Chapter 118 - 102: Class Change, Mirage Palace Actor

Chapter 118: Chapter 102: Class Change, Mirage Palace Actor

An idea sparked in Chen Ye’s mind, but he kept it quiet, waiting until after the curtain call to confirm his choice in the backstage dressing room.

In an instant, the text before him shifted again, revealing three distinctly different paths for his Profession change.

[Profession One: Prison Suppression Martial Artist]

[Description: Follow the Martial Dao, wear a baleful aura as your stage makeup. Your voice is thunder, your presence a mountain.]

[Talent: Body of Suppression—Your lifeblood is as dense as mercury, able to shatter evil.]

[Profession Two: Hundred Games Puppet Master]

[Description: All the world’s a stage, and every emotion is a string in your hand. Pluck the heartstrings of men, playing their joys and sorrows, their anger and their glee, to orchestrate the drama of life.]

[Talent: Threads of Emotion—Weave invisible threads to subtly guide and amplify the emotions of an audience.]

[Profession Three: Mirage Palace Actor]

[Description: With a song, you raise palaces from the dust. With a flick of a sleeve, you conjure oceans from thin air. Your performance creates an Illusion Realm so vivid it blurs the line between fact and fiction, trapping your audience in a world of inverted dreams.]

[Talent: Illusionary Performance—Infuse your Divine Thought into the performance, weaving an Illusion Realm so real that the audience feels they are truly there, experiencing it all firsthand.]

Three more choices. Chen Ye sank into contemplation.

’The Prison Suppression Martial Artist is powerful, but its path doesn’t align with the one I’ve chosen in this life. Besides, it overlaps too much with my last one.’

’The Hundred Games Puppet Master, just like the Human World Storyteller, is a control-type Profession. Professions like that tend to only shine in the Late Stage. More importantly, there are better alternatives to its described Talent.’

Chen Ye’s gaze fell on the third option.

’Constructing an Illusion Realm within a performance, making people lose themselves inside, unable to tell real from fake... *this* is the pinnacle of an Actor’s craft.’

’And its control over emotions is even stronger than the Hundred Games Puppet Master.’ Chen Ye hesitated no longer.

"I choose... the Mirage Palace Actor."

[Profession Change Successful! Profession: Mirage Palace Actor (Level 1)]

A profound power welled up from the depths of his soul. Unlike the Bone and Marrow Cleansing he experienced when changing his Profession to a Martial Artist, this felt more like an ascension on a spiritual level.

But as Chen Ye was savoring the profound mysteries of the Mirage Palace Actor, the storm outside was brewing to a fever pitch.

When Lu Jinghong heard that Chen Ye was being suppressed, she was so anxious that she burst into tears and immediately ran to find her father.

"Father, you have to help Chen Ye!" she pleaded, explaining the entire situation to Mr. Lu in a frantic rush.

Meanwhile, Qi Nana informed her own father, Qi Shihao, of the matter.

Qi Shihao was now the second-in-command of the Six Gates within the Sea Guardian Guard, making him a pivotal figure in the city’s official hierarchy.

Mr. Lu and Qi Shihao conferred in the study for a long time.

"This Li Kang has a complicated background," Mr. Lu said, his brow deeply furrowed. "He’s rumored to have ties to influential figures in Pingjing."

Holding his teacup, Qi Shihao snorted. "So what? That Li Kang is overreaching. Does he really think he can rule the roost here?"

They exchanged a look, each seeing the resolve in the other’s eyes.

It wasn’t just for their daughters. The potential Chen Ye had demonstrated was more than enough reason to give him their support.

「Soon, an invisible net began to close.」

First, the casinos and opium dens Li Kang operated were hit with a series of raids. Though he managed to bribe his way out of trouble each time, patrons of such establishments value a peaceful, uninterrupted experience. With raids happening daily, who would dare to show up? His business suffered a major blow.

Next, Li Kang’s legitimate businesses began to take a hit. Mr. Lu, true to his reputation as a magnate, launched a price war specifically targeting Li Kang’s shops.

Li Kang was quickly run ragged, but that was far from the end of it.

The society wives and young ladies who were mad for Chen Ye, upon realizing their idol’s performances were being affected, unleashed an astonishing amount of Energy.

Inside the most exclusive Western restaurant in the Sea Guardian Guard’s city, a group of fabulously dressed, high-society women gathered, simmering with righteous indignation.

One of them, the proprietress of a major silk emporium, made a swift decision. "I’ve looked into it. That man, Li, owns several shops. Ladies, starting tomorrow, anyone who patronizes his stores will be making an enemy of me!"

Another, the wife of a banker, let out a cold laugh. "His private bank has been trying to secure a loan from my husband’s bank for cash flow. I’m going home right now to tell my old man that this loan is off the table!"

"And his mistress! Last time, she had the nerve to ask me to introduce her to our reading circle. Not a chance!"

These women, who normally occupied themselves with poetry and idle pleasures, possessed a capacity for action and destruction that far surpassed anyone’s imagination when it came to defending someone they adored.

They organized spontaneously, leveraging their families’ influence in business, politics, and the social scene to launch a full-scale assault on Li Kang.

In no time, customer traffic to any shop associated with Li Kang plummeted.

Potential business partnerships with him evaporated one after another.

Even at high-society galas, the moment any female relatives from his household appeared, the other ladies would stage a mass walkout, leaving them utterly humiliated and disgraced.

Li Kang quickly felt the immense pressure closing in from all sides.

At first, he paid it no mind. But then Qi Shihao’s trusted agents began to clamp down on his most important illicit businesses, while his main storefronts were suddenly hit by aggressive price-dumping from Mr. Lu’s enterprises. With his profits plummeting, Li Kang began to panic.

What gave him an even bigger headache was that the business partners who usually greeted him with smiles were now avoiding him like the plague.

He finally realized he had poked the hornet’s nest.