The streets bustled beneath the sunshine. Along one side of the park square, people streamed past without end, their voices mingling in the air.
A confident smile spread across Zhang Xiao's face as his long, nimble fingers moved rapidly. He tossed a playing card into the air, and a shower of cards immediately fluttered down.
"Whoa!"
"Amazing!"
The passersby watching his performance covered their mouths, gasping in amazement.
Foreigners really knew how to play along and liven things up. Even a simple card trick could get them shouting.
Zhang Xiao glanced at the top hat beside him. A fair amount of money lay scattered inside. Most of it was quarters, but he was definitely earning much faster than he would doing odd jobs.
Seeing how well he was doing, Zhang Xiao's smile widened, and he decided to bring out something more impressive.
"Okay-okay, thank you, everyone! Next, I'll show you a trick I've been working on recently!"
He wasn't a professional magician, after all. When it came to patter and warming up the audience, Zhang Xiao could hardly command a crowd like a master magician. Real magic shows also involved plenty of gestures and movements to keep the audience's attention.
Stage magic had never been just about making things appear and disappear. Still, actual magic was so overwhelmingly effective that the audience enjoyed themselves immensely anyway.
After that brief introduction, Zhang Xiao copied other magicians by rolling up his sleeves and spreading his hands, showing the crowd that he wasn't hiding anything. Then he gently closed his eyes.
First, he pressed his palms together and rubbed them rapidly in a show of effort, as though kindling an invisible flame in the air.
Then he slowly extended and opened his hand. A coin appeared out of nowhere in his palm.
The