Ha, praise the great imagination."

Even more people chimed in, praising him with one voice: "This is simply the most brilliant story born on the land of Sandles since the apocalypse; I apologize for my previous disdain. Clown of the Joy Theater is a master of stories; perhaps I should take my family to listen to one of his story sessions properly."

The crowd boiled; in their numb lives and cold struggle for survival, they finally found a sliver of novelty in the clown's mouth that could stir their frozen nerves.

People laughed; they cheered Clown's name with their mouths, shouting "Continue, continue!"

This scene was what Clown had sought all his life, but now...

Surrounded by the audience he had longed for, the clown cried.

"What are you doing?

Why don't you believe me?

What I say is true! This world is fake; we are nothing but some dispensable experimental subjects!

Believe me!"

He cried his heart out on stage; seeing such exquisite and moving performance, the audience below cheered even more fiercely.

"Oh my god, his performance is too real; I think I will never forget this scene. Clown is a born actor."

"Whether it is the script, the lines, or his acting skill, he is fully capable of supporting an entire theater!"

"Clown, I will become your fan; if you have more stories like this, please notify me. This time I definitely will not throw your flyers into the trash; I will definitely go watch, really!"

"..."

The praise, sparing no stinginess, poured down on Clown like a violent storm, but he did not feel these compliments warm his heart; instead, they were freezing cold.

Clown went mad; his brain hummed continuously. He did not know why a sincere revelation suddenly turned into this, he only knew that the courage he had accumulated for half a month had completely become a joke, a comedy that even he, before today, could never have achieved or even aspired to reach.

Today did not become the last day of Clown's life, but it became his most "successful" day since becoming a clown.

This scene was too absurd, absurd enough that Watching Ai Si, with a dark face, only wanted to kill every idiot in front of her.

Cheng Shi, quick-eyed and quick-handed, grabbed her; his expression was strange, and he too could not smile a single bit.

"Can you endure this?" Watching Ai Si asked, turning her head back.

Whether to endure or not endure lies not in me, but in him.

Long Jing, this is his story, not yours or mine.

Watching Ai Si... no, Long Jing's expression shifted several times, and he suppressed his anger as he stepped back.

He was indeed angry, but only to a limited extent; he did not merely wish to avenge a clown—he felt this very clown might well be the still-unascended My Lord Fool Play.

Thus his impulse stemmed not only from shared despair with Crowne, but even more from a hidden intent: "proximity." He sought to draw closer to that My Lord—but now it seemed these subtle schemes had no chance of success before the other two.

Zhang Zhang Jizu was also lost in thought, wondering whether Crowne might be the former Fool Play, or whether this clown's appearance had made it possible for the mask named "Fool Play" to be created at all.

If Cheng Shi was right, then everything concerning Fool Play seemed to fit perfectly—even why the Ear of Secrets had appeared here... now had its best explanation:

Because Sandres was the very place where Fool Play was born.

Thinking of this, Zhang Zhang Jizu narrowed his eyes, growing even more eager for the "plot" behind the next few doors.

"It seems you're deeply moved?" He smiled faintly, his peripheral vision glancing at Cheng Shi.

Cheng Shi nodded, his tone tinged with melancholy:

"This clown... is truly a clown."