Foolish Game of the Gods Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Circus? Yeah, Circus!

When Cheng Shi opened his eyes again, he found himself seated in the upper tiers of a circular amphitheater. Below his line of sight was a sea of heads and a central stage, ears flooded with cheers and roaring laughter.

On the stage, seven or eight "giants" in outlandish costumes were performing acrobatics.

"This is…"

Teammates around him opened their eyes one by one, and upon seeing the scene, gasped in unison:

"A circus?"

"Ugh… it stinks."

"Ooh, they're huge."

"Pilus Circus. A heavyweight in the Bard channel once shared information about the Pilus Circus. He said what impressed him most was the 'Giant Acrobatics' act, because those giants weren't giants at all, but 'fakes' assembled from a dozen dwarves cleverly stitched together."

Fang Shiqing once again displayed the erudition of a [Truth] follower. Her knowledge lived up to the word "Erudite" in every way.

"A dozen dwarves under the clothes?"

A Ming had arrived last and only caught the tail end, but he still stared dumbfounded at the stage, trying to spot a flaw.

Unfortunately, the giants were flawless. Their limbs showed not the slightest stutter or discoordination.

"Impressive!"

"Does nobody else smell that weird stench? Should we find somewhere else to discuss this first?"

"Dwarves, huh… I mean, it's not impossible…"

Everyone was still basking in the joy of cracking the first layer of memory, utterly oblivious to the severity of the problem. Only Cheng Shi and Fang Shiqing's expressions darkened slightly.

Big. Too big.

This circus arena was enormous, with what seemed like dozens of times more people than the tavern in the previous act. Finding the "error" among so many targets would make canvassing a massive undertaking.

Cheng Shi glanced down at his pocket watch: 9:56. Two hours had already elapsed.

"One piece of good news, one piece of bad news. Which do you want first?"

Everyone looked at Cheng Shi in bewilderment. Fang Shiqing frowned slightly and said softly:

"Bad news first, so we can prepare."

Cheng Shi nodded: "The bad news is that the hour has passed and the doctor forgot to record your conditions. If anyone gets sick after this, I can only use 'Accelerated Metabolism' to treat you."

The divine blessing of [Time] on Priest class skills came in two forms. One was State Rewind, which reverted the body's condition to the last recorded hour mark.

The other was Accelerated Metabolism, the skill Fang Shiqing had warned him not to use recklessly on NPCs, because it drastically accelerated the target's metabolic rate, using time to heal injuries or negative physical conditions.

It was exactly as the saying went: time heals all wounds.

But truth be told, Accelerated Metabolism was less a healing method and more an acceleration of forgetting. It didn't fundamentally cure anyone. It simply pushed the person ahead of their suffering.

"And the good news?"

"The good news is that 'Giant Acrobatics' just started, so we'll get to watch the whole thing!" Cheng Shi said happily.

"???"

What kind of good news is that!

Don't we need every minute we have!?

Xu Lu's face fell completely. She pinched her nose and tried to leave, but seeing that Fang Shiqing didn't move, her butt lifted several times without ever fully standing up.

Fang Shiqing laughed in spite of herself, then began assigning tasks with an air of resignation.

Cheng Shi, citing his social anxiety, was assigned the central stage area. His task was to canvass the entire circus troupe.

"Big shot, you overestimate me."

Fang Shiqing shrugged and walked off with Xu Lu.

A Ming spent several seconds torn between wanting to comfort Cheng Shi and wanting to rush off to canvass, then settled for a quick "You've got this" before hurrying away.

Only Bailing remained seated, not budging.

Cheng Shi looked at her and laughed:

"Sure enough, you're the one with discerning taste. Want to watch the whole show together?"

Bailing pressed both hands against her lower abdomen, bit her lip, and said in a syrupy voice:

"Rather than watching a circus, I'd prefer to put on a riding show… care to join?"

"?"

Cheng Shi's face stiffened. He turned on his heel and walked away.

You'd better be talking about an actual circus!

A follower of [Defilement] could no longer suppress her innate nature. Who knew which lucky fellow would end up joining her in [Defilement]'s embrace.

Since one member of the team still hadn't entered the second act of memory, the "Memory Gate" hadn't disappeared.

As Cheng Shi passed it by, he silently memorized its location. By logic, this should be where the waiter had been sitting.

The fact that they could guide the waiter into recalling his tavern experience meant that, at least within this scene, within his field of vision, there must exist something familiar to him.

But what in a circus could possibly be connected to a tavern?

Cheng Shi thought as he walked, and before long arrived backstage.

The circus backstage was located directly beneath the VIP section on the west side. The backstage wasn't restricted to outsiders, and its bustle rivaled the main arena.

Every conceivable race of people, wild beasts, and elemental creatures mingled here while waiting to go on, generating a cacophony as deafening as a bazaar.

Cheng Shi needed only one glance inside to know that this layer's target definitely wasn't a circus performer, but rather a spectator in the audience. He could even narrow it down to a spectator who wasn't wealthy.

Because the floor of the VIP section and the ceiling of the backstage dressing room…

Were clipping through each other.

The entire backstage ceiling was transparent and overlapping. You could even see the soles of the VIP guests' feet and… their buttocks.

This was a glaringly obvious memory error, the kind that only appeared when the Memory Subject was completely unfamiliar with, or had never actually seen, a particular area.

Of course, under normal circumstances, you couldn't rule out the possibility of someone casting a spell. After all, this was a world with all manner of bizarre skills.

But after strolling through the backstage, Cheng Shi found that not a single person had noticed the VIP buttocks overhead. This confirmed that the Memory Subject genuinely didn't know the backstage or VIP section.

Interesting. Let me take a good look at these VIP backsides… I mean, look for clues here.

Cheng Shi then interviewed a few kindly-looking performers, chatted nonsense with them for a while, and before long, had matched each pair of buttocks to its corresponding VIP.

The most distinguished spectator was undoubtedly one of the town's masters, Dilal, wife of the Duke of Brooks.

Word had it that she adored the dwarf circus, and had been visiting the troupe with remarkable frequency of late.

Seated beside her were the female family members of various noble houses.

Evidently, this was a ladies' outing.

Behind them sat the nobles' personal attendants and guards, and behind those, the town's middle class, the owners of various factories.

Cheng Shi observed for a good while and noticed a fascinating phenomenon.

The guards looked down their noses at the factory owners seated behind them, while the factory owners viewed the toadies in front of them with undisguised contempt.

Both sides despised each other, yet coveted the other's status.

"Even in the Land of Hope, human relationships are as complicated as in reality…"

But when Cheng Shi saw the next tableau, he gasped in astonished admiration:

"…No, even more complicated than reality."

Because he spotted the guard behind the Duchess secretly reaching his hand toward the Duchess's buttocks.

Due to time being "tight," Cheng Shi only watched for three minutes before leaving, thoroughly unsatisfied.

Having narrowed down the Memory Subject's range, the natural next step was to notify his teammates and redirect the canvassing effort.

He checked the time. Another half hour had passed. He turned to look at the audience seats and found that the Memory Gate still stood where it was, undissipated.

"Strange. Why is old man Huang still lingering in the first act?"

The thought processes of a [Chaos] follower couldn't be fathomed by normal logic, so Cheng Shi didn't dwell on it. He simply followed his hypothesis and headed toward the audience seating far from the VIP section.

While passing by one side of the stage, he caught sight of several dwarves changing clothes behind an enormous curtain.

"Changing clothes" wasn't quite accurate. They were actually "changing skin."

Five of them stacked together: the topmost one supported a massive skull, two formed the arms and chest cavity, two formed the abdomen and legs, and then they pulled an orc skin over the outside.

Cheng Shi paused to peep for a moment before realizing that this orc skin was actually a female orc's.

The skin was so intact, the muscle texture so distinct, that it had clearly been flayed from a living body by a masterful executioner.

After the dwarves had dressed in the skin, they pulled on a slightly conservative beast-hide skirt and stepped out from behind the curtain.

Coming face to face with Cheng Shi standing right outside, the "female orc's" demeanor suddenly turned coy.

The beast skin wrapped over the skull was seamless, yet the facial expressions were performed so vividly and realistically that you couldn't tell it was a fake at all.

Had Cheng Shi not witnessed the dressing process, he would almost certainly have assumed this was a genuine orc girl.

Even the voice sounded convincing.

"Oh, a new guest. Why so impatient? This isn't where you should be. Go back to your seat. I promise, before the show ends, I'll come around to you."

She even tossed him a wink.

"…"

The longer Cheng Shi looked, the weirder it felt, like watching a "lion dance" performance. He forced a couple of fake smiles and asked with feigned eagerness:

"What other services do we offer?"

The orc girl shot him a suspicious look, then hiked up the beast-hide skirt, revealing a posterior of truly exaggerated curvature.

Cheng Shi zeroed in!

This part!

It looked suspiciously like… the heads of the two dwarves at the bottom?

"Ssss…"

This didn't seem like a legitimate service.

His expression tightened, and he turned and walked away as though stricken with acute constipation.

What even was this?

An orc circus?

Bailing was right after all. There really was a riding show here.