Chapter 152: What Is an Echo

“No… I…” Qi Xia felt something was off. “You’re saying what I just wrote was this?”

“Are you okay, Qi Xia?” Lin Qin asked. “You look exhausted. People need to learn to relieve their stress, or they’ll break under the pressure.”

“You think I’ve gone mad?” Qi Xia frowned, glancing at the paper in his hand. He knew he was perfectly lucid—there was no way he’d lose his mind here.

That bell earlier must have been Aunt Tong activating her ability.

She might have altered what he had written.

Her ability was likely similar to Jiang Ruoxue’s “Causality”—whatever Aunt Tong said would unconditionally become what Qi Xia had written.

The terrifying part of this ability was that others wouldn’t notice anything amiss. To them, the text had always been that way in their memories.

Only the person who wrote it could possibly realize the content had changed.

Aunt Tong smiled faintly. “The explanation will come later. Does anyone else want to guess?”

A few more hands hesitantly went up, and Aunt Tong unhesitatingly gave the answers.

Clearly, her answers didn’t match what the others remembered—but they perfectly matched the content on the slips of paper.

This prompted murmurs among the crowd.

Only when no hands remained raised did Aunt Tong turn around, scanning the room before locking eyes with Qi Xia. “Young man,” she said coolly, “do you think I’m right?”

Though Qi Xia knew her answer was wrong, he had no way to prove it now.

“Yes,” Qi Xia nodded. “But could you tell me why you’re right?”

Aunt Tong gave a slight nod. “That’s a clever question. You’re a very smart boy.”

She turned and wrote another character on the blackboard: “Faith.”

“Many can hear the ‘Echo,’ but few can truly control it,” she said, tapping the word lightly. “The key lies in ‘faith.'”

The crowd still seemed confused.

Qi Xia only knew Yun Yao had once said the “Echo” was a form of “belief.” Had that idea come from Aunt Tong?

“The ‘Echo’ is a gift from the Mother Goddess,” she continued. “She bestowed this power upon us so we might protect ourselves in times of peril. Yet how many truly give thanks to her? Those who wield the ‘Echo’ use their abilities without showing true devotion.”

Hearing this, Qi Xia realized his earlier assumption had been too optimistic.

The “faith” this woman spoke of wasn’t just belief—it was **religious devotion**.

“Among all the ‘Echo’ users I’ve met,” Aunt Tong went on, “none have a higher success rate than I do. And the reason is simple: I believe the Mother Goddess will always protect me, for I am her most devout child.”

If that was the case, Qi Xia had to admit Aunt Tong’s success rate was indeed impressive.

Jiang Ruoxue had only activated her “Causality” twice before calling it “incredible luck.” But Aunt Tong? She’d rattled off answers for seven or eight people without a single rebuttal. Every attempt had succeeded.

“Faith…” Qi Xia mulled over the word silently.

He felt like he was grasping at a faint, elusive clue.

Believe in the “Mother Goddess”…?

After a moment, his eyes widened slightly.

That was it.

**This** was why Aunt Tong had appeared at “Paradise Gate.”

Her theory was crucial!

He’d been too quick to dismiss her earlier.

“Auntie…” Qi Xia raised his hand again, his expression deadly serious. “Are you saying… to successfully activate the ‘Echo,’ we must believe, wholeheartedly, that it **will** succeed?”

“Yes. You really are a clever boy,” Aunt Tong smiled. “You must believe, without a shred of doubt, in the power the Mother Goddess has given you. Only then can you glimpse the truth.”

If that was the case, everything suddenly made sense.

“What if…” Qi Xia pressed, testing his theory, “my ‘Echo’ was to pull a stack of cash from my pocket? How would your theory apply?”

“Simple. You’d need to genuinely believe, in your subconscious, that there **is** a stack of cash in your pocket. No hesitation, no doubt. Only then could you borrow the Mother Goddess’s power to manifest it.”

“I see…” Qi Xia lowered his head, murmuring to himself.

Trains don’t plow into cities. The sky doesn’t rain meteors.

Han Yimo was safe.

Because those absurd disasters couldn’t happen in reality—his subconscious would never believe in them.

Even if he was always the “Disaster Magnet,” the calamities he attracted were still within the realm of plausibility.

Fishhooks flying wildly in a room? He could believe he’d be impaled. That was feasible.

But the “Seven Black Swords”?

Now that was interesting. Why would Han Yimo believe such a sword truly existed?

There was only one answer.

As a writer, to immerse himself in his story, he had to **genuinely believe** the sword was real. He wasn’t just crafting fiction—he was recounting truth.

If a writer didn’t believe in his own creations, how could his readers?

So, in that pitch-black dawn, he had unconsciously materialized the “Seven Black Swords.” And just as he imagined, one pierced him fatally.

Officer Li’s actions also made sense now. When he first pulled out his lighter and cigarettes, he was already on the verge of collapse from blood loss. He might not even have known where he was.

So his subconscious insisted his pockets always held a lighter and smokes.

That also explained why he only produced a fourth “Dao” in his final moments. When he was fully aware he only had three, there was no way a fourth could appear.

But in his delirium, near death, he forgot he’d given one to Qi Xia.

And so, the fourth emerged.

As for Aunt Tong’s unnaturally high success rate? It wasn’t about controlling her subconscious—it was her **absolute faith** in the Mother Goddess. She believed, with every fiber of her being, that devotion guaranteed success.

A fortunate coincidence had made her a formidable “Echo” user.

“It all fits…” Qi Xia muttered. “This is the perfect explanation for the ‘Echo.’ It’s not a superpower—it’s **belief**. It’s subconscious. It’s persistent…”

Lin Qin and the others exchanged glances, unsure what to make of his sudden epiphany.

“Lin Qin,” Qi Xia suddenly turned to her, “can you do me a favor?”

“A favor?”