The Company: Open Up! Free Trade!

The next morning, Jingxing was awakened by the sunlight.

He didn't close the curtains properly before going to bed last night, and a strip of light shone right into his face.

After opening his eyes, Jingxing stared at the ceiling while replaying the events of the previous night in his mind: the Beast Molt hidden deep within the Dual-Phase Paradise, the overwhelming Wish Power, the experience of using the Path Energy to his heart's content for the first time, and the temptation of Voracity.

After regaining his senses, he looked down at his fingertips; they were clean.

But Jingxing couldn't even remember how he got back to the hotel. He only remembered that Xuzhao carried the lantern and "lifted" him up from underground like a bag of art supplies.

Jingxing rolled over in bed, letting the sun continue to shine on the back of his head, and seriously considered a question: Should he stay or leave?

Murata Ryusuke's warning was still fresh in his mind. He had originally believed it, but after what happened last night, Jingxing couldn't help but start to have second thoughts.

"Why did Murata Ryusuke want me to leave? Does he know the secrets deep within Dual-Phase Paradise and therefore not want me to get involved? Is he Voracity believer?"

Thinking about it, Jingxing felt he had to remind Zhenzhu. But when he messaged Zhenzhu, he found that she was on Do Not Disturb mode. Jingxing then called to try to schedule a meeting with Zhenzhu through the Pearl Star Consortium, but was told that Zhenzhu had left for Thousand Stars City last night to attend a meeting of the Ten Stonehearts and would not return to Dual-Phase Paradise for several days.

"Looks like I'll just be wandering around here for the next few days," Jingxing told himself, and simply picked up his terminal to send a message to Sampo.

[Jingxing: Take me to Dual-Phase Paradise today.]

[Sampo Koski: Of course I'm free. I haven't even finished using up my three-day tour guide fee yet.]

Half an hour later, Jingxing met Sampo in the hotel lobby. He still had that carefree attitude. But the moment he saw Jingxing, he visibly relaxed. "Thank goodness, you seem alright."

"... That sounds like you're cursing me."

"It's not a curse, it's worry." Sampo looked Jingxing up and down twice, making sure he wasn't missing any limbs, before patting him on the shoulder. "Yesterday, Sparkle told me you just disappeared right before her eyes—'whoosh,' without even a sound. She thought she'd blown up."

Jingxing recalled what happened last night and gave a vague smile, "There was a slight mishap, but I'm out of there now."

"That's good." Sampo didn't ask any further questions.

But just as he withdrew his hand, his smile paused almost imperceptibly for a moment.

He smelled a familiar scent on Jingxing, a scent that belonged to the Path of Elation. Sampo himself was the Masked Fools, and he was all too familiar with the scent of Elation.

"Did Jingxing meet with an Emanator after disappearing last night...? But..."

When did this strange Emanator of Elation arrive at the Dual-Phase Paradise? Sampo went through all the Fools he knew in his mind, but still couldn't guess.

But then he thought about how the person who paid him was standing there unharmed, and figured the Emanator probably hadn't done anything wrong. So Sampo simply stopped thinking about it.

After finishing his tour guide job and purchasing some necessary supplies, he would return to the snowball and continue waiting for the bell of fate to ring.

Jingxing didn't notice Sampo's change. Because he remembered that the jovial tour guide in front of him was actually a Masked Fools.

To be honest, when he realized it yesterday, his heart skipped a beat.

But as he walked along, he felt that although they were both Masked Fools, Sambo's laughter in the Tavern sent chills down his spine, while Sampo did not evoke any disgust.

There are probably many kinds of Masked Fools. Some find amusement in the suffering of others, while others simply love money and being glib, finding a bit of fun in life along the way.

Thinking of this, Jingxing inexplicably glanced at Sampo. The next second, the Path Energy emanating from Sampo caught his eye.

"The energy emanating from him is much stronger than that from Yunli..." Jingxing silently commented.

Sampo was completely unaware, still chattering away about the graffiti on the street corner, oblivious to the fact that Jingxing had just "looked" him up from head to toe.

"But there's nothing fun to do here today. Come on, I'll take you to Haiyuan City to see the sea in Hattopia." He turned around and suggested to Jingxing.

"No problem." Jingxing didn't care. Anyway, he was just killing time. As long as he didn't go to the World-Painting Academy to face Murata Ryusuke, it didn't matter where he went.

The entire Haiyuan City is built on a vast plain by the sea. Having grown accustomed to the overwhelming graffiti in Two-Dimensional City, Jingxing found Haiyuan City to be very similar to the seaside town he had in mind. The walls were much simpler than those in Two-Dimensional City. The first thing he saw after stepping out of the station was the gray-blue sky and the deep blue sea, separated by a thin white line.

"Did you know? This city wasn't built piece by piece," Sampo said, leading Jingxing towards the sea. "It was pulled out of a painting by the company."

"Ha?"

"You should know that for a time, the Dual-Phase Paradise chose to hide inside the paintings to escape some enemies. Everyone lived inside the paintings back then," Sampo said. "The same was true for Haiyuan City, but later the company announced that it would save the place and used technological means to pull them out."

"What about the people in the painting? Did they come out too?" Jingxing asked, looking around as he muttered to himself, "So they were all just paper figures before?"

"They moved to the city too," Sampo said. "The long-time residents of Haiyuan City, going back several generations, are practically living in paintings. Some of the older folks still can't shake off their old habits."

"For the company, they've created a new market, but perhaps it's not the same for the locals," Jingxing shook his head.

If his guess is correct, there are probably quite a few people here who would like to return to the painting.

Standing on the edge of the observation deck, Jingxing leaned on the railing and looked out at the sea. He immediately spotted a huge shadow. After a moment of surprise, he realized that it was a whale of the Imagenae.

Aren't you afraid of being chased away for getting so close?

"Being admired is its job." Sampo leaned closer, a lollipop he'd pulled out of nowhere dangling from his mouth. "You know, Imagenae live on the Wish Power."

"Thinking about it, the Imagenae have it much harder than humans," Jingxing muttered. "They probably have to work 24/7 to Wish Power."

"Perhaps, but who isn't struggling to survive under the company's management?" Sampo shrugged. "The company's lower-level employees aren't even as well-paid as the average person here."

"Everyone is working so hard..." Jingxing felt that he was really lucky compared to them.

Under the guidance of the Trailblaze Aeon Klimt Constitutional Republic is peaceful and stable, and even orphans like myself can receive good care.