Qi Xia continued to frown at Chu Tianqiu, only speaking after a long pause. “Let me confirm something… Chu Tianqiu, last time, you staged that farce just to make me ‘echo,’ didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Chu Tianqiu nodded.
“So this time, you’re acting like a bootlicker, trying to get me to use my ‘echo’ to help you,” Qi Xia said.
“Yes.”
“But you seem to have misunderstood something,” Qi Xia said, furrowing his brows. “That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
“Oh?” Chu Tianqiu stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You’re right. That’s a new addition… So you can also propose a new condition. Let’s try to keep things fair.”
“Oh…?” Qi Xia sneered. “You serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Then don’t regret it.”
“I won’t!”
Chu Tianqiu’s reply was so straightforward it felt unreal.
“So, Qi Xia…” Chu Tianqiu’s smile widened. “This time, I’m offering my full sincerity. Join forces with me!”
“Of course,” Qi Xia nodded. “If I didn’t want to work with you, why would I even be here?”
“Yes… yes…” Chu Tianqiu chuckled, nodding.
The group piled all the corpses in the center of the field, forming a towering mound. With nearly sixty bodies, burying them all was impractical—time would have to decompose them naturally.
The days ahead wouldn’t be pleasant. “Paradise Gate” would soon carry the freshest stench in all of “The End.”
After wiping the blood off themselves, Qi Xia and his team retreated to their assigned classroom.
“Great work, everyone!” Qiao Jiajin, still full of energy, grinned. “Thanks for helping me move my corpse. Later, I’ll treat you all to some canned food!”
No one seemed particularly eager to respond.
“Fists, come here,” Qi Xia called softly. “There’s something I need to confirm with you.”
“Oh?” Qiao Jiajin walked over. “What’s up, Liar?”
“How did you revive?” Qi Xia cut straight to the point.
“You mean during the ‘Paradise Gate Defense’?”
Qi Xia sighed. “You… named that battle?”
“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded seriously. “I’ve been in too many fights. If I don’t name them, I’ll get them mixed up.”
“Fine…” Qi Xia relented. “So, the ‘Paradise Gate Defense’—how did you revive back then?”
“It’s weird…” Qiao Jiajin mused. “Every time I felt like I died, I’d just wake up nearby again. Then I’d run back to where I was killed to get revenge. But those guys were seriously tough—hard to fight barehanded.”
Looking at Qiao Jiajin’s bizarre death poses, it was easy to imagine how brutal the battle had been.
If even a skilled fighter like him had died so many times, an ordinary person wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“But those invaders seemed even more scared than me…” Qiao Jiajin scratched his head, puzzled. “I didn’t freak out when I died—what were they so afraid of?”
Qi Xia hesitated before asking, “At that time… did you happen to see…”
He slowly pointed at Yu Nian’an, who stood not far away.
“Oh? You mean this girl was at the ‘Paradise Gate Counterattack’?”
“‘Paradise Gate Counterattack’…?” Qi Xia sighed in exasperation. “Yes. Did you see her there?”
“Nope,” Qiao Jiajin shook his head. “After Kung Fu Girl and I successfully defended the place, we searched for all the survivors in ‘Paradise Gate.’ She wasn’t among them.”
Hearing this, Qi Xia felt a sharp pain in his head.
He was trying to figure out whether this Yu Nian’an was a product of his “echo.”
But now, it seemed she wasn’t something he had created. Could she really be the real one?
But if she was, why had she suddenly appeared in the interview room?
“Only six people survived—Doc, Big Guy, and a few others whose names I don’t remember,” Qiao Jiajin continued. “Writer died, the psychologist died, and the rest of ‘Paradise Gate’s’ people were wiped out. The ‘Paradise Gate Protection Battle’ was a devastating loss.”
“‘Paradise Gate Protection Battle’…” Qi Xia stared at Qiao Jiajin, barely holding back before finally saying, “Fists, promise me something—stop naming things randomly.”
After talking with Qiao Jiajin, Qi Xia approached Yu Nian’an.
She was staring blankly at the sky, lost in thought.
“An, are you okay?” Qi Xia asked.
“I… don’t know,” Yu Nian’an shook her head. “Xia, this place is so strange. Aren’t we dreaming?”
“I wish we were,” Qi Xia said, pulling her down to sit beside him. “An, do you remember how you got here?”
“How I arrived?” Yu Nian’an thought for a moment. “It’s strange…”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been here for about four or five days… The people I’ve met are all weird. The air stinks, the sky is red… and…”
“Wait…”
Qi Xia’s eyes widened.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’ve been here… how long?” he asked quietly.
“Four or five days,” Yu Nian’an said.
Another bolt of lightning struck Qi Xia’s mind.
Fake.
Another fake!
“The reason I suddenly appeared beside you…” Yu Nian’an continued, “seems to involve a strange person.”
Qi Xia stayed silent as she spoke.
“That person seemed to have some special ability. About three days ago, she grabbed my hand and said, ‘You must understand—when your lover appears, you’ll definitely see him.’ She repeated it five or six times. I think she might have been mentally unstable.”
Qi Xia frowned. So this fake Yu Nian’an had come here because of someone else’s “echo.”
She was indeed a product of his last “echo.”
But she hadn’t appeared at “Paradise Gate.” Instead, she’d been wandering “The End” until she encountered another “echo user,” who, for some reason, helped her “see her lover.”
That was why when Qi Xia appeared, this Yu Nian’an replica did too.
Everything made sense now—and it confirmed one more thing:
A fabricated Yu Nian’an wouldn’t vanish with “The End.” She wasn’t bound by the rules of the “participants.”
“Xia, what’s wrong?” Yu Nian’an noticed his silence. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Now that he was certain this Yu Nian’an was a replica, Qi Xia had nothing more to say to her.
His emotions belonged only to the real Yu Nian’an—not a substitute.
“It’s nothing,” Qi Xia replied coldly.
“That’s good…” Yu Nian’an forced a weak smile. “Oh, Xia, yesterday at noon was really bizarre. I saw so many people turn to dust right in front of me. I thought I’d never see you again.”
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