"Um? For example?"
"For example, my fly is undone." Jiang Shu answered seriously.
Then he wrote on the screen, "Codewords, they’re a rather common and potent method in Spirit Magic."
"First, you need to understand, what’s at the core of Spirit Magic?" Jiang Shu posed a question to Su Xiaoou.
"The core?" Su Xiaoou was taken aback, then she searched through her meager magic knowledge for a while before replying, "Is it about tricking with lines?"
"Uh... of course not, that’s just one aspect of a magic performance, what does that have to do with the core?" Jiang Shu quickly dismissed it and then wrote on the screen, "It’s information."
"Every act of Spirit Magic is actually abstract and invisible, whether it’s Mind Reading, Thought Transmission, Prediction, or Memory Erasure," he continued, "these are all invisible abilities, so magicians turn them into visible magic effects."
He went on to explain, "So most of the time, the process revolves around ’information,’ which translates to, the reading and passing of information, the appearance and disappearance of information. In a Spirit Magic act, what we magicians do is very simple—"
"Manipulation of information."
"Manipulation of information?" Su Xiaoou repeated, now appearing to gain some real insight into Spirit Magic.
What Jiang Shu had said was simple, yet profound.
Spirit Magic also has myriad principles and methods, but their objectives are often astonishingly consistent, where the magician obtains information from the audience through various means, information that they shouldn’t have otherwise obtained.
Thus, it achieves the effect of baffling the audience’s mind with Spirit Magic.
"Okay, you understand that, right?" Jiang Shu asked, having summarized the core of Spirit Magic as concisely as possible.
"Mmm-hmm." Su Xiaoou nodded.
"Good, once you understand that, the following content will be easy to grasp," Jiang Shu was satisfied, "The use of codewords in magic is essentially the magician’s assistant, like you, or a hidden assistant conveying some secret information to the magician that they shouldn’t know."
"In a two-person Spirit Magic act, um, two-person meaning magician and assistant, not including the audience, codewords are a very common technique. And in solo Spirit Magic, codewords might be used too, but obviously, you can’t let the audience know that there’s a ’traitor’ leaking secrets among them," he said with a laugh.
"Mmm-hmm." Su Xiaoou asked spiritedly, "So, how are codewords conveyed?"
"First, you need to be clear that the magic codeword system follows two principles." Jiang Shu held up two fingers, "Concealment and Intuitiveness. Concealment is simple, the codewords can’t be noticed by the audience. You can let the audience see your actions, but they shouldn’t become suspicious, and obviously, these codeword actions all have to appear natural, they must be motions that would occur normally."
"Next is Intuitiveness, the moment I see the codeword I must be able to understand what you mean without much time to think because if I do, the audience will definitely notice something, and the fluidity of the magic performance would be disrupted and might even fail." Jiang Shu earnestly taught, point by point.
He always took magic seriously; after all, magic is an art form that requires earnest respect.
At least, in his previous life, the professional magicians in the country were a group of lovable individuals who truly loved magic, because it really wasn’t a lucrative profession.
If one doesn’t truly have a passion for it, who would persevere?
As the saying goes among magicians, if you live on magic, you don’t have much money; if you pursue magic as a hobby, you have even less.
Of course, the magic threshold domestically is rather low; there are many who dare to take on commercial performances after just learning the basics.
Poor audience atmosphere, uneven magician skill levels, weak innovation in magic, overly homogeneous performances focused too much on Paper Card Magic, etc., the atmosphere in the magic community is not great.
However, it is also actively healing itself, with many outstanding magicians striving hard for the development of magic.
"Understood." Su Xiaoou nodded, thinking it over.
"Then the rest is easy, I’ll teach you a common one," Jiang Shu took a deck of cards from the table and showed Su Xiaoou the back of the cards, "Look, divide the area evenly on top, middle, bottom, left, middle, right; this creates nine sections."
"Mmm-hmm."
"Then like this, hold the cards normally..." Jiang Shu demonstrated how to normally hold the cards, his thumb naturally pressing on the deck, "and use the position of the thumb’s tip to convey information, this way, you can pass on nine different pieces of information."
"Look, just make the thumb appear natural, simply holding the cards, the audience won’t notice such small details," Jiang Shu continued, "Like, say, using a simple nine-card trick to demonstrate."
"Mmm." Su Xiaoou tried with a deck of cards, it was simple and intuitive, as long as she held them, Jiang Shu could understand a lot of information.
"Like, just dealing out nine cards randomly..." As Jiang Shu spoke, he casually laid out nine cards in a 3x3 grid on the table, backs facing up, "then I hand you the rest of the deck, very naturally, very logically."