New Three Kingdoms Tales: Starting as the expressionless Liu Bei

Just then, a chill crept up Liu Bei's spine. He keenly sensed that something was amiss.

He glanced slowly around out of the corner of his eye. The clamor of the battlefield had completely vanished at some point. Everyone present, including Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Tang Xiaohu, stopped what they were doing.

As if bound by an invisible thread, they all turned their gazes toward Liu Bei, fixing them firmly on him.

Zhang Fei's eyes lost their usual sparkle, becoming as empty as two dried-up wells.

He strode towards Liu Bei like a puppet on a string. The muscles on his dark face were forcibly pulled, squeezing out an extremely eerie smile.

"Brother, we've won the battle, why do you always have the same expression?" He walked up to Liu Bei, his tone less celebratory and more like a sinister interrogation. "Smile. Give me a smile."

Liu Bei didn't even glance at him, but stared blankly at the fake Yuan Shu in front of him.

Seeing that Liu Bei completely ignored him, a twisted anger flashed in Zhang Fei's empty eyes.

He suddenly stretched out his hands and gripped Liu Bei's shoulders tightly, his fingers almost digging into his flesh, and shook him violently.

"Big brother! Answer me! Laugh! Laugh now!"

Liu Bei's shoulders were gripped so tightly they ached, yet he remained completely still. His face showed no emotion, not even a furrow of his brow.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Fei's dark face finally contorted completely. Like a child who had been rejected and was now furious, he roared at Liu Bei in a fit of rage.

"Why aren't you smiling? Why aren't you smiling!"

boom!

A violent and eerie aura suddenly exploded from Zhang Fei's body, instantly tearing his clothes to shreds. The aura, like a thick black mist, swirled around him and rapidly increased in intensity.

Zhang Fei's muscles bulged, veins stood out, and his eyes turned completely bloodshot.

The next moment, a fierce wind arose. Zhang Fei's eighteen-foot spear suddenly expanded several times its original size, transforming into a gigantic, pitch-black spear that blotted out the sky.

The spear, imbued with immense force, tore through the air with a piercing shriek, crashing down towards Liu Bei's head. Had the blow landed, it would have been enough to grind him and the ground beneath him into dust.

Faced with this devastating blow, Liu Bei did not dodge.

He seemed to have completely disconnected from the world, and even his instinctive survival instincts had vanished.

He just stood there quietly, his hands hanging at his sides, without even blinking.

His calm gaze pierced through the approaching giant spear and landed on Zhang Fei's twisted and ferocious face, as if he were looking at a painting that had nothing to do with him.

The giant spear crashed down with earth-shattering force, but stopped abruptly just inches from Liu Bei's head.

A strange tranquility quietly rose within him, like ripples spreading slowly across a lake where a pebble had been thrown in.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment. The massive, jet-black spear remained suspended in mid-air, motionless, like a painting that had been paused.

Zhang Fei's ferocious expression, the strange looks in everyone's eyes, and the lingering dust on the battlefield were all frozen in this moment.

Liu Bei's lips didn't move. But deep down, a confident smile appeared on his face. Everything was going exactly as he had predicted.

Rule 1: Seeing is not believing. Do not trust what you see, and whatever happens, always maintain a blank expression.

Zhang Fei had been pressuring him relentlessly just now, all to make him reveal even the slightest expression.

If he were to actually laugh, he would be like Yuan Shao, whose vulnerability would be exploited and completely corrupted.

But he held on. As long as he maintained this expressionless mask, nothing in this illusion could harm him in the slightest.

Suddenly, a thin crack appeared in the sky above. Like a canvas torn by a sharp blade, behind the crack lay pure nothingness—no light, no color, nothing at all.

The cracks began to spread in all directions, rapidly expanding like a spider web.

The entire sky began to peel away and collapse, along with the giant spear frozen in mid-air, the twisted Zhang Fei, and the silent crowd, all of which began to shatter.

Liu Bei finally closed his eyes slightly. He no longer looked at this crumbling world, but simply waited quietly. He waited for the end of all this falsehood, and for the return of reality.

"Clap clap clap".

A sudden burst of crisp, loud applause rang out, like a sharp blade slicing through frozen time and space, violently pulling Liu Bei out of a void abyss.

He suddenly opened his eyes, the lingering image of the shattered sky when the illusion collapsed still visible deep in his pupils.

Time never lies. He clearly sensed that from the moment he fell into Cao Cao's illusion until he woke up, only one second had passed in reality.

"A son should be like Liu Bei!" Cao Cao clapped his hands and laughed, his eyes gleaming with undisguised admiration. "Xuande, you are truly unfathomable. You actually saw through my illusion. Interesting, truly interesting!"

He laughed heartily, his tone devoid of any anger at being exposed, but rather filled with the exhilarating satisfaction of meeting a worthy opponent.

Liu Bei slowly regained his composure and calmly surveyed his surroundings. The thatched hut was still the same thatched hut, the table was still the same table, and even the sunlight filtering through the window had not moved an inch.

Tang Xiaohu was nervously guarding him from behind, and everything was exactly the same as before he fell into the illusion.

He finally exhaled the pent-up breath that had been pressing on his chest.

They finally escaped.

Liu Bei's mind raced, and he instantly got into character. His face remained expressionless, but his tone was full of genuine admiration.

"Cao Cao is truly a rare and treacherous man, which has impressed me greatly."

If these words had fallen into the ears of others, they would probably have slammed their fists on the table and drawn their swords. But Cao Cao was no ordinary man.

Instead of getting angry, he smiled and waved his hands repeatedly, his brows revealing undisguised delight. Then, he reached into his sleeve and slowly took out something.

It was a pair of eyeballs that were still slightly twitching. The surface of the eyeballs was covered with blood vessels, and the cloudy pupils revealed an empty indifference, as if they were still blankly looking at this unfamiliar world.

Liu Bei's heart tightened suddenly. He recognized those eyes; they were Gongsun Zan's eyes. What was Cao Cao about to do?

Before Liu Bei could think it over, Cao Cao burst into laughter, held the strange eyeballs in his palm, and casually handed them to Liu Bei.

"Everyone who manages to escape from my illusion deserves a reward from me."

Cao Cao's smile held a hint of amusement, yet also an undeniable sincerity.

"This soul of Gongsun Zan is yours. You only need to put it back in his eye socket, and he will return to normal."

At this point, Cao Cao suddenly took a half step closer. His deep black eyes locked onto Liu Bei's, and his tone suddenly lowered, revealing a chilling aura.

"However, next time, don't let me catch you again." He paused, a meaningful smile playing on his lips. "Otherwise, his soul will never return."

What?

Liu Bei's heart tightened. His first reaction wasn't joy, but vigilance. Cao Cao's illusion just now was too realistic; it was hard to say whether this wasn't another trick.

He didn't reach out to touch the eyeball, but just stared at it as if it might turn into a venomous snake at any moment.

Cao Cao did not give him a chance to ask further questions. In the blink of an eye, the figure vanished silently before his eyes, like ink scattered by the wind.

Liu Bei withdrew his gaze, staring at the pair of slightly twitching eyeballs on the table, lost in thought. A moment later, a loud crash came from behind him.

That was the sound of a wooden door being smashed open. Liu Bei turned his head and looked over. He saw Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Yuan Shu standing in the doorway, covered in dust and looking disheveled.

Zhang Fei's face was still flushed from the drinking contest with Cao Ren, but the anxiety and ecstasy in his eyes were unmistakably real.

Upon seeing that Liu Bei was unharmed, the muscles on his face twitched twice, and then he rushed over like lightning, kneeling down with a thud.

"Brother! Thank goodness you're alright! Otherwise, my second brother and I would have regretted it for the rest of our lives!" He raised his head, his eyes slightly red, his voice filled with unprecedented fear. "It's all my second brother's fault for being too fond of drinking and falling for that traitor Cao's diversionary tactic! Starting tomorrow, I will abstain from lust!"

Liu Bei's lips twitched almost imperceptibly. Looking at Zhang Fei kneeling on the ground with tears still glistening in his eyes, the tension in Liu Bei's heart finally eased.

It was me. This unreliable way of admitting fault, this slip of the tongue that called quitting drinking quitting sex, this contradictory and outrageous behavior of being afraid of death in normal times but showing genuine feelings at this moment, you can't find another one like it in the whole world.

He secretly exhaled a breath of stale air and fixed his gaze on Yuan Shu.