Prodigy’s Playground

Chapter 163 The Mistake from Two Years Ago

“The rest of what happened, you already know.”

The old man in Tang robes rubbed the gold coin between his fingertips and turned to look out the floor-to-ceiling window.

“A girl capable of making the Magician mobilize on such a scale had to be extraordinarily special, extraordinarily important—perhaps connected to some highly unusual secret.”

“So I privately made a deal with [the Puppet]—I offered a condition he simply couldn’t refuse. Heh, in the face of sufficient temptation and benefits, all principles are nothing but floating clouds.”

“[The Puppet] naturally agreed to the deal. That was how we were finally able to begin our ‘Key Plan.’”

“All this time, we never knew what use this key would have. But since the Magician was willing to pay such an enormous price for this girl, then there was no need for us to overthink it. We simply had to sharpen this [Key] properly and quietly wait for the appearance of the [Lock].”

The middle-aged man leaned back against the chair, hands folded over his stomach.

“And then little Jiang Ran, carrying that Genius Playground micro-film, appeared in such plain and unadorned fashion.”

“When you first showed me Jiang Ran’s profile, I flipped to the final page and saw the section you had circled in red—Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue just so happened to be childhood sweethearts and close friends who had grown up together since they were young; and when that car accident happened two years ago, Jiang Ran had also been there at the scene.”

“That’s why I said back then—this was simply too interesting. A coincidence written so perfectly, as if the goddess of fate herself were writing the script.”“So naturally, there was no doubt. Our key had found the right lock. No one was more suitable than her to approach Jiang Ran and become his closest intimate friend.”

“And now, even two years later, they’re still likely willing to stand against us for this girl.”

At this point, the middle-aged man spread his hands.

“What surprises me more is that the Magician has clearly spent all these years hiding everywhere, barely keeping himself afloat. Yet unexpectedly, he discovered the existence of the Key this quickly.”

“Hmph.”

The old man in Tang robes let out a cold snort.

“What else did you expect?”

He narrowed his wrinkle-filled eyes.

“Otherwise, why do you think I’ve always suspected that the mastermind behind Jiang Ran is very likely the Magician?”

“Under normal circumstances, the Magician should never have discovered that girl this early, unless—”

[He and Jiang Ran share some kind of special relationship, a secret connection. Or perhaps he too has been watching Jiang Ran from the shadows.]

For a moment, both men fell silent.

All signs now pointed to the fact that there was definitely something deeply wrong with Jiang Ran.

And in the end, paper could never fully wrap fire. Even though they had moved quickly to suppress that micro-film and delete all related materials, there were still sharp-minded people who had sensed something.

“If I were the Magician, I’d be angry too.”

The middle-aged man spoke leisurely.

“Before this, the Magician definitely didn’t know about the secret deal between you and the Puppet. But now that the girl’s matter has been exposed, with how smart he is, how could he possibly fail to guess it was the two of you behind it?”

“The Puppet’s suspicion is impossible to wash clean. The Magician definitely won’t spare him. As for you—with the Magician’s IQ, it can’t be hard to figure out that only you, the one-man authority inside Genius Playground, could offer a condition irresistible enough to make the Puppet agree to such a transaction.”

“So it goes without saying: you and the Puppet are both absolutely the Magician’s targets now. Though personally, I don’t think he can stir up much trouble. The mistake he made two years ago was simply too fatal—he practically wrapped himself in his own cocoon and cornered himself into a dead end.”

“Exactly.”

The old man nodded.

“The Magician has had entanglements with the Clown since as early as ten years ago. We could already tell at the time that in 2015, the Magician changed hands—he was no longer the previous one.”

“Seats in Genius Playground can indeed be inherited, but generally this kind of thing doesn’t happen. No one is foolish enough to give themselves one more burden, one more weakness.”

“But the Magician’s situation was somewhat special. We still don’t know exactly what happened ten years ago. Yet when facing the Magician, the Clown very clearly possessed an overwhelming informational advantage, which led to the Magician spending all this time hiding and evading.”

“We originally thought ten years of breathing room would allow the Magician to gradually grow enough to contend with the Clown. But the foolish act he committed two years ago directly nullified all the points he had accumulated over so many years, while also exposing his outline and leaving him stretched thin.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

The middle-aged man smacked his lips.

“Let me count it out for you—just look at how many people are standing against him.”

He raised his fingers one by one.

“First, there’s [the Clown]. He should completely know the Magician’s true background, always hunting him from a superior vantage point.”

“Second, there’s [the Puppet]. The moment the Puppet entered that secret deal with you, he had already stepped onto the opposite side of the Magician.”

“This kind of [betrayal] is an even more fatal blow to the Magician, and also his most dangerous enemy.”

“Then there’s [the Witch]. Since she arranged for Zhou Xiong to bring the Princess Coin to the class reunion, she very obviously also knew about our Key Plan and wanted to muddy the waters. That woman has always been like that—a pure shit-stirrer, yet able to slip into any crack. How could she possibly let such an obvious weakness in the Magician pass by?”

“And lastly, there’s us—the [Father] you represent. Right now we are undoubtedly the strongest. Anyone who stands against us is simply courting death. Even if what we’ve done angers the Magician the most—what can he possibly do about it? At best, impotent rage.”

“Surrounded front and back, enemies on all sides—I can’t think of any harsher phrase to describe the Magician’s situation.”

“In this kind of situation, the Magician’s only retreat should be to keep fleeing like a rat, not to risk his life by jumping around like this.”

[What, are you saying a mere little Magician can really pull clouds with one hand and survive a hopeless situation like a magic trick—win a 1v4?]

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the sky darkened.

The sun was covered by heavy clouds, muffled thunder rolling in the distance, every sign pointing toward rain.

Donghai City seemed to be on the verge of changing weather.

Listening to the middle-aged man’s analysis and provocation, the old man in Tang robes said nothing.

He merely gazed at the sky outside and let out a soft sigh.

A trace of regret.

Regret that the Magician—the only person he had ever found even slightly interesting—now stood opposite him as his enemy.

“To put it bluntly, the Magician is still too young at heart. Too immature.”

“It was only a little girl who died in a car accident. Whether she was saved or not, whether she lived or died—what difference does it make?”

The old man spoke in a low, drifting tone.

“I imagine that today’s Magician, when he thinks back on that impulse from two years ago—”

“must also regret it.”

At the same time, Donghai University, Film Camera Club activity room.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Jiang Ran, Fang Ze, and Cheng Mengxue each carried in a large box of deliveries and set them on the floor.

The sponsorship Jiang Ran had promised the Film Camera Club had finally arrived. Just as he had said before, he had bought a large quantity of film rolls, photo-developing chemicals and consumables, along with several replacement instruments for worn equipment.

Chi Xiaoguo’s eyes practically lit up.

“The imperial court’s disaster-relief grain has arrived!”

As she spoke, she dramatically dropped into an exaggerated bow toward Jiang Ran.

“Thank you, dear sugar daddy sponsor, for your generous blessing!”

“That’s enough—”

Jiang Ran hurriedly pulled her back up.

Good grief. Judging from Chi Xiaoguo’s posture, she really had been about to perform a full formal salute.

“Even though I know you’re excited, the emotional value really doesn’t need to be maxed out this hard.”

Jiang Ran reminded her.

“Xiaoxue and Fang Ze are both standing right here. At least pay a little attention to your image! To quote Professor Zhang Yang, if you’re going to embarrass yourself, don’t embarrass yourself internationally!”

“Understood.”

Chi Xiaoguo nodded in sudden enlightenment.

“Then when they’re not here—”

“Not when they’re gone either!”

Jiang Ran immediately cut her off.

However—

too late.

“Mm?”

“My god—”

Fang Ze and Cheng Mengxue both instinctively stepped back again, staring at the pair and the dangerously suggestive phrasing.

“When we’re not here!? What exactly are you two doing!?”

Cheng Mengxue glared at Jiang Ran with the look one reserved for garbage.

Fang Ze raised a brow and shot Jiang Ran a look that clearly said: I knew it. I always knew it.

Jiang Ran couldn’t even be bothered with them.

He suddenly realized that Chi Xiaoguo’s comprehension ability genuinely seemed to have some kind of issue.

Fine—put bluntly, her thought process and the way her brain connected things really did seem different from normal people.

Sometimes the things she said came from angles so strange that even Jiang Ran, if he deliberately tried to pick a fight, couldn’t find where she had arrived from.

“Xiaoguo.”

He asked sincerely, “Could it be that you’re a bit unbalanced in your subjects? Like… your language grades weren’t very good?”

“Huh? Senior! How did you know!”

Chi Xiaoguo was stunned by the accuracy of the deduction.

“Yeah! Actually, my scores in all the other subjects on the college entrance exam were pretty good, it was just language that dragged me down. Otherwise I wouldn’t have barely gotten into Donghai University right on the cutoff line.”

“It’s mainly those reading-comprehension essay questions. I always perform badly on them and never score high.”

“Sigh…”

Jiang Ran let out a long breath.

As expected. So it really was a comprehension problem.

He suddenly thought of his roommate from Shandong on Worldline Zero.

That roommate had once said he had never been able to answer “Find the Ungrammatical Sentence” questions since childhood, always scoring zero.

“These ungrammatical sentence questions are the ones with the problem, you know? Those sentences aren’t wrong at all if you ask me.”

“The sentence you just said is itself ungrammatical,” Jiang Ran had reminded him.

“What are you talking about? Did any of you even study language? Our teacher talks exactly like this. If you don’t believe it, come to Shandong next time and listen.”

That kind of inversion that sounded almost like broken syntax was probably just a Shandong specialty.

Wang Hao also often complained to Jiang Ran that whenever he read web novels written by Shandong authors, the word order always felt awkward, almost like machine translation.

But Jiang Ran firmly believed that poor expression and weak comprehension definitely were not a Guangxi specialty.

This was absolutely Chi Xiaoguo’s personal issue.

—

“Take your time learning.”

Jiang Ran patted her on the head.

Meanwhile, Fang Ze had already used a box cutter to open one of the packages and pulled out the film rolls inside.

“By the way, now that we finally have film, does that mean we can officially start using the camera to take pictures?”

“To be honest, after studying under President Xiaoguo for so long, my hands are kind of itching.”

“That’s true.”

Chi Xiaoguo planted her hands on her hips.

“The best way to learn is without a doubt through hands-on practice. Since we now have film, then we really should have a full, satisfying practical shoot!”

“If we start straight with people, that’s a bit difficult, because not only do you need to find the right angles, but the model also has to cooperate. So as beginners—let’s first try shooting still landscapes!”

As she spoke, she took out her phone, checked the weather forecast, and grinned.

“Then it’s happily decided! Tomorrow’s Saturday, so no classes. Let’s hold the Film Camera Club’s first outdoor photography event—”

“Let’s go on an autumn outing!”

Whoosh—

High in the blue sky, a plane dragged a white trail of smoke.

Under the bright sunlight, dense maple trees had begun turning layer upon layer of red, with scattered leaves drifting down to spread a carpet across the ground like footprints.

This was Dazhi River Park, located on Zhahang Road in Zhaxing District, by the banks of the Dazhi River in Donghai City.

As a pure land far removed from the city center, Dazhi River Park had very few tourists, but made up for it with beautiful scenes and richly colorful scenery.

There was shimmering river light, forests of red maples, reed-filled lotus ponds, camping lawns, winding bridges, and cool pavilions.

It might have felt a bit too sparse for a full holiday trip, but as a practice location for beginner photographers, it was nearly perfect.

It had to be said: although Chi Xiaoguo ranked dead last in Donghai University, and although her comprehension ability was deeply questionable, in the field of photography she truly was experienced and highly skilled. She had even managed to find such a remote hidden gem of a park.

“The scenery here is excellent. It has both foregrounds and distant views—super photogenic!”

With a camera hanging around her neck, Chi Xiaoguo walked in front, explaining to the other three club members.

“I already taught you all the basic camera operations before. As for some of the finer details of parameter adjustments, honestly, you don’t need to care too much about them right now or be overly strict.”

“Photography is an art, yes, but it’s also something with a thousand faces for a thousand people. Rather than using academic formulas to please the masses, it’s better to first use your own favorite angle, light, and feeling to please yourself.”

“In other words, if you want to like something, it should first come from passion and willingness, not from finding the optimal solution under endless rules. Just like in Dragon Ball—you can’t become a Super Saiyan for the sake of becoming a Super Saiyan like Vegeta. You should advance step by step, and once your feeling and instinctive knack reach a certain level, everything will naturally flow into place, breaking through clouds and fog in a sudden moment of enlightenment.”

“Ahem, ahem. The way I explained that—you all understood, right?”

However, this emotionally elevated little speech didn’t seem especially effective.

Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue could at least follow it in a hazy way, but for Fang Ze, who hadn’t grown up in Dragon Country, this kind of abstract, imprecise explanation left him completely lost.

“Sorry, the first half was okay, but after that I totally stopped understanding.”

Fang Ze shook his head blankly.

“What you’re saying is way too ideological. Can you make it a little more concrete?”

“She means just take pictures however you want.”

Jiang Ran translated for him.

“President Xiaoguo means that as beginners, don’t nitpick and chase some kind of transcendent artistry right away. It’s better to first freely experience the basic charm of photography itself. Just shoot however you like.”

Fang Ze immediately understood.

Once someone spoke like a normal human being, he could follow perfectly.

“Come on, Fang Ze, I’ll demonstrate first.”

As the club’s honorary vice president, Jiang Ran raised the camera hanging on his chest, pressed his eye to the viewfinder, and looked toward the red maple forest across the river.

Nice. Beautiful scenery.

He skillfully loaded the film, rotated the lens, adjusted the focus, and gradually sharpened the landscape inside the viewfinder.

Then his finger brushed the shutter button, feeling the warmth of the sunlight and the noisy shimmer of the water—

Finally, he pressed the shutter.

Click.

A perfect photograph, perfectly completed.

“See? Just like this.”

Jiang Ran looked at Fang Ze.

“Film cameras are a bit more complicated, but in terms of operation, they’re actually ninety percent similar to digital cameras.”

“Senior!!!”

Ahead of them, Chi Xiaoguo suddenly spun around and screamed at him.

“What is it?” Jiang Ran asked blankly.

“THE! LENS! CAP!!!”