“Qian Wu did lie…” Qi Xia murmured to himself.
“What?”
In a few words, he shared his suspicions with the group, his eyes revealing an unusual glint.
It was entirely possible that Qian Wu had deceived all of “The Cats,” making them work for him without their knowledge.
But for “The Cats,” for Qian Wu himself…
What other choice did he have?
Though “The Cats” were small in number, and each member had a stubborn and unruly nature, they were all exceptional “Echoers.”
Perhaps these people had truly made mistakes in the real world, or perhaps they had once betrayed their families. But now, in this moment, they were striving for their loved ones, unafraid of dying horribly here over and over again, with no regrets.
This was the “Path of Redemption” they had found in this sunless hell.
Qian Wu would never expose this lie, and neither would they. Even if members of “The Cats” noticed something amiss, they would unconditionally believe that their families would one day become wealthy. This was likely the last defense that had kept their sanity intact all this time.
Upon closer reflection, the actions of Chu Tianqiu and Qian Wu revealed something unusual about their “deal” with the “Zodiacs.”
Everyone here said that the “Land of the End” was a place for sinners who deserved hell—people who had either broken the law, committed wrongs, or lived their lives drowning in regret. They claimed that everyone had been pulled here on their way to hell to compete to become a “god.”
Ironically, this sounded like a place full of villains, yet the two who had taken the risk of making deals with the “Zodiacs”—Chu Tianqiu and Qian Wu—had not done so for themselves.
They could have been selfish. They could have given up on such choices.
Chu Tianqiu had painstakingly built an organization to provide food and aid, while Qian Wu had created a group to help people grow stronger while finding redemption.
Yet in the end, the ones left with nothing were these two leaders. Chu Tianqiu had completely abandoned this path, but Qian Wu was still holding on.
Compared to the other members of their organizations, these two leaders had not received any tangible rewards. Instead, they had gouged out countless eyeballs from their teammates to use as currency, then covered their own eyes with hands stained in their comrades’ blood, deceiving everyone and bearing the crushing weight of guilt.
Even if one day, everyone in their organizations found redemption, these two could never return to the past.
If there was a “cause” for this situation… then Qian Wu’s cause undoubtedly stemmed from Chen Junnan, and Chen Junnan’s cause came from himself.
As for Chu Tianqiu?
Qi Xia rubbed his chin, feeling the answer was obvious—his cause was Wen Qiaoyun. He was shouldering the mission she had once been meant to complete.
Everyone here was clinging to a hope that barely flickered in the darkness.
Just how important was “hope” to a living being capable of thought?
In the 1950s, Dr. Curt Richter of Johns Hopkins University conducted an experiment on “hope.”
He placed a white rat into a water-filled jar. The rat struggled desperately to survive, but after fifteen minutes of futile effort, it exhausted itself and drowned.
Later, he refined the experiment. Just as the rat was about to drown, he reached in and pulled it out, giving it a brief moment to recover before tossing it back into the water.
The results changed dramatically. How long did the rat struggle this time?
Not fifteen minutes, not an hour, not even a day.
It thrashed in that water-filled jar for a full sixty hours, convinced that a hand would eventually save it. Unfortunately, that hand never came.
This was the power of “hope.”
As long as hope remained, even if everyone in this godforsaken place was submerged in suffocating depths, they would never choose to give up.
“I don’t think Qian Wu lied to me,” Qi Xia said. “Though he made a deal with the ‘Zodiacs,’ I suspect even he didn’t know what those eyeballs were being used for.”
“Is that possible…?” Chen Junnan asked. “He knew ‘Black Tortoise’s’ abilities were ‘Indestructible’ and ‘Forgetfulness.’ Could he really not have anticipated it?”
“He was curious, but he couldn’t figure it out,” Qi Xia replied. “After all, he didn’t know what ‘Celestial Serpent’ was doing, nor could he immediately connect the eyeballs to the ‘Divine Beasts’ abilities.”
“Fair point. Who the hell besides a madman would think of something like that?” Chen Junnan scoffed. “Who in their right mind would gouge out eyes and stick them on someone else’s back?”
“Now we have a general understanding of the ‘Divine Beasts’ abilities…” Qi Xia mused. “‘The Cats’ gathered all these people with different ‘Echoes,’ which coincidentally allowed us to uncover the ‘Divine Beasts’ powers. Even ‘Black Tortoise’s’ ‘Pickpocket’ ability ultimately traces back to ‘The Cats.'”
Qi Xia paused mid-sentence, then looked up at the surrounding streets.
“Wait… If that’s the case… Then this city must also originate from an ‘Echo’… and most likely, it’s ‘The Cats’’ ‘Echo’…”
Beside him, Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin stiffened. “‘Ingenuity’…?”
“No wonder… No wonder…” Qi Xia muttered, his eyes flickering. “No wonder this is the only place where we can find a city… Five cities floating atop an endless void… What kind of lunatic could have done this?”
“What…? Cities floating on nothingness?” Chen Junnan frowned. “What the hell are you remembering now?”
“It’s a long story…” Qi Xia shook his head. “I suspect someone carved these cities out of the void, creating them from nothing… Because elsewhere, I’ve never—”
He abruptly cut himself off, swallowing the rest of his words.
“Huh? What do you mean ‘from nothing’…?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Qi Xia snapped back to reality, gesturing at the ruined buildings around them. “The architecture here is hard to place in any era—shops from every period seem to exist. There are skyscrapers, but also farms, schools, and prisons. Under normal circumstances, how could these four types of structures coexist so closely?”
“Now that you mention it, it’s always been like this,” Chen Junnan said. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s not a big deal. I just realized who built this city…” Qi Xia murmured. “It’s truly a staggering feat.”
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage