At this moment, Yan Zhichun’s expression darkened. Though the process had been convoluted, they had finally found an answer.
“Even though every member of the ‘Extreme Path’ here acts differently…” she said to Lin Qin, “the core principle of the ‘Extreme Path’ remains unchanged. Since you have no intention of protecting this place, there’s no need for you to keep calling yourself a ‘Path Extremist.'”
“Suit yourself,” Lin Qin replied indifferently, shaking her head. “Whether I am or not doesn’t require your approval.”
“Alright, enough arguing,” Jiang Ruoxue interjected. “You don’t even know the ’cause,’ so how can you argue about the ‘effect’? The crisis is over now—let’s get moving.”
Meanwhile, Wen Qiaoyun cautiously scanned the three women before her, already piecing together the sequence of events in her mind.
In her memory, she had been walking down a long corridor when she encountered a woman at the end who called herself “Human Dragon.” After stepping out of the building, she found herself in a square, only to blink and suddenly be standing in the middle of a street. The sheer absurdity of this place made it hard to comprehend, but Wen Qiaoyun quickly steadied herself.
Noticing that night was falling, she turned and entered a nearby building, where she found two people already inside—Yan Zhichun and Lin Qin.
“So, has this city existed for a long time?” Wen Qiaoyun asked. “Have you been here for a while?”
Lin Qin turned to her and said, “The place I’m taking you will answer all your questions—even the ones you haven’t thought of yet. Someone will explain everything to you.”
“Questions I haven’t even thought of…?”
Lin Qin nodded. “Yes. If I’m not mistaken, before we even get back, someone will come out to greet you.”
Wen Qiaoyun grew even more curious about this so-called “organization.” To her, this place seemed shrouded in a great mystery—one that might revolve around her.
“Interesting,” Wen Qiaoyun said with a smile, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she followed Lin Qin. “What makes me so special? Is everything you’re doing really for me?”
Lin Qin frowned slightly, studying Wen Qiaoyun with an odd sense of dissonance.
“But from what I can tell, none of you have actually met me before—you’ve only heard the name ‘Wen Qiaoyun,'” Wen Qiaoyun continued, still smiling as she looked ahead. “You don’t dare kill me, but you also don’t dare let me go. So even if I go to your organization, nothing will change.”
“So…?” Lin Qin prompted.
“So, am I not just arriving here for the first time… but actually suffering from lost memories?” Wen Qiaoyun asked again.
Behind them, Yan Zhichun and Jiang Ruoxue exchanged uneasy glances. Wen Qiaoyun’s questions only deepened the mystery.
They had only asked her two things and hadn’t given her much information—yet she was already piecing together the truth.
Lin Qin replied calmly, “If ‘lost memories’ are the most extreme possibility you can imagine… then the strangeness of this place will far exceed your expectations.”
Wen Qiaoyun fell silent, following Lin Qin with heightened caution.
Yan Zhichun and Jiang Ruoxue slowed their pace, gradually falling behind.
“Ruoxue, do you see the problem?” Yan Zhichun murmured. “Trying to assess Wen Qiaoyun’s abilities with a single theorem seems insufficient. There really are people like this in the world—they may lack formal knowledge, but their instincts are razor-sharp.”
“Then she’s completely different from the ‘leader’ I imagined,” Jiang Ruoxue mused. “She navigates the world through ‘intuition,’ not ‘knowledge.’ That intuition might make her clever, but it doesn’t necessarily make her successful.”
“Exactly,” Yan Zhichun agreed. “I’m growing more and more intrigued by her. As for that Lin Qin…”
Jiang Ruoxue glanced at Lin Qin’s distant figure, already knowing what Yan Zhichun was thinking.
“What do you make of an answer that even the ‘Heavenly Serpent Moment’ can’t verify?” Yan Zhichun asked.
“I…” Jiang Ruoxue pondered for a moment. “I think… there might be a paradox here that even the ‘Heavenly Serpent Moment’ can’t resolve.”
“A paradox?”
“Perhaps it works like this,” Jiang Ruoxue explained. “In reality, that Lin Qin isn’t a ‘Path Extremist,’ but she firmly believes she is. So outwardly, she isn’t lying—yet what she says isn’t the truth. That paradox makes the black orb waver, unable to decide.”
“Is that possible?” Yan Zhichun’s brow furrowed. “The ‘Heavenly Serpent’ is already a high-ranking entity. Could the one who created this paradox be even higher?”
“I can’t say for sure—it’s just a hypothesis. But if someone outranks the ‘Heavenly Serpent,’ there are only two possibilities left, right?” Jiang Ruoxue said. “The answer sounds dangerous. Should we keep investigating?”
“Of course,” Yan Zhichun replied with a faint smile. “It’s like the ‘Chinese Room’—we’re all outside, assuming the person inside speaks Chinese, but we’re being deceived. Even Lin Qin herself doesn’t know the truth. It’s fascinating when you think about it.”
“‘Chinese Room’? You’re starting to sound like that White Sheep,” Jiang Ruoxue teased. “Seven years together, and you still can’t shake off the influence, huh?”
“Neither can you,” Yan Zhichun shot back. “You’re starting to sound like me, asking about ‘trauma theory.’ Just like you said—what ’cause’ you sow, what ‘effect’ you reap. We can’t change the past, and we can’t control the future.”
“True enough,” Jiang Ruoxue admitted. “The first time I met that man named Qi Xia in the ‘Courier’ game, when he muttered about the ‘MiG-25 Effect,’ I reflexively repeated it—just like you would.”
“Oh?” Yan Zhichun’s eyes widened slightly. “That Qi Xia also mentioned the ‘MiG-25 Effect’?”
“Yeah. Why? Have you met him too?”
“I had the… fortune of seeing him once during the ‘Pegasus Moment,'” Yan Zhichun said, absently tracing the tattoo on her finger—yna. “That Qi Xia might be insane, but there’s something eerily familiar in his gaze. I have a bad feeling about this… I just hope things don’t turn out the way I fear.”
“What do you mean?” Jiang Ruoxue asked.
“I mean… what if Qi Xia is actually…” Yan Zhichun trailed off.
She remembered Qi Xia’s cold, piercing eyes—identical to those of the White Sheep from years ago. Could they be the same person?
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