Circus? Hmm, circus!

When Cheng Shi opened his eyes again, he found himself sitting in the upper level of a circular audience stand. Below him was a dense sea of heads and a central stage, while the air was filled with cheers and laughter.

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

"This is..."

His teammates, opening their eyes one after another, exclaimed in surprise upon seeing the scene:

"A circus?"

"Ugh... it stinks."

"Whoa, they're huge."

"Bilius Circus. Someone on the Singer Channel shared information about Bilius Circus. They said what impressed them most was the 'Giant Acrobatics' act, because these giants weren't real giants, but 'fakes' skillfully pieced together by more than a dozen dwarves."

Fang Shiqing once again displayed the erudition of a follower of Truth, her knowledge well-deserving of the title "erudite."

"More than a dozen dwarves under the costumes?"

A'ming, who arrived last, had only heard part of the conversation. Nevertheless, he stared at the stage, dumbfounded, trying to spot any flaws.

But unfortunately, the giants were flawless, their movements smooth and coordinated without any glitches.

"This is pretty impressive!"

"Don't you guys smell that weird odor? Maybe we should move somewhere else to discuss this?"

"Dwarves, huh? Not a bad deal..."

Everyone was still immersed in the joy of cracking the first layer of memory, completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation. Only Cheng Shi and Fang Shiqing's expressions had slightly darkened.

Big, too big.

This circus performance venue was enormous, with the number of people present being dozens of times more than in the previous tavern scene. With so many targets, finding "errors" would be a massive undertaking.

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

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

Everyone looked at Cheng Shi in astonishment. Fang Shiqing frowned slightly and said softly, "Tell us the bad news first, so we can prepare."

Cheng Shi nodded. "The bad news is that the hour mark has passed, and the Doctor forgot to record your status. From now on, if you get sick, we can only use 'Accelerated Metabolism' to treat it."

Time granted the Priest profession two skills: one was "Rewind Status," used to revert the body's condition to the last recorded hour mark.

The other was "Accelerated Metabolism," the skill Fang Shiqing had advised him not to use carelessly on NPCs. This skill greatly accelerated the target's metabolism, using Time to heal injuries or negative physical conditions. It was precisely as the saying went: Time heals all wounds.

However, "Accelerated Metabolism" didn't feel like a healing method; it felt more like accelerating oblivion. It didn't fundamentally heal anyone, merely pushing them past their suffering.

"Then what's the good news?"

"The good news is that the 'Giant Acrobatics' act just started, so we can watch the whole thing," Cheng Shi said cheerfully.

"???"

What kind of good news was that?!

Don't we have enough Time?!

Xu Lu's face fell. She pinched her nose, intending to leave, but seeing Fang Shiqing hadn't moved, she lifted her backside a few times before settling back down.

Fang Shiqing chuckled helplessly and then began assigning tasks to everyone.

Due to his social anxiety, Cheng Shi was assigned to the center of the stage. His task was to investigate the entire circus troupe.

"You really flatter me, Big Sister."

Fang Shiqing shrugged and walked away with Xu Lu.

A'ming hesitated for a few seconds, torn between comforting Cheng Shi and quickly starting his investigation. In the end, he simply told Cheng Shi "Good luck" and hurried away.

Only Bailing remained seated, not moving.

Seeing her like that, Cheng Shi smiled. "As expected, you have good taste. Want to watch it together?"

Bailing placed her hands on her lower abdomen and bit her lip, saying coyly, "Rather than watching a circus, I'd prefer a horseback play... Interested?"

"?"

Cheng Shi's expression stiffened, and he turned to leave.

I really hope you're talking about a circus!

The follower of Filth Fall couldn't suppress her nature. Who knew which lucky person would join her and fall into the embrace of Filth Fall.

Since one member of the team had not yet entered the second act of memory, the "Memory Gate" had not disappeared.

As Cheng Shi passed by it, he silently noted its location. Logically, this should be where that waiter was seated. The fact that he could guide the waiter to recall his tavern experience suggested that, at least within this scene and within his view, there should be something familiar to him.

What could a circus possibly have to do with a tavern?

Cheng Shi walked on, thinking, and soon arrived backstage.

The circus's backstage was directly below the VIP seating on the west side. Outsiders weren't allowed in the backstage area, and it was just as lively as the main performance area.

All sorts of races, beasts, and elemental creatures were waiting and interacting there, the noise as deafening as a bustling marketplace.

Cheng Shi only glanced inside and knew immediately that his target wasn't the circus performers, but an audience member in the stands, and more specifically, a not-so-wealthy one.

Because the floor of the VIP seating and the ceiling of the backstage preparation room...

were clipping through each other.

The entire backstage ceiling was transparent and interwoven, allowing him to see the feet and... butts of the VIP guests.

This was a very clear memory error, the kind that occurs when the memory's origin is very unfamiliar with, or has never seen, a particular corner.

Of course, normally, when encountering such a situation, one couldn't rule out the possibility of someone casting a spell, as this was a world with all sorts of skills.

But after Cheng Shi wandered around inside, he found that no one noticed the VIPs' butts above them. This indicated that the memory's origin truly didn't know the circus backstage or the VIP seating area.

This was interesting. Let's see what clues are here... ah, no, let's see the butts of these VIPs.

Cheng Shi then interviewed a few actors with kind faces and chatted with them for a while. Before long, he had identified which VIP belonged to which butt.

The most distinguished audience member was undoubtedly one of the town's owners, Duchess Brooks' wife, Dilar.

It was said that she loved watching dwarf circuses, and recently, her visits to the troupe had been very frequent.

Sitting next to her were the female companions of various nobles.

Clearly, this was a ladies' gathering.

Further back were the retinues and guards of the nobles, and then the town's middle class, the owners of various factories.

Cheng Shi observed for a long time and noticed a very interesting phenomenon.

The guards looked down on the bosses sitting behind them, while the bosses looked at the lackeys sitting in front of them with disdain.

Both sides were mutually disgusted, yet envious of each other's status.

"Even on the Isle of Hope, people's relationships are as complicated as in reality..."

But when Cheng Shi saw the next scene, he was shocked and exclaimed:

"...No, more complicated than reality."

Because he saw a guard behind the Duchess secretly reaching towards her backside.

Due to "time constraints," Cheng Shi left after watching for only 3 minutes, still wanting more.

Since he had already pinpointed the scope of the memory's origin, he naturally had to inform his companions and change their search direction.

He glanced at the time; another half hour had passed. He turned to look at the audience stands and found that the Memory Gate was still standing there, not having dissipated.

"Strange, why is Uncle Huang still in the first act?"

The thoughts of followers of [Chaos] couldn't be understood by common sense, so Cheng Shi didn't think too much about it. He simply followed his own guess and walked towards the audience seats far from the VIP area.

As he passed one side of the stage, he saw several gnome dwarves changing clothes behind a huge curtain.

To say they were changing clothes might be a bit inaccurate; they were actually "changing skins."

Five of them were stacked together. The person on top carried a massive skull, two formed the left and right arms and chest cavity, and two formed the abdomen and legs. Then, they put an orc skin over themselves.

Cheng Shi stopped to peek for a while and then realized that the orc skin was actually that of a female orc.

The skin was intact, its texture clear, clearly having been expertly flayed.

The dwarves, after putting on the skin, walked out from backstage wearing a slightly conservative animal skin skirt.

When they saw Cheng Shi standing outside, the "female orc's" demeanor suddenly became coy.

The animal skin was perfectly fitted over the skull, and the various facial expressions were rendered with lifelike detail, showing no sign of being a fake.

If Cheng Shi hadn't seen them changing clothes, he would likely have believed it was a genuine Orc girl.

Even the voice sounded convincing.

"Oh, a new guest? Why are you in such a hurry? This isn't where you should be. Hurry back to your seat. I promise, I'll come to you before the performance ends."

As she spoke, she winked at Cheng Shi.

"..."

The more Cheng Shi looked, the stranger it felt, like watching a "lion dance." He gave a fake smile and, feigning impatience, asked:

"What other services do you have?"

The Orc girl eyed him suspiciously, then lifted her animal skin skirt, revealing a shapely, exaggeratedly curved butt.

Cheng Shi stared intently!

This part!

It looked like the heads of the two dwarves at the very bottom?

"Hiss—"

This doesn't seem like a proper service.

His expression tightened, and he turned to leave like he was constipated.

What is this?

An orc circus?

Bailing was right after all; there really is a horse-riding act here.