Hechi Xiu, standing to one side as the Audience, had not even reacted yet.
"Wait, it was over after just one blink?!"
She stared at Ji Yan's head in Xue's hand. It looked utterly lifelike.
Yet not a single drop of blood had spilled.
Ji Yan's headless body over there likewise seemed not to have realized its head was gone. It still stood there, maintaining a guarded stance...
"How is that possible... You must have cheated!" Hechi Xiu glared at Xue.
Xue looked coldly at Hechi Xiu. "Isn't the essence of magic deception?"
"Magic is called magic precisely because it deceives people."
"If it were real, that would be magic arts, wouldn't it?"
Hechi Xiu started to speak, then stopped, rendered speechless.
As Xue placed the top hat back on her head, her gaze fell on Ji Yan in her hand. "Then..."
Before she could finish, Ji Yan interrupted, "I haven't lost yet, have I?"
Xue remained expressionless as she held up the dangling pocket watch in her other hand. "The second hand has already made one full turn."
Ji Yan shook his head and said, "Time being up is one thing."
"The core of this wager was whether I could expose your magic trick."
"Before the second hand completed one turn, I had already seen through it."
Xue spoke impassively. "Go on, then?"
Ji Yan stared at his own headless body. "My sense of smell is very sharp, especially when it comes to one particular scent—the scent of... a scam."
"Your magic performance was not particularly fancy, nor did it have much substance. It was nothing more than misdirection."
"You deceived my vision and all my other senses."
"Before the game began, you took out that pocket watch and explained the wager's time limit. But the time limit was