"What do you mean?"
The envoy's face stiffened again. It was like waking from a nightmare only to find yourself still trapped in one. He was completely dumbfounded.
"You need to think harder."
Fu Qian didn't disappoint him. He repeated the familiar line.
"Didn't I tell you I'm me? Or can you just not resist mocking my situation?"
Even someone as good-natured as the envoy could barely keep from exploding at that moment, and he pointedly called out Fu Qian's malicious intentions.
"Think harder... I know you're you, but do you accept that 'clown' is you? Even if you're using playing dumb on purpose as your excuse."
Unfortunately, the envoy's forceful display didn't affect Fu Qian in the slightest. He looked straight at him, his voice like a devil's whisper.
"Don't rush to an answer. Feel your way through the process of reaching one... How do you define a clown? An envoy? Yourself?"
"Overthinking" only became a problem when you hadn't thought hard enough.
As Fu Qian had said, he didn't believe the person in front of him was someone else—not because he was too dull to consider the possibility, but because he had considered countless possibilities before reaching his judgment.
And although he was indeed deliberately leading the man astray now, aside from two extreme possibilities, this was truly the most reasonable explanation in Fu Qian's assessment.
That's right. His first concern had been the man's mental state.
The situation was chaotic, and even the five prisoners themselves "couldn't tell the difference," so the envoy was unlikely to fare any better.
But applying the principle of not multiplying entities beyond necessity, was it possible that the envoy in front of him hadn't created a duplicate at all, but had simply developed a split personality?
Fu Qian had already