Chapter 371: Weaving Fate

【△ Hearing the explosion, the three Floating Life Painting members arrive immediately】

"What happened?!"

Lin Xi was the first to rush into the inn, only to see the innkeeper holding his head with both hands, cowering under the table, his face full of terror!

"I... I don't know?!" Chen Ling's voice was trembling. "I was just calculating accounts here, and suddenly the courtyard exploded. It seems to be the kitchen..."

The three's gazes shifted away from Chen Ling, and Old Lu nodded:

"This boss is innocent; he has been here the whole time."

"Go to the explosion site!"

Lin Xi and the others rushed toward the smoke-filled courtyard without hesitation.

The boss behind the counter, seeing Lin Xi and the others rush to the kitchen, also gathered his courage and followed them.

The raging fire was still burning, and hot light flashed from time to time from the charred kitchen doors and windows. With vision obscured by thick smoke, everything around was gray.

"First a room exploded, and now the kitchen! What kind of sin have I committed..." The boss's wails sounded behind the three.

"Shut up!" Feng Gui, who was concentrating on finding the enemy's tracks, shouted with a frown.

The boss's face turned pale, and he was so angry he wanted to speak but stopped.

"The ants deployed in the courtyard have basically been burned, and now I can't see anything." Old Lu said in a deep voice.

"So there were ants deployed in the kitchen?"

"I sent ants to scout, and there was no one inside, so they came out."

"It seems now that the madman may have been hiding in the kitchen the whole time, using some method to deceive your perception..." Lin Xi had fought Chen Ling after all. From his perspective, Chen Ling's methods were too many and too strange, so it was not surprising that he had special hiding methods.

"However, why did he suddenly blow this up?"

"Maybe he lost patience with our surveillance and prepared to use this method to destroy the ant colony and force his way out." Old Lu proposed the most likely hypothesis.

"Then is he still in the kitchen now, or has he already come out?"

Once this question was asked, the expressions of the three became a bit ugly. Lin Xi gritted his teeth, pulled down the oil-paper umbrella on his back, and rushed into the blazing kitchen!

【△ Just as the Umbrella Painter was about to rush into the kitchen, the burning flames heated and expanded the gas in the two spare gas tanks, causing the pressure to continue to rise, triggering a second round of gas explosions】

Boom—!!!

Lin Xi stepped into the kitchen, and a dazzling fireball exploded in the kitchen. The fire beam instantly swallowed his figure!

This explosion was even more terrifying than the previous one. The small kitchen had been completely blown open. After the surging sea of fire engulfed Lin Xi, it rushed toward Old Lu and the others behind him.

"Is it a trap?!!" Old Lu and Feng Gui behind him changed their expressions drastically!

Feng Gui raised his palm, and countless fluttering maple leaves rolled out from his sleeves, blocking the surging sea of fire in front, protecting Old Lu beside him and Chen Ling, who was disguised as the boss, behind him.

"This... this..." The innkeeper's legs were trembling. "How did it explode again? It's really going to cost me my life..."

"Shut up!!" Feng Gui was so annoyed by this chattering boss that he wanted to slap him to death.

Chen Ling immediately closed his mouth.

His face was full of panic and despair, but in his heart, he looked at everything in front of him calmly, without the slightest surprise.

For others, everything that happened here was full of unknowns, but for Chen Ling, he clearly knew what would happen next... After all, everything was directed by him personally.

Chen Ling's [Fate Weaving] could exert his sense of belief as a director to the extreme, thereby influencing the surrounding environment. In other words, he could control everything on the "stage." Just like when he was in the theater, he would arrange the timing of every light, sound effect, and prop in advance.

As long as the "script" is written in advance, they will happen as Chen Ling prepared... Of course, these things must be logical.

For example, the glass shards on the courtyard floor ignited the trash can under strong light; for example, the high temperature caused the pressure of the spare gas tank to rise, causing a secondary explosion... There were indeed glass shards shattered by the explosion in the inn's courtyard, and there were indeed several gas tanks in the kitchen. These were "props" that came with the stage, and what Chen Ling could do was to arrange the props reasonably and create coincidences through the script to advance the plot.

The only thing he couldn't control was the "role."

Just like Chen Ling's previous directing work, he could perfectly coordinate the scenes on the stage but couldn't perfectly coordinate the roles. After all, they were individual living beings played by actors, possessing thoughts. They might forget lines or make mistakes in positioning. These were all beyond his control.

Therefore, Chen Ling could only push the actors' actions indirectly through events, or guess their psychology... For example, using an explosion to attract the three Floating Life Painting members, for example, letting the three enter the kitchen to search again.

In the end, Chen Ling could control the development of scenes and events by preparing the "script" in advance, thereby influencing the fate of the "roles";

And the extent to which he could influence the "roles" depended on Chen Ling's directing ability, the diversity of stage props, and his analysis and understanding of the "roles"... Scenes, lighting, sound effects, props, everything on the stage was like threads held in Chen Ling's hands. By weaving them, Chen Ling could guide the fate of all "roles" to a certain extent.

This was Chen Ling's [Fate Weaving].

"Cough, cough, cough, cough..."

In the flames of the ruins, Lin Xi, holding a charred umbrella handle, stumbled out.

The scale of this explosion was completely different from the previous dust explosion, and Lin Xi was too close. Even if his reaction was fast, he couldn't retreat unscathed. At this moment, he was covered in scars and looked extremely embarrassed.

"A trap, another trap... Damn it, where exactly is he??" Lin Xi's eyes were full of anger.

"Someone!!"

The innkeeper, who was trailing behind the three, suddenly spoke!

The three looked in the direction of his finger suddenly, only to see a residual image flying rapidly in the rolling thick smoke, circling the three in the center, and a sharp sneer sounded.

【△ The explosion shook off the clothes drying on the edge of the courtyard, and they began to spin in the sky against the strong wind. Under the cover of rolling thick smoke, it looked just like a ghostly human residual image】

【△ The strong wind rushed past the shattered water vat, making a sharp sound, echoing in everyone's ears like a sneer】

"It's him!!?"

"He really is here! He has been watching us the whole time!!"

"Damn it! Don't let him escape!! Attack together!!"

Lin Xi and the others saw the residual image, and brilliance erupted in their eyes simultaneously. They didn't care about the innkeeper standing on the side at all and attacked the sky with terrifying killing intent!