Chapter 654: Decide as Circumstances Demand

"Calm down, calm down, calm down!"

Thales braced himself and told himself not to look at that face, while doing his best to help the two sisters up. But in the next instant, the two Karabeyan girls closed their mouths.

"Sister?"

"Sister!"

They looked at each other, then leapt up from the floor with firm and perfect understanding.

Under Thales' astonished gaze, the Karabeyan sisters supported each other, their legs tied together like a three-legged race, and hopped down the corridor. With miraculous speed, they vanished from sight.

Several seconds later, Thales finally reacted.

He had been abandoned again?

Did they not say they would help me?

Did they not say they were not afraid even if I stood against the world?

Footsteps sounded.

Thales, still dumbfounded, trembled and turned around, just in time to come face to face with that blank face.

This...

Thales' mind went blank for several seconds, and his whole body went numb. Only when the curve of the other party's lips grew wider and wider did he remember that he should run.

The Sin of Hell's River surged up at just the right time. Amid its master's infinite terror, it spread to his legs and forced him to turn and step forward. However...

Thud!

Thales felt pain shoot through his chin, and stars burst before his eyes as he fell.

The prince, aching all over, lowered his head. Only then did he discover in terror that the laces of his two boots had somehow been tied together.

Rustling sounds came from above his head.

With gooseflesh rising all over him, Thales looked up at the faceless monster standing before him. He raised both hands and spoke in a trembling voice.

"Um, um... even for a monster, there should be a limit..."

Fortunately, the monster before him ignored him.

It stretched out a hand, grabbed the part where its eye sockets should have been, and pulled upward.

Thales shivered again.

The strange face without eyes or a nose was instantly pulled crooked and distorted.

Huh?

Thales reacted. In the next second, the faceless person before him yanked up their entire face and pulled it off over their head.

"Ah, I was suffocating."

A female voice came from beneath the monster's face. It was cold and impatient, as if she had not fully woken up.

Thales trembled. At last, he saw that standing before him was a round-faced girl with fine sweat all over her brow, desperately fanning herself.

A person.

It was a person.

A normal person.

A normal person with a head and a face!

Only then did the prince let out a breath and pat his chest.

Good. Good, she really is a person.

Because, because if she were not...

"What are you doing?"

Thales, who had recovered slightly but was still shaken, sat on the floor and pointed at the bundle of long hair hanging from the ceiling behind the girl, with a dried head attached to it. He burst into curses.

"Whoever you are, do you think this is fun..."

But before he could finish, the already deflated faceless ghost mask was suddenly brought close to his face, frightening Thales into instant silence.

"Here. This is the newly made 'Faceless Kork,'" the ghost face with no eyes or nose swayed before him and was pulled into a smile that looked strange no matter how one viewed it. "Legend says there was once a Covendier who was born so ugly that everyone hated him, so his father put a steel mask on him. More than ten years later, he fell in love with a girl and wanted to remove the mask to face his true love. Who knew that he had worn the mask for too long and too tightly? When they opened it, they discovered that his features had already stuck to the mask... What a pity. I did not have time to combine it with the Ceiling Corpse Lady."

"Ceiling Corpse Lady? Combine?" Thales frowned.

The round-faced prankster girl put down Faceless Kork, listlessly reached out, tugged a picture frame on the wall, then pointed upward.

"There. The lady."

In the next second, the great bundle of terrifying hair that had dangled from the ceiling and frightened Thales and the Karabeyan sisters twice, the Ceiling Corpse Lady, rose inch by inch, slowly lifting back up and disappearing above the corridor pillar.

"It is said that there was once a Covendier duke whose favorite mistress disappeared one day. Only a long time later did the servants discover that she had hanged herself in a corridor long abandoned. Even her skin and facial features had rotted away, leaving only her long hair. The duke had nightmares every night, dreaming that his mistress, whose facial muscles had decayed, crawled down from the ceiling to drag him up and hang him with her. A temple priest suggested that he clean all the abandoned corridors in the palace, so no one would know which corridor the mistress had hanged herself in, including herself. But from then on, the servants said that the Ceiling Corpse Lady spent years hanging down her hair and crawling upside down across the ceiling, only to find the corridor where she died. If you happened to walk beneath her at that moment..."

Of course someone would happen to walk beneath her. You turned the whole thing into a mechanism, did you not?

Thales watched the Ceiling Corpse Lady disappear into the top of the corridor. He could not help secretly shivering, and swallowed a bellyful of complaints and retorts.

"This time," the round-faced girl said listlessly, pointing at the mechanism overhead, "the Ceiling Corpse Lady was used as bait. Then..."

The round-faced girl lifted the Faceless Kork hood before her eyes and shook it at Thales.

Only then did Thales see clearly. The round-faced girl had a face full of freckles, hair tangled into a bird's nest, ordinary servant clothes, a pair of gray gloves, and a satchel hanging on her back.

It seemed... she was rather different from the innocent smiling girl in the portrait, the one standing among flowers.

"This is the key to magic," the girl said calmly, lowering the hood. "Everything is about attention. Misdirection. Understand?"

Understand my...

Thales could only reveal a polite and awkward smile.

"All right. Very interesting... although I have only seen the portrait, may I ask, madam, whether you are C..."

"Here, you try?"

Thales suddenly felt his hand grow heavy. He lowered his head. Faceless Kork's face, without eyes yet still smooth to the touch and vividly lifelike, was smiling at him.

"Holy..."

Thales jolted, shook his hand, and threw it away.

"Thank you. No. No need. I do not play with this."

The round-faced freckled girl raised her brows and casually picked up Faceless Kork from the ground, patting off the dust.

"You are afraid of ghosts?"

"No, no." Thales denied it flatly. "I just... just hate being frightened!"

"Then you hate ghosts?"

"No! Ahem, no, I do not hate them. I respect ghosts. Respect them!"

"You believe there are ghosts in the world?"

"Uh, well, that depends on the person. Different people see it differently..."

The freckled girl narrowed her eyes and studied the prince for a while.

"Are you not going to stand up?"

"Ah, of course..."

Thales reacted and worked hard to untie his bootlaces.

"It is only thanks to you that I first have to untie what is on my feet... just a little more... very soon... what kind of knot did you tie... ah, finally. I say, you little gi... holy hell, ahhh!"

Thales, who had just raised his head, stared ahead in utter shock, his chest heaving.

"You!"

His face filled with anger, he pointed at the round-faced girl, who had put on the Faceless Kork hood again and bent over to bring herself close to his face.

"Are you out of your damn mind?"

"Yes."

The round-faced girl, or more precisely, the faceless girl, took off the hood again.

"By the way, your clothes are ugly. Stop ordering from them."

Thales froze.

"Huh? Clothes?"

The freckled girl before him snorted and jerked her chin toward his formal clothes.

"Wearing that makes you look like a head specimen, sealed inside a jar for people to admire. Poke it once and it smiles once. Not vivid at all."

Thales was briefly choked with anger.

"Is that so? Then I am very sorry. This cost two hundred and twenty-four... wait, what do you mean, head specimen?"

But the girl shook her head and stretched out a hand to him.

"Forget it. I will help you up. Let us go to the banquet."

Only then did Thales remember that he was still attending a banquet. He snorted angrily, calmed himself, grabbed the girl's hand, and used her strength to stand.

"Ah! Do not pull so hard. My hand was injured. I cannot use much strength..."

The round-faced girl struggled to pull him up.

"Sorry. In any case, thank you. Your glove is very pret... huh?"

In the next second, Thales watched in absolute horror as pain appeared on the girl's face. The hand he held made a chilling sound of snapping muscle and sinew, then detached from her forearm.

But this time, Thales' gaze sharpened. He urged the Sin of Hell's River, stepped backward firmly, and did not fall over.

"Hmph!"

Thales waved the "severed hand" in his grasp. Its skin was smooth, its touch was not bad, and it was made quite realistically. He looked coldly at the girl before him, who was clutching her elbow in apparent pain.

"Stop pretending!"

"A disabled person attaches a severed arm, then picks a fight with a carriage. He falls over, the arm breaks off, and a crowd comes up to extort money. Even in the Lower City of Eternal Star City, this trick went out of fashion long ago!"

As expected, in the next second, the pain disappeared from the round-faced girl's face.

She became expressionless again and calmly extended a complete hand from her sleeve.

"Oh. You saw through it."

Thales sneered and shook the "severed hand" in the air.

"I knew it. You frightened me so many times. How could you be so kind as to pull me up? There had to be a trick!"

With your level, you want to fool me, the most experienced professional at staged accidents in the Abandoned House?

But the freckled girl did not laugh, nor was she disappointed. She merely tilted her head and pouted.

"But that hand is not fake."

Thales froze.

He looked at the "severed hand" in his own hand, then at the freckled girl's hand, and frowned.

"Let me tell you, this is the last time. Do not pull any more what-the-hell-mother-of..."

Thales screamed incoherently and fell to the ground with a thud.

The youth's backside hurt, but he had no time to care. He desperately shook his arm. The "severed hand" in his grasp had suddenly come alive, gripping his palm tightly and twisting back and forth like a soft-bodied worm.

Finally, before the prince felt he was about to cry, the severed hand was flung to the floor, where it still moved on its own.

A moving severed hand.

Terrifying memories of the Blood Mystic instantly returned to Thales' mind.

"What the hell is that..."

Thales, tears and snot almost flowing, crawled backward. But the moment he spoke, his words stopped abruptly.

On the other side, the round-faced girl was indifferently moving her right hand. Several transparent threads pulled the severed hand, making it constantly twist.

"You see? Attention shift." The round-faced girl spoke without expression, as if explaining a piece of common sense. "Ta-da."

The severed hand obediently "flew" back into the girl's hand. Under her control, it even raised a thumb at Thales.

Thales took several seconds to calm his pounding heartbeat.

"You..."

Drenched in cold sweat from fright, he took a deep breath and was actually angered into laughter.

"You damn..."

"This is the Ghost-Hand Princess, a Covendier who married into the royal family," the girl said, raising the ghost hand and interrupting Thales. "It is said that her prince husband suspected her of infidelity, so he imprisoned the princess in a basement and interrogated her, leaving only a small window in the iron door so that the princess could reach out once a day to receive food. A year later, when the king visited, he heard the princess sobbing and crying out, and only then discovered his younger brother's evil deed. But when the iron door was opened, everyone discovered that the princess had left a letter and killed herself in the second month. Her corpse had long rotted in the darkness. Only the arm that reached out through the door every day for food remained pale, full, and fresh..."

"Enough!"

Stuffed full of anger and fear, Thales crossed both arms and drew a harsh X in the air.

"Stop right there!"

The round-faced girl shrugged, put the Ghost-Hand Princess into her satchel, then stretched her palm toward Thales again.

"No, spare me. No need!"

Thales firmly refused the girl's help. Holding his aching backside, he stood up under his own power and said viciously,

"I will never again... hey, hey, hey, stop right there! Yes! Right there! Do not move! Do not come closer! Stay away from me! Farther! The farther the better!"

The freckled girl was stunned and stopped.

"That is fine too. The key points for long-range magic are different. You can feel..."

"No!"

Thales shook his head angrily, pressing both hands before his chest in a protective posture.

"No! No! No! I do not feel it! I am not feeling it! I refuse to feel it! I do not want to feel a damn thing!"

The round-faced girl still lacked any expression. She merely narrowed her eyes and looked at Thales as if studying a toy.

Thales glared at the girl, carefully pressed himself to the corner of the wall, and moved sideways like a crab, step by step, tracing a horizontal arc. He only wanted to escape safely from her side as quickly as possible.

The girl's expression changed.

"Ah, careful. On the wall behind you... you absolutely must not turn around."

At that moment, Thales suddenly felt something stroking the back of his head.

His heart skipped, then began pounding.

"I..."

Thales held his face stiffly and looked at the girl opposite him, suffering greatly.

"What are you trying to do now?"

The girl shook her head and pointed behind Thales.

"It is not me. It is..."

As if I would believe that!

Thales roared in his heart.

Using all the courage of his life, he convinced himself not to think about whatever was stroking the back of his head. Mm. It was probably some mechanism like the Ceiling Corpse Lady. Then he convinced himself to move his feet with difficulty and step to the side.

In any case...

Point all you like!

In any case, I will not turn around even if I die!

"It is only a picture frame," the round-faced girl said innocently.

Thales' heart clenched.

He breathed deeply with all his strength, focused on leaving this place, and no longer listened to the girl.

"Huh. What is that on your hand?"

"On my hand... no. Stop. Please. Some misdirection, damned attention shift. In any case, I will never fall for your tricks again!"

"But hey, if you do not look at it now... once you reach a dark place, it will come out of your hand to find you."

"Get lost!"

Thales moved carefully and advanced the distance of another undying lamp.

But he made up his mind that, even if he died, he would not look at whatever "thing" was on his hand.

"Hmph. There is nothing on my hand... holy mother of..."

Even though he was prepared, Thales still trembled three times the moment he lowered his head.

He stared blankly at the ghost face on his sleeve, glowing green and grinning at him ferociously.

"Fluorescent paint. You can only see it in the dark." The girl came closer and kindly answered his confusion. "In the past, it had to be drawn in advance. Now I have made it into a stamp, and it can be stamped onto clothes or paper. Here. This one is an extra. I will give it to you as a souvenir."

Thales, whose heart was already overburdened and only one step away from illness, mechanically accepted the ghost-face stamp and looked up numbly at the girl.

"Look, this is the image of Soul-Bone Yark, a man-eating ghost from hell that specializes in eating human flesh. It is said that at four minutes past four in the morning, if you draw its symbol on a mirror and breathe onto it, you can see its face. If you agree to give it human flesh, it can come out from the mirror. Of course, it will first demand the nearest human flesh, which is..."

"Please, madam!"

Thales pressed his palms together and painfully interrupted the round-faced girl, who had been speaking with relish.

"Yes, I admit it. I am afraid of ghosts! Truly afraid! I have been afraid since I was little! Terribly afraid! Scared to death! So please, madam, miss, honored auntie, spare me!"

The girl pressed her lips together and studied him.

Thales merely joined his palms with a gray expression and waited for her answer, or judgment.

Where were the twin sisters from the Karabeyan family?

Where were Kasha and Qina?

He missed them. Truly. He missed them so much!

Unbelievable. He had once actually found them annoying!

He was wrong!

Blind and gravely mistaken!

Cohen's good sisters were so good, so gentle, so considerate. How could they be annoying?

When they spoke, one sentence from one and one sentence from the other, one voice after another... how adorable!

Right now, Thales wished he could stick with them every day and do nothing at all, only listening to their elegant, moving, endless theatrical tone!

What a beautiful experience that would be!

"Mm..."

The round-faced girl pouted and hesitated for a while. The freckles on her face seemed to ripple.

At last, she nodded, as if granting Thales a great pardon.

"All right. But the Strife Banquet is about to end..."

The girl turned around and led the way toward the banquet hall.

Thales let out a breath. He never wanted to review what had just happened again. A trip through hell probably felt something like this.

"If we do not hurry, we will miss the fireworks show. I heard the new fireworks they imported this year use a brand-new pitch crystal formula," the round-faced girl said blandly.

Thales' expression was numb. He crawled forward step by step like a snail, only hoping that the girl would not turn back.

"Right now, all I want to miss is you..."

But the round-faced girl shook her head.

"No, no, no. Your attitude toward me is not good. That will not do. It is not manly enough. At least, it is not like a true man."

Thales' face twitched, and he laughed once.

"A true man would not encounter the Ceiling Corpse Lady, Faceless Kork, the Ghost-Hand Princess, and Soul-Bone Yark..."

"But you encountered them all, so you are not a true man?"

"You..."

Thales exhaled and told himself with reason not to argue with this cursed, quite literally cursed, girl.

There were unpredictable risks.

But the girl instead took the initiative to speak with him.

"But has no one told you that when interacting with me, you should show gentleness, courtesy, respect, sincerity, and thoughtfulness, like a true man?"

"Hmph. Gentleness? Courtesy? Give me a..." Thales instinctively wanted to mock the girl, but before the words left his mouth, his heart tightened. "Ahem. I mean, someone really has..."

Wait.

Thales remembered something, and his expression shifted slightly.

He looked at the girl's back in surprise, but she only kept walking on her own.

"Really? Then think again?"

Think again...

[Remember, when interacting with that girl, remember to show your gentleness, courtesy, respect, sincerity, and thoughtfulness, like a true man...]

Thales' pupils suddenly contracted.

The Duke of Star Lake stopped walking. He looked at the round-faced girl in disbelief.

"You... what did you just say?"

The round-faced girl crossed her hands behind her head and supported the back of her skull. Her whole body swayed as she walked, and together with her nest-like messy hair, she was extremely distinctive.

No.

Thales shook his head and confirmed that he had not heard wrong.

The sentence she spoke was clearly, clearly what I...

"I said, true man," the round-faced girl replied without turning back. "Man, man, man."

"Man... what?"

Thales was no longer quite certain.

"Sorry, can you repeat that? The previous sentence. When interacting with you..."

The girl snorted.

"Oh? You do not know? Did they not tell you? Or do you not understand the code?"

Thales frowned.

"What... what code?" he asked tentatively.

The round-faced girl sighed, lowered her arms, and turned around.

Thales instinctively shrank back and retreated a step.

"All right. They said you were suspicious by nature... but do not worry. You have not been exposed." The girl looked at him sympathetically, held the back of her head again, turned, and continued forward. "In Jade City, each of us keeps single-line contact and does not belong under the others."

Single-line contact and not belonging under the others...

Thales' eyes became increasingly shocked.

No.

It cannot be.

"What, what contact?"

He quickened his steps to catch up with the freckled girl, no longer caring about the fright from before.

"I... I do not understand what you are saying. Hey! Answer me!"

Thales grabbed her from behind, but felt his hand close on emptiness.

With a tearing sound, he pulled the girl's arm off.

Several seconds later, the youth frowned at the wildly moving "severed hand" in his grasp. His face twitched with disgust.

"Ghost... Ghost-Hand Princess?"

The round-faced girl turned back and answered with pursed lips.

"You see? This is the weakness of magic." She took the severed hand from Thales' grasp, not forgetting to tug its fingers several times in the process. "When facing each spectator, it is best to perform each thing once. Do not repeat."

Thales took a deep breath.

"No, no, no. We are not discussing magic or tricks. What you just said to me was..."

In the next instant, the freckled girl suddenly stretched out her hand and put the very realistic Ghost Hand on his shoulder.

"Listen carefully, Prince," she said with a pout, seeming gloomy. "Your mission here is..."

The round-faced girl leaned close to Thales' ear, while not forgetting to make the ghost hand bounce back and forth on his shoulder.

"Use your discretion. Decide as circumstances demand..."

In that second, Thales' whole body trembled.

Use your discretion?

Decide as circumstances demand?

His gaze froze.

No. This sentence was, could only be...

"As for the rest, others will handle it."

The girl finished whispering, then suddenly blew a breath into Thales' ear.

The round-faced girl widened her eyes and looked innocently at Thales as he painfully rubbed his ear.

"Do you understand?"

But the pain in his ear and the girl's prank could not cover the shock in Thales' heart.

The prince looked at the girl in disbelief.

But this... how could it be possible?