Chapter 245: Chapter 245

The shop owner seemed about to respond instinctively.

Suddenly, he froze completely.

He slowly widened his eyes.

After a long moment, he suddenly snapped back to reality, his eyes growing even wider, shocked and astonished:

“Good grief! Now that you mention it, I realize... I really don’t remember what the Nomadic Merchant looks like anymore!”

Jiang Ye was also shaken inside and asked, “Then do you still remember what talent skills were shown on the Nomadic Merchant’s panel?”

The shop owner urgently thought it over, then once again exclaimed in shock, “I remember his skills were none, his trick patterns were none, but he did have talents...”

Jiang Ye was somewhat dazed.

The shop owner quickly caught on and asked him:

“You still remember, right? Because you got my Nomadic Merchant mimic mask, so you still remember!”

“Oh hell! I told you, the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask shouldn’t have been given to you!”

The shop owner looked extremely regretful, and even the so-called “surprise” of the nine mimic masks Jiang Ye gave him looked very unappealing now.

“My precious Nomadic Merchant mimic mask, but in exchange I got these nine worthless mimic masks...”

He was angrily cursing when suddenly he realized something.

“Wait! You just said it’s a surprise and even made me look in the mirror at the face...”

The shop owner looked again at the face in the mirror, suspicious and uncertain: “This face, it’s the Nomadic Merchant’s appearance, right?”

Jiang Ye thought for a moment and said softly, “If I said yes, would you believe me?”

To be honest, the Mask Master didn’t quite believe it.

At this moment, he was pondering inside his heart the possibility that Jiang Ye was deliberately acting to deceive him.

Given this kid’s skill of identifying and instantly claiming the Today’s Specials, faking a trick wasn’t difficult.

If he discovered that losing the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask would cause one to forget the Nomadic Merchant’s appearance,

then he could stage this entire act himself.

And during the short time this kid was away from the shop, could he have uncovered this secret?

Actually, it was possible.

The reason the Mask Master never noticed was that he treasured the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask so much that he never gave it to anyone else.

But this young kid might have handed the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask to someone else right after leaving the shop.

Then, with his intelligence, he could immediately realize—after passing on the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask, he forgot what the Nomadic Merchant looked like!

Thus, he could stage this entire act, deliberately fooling him by saying these nine mimic masks had faces exactly like the Nomadic Merchant.

The logic was very reasonable, except for one thing that didn’t make sense—

This kid had already hinted when leaving the shop that he would bring nine mimic masks as a surprise.

Could it be that at that time, he already knew losing the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask would cause loss of memory of the Nomadic Merchant’s face?

That seemed unlikely.

Or maybe when the kid said “surprise,” he had other plans.

Later discovering the secret of the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask, it naturally led to this staged act?

In any case, the Mask Master was suspicious in his heart about Jiang Ye’s claim that the nine mimic masks all had the Nomadic Merchant’s face.

After thinking for a long time, he answered Jiang Ye’s “believe it or not”:

“If you were even dumber, I’d believe you eighty or ninety percent.”

“But since you succeeded in identifying Today’s Specials on the first try, sorry, I can only believe you fifty percent.”

“But it’s not a big problem—you can put on the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask now and show me the Nomadic Merchant’s appearance, and I can directly compare whether the two faces are the same, right?”

It was indeed very simple.

Putting on the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask would verify it.

But Jiang Ye thought for a moment and finally decided not to do that.

Because he wasn’t sure...

Whether it was good or bad for the Mask Master to be certain that Jiang Ye’s face and the Nomadic Merchant’s face were exactly the same.

So he shook his head and said, “The Nomadic Merchant mimic mask isn’t with me right now, so I can’t verify.”

As expected, the Mask Master snorted meaningfully:

“That sounds like a loophole in your story, doesn’t it?”

“If losing the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask means losing memory of the Nomadic Merchant’s appearance...”

“Then how do you still remember if the mimic mask isn’t in your hands?”

Jiang Ye could sense the Mask Master’s dissatisfaction, so after some thought, he sincerely explained:

“To be honest, you probably noticed—”

“When I put on the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask right in front of you, I looked very shocked.”

“That was actually because I noticed then that the Nomadic Merchant’s face was almost exactly the same as the Jiang Ye I had seen before.”

“So when I said surprise, I was preparing to bring you these nine mimic masks.”

“I truly didn’t expect that after losing the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask, you wouldn’t remember the Nomadic Merchant’s appearance...”

Although he said this, Jiang Ye knew the Mask Master still wouldn’t believe 100 percent.

Because it was such an easy thing to verify, yet he refused to do it face to face.

No matter how nicely Jiang Ye phrased it, there was a problem.

What Jiang Ye wanted was for the shop owner to remain suspicious, not to be completely sure.

So he stopped trying to persuade him further and changed the topic:

“To be honest, next time I come to pick up masks, I probably won’t be able to bring back the Nomadic Merchant mimic mask either...”

“If you believe the surprise I bring you, then it’s a surprise; if you don’t, then there’s nothing I can do.”

“How about this—since I can’t prove the surprise is real, next time I come, I’ll bring you even more mimic masks?” The most update n0vels are published on novel·fire·net

Seeing the Mask Master hesitate, he added:

“When I leave later, I’ll help you get Yuan Yihong’s mimic mask.”

“Next time you come to get masks, I’ll give you ninety mimic masks from ten apartment administrators, how about that?”

The nine mimic masks of ten apartment administrators, plus Yuan Yihong’s mimic mask...

To be honest, the Mask Master was indeed tempted.

However, after thinking a bit, he raised an eyebrow at Jiang Ye:

“You kid, you’re not planning to take the Madman Mask and Enforcer Mask to slaughter ten administrators all at once, are you?”

Jiang Ye thought to himself, it’s definitely more than ten!

But the next mask pickup time was not far off.

He smiled and said, “I’ll try to make you satisfied.”

The shop owner sighed but eventually accepted the nine mimic masks that probably had the Nomadic Merchant’s face.

Of course, these nine masks weren’t free but were a trade.

So the shop owner naturally transferred 900 Survival Points to Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye was very pleased inside but kept a calm face, and freeloaded some cheap Skin Sand from the shop owner.

Though it was indeed worthless, the shop owner looked down on him, gave the Skin Sand, then waved his hand:

“Forget the rest, just first get me Yuan Yihong’s mimic mask!”

Jiang Ye showed him the number three with his fingers: “OK.”

Then, after leaving the workshop, he saw Yuan Yihong standing inside a large compass-like device.

He himself was standing in the center of the compass, blood dripping onto it, forming dense, strange patterns covering the whole compass.

Along the circular edge of the compass were the masks he carried with him.

According to Zhang Minghan’s memory...

This big shot was probably trying divination methods, wanting to find out through divination which mask the shop owner was hiding in.

Jiang Ye pretended to be interested and watched from the side for a while.

He saw the compass center shoot out one blood-red card after another.

The cards circled the masks on the edge of the compass several times, then all fell and merged into the compass.

Jiang Ye didn’t understand it very well, but Yuan Yihong frowned and suddenly looked at him, saying in a deep voice:

“You’re messing with me, right? According to the divination, the shop owner isn’t in any of these masks!”

Jiang Ye calmly analyzed: “Using the same trick, the shop owner probably won’t use it twice.”

“So since I succeeded in identifying once, he most likely changed his hiding method.”

What Jiang Ye said made sense, so Yuan Yihong packed away the compass and masks, ignoring him.

Jiang Ye then asked in confusion: “Since you can use divination, why not try it on the other masks in the shop?”

Yuan Yihong rolled his eyes at him: “Didn’t you see the shop rules say no touching masks?”

“How can I divinate without touching the masks?”

“And most divination methods cost a lot. With so many masks, I can’t divinate them one by one, can I?”

Indeed, Jiang Ye knew from Zhang Minghan’s memory that most divination methods had many restrictions.

Those abilities that could predict the future were even rarer than resurrection methods.

This also gave Jiang Ye a chance to trick Yuan Yihong.

He pretended to think and then suddenly suggested to Yuan Yihong:

“I just remembered, big shot, you said when you entered the shop, the shop owner only let you look at the ‘Shop Rules’ and ‘Today’s Specials’?”

Yuan Yihong nodded, his expression as fierce as ever: “So what?”

Jiang Ye asked again: “Did you ever think that these two thin boards, ‘Shop Rules’ and ‘Today’s Specials,’ might actually be masks too?”

After Jiang Ye’s reminder, Yuan Yihong’s eyes lit up suddenly.

But soon he frowned again: “But they’re just two thin boards. How can you be sure they are masks?”

So Jiang Ye told him the story of how after looking at the Shop Rules, the shop owner warned him, and he almost touched the ‘Shop Rules’ board.

Yuan Yihong was somewhat surprised, looking at the two thin boards on the wall, he said:

“I didn’t experience what you did. When I came in, ‘Today’s Specials’ and ‘Shop Rules’ were just two thin boards. There was no situation where ‘Today’s Specials’ was behind ‘Shop Rules’...”

Jiang Ye quickly took advantage of this and said:

“Then it’s very likely the shop owner deliberately doesn’t want you to know these two thin boards are masks too!”

“And the only sentence the shop owner said letting you check the Shop Rules and Today’s Specials was a hint for you!”