"I saw it perfectly clearly. How could it be wrong?" the middle-aged man said, frowning. "There are a total of four candies in the box."
"Are you sure?" Milady asked again and again. When he stuck to his answer, she smiled. "Then I'll change the number of candies."
All eyes in the audience fell on Milady. She once again reached one hand into the box, her other hand blocking the opening. After a moment, she said, "Alright, scan it again."
This time, four candies were clearly displayed in mid-air.
Even though the image was read without a hitch, Milady wore an air of complete confidence. The middle-aged man looked at her, and hesitation crept into his voice. He said slowly, "You… you added one. Including mine, there are now five candies in total."
"Are you sure? Your mechanism made a mistake," Milady said, as if deeply concerned for him. She shook the candies in the paper box. "This new mechanism must be expensive, right? Are you sure you want to give it to me? You should reconsider."
"Are you trying to make me doubt myself, to make me make a mistake?" Sweat beaded on the middle-aged man's forehead. He gritted his teeth and said, "Five! I trust the Shadow Appearance Mechanism. It can't be wrong."
"Looks like I'll be taking this mechanism home today," Milady said, shaking her head.
The crowd could no longer contain their excitement, shouting for her to open the box. People who had just arrived were busy asking others what was happening. The commotion gradually spilled out into the street, causing several youths walking in the distance to stop and stand at the edge of the crowd, staring at the demonstration's stage from afar.
Milady looked up, and her gaze met theirs.
Her expression didn't change. She turned to the middle-aged man and said, "But my guess is six in total."
The people in the audience probably never imagined they'd be so fixated on a few persimmon candies today. When the two paper boxes were lifted from the table, the crowd fell silent for two seconds before an uproar erupted. A spectator in the front row turned and shouted, "Six! There really are six!"
There were six persimmon candies in total. Five were under Milady's box, their orange-red color bleeding slightly onto the tablecloth.
"I win," Milady said, smiling again.
"How is that possible?" The middle-aged man was utterly shocked. He turned to his assistant and asked, "Did you mess up the operation?"
"N-No," the assistant said, panicking as well. "I scanned every corner and kept the correct distance… You saw me!"
"Don't blame him." Milady raised a hand, signaling for the crowd to quiet down. The gazes of the youths in the distance felt like needles on her skin. "He did a good job. The man wasn't lying, and the Shadow Appearance Mechanism is indeed an excellent device… The truth is, I played a little trick."
"What kind of trick?" the middle-aged man asked, startled.
"From the moment we started this guessing game, you were never going to win, sir," she said with a smile. "The reason I changed the candies and made you guess twice wasn't just to find out how many you put down. More importantly, I was buying time."
She pointed to one of the candies on the table. "See this one? Notice how its color has started to bleed?"
The middle-aged man nodded.
"While I was repeatedly asking if you were sure, my hand was in my pocket, clutching it the whole time."
Milady turned the box over and pointed to an orange-red spot on the inner wall. "In the summer, your body temperature is higher. After holding the persimmon candy in my palm for a while, it starts to melt a little and gets sticky. When I was 'changing the number of candies,' I put another candy on the table, but I took the opportunity to stick the melted one to the inside wall of the box. My other hand wasn't there to block the audience's view, but to hold the box in place while I stuck the candy inside so I wouldn't push it away."
The middle-aged man's eyes went wide.
"After you confirmed there were four candies in my box, I told you to reconsider and used that chance to shake the box, making it fall down." Milady saw his unasked question and explained, "Because your assistant bought the candy, you didn't suspect a thing, did you? But in that snack shop, the only kind of candy they sell individually is this persimmon candy, which was very convenient for me."
The middle-aged man understood. "So that's why you specifically told him to buy only ten… The money you gave him was the exact amount, wasn't it?"
"Correct. My apologies, this was a case of a Haidu local taking advantage of an outsider," Milady said with a laugh. "On top of that, I noticed a pattern in how the Shadow Appearance Mechanism operates. Every time it runs, its base has to be aimed at the barrier. Earlier, when you scanned that gentleman's chest tattoo, your assistant even had to flip it over… This means the detection light can only scan objects behind the barrier from a perpendicular angle."