“Oh?” Qi Xia responded indifferently.
This reaction clearly displeased the elderly man before him.
“What kind of attitude is that, young man?!” the old man snapped. “Do you think I’ve lost my mind?!”
“I just want to ask you…” Qi Xia said slowly, “If someone can neither see nor hear, can’t even smell or eat… Can such a thing still be called a ‘person’?”
“Why not?!” The old man blinked suddenly, as if struck by an idea. “Ah, no wonder… This must be what those ‘archaeologists’ on TV are always researching! They study how ancient humans survived! Yes! That’s it—I’m now an archaeologist of the ‘Land of the End’… I must persist in my research!”
Qi Xia said nothing, merely staring coldly at the old man.
He actually referred to a decade-old skeleton as “ancient.”
Shaking his head, the old man muttered, “What a pity… Before, I could just dig and ‘echo,’ but this time, it’s like I’ve been cursed—the deeper I dig, the less ‘echo’ I get… Strange. Maybe I need to keep digging…”
“Stop digging,” Qi Xia said coldly. “If you keep going, something bad will happen.”
“Something bad…?” The old man paused, then flashed a nervous smile. “Young man, do you know something?!”
“No,” Qi Xia shook his head.
“Tell me!” The old man’s face twisted with excitement. “I’m burning with curiosity! This question has haunted me—were all the ‘participants’ active here ten years ago faceless?! What a monumental discovery! Just like you said… Could they even walk? Did they have their own way of perceiving the world? How did they communicate?”
Qi Xia remained silent, his cold gaze fixed on the old man before taking a slow step back.
Standing at the edge of the pit, the old man’s eyes gleamed. “Was it all of them… or just a few who mutated? There are so many skulls down there without faces… It confirms they were a whole group!”
“I said, stop digging,” Qi Xia murmured softly behind him. “If you give up this research, you might still have a good ending.”
“How can I resist studying this?!” the old man cried. “All progress in the world begins with ‘curiosity’! Now that I know, I must find the answer… They’re just bones. Would the rulers here really kill me over them?”
“They won’t, but others might,” Qi Xia replied.
“Even death doesn’t matter…” the old man muttered. “I’ll keep researching, even if it kills me.”
Qi Xia stared at the old man’s back in silence, feeling as though ‘curiosity’ was a plague festering within him—incurable, inescapable, and ultimately fatal.
The old man continued murmuring to himself. Perhaps he hadn’t been insane when Qi Xia first met him, but the joy of unearthing the skull had slowly eroded his reason.
He believed he had found the ultimate answer, unaware that this skull was a ticket out of the cycle.
After muttering for a while, the old man realized the young man behind him had been silent for too long. He turned, about to speak, when a hand suddenly pressed against his chest.
The push wasn’t too strong, nor too weak—just enough to send him tumbling into the pit behind him.
Caught off guard, the old man had no time to grab hold of anything. He fell straight down.
*Thud!*
A dull impact, followed by a pained groan. The pit wasn’t deep, and the soil below was soft. He scrambled to his feet, shouting upward, “What’s the meaning of this?! Young man! What are you doing?!”
After a moment, Qi Xia reappeared at the edge of the pit, holding an oil lamp. The dim light cast eerie shadows across his pale gray eyes, making him look like a demon.
“I warned you,” Qi Xia said. “But you refused.”
“Warned me…?” The old man suddenly understood. “You don’t want me to keep investigating?! Why?!”
Qi Xia didn’t answer, only stared down coldly.
The old man shivered under that gaze and quickly bent down, pulling another skull from the pit.
“Young man, don’t you believe me?!” He held up the skull, showing it to Qi Xia. “Look! There are more down here! The whole place is full of them! Bones of faceless people, buried underground! Aren’t you curious about what happened?!”
“I’m not curious,” Qi Xia said. “Because I already know the answer.”
“What…?!” The old man blinked.
“And I can’t let anyone else know that answer. So you have to die,” Qi Xia stated.
The old man slowly raised his head. Fear wasn’t what filled his expression—it was the bitter frustration of being denied the truth.
“What kind of logic is that…?” he muttered. “You can know, but I can’t? Why must I die for it?”
“Exactly,” Qi Xia replied. “At this point, no disruptions are allowed. So I’ll have to trouble you.”
“You…” The old man lowered his head. “It’s useless… Even if you kill me, even if I lose my memories, I’ll still be curious. I’ll dig up all the secrets eventually… I’ll find the answer one day. How will you stop me then?”
Those were the words Qi Xia least wanted to hear.
His expression darkened. “I never expected someone like you here. Everyone else is focused on breaking the games, escaping the city, and ultimately leaving this place. But you… you’re obsessed with what’s buried underground.”
“Is that wrong?!” the old man snapped, looking up. “Maybe if I dig deep enough, I’ll find a way out no one has discovered! Young man… Won’t you join me?!”
“No,” Qi Xia replied. “When you finally dig through, you’ll find an endless abyss waiting for you.”
“What…?” The old man froze. “Then where exactly are we? Why are these corpses buried here? It’s fine if you won’t tell me… I’ll find the answer myself… One day!!”
“Rest assured,” Qi Xia said. “There won’t be a next cycle for you.”
“What?!”
Qi Xia took a step back, vanishing into the darkness.
“Hey! Don’t go!” the old man shouted. “What nonsense are you spouting?! No next cycle?! Who do you think you are—a ‘god’?!”
Only the sound of rustling came from above. No reply.
Before the old man could shout again, the skull was tossed back into the pit, followed by a cascade of dirt raining down from above.
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