After speaking, Wei Yang lowered his head to pick up his watering can, forcefully drove the pitchfork into the ground, then took a few steps forward and pushed Qi Xia aside with his grimy hand.
“It’s late today,” Wei Yang glanced back at the three with a cunning look in his eyes. “Want to stay for dinner? There’s a young girl I dismembered just yesterday—left for a day, still tender enough.”
Hearing this, Qi Xia’s expression darkened further. After a long pause, he asked,
“Wei Yang, did I make you do all these things?”
“Hah, not really. I just have my own tastes,” Wei Yang laughed, stretching lazily. “Back when I was running scams abroad, I often thought of an old phrase from novels—’retiring to the countryside.’ I wondered how nice it would be if I could wash my hands of it all and live a self-sufficient rural life.”
Chen Junan glanced at the scattered limbs across the farm and frowned. “So this is your ‘countryside’?”
“Yes, but not entirely,” Wei Yang shook his head. “An ordinary rural life is just planting vegetables and watering them. A more luxurious one might include raising some cattle and sheep… But that’s not the ‘countryside’ I dreamed of. Only here can I do whatever I want. I can kill if I want, torture if I want, even bite into a young girl’s severed limbs… Do you understand?”
“No,” Chen Junan and Qiao Jiajin said in unison.
“Preserve enough memories, and you will,” Wei Yang said indifferently. “Here, you can do anything you wouldn’t dare in the real world. Because you might not remember it yourself, and others might not either.”
“Stop lying to yourself,” Qi Xia cut in coldly. “Keep those limbs for your own biting. We’re not the same kind of people anymore.”
“Hahahaha…” Wei Yang, about to enter the house, burst into laughter at Qi Xia’s words. “Not the same kind? We’re both ‘sheep’…”
“But I’m the ‘real sheep,'” Qi Xia said. “And you?”
“Interesting…” Wei Yang turned, his voice barely audible. “I’m also the ‘real sheep.'”
For a split second, Qi Xia’s brow furrowed, but the next moment, Wei Yang turned and entered the house, slamming the door shut behind him.
Wei Yang was indeed the real sheep.
Chen Junan and Qiao Jiajin were both bewildered. They had come to talk to Wei Yang, but the conversation between him and Qi Xia was so cryptic they couldn’t make sense of it.
Seeing this, Qi Xia frowned and turned to them. “Let’s go. We should head back before dark.”
The two, noticing Qi Xia’s expression, realized that while they might be confused, as long as Qi Xia understood, that was enough.
As they walked back, Qi Xia suddenly turned to Chen Junan and asked, “Chen Junan, did I used to stroke my chin when I was thinking?”
“Back then…?” Chen Junan thought hard. “Now that you mention it… you really didn’t! Sure, you used to think a lot, but you had all sorts of mannerisms—not just chin-stroking.”
Chen Junan sifted through his distant memories, unable to recall when Qi Xia had even started this habit.
Had it only been since this reunion seven years later?
Listening to Chen Junan, Qi Xia knew two problems needed solving.
Besides “chin-stroking,” there was the matter of the “real sheep.”
From this brief encounter, Qi Xia realized his thought process was eerily similar to Wei Yang’s.
In other words, if Wei Yang had posed the “chin-stroking” riddle, it meant he believed the current clues were sufficient to deduce the answer.
Now, with the long road ahead, Qi Xia had enough time to list out all the conditions.
He had never stroked his chin before—yet now he did. It was highly possible he had picked up this habit from Wei Yang.
If so, the conclusion was obvious.
Qi Xia spent a few seconds piecing everything together, his expression darkening further, his eyes filled with sorrow.
As expected, every path of exploration led to the same answer.
Qi Xia had even forgotten who Wei Yang was, yet he still subconsciously mimicked this gesture. That could only mean one thing…
Some things ingrained in the subconscious wouldn’t be forgotten, even after rebirth.
The moment this realization struck, countless clues in Qi Xia’s mind connected like circuits suddenly powered on, all lighting up at once.
Wei Yang probably never imagined Qi Xia would solve the puzzle in less than ten steps.
But how could Qi Xia accept such a horrifying answer?
If he could control his own subconscious, it meant he had foreseen this problem long ago—which was why he had been refining himself through each cycle.
All the “paths” he had laid out for himself were proof of that, weren’t they?
He would engrave knowledge into his mind over and over, hoping that one day, it would save him through sheer instinct.
He would fail again and again, until he succeeded.
As long as he didn’t completely perish, remnants of his subconscious would remain—whether knowledge, habits, memories, or…
This was what Wei Yang had meant.
“Something that can stay behind…”
The image of a figure in a pure white dress flashed through Qi Xia’s mind.
“Yu Nian’an… are you just a fleeting thought of mine, or half of my life?”
A deafening buzz filled Qi Xia’s mind. Everything he had clung to was on the verge of collapsing.
Yu Nian’an, those strange memories… could they have been implanted into his subconscious by his past self, through some method?
And if once wasn’t enough… what about countless times?
After repeated brainwashing and hypnosis, could he have fabricated a memory so real it felt true?
“So we don’t need ‘echoes’ or ‘magic’ at all…” Qi Xia let out a bitter laugh, staring at the sky. “I don’t need those things… I can drive myself into a corner all on my own…”
“Trickster… what’s wrong?” Qiao Jiajin frowned, noticing Qi Xia’s sudden muttering.
“Old Qi, you alright?” Chen Junan asked. “Did that lunatic Wei Yang scare you senseless?”
“Scare me…?” Qi Xia’s bitter smile seemed frozen on his face, rendering him unable to think. “Qiao Jiajin, Chen Junan… why do you think we’re even trying to escape?”
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