"I won't even explain what a shill is—everyone here understands. And if nothing unexpected happens, those two over there who 'won money and left' are shills too. So why haven't they actually left?"
Luke spoke with total confidence.
"What do you mean by that?"
"We didn't do anything from start to finish. How are we shills now?"
"This is hilarious. Didn't expect to see something like this."
"I only showed up halfway through and I'm a shill too?"
The people Luke pointed at immediately got emotional, all of them glaring at Luke with anger and indignation.
Lux felt a little dizzy, but she wasn't stupid. She was starting to piece it together—she really might've been tricked by a group working together.
"Kid, that joke isn't funny. Who would dare scam a Crownguard?"
The stall owner spoke up, calm as ever. He smiled slightly, his expression still as gentle as it had been—he didn't look like a scammer at all.
Luke looked at him and smiled back. "You would. The capital's huge. You scam someone, lay low for a few days, then come back with a new trick and keep scamming people."
"Brother, I was just passing by, so let me say a word," a spectator who looked like a total bystander stepped forward. "If you're trying to get Lux's attention, you don't need to use tactics like this. The people you're falsely accusing won't take it well."
The way he spoke even sounded reasonable.
His tone made him seem like an upright, kind-hearted guy.
And just like that, he painted Luke as someone trying to pull a stunt to attract Lux's attention.
The surrounding crowd immediately felt it made sense and started echoing him.
Lux had seen plenty of boys try to catch her eye—every trick in the book. Most of the time, she could tell.
But this time, she didn't think Luke felt like that kind of person.
No matter how slow she could be, she should've realized it by now. That feeling of being scammed was getting stronger and stronger inside her.
Luke glanced at the man and chuckled. "You're a shill too. Quit pretending you're just a passerby. Step aside."
The man instantly looked awkward, shaking his head. "You're unbelievable. Using methods like this—what girl would ever like you?"
"See?" Luke said, not bothering to respond to the crowd's criticism at all, continuing instead. "In this kind of scam, the shills' job is exactly this—stir people's emotions. And the people getting stirred up won't even realize they're being led around by shills."
He kept going. "And naturally, they become another kind of shill in the scam. The ones telling you to quit, the ones telling you to play again, the ones who win money, the ones who lose money—every role matters."
When he finished, the crowd went quiet.
No one wanted to admit they'd been emotionally manipulated.
But their silence proved it.
One of the people Luke had called a shill sneered. "Hah. That's all just your analysis. If you're going to talk this big, you need evidence that convinces everyone. You can't just say whatever you want and have it be true."
"Will you hand me the rope?" Luke asked with a faint smile, looking at the stall owner.
"That's how I make my living. How can I just let someone inspect it?" The stall owner's expression didn't change, but inside he was already panicking.
He saw the confidence in Luke's eyes. He didn't want to believe it, but his trick had probably been seen through.
And the pressure of having his method exposed—compared to the fact he had scammed Lux—was nothing.
The weight on his shoulders right now mostly came from one thing: he had tricked a Crownguard.
He hadn't planned on doing it at first, but Lux really was a clueless, easy mark. If he pulled this one off, he could live comfortably for a long time.
"Originally, I only wanted to play a little game with everyone for fun," the stall owner said, putting on a generous expression. "Since you think I'm scamming, I'll return every coin I won—exactly as it was. That should be enough, right?"
He pulled out the money he'd won and placed it on the tabletop. The gesture made him look like he really wasn't a scammer.
Luke, of course, understood. From the start, the stall owner never had the nerve to truly confront him, because street scams like this were easy to expose once you knew where to look.
"Now that you can't keep acting anymore, you want to play the good guy and slip away," Luke said, then looked at Lux. "Lux, what do you think?"
"I don't think so!"
Lux had finally understood what was happening, and her expression was openly irritated.
She was angry.
Only now did that noble aura finally seep out of her—though with that fierce little face, she looked more like an angry cub.
In the blink of an eye, the stall owner didn't hesitate at all. He sprang up and bolted, shooting out of the crowd like a gust of wind.
All that remained was his retreating back as he fled in embarrassment.
"Stop!"
Lux didn't even have time to react properly—she could only shout, and he was already far away.
The other shills saw this and quietly withdrew from the crowd too, scattering and escaping in different directions.
"Damn it… don't let me run into you again!"
Lux clenched her fist, fuming. The stall owner running away was proof enough—he really was a scammer.
But she still didn't understand how he had fooled her.
She turned back to Luke, curiosity on her face. "How did you figure out they were scamming people?"
The spectators who had joined in condemning Luke earlier were curious too.
Luke walked up to the tabletop. The stall owner hadn't managed to take the rope and rod with him. Luke picked up the rope and said, "The problem was always with this rope. When I asked him for it, I was basically telling him I already knew the trick. That's why he didn't even have the courage to face me—he ran."
As he spoke, he began demonstrating the scam's process.
He couldn't reproduce the exact sleight of hand, but the overall setup didn't change. He looped the rope into circles the way the scammer had, forming three rope holes in the middle.
"Lux. Pick one?"
Luke gestured for Lux to choose.
Lux took the rod, picked a rope hole, and said, "I'm choosing for the rope to loop around the rod."
This time, her tone carried confidence.
Because Luke's hands were clumsy—there was basically nothing to hide—so whether the rope could loop around the rod should've been obvious at a glance. The same logic applied: the rope had a head and a tail.
Then Luke pulled the rope.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, the rope was blocked by the rod.
"I get it!"
Lux suddenly cried out, looking like she'd just been struck by a revelation.
Luke's movements were slow—slow enough for her to catch every detail.
"So the rope looks like one rope, but it's actually split into three—your eyes just think it's one. Each 'strand' corresponds to one of the three holes. If the scammer wants to trick you, then no matter which hole you pick, even if you pick the correct one, he can quickly hook the other corresponding strand and switch it—so the result becomes whatever he wants."
After confidently finishing her analysis, Lux looked at Luke with eager expectation. "Am I right?"
"That's the core logic," Luke said. "You're completely right."
In simple terms, it was a visual deception. With enough practice, the quick rope-switch could be done so smoothly no one noticed.
The spectators around them understood now too.
"So that's how it works."
"Scammers are getting more and more disgusting."
"I was this close to getting tricked…"