Zhang Shan listened with growing unease as several doubts surfaced in his mind.
“Wait… Old Nie,” Zhang Shan interrupted, “what do you mean by ‘the memories of Azure Dragon and Celestial Dragon’? If what you’re saying is true, how could those two have memories floating in the sky? Did they die too?”
“I don’t know,” the man shook his head, “but that’s what I heard.”
“So you’re saying that one day… everyone here will slowly remember everything that happened in the ‘Land of End’?” Zhang Shan asked skeptically. “You mentioned that ‘rationality will decline’—does that mean everyone will stand here with stronger ‘ripples’ and full memories?”
“Honestly…” The man’s expression darkened. “I really don’t know… All of this is part of a plan, or maybe… just an illusion.”
“If even *you* don’t know… why did you take it upon yourself to send me out?”
“That’s why I said I’m gambling. I’m betting on sending you out, betting that you’ll survive till the end, and that one day, you’ll remember all of us.”
Despair flickered again in the man’s eyes.
He stared silently at the ground below, his voice barely above a whisper the entire time.
Perhaps he was afraid others might overhear this bizarre conversation—or maybe he didn’t want to disturb the nonexistent sleep of the dead.
“This is fucking insane…” Zhang Shan scratched his head, wanting to argue but feeling too tongue-tied to make a coherent point. “Old Nie, you know what’s most important to all of us, right? Is it fucking ‘ripples’?”
“I know what you mean,” the man said, nodding toward the crowd below. “What matters to us was never ‘ripples’—it’s ‘memories.’ ‘Ripplefication’ is just a means for many to preserve them.”
“Exactly!” Zhang Shan’s tone grew more urgent. “If what you’re saying is true, and all our memories are…”
He glanced up at the sky, still finding it absurd. “…floating up there, then why the hell would someone set up a ‘barrier’ to block us from accessing them? Now everyone’s scrambling to ‘ripplefy’ just to hold onto scraps of memory—doesn’t that make escaping even harder?”
The man wiped his nose, peeling off a dried blood crust before replying, “Maybe… to keep us from going mad?”
“That’s a stretch…” Zhang Shan shook his head. “You think remembering too much will drive us insane? Then what about dying over and over—doesn’t *that* drive us insane?”
“Whoever’s behind this… must have their reasons,” the man mused. “Maybe they think we shouldn’t regain our memories yet. Or maybe the barrier isn’t meant to block *our* memories… I don’t know their intentions.”
“Old Nie, I think you’ve been scammed… His deal doesn’t add up, and there are too many variables.” Zhang Shan counted on his fingers. “First, I’d have to survive long enough to reach his so-called ‘end.’ Second, the one who cast the barrier has to die by then. Third, the barrier has to *actually* vanish. Fourth, I’d need to ‘deep-ripplefy’ to remember all of you…”
“Right. That’s it,” the man confirmed.
“And all of this hinges on the idea that ‘our memories are really floating in the sky.'” Zhang Shan shook his head. “I don’t buy it. This plan is like walking a tightrope over a cliff—dangerous from the first step.”
The man flicked the blood crust onto the mountain of corpses beneath them, then turned back to Zhang Shan. “We don’t have a choice.”
“What…?”
“You already know—we’ve entered the ‘Collapse Countdown.'”
The man sighed deeply, gesturing to the exhausted figures resting along the road below. “How much longer do you think we can last? Even if our numbers buy us a few more cycles, our sanity won’t hold.”
Zhang Shan followed his gaze. Every inch of the city reeked of foul, blackened blood. Every face bore the weight of weariness.
They didn’t even have the strength to bury their fallen comrades—only to stake their lives on a gamble.
“Right now, I only see two paths,” the man said, clapping Zhang Shan’s shoulder. “First: I send you out, then lead the ‘Ripple Soldiers’ to our deaths.”
“And the second?” Zhang Shan snapped.
“Second: You stay, and we *all* die.”
Zhang Shan’s mouth opened, then shut. He fell silent.
Words failed him.
“We both know how this ends,” the man said with a bitter laugh, his teeth gleaming white in the dark. “Neither path leads to ‘victory’—just a sliver of ‘hope.’ The only thing I can do is send that hope away. War was never about individuals. I have to trust what they say and aim for the long game.”
Zhang Shan swallowed, unable to refute him.
He didn’t know what he was clinging to. Staying meant certain death, but leaving for an unknown city, abandoning his comrades… That wasn’t like him at all.
“Old Nie…” Zhang Shan finally spoke after a long pause. “This person you mentioned—how will he give me a new identity?”
“According to him, he can make a deal with the ‘Upper Echelon’ here,” the man explained. “One day, you’ll wake up not as my teammate in this room, but in a brand-new one. When you step outside, you won’t see our city anymore…”
“Fuck me.” Zhang Shan chuckled darkly, shaking his head. “We’ve been fighting the so-called ‘Upper Echelon’ this whole time, yet *he* can bargain with them? What kind of brainwashing did he use to make you believe this?”
“It’s about ‘identity,'” the man replied.
“Identity…?”
“If any other ‘participant’ had told me this, I wouldn’t have believed it,” the man admitted with a wry smile. “But the one who said it… was a ‘Zodiac.'”
Zhang Shan’s eyes widened slightly.
“I still don’t fully understand it myself,” the man said, rubbing his head. “The Earth Dragon from the north told me someone wanted to meet me. Then, during the Zodiacs’ off-hours, I spoke to that white ram through a portal.”
“So this is… an inside job?” Zhang Shan frowned.
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