Chapter 376: True and False

BOOM—!!

A loud explosion rang out from a nearby alley. Under the bridge arch, Lin Xi and Old Lu looked up simultaneously!

"What happened?" Lin Xi hid an oil-paper umbrella under the bridge and said in a deep voice.

"It must be Maple Ghost, who was rushing over, running into that lunatic." Old Lu stood up slowly, bracing himself with both hands. "They're fighting!"

"I'll go support Maple..."

"No, you can't go." Old Lu immediately rejected Lin Xi's suggestion. "Didn't you say it's hard to kill him unless we have home-field advantage? If you leave, how will these traps you worked so hard to set be of any use?"

"Then..."

"I'll go." Old Lu's voice was extremely serious. "I can fly, so I can maneuver around that guy and lure him here... then you can trigger the traps from the shadows, and he won't be able to escape."

Lin Xi thought about it carefully; this was indeed the safest way, but he still asked with concern:

"Old Lu, can your body handle it?"

"No problem."

Old Lu waved his hand and walked straight out of the bridge arch. "You stay here in ambush and wait for the right moment... Whether we can finish him off in one go depends on you."

Watching Old Lu's struggling figure leave, a flash of determination crossed Lin Xi's eyes, and he clenched his fists tightly...

……

PFFT—!!

Maple Ghost, covered in blood, rolled down the stone steps like a kite with a broken string in the thick fog.

A figure with wings on his back leaped from the top of the steps. Dense swarms of ants intertwined behind Old Lu. He looked at the blood-stained Maple Ghost falling down the steps, his eyes flashing with cold murderous intent!

"Trying to trick me? That's too naive... Today, you will definitely die!"

Old Lu raised both hands, and the dense ants behind him fell like raindrops. Countless hair-thin brushstrokes sliced through the steps, leaving deep blade marks, instantly engulfing Maple Ghost's figure!

Under the frenzied attack of these fine brushstrokes, Maple Ghost turned into a bloody mess in the blink of an eye. In his agony, his consciousness regained a sliver of clarity, and just as he was about to be sliced into mincemeat, he transformed into a sky full of maple leaves and vanished from the spot.

Old Lu let out a soft "huh," his figure floating slowly to the ground. He looked at the fragments of maple leaves all over the ground and suddenly froze.

"How could this be..."

Old Lu knew very well that the Theater God Path was good at disguises, but he had never heard of a Theater God Path user being able to directly imitate someone else's God Path... Although everyone said that lunatic's skills were bizarre, he shouldn't be able to replicate a Maple Ghost skill, right?

Could it be...

Could the one in front of him be the real one? And the one in the walkie-talkie be the fake?

That's impossible! He had been in contact with Maple Ghost and Lin Xi via walkie-talkie from the very beginning, and it was on a specific frequency for the Floating Life Painting. That lunatic could never have used the walkie-talkie to contact him... Damn it, what is going on??

"Old Lu! Are you crazy?!!" The sky full of maple leaves converged on the steps behind Old Lu, forming the blood-covered Maple Ghost.

He looked at the bewildered Old Lu and cursed!

"Why did you hit me??"

"You..." Old Lu gritted his teeth. "You're the fake! Don't try to trick me!"

"I'm the fake? I just used [Painted Leaves]! How could I be the fake?! Was your brain kicked by a donkey?!"

"Old Lu! I heard you guys fighting! How did it go?" Maple Ghost's anxious voice came through the walkie-talkie. "Be careful, that guy seems to also have the power of the Thief God Path and stole my skills... Don't be fooled by him!"

The voices of two Maple Ghosts echoed in Old Lu's ears simultaneously. At this moment, his brain short-circuited.

Unless the real Maple Ghost was dead, the walkie-talkie couldn't have fallen into the enemy's hands; but if the real Maple Ghost was dead, wouldn't the one in front of him necessarily be the fake Maple Ghost?

But if the walkie-talkie hadn't fallen into the enemy's hands, then the one he was talking to just now was the real Maple Ghost, which also meant the one in front of him was necessarily the fake Maple Ghost... No matter how he looked at the logic, the Maple Ghost in front of him was likely a fake.

But... could that lunatic really act so realistically? His appearance, personality, skills, and emotions were all so real that Old Lu truly couldn't believe the Maple Ghost in front of him was fake...

"Old Lu!! I! Maple Ghost! Number 029! Floating Life Painting Area 029 Architect! Although we haven't met before, we're colleagues!"

"That day I received an order from Area 001 to immediately go to Willow Town to support you, 031. When we met, it was probably five or six in the morning, and then you said you wanted to scout the inn first, and I agreed with your point... Think carefully, could a fake me know these things??"

Seeing Old Lu raise his hand again, ready to attack him, Maple Ghost panicked and blurted out the whole sequence of events and details to prove his innocence.

Hearing this, Old Lu froze again.

"Damn it... damn it!!! I can't tell! I really don't know which one is..."

PFFT—!

A spray of warm blood splattered onto Old Lu's cheek.

Old Lu, still struggling, looked up blankly and saw a hand protruding from the chest of the Maple Ghost in front of him...

A smiling figure draped in a bright red theater robe was standing behind Maple Ghost, one hand piercing through his chest, even holding a slowly beating heart in his palm... A breeze blew over the deathly silent stone steps, and the bright red theater robe fluttered in the wind.

The noisy, chaotic world suddenly went quiet, leaving only the sound of static buzzing in Old Lu's ears.

"Time's up... Wrong answer."

Chen Ling's playful voice rang out leisurely from the walkie-talkie.

[Audience Expectation +4]

Maple Ghost slowly and painfully lowered his head, looked at the bloody hand in his chest, opened his mouth, and glared angrily at Old Lu, who was inches away:

"I... am... real..."

As Chen Ling crushed the heart, Maple Ghost's corpse fell limply onto the stone steps like a pile of mud, scarlet blood staining the earth.

Old Lu stood there blankly, like a statue.

He had been struggling so much just now, and he and Maple Ghost had been so distracted by each other that they hadn't noticed the enemy approaching... This led to him witnessing Maple Ghost die right before his eyes.

A breeze blew across the long, narrow steps, causing ripples in Maple Ghost's pool of blood. In the blood-red reflection, the red-clad figure seemed to merge with the world.

Old Lu's chest heaved violently. He looked at Chen Ling with dead, hollow eyes, a fire of unprecedented rage erupting within him. The repeated mockery made him want to tear Chen Ling into a thousand pieces!!

"I'll kill you... I'll kill you!!!!"

Old Lu roared and lunged at Chen Ling frantically!

Seeing this, Chen Ling chuckled in the wind, tore off a mask from his fingertips, transformed into Old Lu's appearance, and turned to sprint toward Furong Bridge!