“How would I know?” Qi Xia retorted.
“Clearly, it’s your own ‘Echo’ and the things you’ve done, yet you pretend not to know?” Chu Tianqiu asked.
Qi Xia shook his head helplessly. “Chu Tianqiu, forget about me not knowing—even ‘Tianshe’ can’t decipher my thoughts.”
“Oh…?”
“He’s far more lucid than I am,” Qi Xia said.
Chu Tianqiu frowned slightly. “So, when I wrote those two notes, was I also thrown into chaos by your thoughts?”
“You’d have to ask yourself that,” Qi Xia replied. “I’m not you. I have no idea what you’re thinking. Maybe I haven’t concealed anything at all—you might just be the one who’s gone mad.”
“I… am mad?” Chu Tianqiu nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t go insane after killing Wen Qiaoyun. I was already mad long before I killed her.”
Then he looked at Qi Xia again and asked, “So when did *you* go mad?”
“I’m not mad,” Qi Xia answered. “My mind has never been clearer than it is now.”
“Is that so?” Chu Tianqiu chuckled dryly. “True lunatics never realize they’re insane. It seems I’m still a step behind you.”
“You can’t say that,” Qi Xia shook his head. “You have a natural advantage over me. As long as you’re in ‘Echo,’ you can become a rational madman. I can’t. Unless I completely shatter my own psychological defenses and rebuild them with the most terrifying things imaginable, I’d never reach this state.”
“Completely shatter your psychological defenses…?” Chu Tianqiu paused, taken aback. “And rebuild them with the most terrifying things…?”
“Exactly.”
“Is that something a normal person can do?”
“Are we… even normal people anymore?” Qi Xia asked.
“We…” Chu Tianqiu let out a bitter laugh. “Right… We might not even qualify as ‘people’ at this point, huh?”
“No. No ‘person’ can leave this place,” Qi Xia said.
“Then how exactly did you shatter your ‘psychological defenses’?”
“Have you… ever felt *fear*?” Qi Xia countered.
“*Fear*?” Chu Tianqiu found the word amusing. He raised his slender, bloodstained fingers and pointed at the dark red sky above. “Qi Xia, do you know why the sky is that color?”
Qi Xia looked up. “Because it’s filled with the rotting flesh and blood of everyone who’s turned to dust over the decades.”
Chu Tianqiu then gestured to the corpses scattered across the field. “And do you know why those people are lying there?”
“Because someone needed them dead, so they died.”
“Precisely,” Chu Tianqiu said. “This place has no ‘common sense’ and no ‘laws.’ Anyone can kill for their own whims. We live here to die, yet we die to live. Those who protect you may want you dead, and those who try to kill you might want you alive…”
“That’s how it is.”
“And yet, walking on streets so sticky they feel alive, you ask me if I’ve ever felt *fear*?” Chu Tianqiu grinned. “Qi Xia, every single day here, my back is ice-cold, my scalp is numb—I’m terrified.”
“Oh?”
“But what good does that do?” Chu Tianqiu shook his head. “So many people place their hopes in me. I have to pretend everything’s fine, act stronger than anyone, and keep telling them there’s hope ahead. Wandering this hellish city, and you ask me if I’ve felt *fear*?”
“But that’s nowhere near enough,” Qi Xia said. “Just having a cold back and a numb scalp for decades—how can that be called *fear*?”
Chu Tianqiu scoffed and turned to stare into Qi Xia’s eyes. “Then tell me… what *is* fear?”
Qi Xia’s expression remained blank. “The fear I speak of… is about those you love.”
“Ha.” Chu Tianqiu laughed dryly. “Those you love? Were they kidnapped? Murdered? Is that what terrifies you? Qi Xia, I *personally* killed Wen Qiaoyun.”
Qi Xia took a deep breath. “What if Wen Qiaoyun was uncontrollably replicated into countless copies? One of them had her eyeball ‘gigantified’ and hung in the sky as the sun, while the others were torn apart—flesh and bones reforged into a city. Her meat paved the ground, her bones formed the walls, her blood pooled into rivers so toxic even fish couldn’t breathe in them. And every day, you walked atop her shattered flesh, each step causing her unbearable agony, the air thick with the scent of rust. The entire city pulsed like a living beast, yet you had no way to save her, and she no way to save you. The only Wen Qiaoyun still capable of movement, just to keep you from losing your mind… pretended nothing was wrong, cooking you meals with maggots and chunks of her own flesh. *How’s that for fear?*”
Chu Tianqiu fell into a long silence.
If what he had described was *fear*, then Qi Xia’s scenario defied the word entirely.
No dictionary could provide a term for that sensation.
If he stood in a city built from Wen Qiaoyun’s flesh and blood—what would he feel?
Horror? Dread?
No. There were no words.
“Qi Xia, and you still claim you’re not mad?” Chu Tianqiu asked.
“I may have already moved past ‘madness,'” Qi Xia replied flatly. “I feel like I’ve reached a realm no one’s ever touched. To process thoughts at this level… ‘madness’ isn’t enough.”
“So this is what you meant—destroying all your psychological defenses and rebuilding them with ‘the most terrifying things’… and those things were Yu Nian’an’s flesh and blood?”
Qi Xia nodded. “Yes.”
“But not even an ‘Echo’ user could achieve that.” Chu Tianqiu’s brows furrowed. “How did *you* do it?”
“It’s a long story. I couldn’t have done it alone—this ‘miracle’ required not just a ‘god’ capable of destroying the entire city, but also a ‘Dreamwalker’ to rebuild it.”
“Those two people you’re talking about…” Chu Tianqiu froze. “No—that’s just *one* person, isn’t it? *He* could do both… You didn’t just manipulate ‘Qinglong,’ you even outmaneuvered ‘Tianlong’?”
Qi Xia slowly closed his eyes. “Chu Tianqiu, we have multiple ‘battlefields.’ The others are beyond my control—only one belongs to me.”
“A battlefield you control…?”
“That’s none of your concern. It’s my own affair,” Qi Xia said.
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