132: Chapter 131 shesheshe

However, the expected explosion of laughter did not ring out immediately.

Instead, there was a series of hurried and orderly footsteps, accompanied by the sound of something heavy being dragged.

Sakura quietly opened one eye, looking out through the damp gaps between her eyelashes.

She saw several logistics staff members, who had been hidden in the crowd wearing black production team vests, briskly moving a huge, rolled-up... screen from the other end of the market passage?

The screen looked to be about three meters high, carried by two staff members on either side with another one supporting it from behind. The screen cloth was tightly rolled, making it impossible to see the specific pattern, but the colors seemed to be primarily pink and white.

The staff members had a clear goal and headed straight for the 'courtroom' area. They quickly cleared away the dolls (Kitty, Golden Retriever A, Golden Retriever B) who were still blankly licking their fur (a fake action) and staring at each other. At Jiang Zhiyu's signal, they stood the giant screen scroll upright and placed it behind the spot where the dolls had just been 'fighting'.

"Quick! Move fast!" Jiang Zhiyu urged in a low voice, his eyes flashing with an excited light, as if he were setting up some grand spectacle of the century.

The screen was quickly fixed in place (there seemed to be brackets at the bottom). Then, the three doll staff members seemed to receive new instructions. They controlled the clumsy doll suits, wobbling as they moved, and eventually stood side-by-side directly in front of the upright giant screen scroll. Kitty was in the middle, with the two Golden Retrievers on either side. They also seemed to 'sense' something and became unusually 'quiet' (actually, the staff were waiting for the next instruction), though the doll suits still looked a bit messy from the 'brawl' earlier, stained with dust and a few strands of colored yarn.

Next, Jiang Zhiyu turned around, a smile even more 'radiant' and 'encouraging' than before plastered on his face. He walked up to Sakura, who was still in a state of shameful system-crash, bowed slightly, and made an extremely gentlemanly 'invitation' gesture:

"Sakura-xi! Well done! Your 'Saintess of Sakura' power has successfully summoned and locked onto the targets! Now, it's time to reveal the final form of your ultimate move!"

Sakura: "...Final form?" She felt a sense of despair, like she had just crawled out of a fire pit only to see a boiling oil vat ahead.

"That's right!" Jiang Zhiyu pointed at the giant screen scroll and the three dolls in front of it, who looked like 'lambs to the slaughter.' "Please move to the 'Ultimate Move Release Position'! We will record this historic moment for you!"

Without further ado, Kim Minju (still holding the red cabbage and megaphone, but seemingly having become one of the 'staff members' at this moment) and another female assistant stepped forward. They gently supported (actually, half-pushed) Sakura, whose legs were still a bit weak, and led her to the giant screen scroll. She was positioned exactly about two meters in front of the three dolls, facing the screen (with her back to the dolls).

Then, an even more ridiculous prop made its appearance.

A staff member handed over a cherry blossom branch made of plastic, but the workmanship was quite realistic, even featuring a few silk cherry blossoms.

Another staff member quickly skewered three freshly fried, golden-crisp, steaming rice cake balls drizzled with sweet and spicy sauce from Jiang Zhiyu's stall and handed them to Sakura's other empty hand.

Sakura stood before the giant unknown screen with a cherry blossom branch in her left hand and three fragrant rice cake balls in her right, her back to the dumbfounded onlookers and her teammates who were suffering internal injuries from holding back their laughter, facing three furry doll butts... She felt that her life had never been so absurdly ridiculous.

"Good! Sakura! Pose! Imagine you are a Cherry Blossom Warrior protecting the world! Use your cherry blossom branch to guide the light of purification! Use your rice cake balls to deliver the final judgment upon evil!" Jiang Zhiyu 'guided' her from the side with exaggerated gestures, his tone high-pitched and excited. "Come! Strike the coolest, most sacred, and most impactful freeze-frame pose! Just like a movie poster!"

Sakura was already numb. Having reached the peak of shame, a strange sense of calm (or rather, self-abandonment) emerged instead. She took a deep breath (smelling the fragrance of the rice cake balls), tried to recall the feeling of a photoshoot, and stiffly raised the cherry blossom branch in her left hand toward the sky (even though the market's sunshade was overhead). Her right hand held the rice cake ball skewer across her chest as she turned slightly. She forced a complex expression onto her face—a mix of 'determination,' 'sanctity,' and 'what the hell is going on'—and gazed (with dead eyes) into the distance (actually at the market's pork stall).

"Excellent! That's the feeling! Hold it!" Jiang Zhiyu shouted in approval, while simultaneously waving his hand sharply at the staff members controlling the screen!

"ACTION!"

At Jiang Zhiyu's command, the two staff members standing on either side of the screen pulled hard on the ropes at the bottom of the scroll!

Swoosh—!

The giant screen fabric unfurled rapidly downward!

Revealing the pattern on the screen—

It was a giant painting with an extremely... ukiyo-e and cartoon hybrid style.

The background was a shower of pink cherry blossoms falling from the sky. In the center of the image was a personified, fiercely cute (?) giant rice cake ball wearing a Japanese jinbaori (fantasy style), holding... uh, also a skewer of rice cake balls (as a weapon), in a charging pose. Behind and beneath the feet of the rice cake ball warrior were several simple sketches of small cats and dogs knocked to the ground with stars spinning over their heads (clearly referencing images like Kitty and Snoopy, but not drawn quite accurately)!

This screen pattern perfectly integrated the elements of 'cherry blossoms,' 'rice cake balls,' and 'defeating cats and dogs.' Although the art style was peculiar, it was incredibly impactful, especially when paired with the scene of Sakura standing in front of it with a cherry blossom branch in her left hand and a rice cake ball skewer in her right, striking a final battle pose.

The moment the screen was fully unfurled and this absurd 'ultimate move illustration' was completely revealed—

The three dolls (Kitty and the two Golden Retrievers) standing in front of the screen with their backs to it reacted simultaneously and extremely dramatically, as if they had truly been hit by the 'power' of the 'Rice Cake Ball Instant Kill Array'!

"Meow-ooh—!!!" The Kitty doll let out a long, pitch-shifted, shrill cat cry. The entire doll suit swayed violently from side to side before 'thump,' it fell forward onto the ground. Its giant head hit the floor (which had a soft mat), and the 'hands' holding the yarn ball went limp, letting the ball roll away.

"Woof woof—!!" "Awoo-ooh—!!" The two Golden Retriever dolls also let out tragic howls (pitch-shifted versions). One looked as if it had been hit in the stomach by an invisible force; the doll suit arched its body sharply before falling backward, its limbs (doll legs) kicking wildly. The other seemed as if its soul had been drained; it spun around twice weakly on the spot before slumping down crookedly, its dog head drooping and its tongue (a piece of red cloth) hanging out sideways.

Almost at the same time, the three dolls 'collapsed' or 'went limp' in various comical, theatrical, and exaggerated poses, accompanied by those miserable meows and woofs, as if they had truly been 'instantly killed' by Sakura's 'telepathic rice cake balls.'

And Sakura remained in that cool (stupidly cute) freeze-frame pose, pointing to the sky with her left hand and holding the rice cake balls across her chest, with her back to the image of the 'Rice Cake Ball Warrior beating up cats and dogs' and three 'victimized' giant plush toys in front of her...

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

"CUT—!!!!" Jiang Zhiyu shouted, drawing out the sound. He was the first to applaud vigorously, his face overflowing with an incredibly proud and moved expression, as if he had just witnessed an Oscar ceremony.

"Perfect! Absolutely perfect!" He walked excitedly into the center of the area. First, he looked at the dolls 'lying on the ground,' nodding with satisfaction, then turned to Sakura, who was still frozen there, his eyes full of 'a student worth teaching' appreciation.

"Sakura! You did it! You successfully released the 'Sakura Kill of Love and Justice! Rice Cake Ball Instant Kill Array'! Look!" He pointed at the 'twitching' dolls on the ground and the giant screen. "The evil Star Demons Claws have been completely purified (physically flattened) under your cherry blossom power and the light of rice cake ball justice!"

He turned to the camera (and the onlookers), spread his arms, and said loudly in a stirring tone, as if announcing world peace:

"What a fantastic ultimate move!! Sakura has saved the market! Saved the trial! Saved the water bottle on top of Wonyoung's head (!)! She is our hero! Our savior!!"

"Let's give our applause and cheers to the great 'Saintess of Sakura'—Miyawaki Sakura!!!!"

Under Jiang Zhiyu's highly inflammatory leadership, some passersby who enjoyed a good spectacle actually started to applaud, mixed with whistles and cheers. The production team staff also joined in the applause, their faces full of laughter they couldn't hold back.

Kim Minju put down the megaphone and red cabbage (finally) and also clapped gently, her eyes looking at Sakura with sympathy, admiration, and a sense of 'you worked hard.'

The water bottle on top of Jang Wonyoung's head finally tilted slightly with a 'click' when she tried to relax a bit after holding one pose and being emotionally excited for so long, but fortunately, it didn't fall. She couldn't care about the trial at this moment; she just looked at the Sakura Unnie ahead with an incredibly complex gaze—a figure like a sculpture, whose back was written with a loss of will to live yet was somehow 'glorious.'

And Sakura, at the center of it all, finally slowly and extremely stiffly lowered her aching arms after hearing Jiang Zhiyu's 'savior' declaration and the surrounding applause.

She lowered her head, looking at the incredibly fake silk flowers on the plastic cherry blossom branch in her left hand, and then at the three rice cake balls on the bamboo skewer in her right hand, which were already a bit cold but still emitted the fragrance of sweet and spicy sauce...

Then she recalled the shameful lines she had just shouted, the chuunibyou pose she had struck, the ridiculous screen behind her, and the dolls in front of her with their various 'death poses'...

A massive wave, a mixture of extreme shame, utter absurdity, and... a tiny bit of exhaustion and a strange 'sense of accomplishment' after completing a ridiculous 'performance' that even she couldn't understand, flooded over her.

Silently, she brought the rice cake ball skewer in her right hand to her mouth and bit down fiercely on one.

Chew, chew.

Hmm, the taste... was okay.

It's just that the price of 'saving the world' was a bit too shameful.

Seeing Sakura eat the rice cake balls as if 'venting her anger,' Jiang Zhiyu laughed even more happily.

The market trial for Group C reached its peak of absurdity and shame with the 'ultimate move debut' of the 'Saintess of Sakura,' but it also weirdly... came to a temporary close? At least, the demon claws of the dolls had 'fallen.'

As for what 'surprises' were next...

Who knows? After all, PD Jiang's imagination is endless.