Chapter 19: Concealing a Theft That Will Never Be Discovered.
Time slipped away moment by moment.
By nine o’clock at night, the freshman welcome party at Asuka City University officially began!
The venue was already packed to capacity. Countless freshmen eagerly awaited the evening’s event with excitement. Outside the windows, crowds pressed close, and inside the hall, numerous cameras captured every moment—local news media had come to gather footage. After all, Chen Jiang’s magic performance had already drawn considerable attention.
The first act on stage was a solo song by a freshman from the accounting class.
The sound system was excellent.
The freshman’s singing was quite good, and gradually the atmosphere began to warm.
Meanwhile, Jiang Min, sitting in the audience, looked up nervously at Chen Jiang. “Chen Jiang, we only rehearsed once. Are you sure everything will be fine?”
“No problem.”
Chen Jiang patted Jiang Min’s shoulder gently and whispered, “Just follow my cues on stage.”
The script was already written; all that remained was to perform.
The only unknown factor tonight was the special agent, likely a player from the “Pantheon Paradise” game. What tactics would he employ? Would he have any supernatural powers to deliver a dimensional strike against Chen Jiang?
If he really did suffer such a strike, there would be no choice but to abort the plan.
Chen Jiang glanced down at his watch, waiting for a message through his earpiece.
...
In the outskirts of Asuka City.
Three Audi sedans waited at a highway exit for a bus to arrive. Jiang Min’s father, dressed in an executive jacket, smiled as a young man stepped off the bus. “Everything’s ready. Come on, get in.”
“Not in a hurry...”
The young man shook his head, smiling as he looked at Jiang Min’s father. “On the way here, I saw some news about a freshman magician at your Asuka University. The media called him a god-like man?”
“Uh...”
Jiang Min’s father was slightly taken aback, then sighed. “You’re well-informed. Yes, that’s true. My daughter is performing with that magician tonight. He’s no god, just a street magician. You know how the media always fabricates stories when there’s no real news.”
“And your daughter’s involvement?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you want to see for yourself?”
“I do, but official duties keep me busy. Work comes first.”
“Work isn’t that urgent. A few hours’ delay won’t matter. Why not come along? We should still make it in time. I’m curious to see who deserves to be called a god-like man.”
“Hmm...” Jiang Min’s father sensed the young man’s obvious hostility toward Chen Jiang, especially his displeasure at the title “god-like man.” But where that resentment stemmed from, he didn’t quite understand.
It didn’t matter. Since the other party wasn’t in a hurry, it suited him just fine. He wanted to see for himself as well.
“No problem. Let’s go. Shall we set off?”
“Let’s go.”
Immediately,
The young man, accompanied by an assistant, got into one of the Audis with Jiang Min’s father. They turned the car around and sped toward Asuka City University.
---
As the vehicles sped away,
At the highway exit, a car with its hazard lights flashing remained stalled. The driver pressed a button on his earpiece and whispered, “The star is on stage.”
...
Inside the university event hall’s green room,
Jiang Min bounced up excitedly after receiving a phone call. She looked happily at Chen Jiang. “Chen Jiang, my father’s coming to watch me perform. Could you give me a little more stage time?”
“Of course.”
Chen Jiang smiled, his left hand in his pocket, thumb and fingers tapping rhythmically. He was silently sending a message to Silent Snake, who was already hidden inside the city government building.
Before long—
It was their turn to perform. At that moment, the three Audis slowly entered the campus.
“Click!”
Suddenly, all the lights in the hall went out together. Ten seconds later, a spotlight shone directly on the center of the stage.
At center stage,
Chen Jiang stood dressed in a pure black tailcoat adorned with a starry galaxy pattern. He wore white gloves, held a silvery-white cane, and wore a top hat. Slowly, he extended his left arm and smiled warmly at the audience.
“When I raise my left hand,”
“Your attention will instinctively focus on it, but soon you’ll realize to shift your gaze to my lowered right hand. Almost everyone firmly believes that the magician’s secrets are hidden in the shadows.”
“But actually—”
Chen Jiang slowly opened his raised left hand, and a white dove fluttered from his palm.
“Many of the magician’s secrets lie right under the spotlight.”
“It’s not that you can’t see them; you just refuse to believe.”
“However...”
“Sometimes, there truly are secrets hidden in the dark.”
He smiled and lifted his lowered right hand, releasing several white doves fluttering out from his palm.
After this,
Chen Jiang took a step back, spread his arms wide, and gently smiled at the audience.
“A deck of cards has 52 possibilities, but the magician always holds the 53rd card.”
“My name is Chen Jiang, a...”
“Magician.”
He bowed with elegance and grace.
The next moment—
The spotlight instantly went out, and Chen Jiang vanished into the darkness. Lights in the audience brightened. The stark contrast, along with the brilliant opening act, sparked a continuous round of applause from the crowd. Expectation in every eye deepened.
The magic hadn’t even started yet.
Just the opening introduction was enough to ignite the atmosphere.
...
---
“Interesting.”
A middle-aged man sitting in the audience looked at the stage with a peculiar expression. “I never expected to see magic of this caliber at a freshman welcome party. Truly, a great talent hidden in plain sight.”
He was a magician himself.
Having held magic tours in multiple cities,
He came to this city to visit an old friend. After seeing the news, he wanted to witness the young magician’s skill firsthand.
He was genuinely surprised.
In terms of magical content,
It was ordinary.
Just a simple pigeon transformation trick—an entry-level act easily done with sleight of hand and props. The only downside was that once you understood how the props were made, you’d feel it was somewhat cruel to the doves.
What was truly difficult was the composed aura and the strong conviction of the magician.
Learning a trick was not hard.
Making a magic performance interesting and captivating the audience was very difficult, requiring a combination of physical and verbal cues—something no casual magic enthusiast could achieve.
He even felt somewhat humbled by Chen Jiang’s presence. Such skill must have come from years of rigorous practice. Yet he had never heard of this person’s name in the magic community before.
With such talent, why hadn’t he made a name for himself in the magic world?
Why stay in school as a mere freshman?
Meanwhile—
At the front of the hall, several people, escorted by school officials, walked directly to the newly vacated front-row seats. Among them was Jiang Min’s father and his companions.
“Quite interesting.”
The young man beside Jiang Min’s father glanced down at the pocket watch in his hand after witnessing the opening act, surprised by the steady movement of its hands. “This is real skill.”
He had come partly suspecting that Chen Jiang might be an unregistered “Pantheon Paradise” player, performing magic using powers obtained from the game.
But the pocket watch showed no anomalies.
That indicated Chen Jiang had not used any abilities from Pantheon Paradise.
...
At the same time, seated in the audience were the chubby boy and his father.
The boy’s father looked up at the elegant and poised Chen Jiang on stage, his mouth twitching uncontrollably...
He had seen the wild side of Chen Jiang before.
The contrast was staggering.
In the game instances, Chen Jiang had told him many times that he was a magician. He hadn’t expected that Chen Jiang really was one. Was magic his side job or main profession? Was he even serious about being a magician?