Chu Tianqiu, Dr. Zhao, and Han Yimo sat quietly in the classroom.
It was the “Pegasus Hour,” a time of widespread devastation, yet the three remained motionless in their seats.
Three black threads slithered through the door, only to crumble into black dust the moment they neared the trio.
On the ground, three small mounds of black powder had already formed.
“Dr. Zhao… you’re incredible…” Han Yimo murmured, his lips barely moving. “Can you turn *anything* into dust?”
“Anything?” Dr. Zhao shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
“But your ability is so powerful!” Han Yimo insisted. “You’re just sitting here doing nothing, and those black threads keep disintegrating! You’re like some kind of ‘savior,’ saving all three of us!”
“A savior…?” Dr. Zhao let out a bitter laugh. “You flatter me. If I managed to save us, it was pure dumb luck.”
“Oh…?” Chu Tianqiu chuckled softly. “What kind of ‘dumb luck’?”
“I just wished for these three threads to crumble,” Dr. Zhao said helplessly. “But they seem to be constantly regenerating. So now we’re stuck in this bizarre equilibrium—they grow and disintegrate at the same rate, making it look like they’re frozen in midair.”
“So your ‘Disintegration’ won’t stop until its goal is achieved…” Chu Tianqiu grinned, nodding slowly. “Tell me, Dr. Zhao, when do you think you’ll be able to ‘disintegrate’ a human?”
“Disintegrate… a human?” Dr. Zhao stiffened slightly. “Wait—Chu Tianqiu, what are you thinking? Are you planning to use this ability to… *kill* people?”
Chu Tianqiu clenched his right hand into a fist and raised it before his eyes. “Kill? No, killing isn’t the goal. I’m just looking forward to the day you can reduce all the so-called ‘upper echelons’ here to dust with a single thought—*whoosh!*”
He suddenly splayed his fingers wide, pointing in five directions as if mimicking some grotesque explosion.
“…Just like that. Gone. Reduced to nothing.”
“Impossible,” Dr. Zhao said flatly. “And though it might sound strange, I *have* actually tried using this ability to kill before. It doesn’t work. I’m certain this ‘Echo’ can only break down inanimate objects.”
He recalled his first game with Qi Xia in Di Ji’s “Weapon Cards” challenge—he had attempted to disintegrate his opponent but failed every time.
“It’s because *you* don’t believe it can happen,” Chu Tianqiu said, adjusting his glasses. “Deep down, you reject the idea. You instinctively believe a living person *shouldn’t* turn to dust. You’re not insane enough. In some ways, you really should take notes from Han Yimo.”
“Me…?” Han Yimo blinked.
“Yes.” Chu Tianqiu smiled. “I’m going to help you break the ‘shackles’ in your minds. The first step? Erase three words from your vocabulary.”
Dr. Zhao frowned. “Which three?”
“**’It’s impossible.’**” Chu Tianqiu replied. “Ever since I fully accepted the rules of this ‘Land of the End,’ I’ve never uttered those words again. Here, *anything* is possible. The biggest mental shackle you have is the subconscious belief that certain things *can’t* happen.”
“But that’s absurd…”
“Not at all.” Chu Tianqiu shook his head. “Here, people can grow razor-sharp blades from their bodies, shed rivers of sand from their eyes, or spew severed tongues from their mouths. If you can accept *those* things… why *can’t* a person turn to dust?”
Dr. Zhao and Han Yimo exchanged uneasy glances.
Chu Tianqiu immediately noticed their hesitation.
“Wait…” He slowly pressed a hand to his forehead, amused. “The way you’re looking at me makes me think I misidentified your shackles.”
Dr. Zhao grew increasingly unsettled—this man seemed to see right through them.
“Could it be… the real shackle is your belief that you’re still ‘decent people’?” Chu Tianqiu burst into quiet laughter. “A writer who spread slanderous rumors and a doctor who killed his patient… and here you are, still clinging to the idea that you’re *good*?”
“Chu Tianqiu, you even know our pasts…” Dr. Zhao said grimly. “So in your eyes, we don’t qualify as ‘good people’?”
“Good people?” Chu Tianqiu smirked. “You mean Han Yimo, who ruined lives with lies, went mad, and slaughtered a family? Or you, Zhao Haibo—the arrogant doctor who took bribes, botched a surgery, and left a patient in a vegetative state?”
Dr. Zhao lowered his head, pain flashing across his face.
“So how *do* you define ‘good’ and ‘evil’?” Han Yimo muttered, his gaze hollow. “We lived our whole lives without harming anyone, just trying to survive… yet one mistake brands us as ‘monsters.'”
Chu Tianqiu stood and walked toward the suspended black threads.
“There *are* no good people in this world… only varying degrees of wickedness.”
“No good people…”
The words struck Dr. Zhao and Han Yimo like a hammer, shattering the last vestiges of their moral certainty.
“In decades of living… have you *never* once had an ‘evil’ thought?” Chu Tianqiu reached out, brushing a finger against one of the threads before examining it. “Saints don’t exist. And even if they did… saints never prosper.”
His eyes held a deeper sorrow than both men combined, as if his words carried some hidden meaning.
After a long silence, Chu Tianqiu’s smile returned. “But thanks to Dr. Zhao, I think I’ve figured out what this ‘Pegasus Hour’ really is.”
He scooped up a pinch of black powder from the ground and pressed it between his thumb and forefinger—only to wince as the particles pierced his skin like tiny needles.
“What the…?”
The other two leaned in, observing closely. Upon inspection, the black particles resembled minuscule rods, half-buried in his flesh.
“Hair,” Chu Tianqiu said, grinning. “Hair hardened like steel, sharp enough to pierce skin.”
“What?!”
“I see now. ‘Hardening,’ ‘Tracking,’ and ‘Rampant Growth’…” Chu Tianqiu’s smile widened unnaturally. “The infamous ‘Pegasus Hour’ that kills indiscriminately… and its mechanism is *this* simple?”
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