Qi Xia felt his thoughts were somewhat blocked.

Although this reason sounded absurd, if it came from Chen Junnan’s mouth, everything seemed so natural.

“I…” Qi Xia helplessly covered his forehead, “I didn’t expect that Tiantian was actually the third person of ‘Cat’. But is her ability really that powerful? To actually rank at ‘Three’…?”

“What does this have to do with ability? We’re not the heroes of Liangshan. I just thought Zhang San sounded smooth.” Chen Junnan explained, “Zhang Si, Zhang Wu, Zhang Liu all sound awkward, don’t they?”

Qi Xia felt that sometimes he really overthought things.

“What happened after that…?” He sighed and asked again.

“What happened after was a bit hard to describe…” Chen Junnan turned his head to look at Qiao Jiajin, “Old Qiao and I had a huge fight, and this kid even beat me up.”

“Huh?” Qiao Jiajin was stunned, and after holding it in for a long time, he could only squeeze out three words, “Who won?”

“You still have the face to ask…” Chen Junnan reached out and punched Qiao Jiajin’s chest, “In this damn place, only that old guy Zhang Shan can go toe-to-toe with you. Everyone else gets beaten down.”

After saying this, he still felt unsatisfied. He turned back and patted Qi Xia: “Old Qi, you better remember this well—when this kid loses his temper, he even hits his own people.”

This time Qi Xia couldn’t listen anymore: “I also know what kind of person Qiao Jiajin is… If even he got angry, it must have been something serious.”

“It wasn’t really that big of a deal…” Chen Junnan curled his lips, “I just cursed you out in front of this kid.”

“Cursed me?”

“Yeah, you abandoned us two brothers and ran away by yourself. Even if you’re not a complete bastard, you’re pretty close. I told Old Qiao to give up hope and stop waiting for you.” After Chen Junnan finished speaking, he shrugged his shoulders again, revealing a helpless expression, “But I didn’t expect Old Qiao to have such a big temper. He directly parted ways with me.”

Qi Xia knew that Chen Junnan was also being stubborn. If he didn’t harbor the same hope of waiting for him, it would have been impossible to establish the organization called “Seven Calabash Brothers”—a name that made people want to laugh yet feel melancholic at the same time.

There were clearly only six people, yet they insisted on calling themselves “Seven Brothers.” Who was the seventh position reserved for?

“Parted ways means…” Qi Xia asked again.

“This kid quit. This is what he said at the time…” Chen Junnan cleared his throat and imitated Qiao Jiajin’s not-quite-standard Mandarin, “If zis organization isn’t for waiting for dat liar boy to come back, zen I won’t stay lah.”

After listening, Qiao Jiajin showed a contemptuous expression: “Do I normally talk like that?”

“Pretty much.” Chen Junnan said.

Hearing this, Qi Xia felt his head ache again.

What exactly had happened back then?

If he was leading a large group of “Participants” with “Echo,” then why on earth did he choose to take such a risk and become a “Zodiac”?

“If this kid hadn’t gone out to get himself killed…” Chen Junnan said through gritted teeth, “I’d probably still be ‘Chen Dawa’ right now, still staying here as the boss.”

Qiao Jiajin smiled somewhat awkwardly after hearing this: “This… this doesn’t have much to do with me, does it?”

“Old Qi, speaking of this kid being brainless, he’s actually quite methodical in doing things.” Chen Junnan put his hand on Qiao Jiajin’s shoulder, “He seems to have gone off to do something on his own. The bells did become more frequent at that time, but I also kept receiving news of his death.”

“News of my death…?”

“Yeah.” Chen Junnan nodded, “That kid Chu Tianqiu kept coming to find me, complaining that you were being impulsive again, that you had died again… Speaking of which, what were you actually doing back then?”

“Chu Tianqiu…” Qi Xia frowned.

After hearing Chen Junnan’s question, Qiao Jiajin could only helplessly shake his head. His memory simply didn’t retain anything from that time.

“I originally thought that over time he would give up…” Chen Junnan came back to his senses and said, “But I didn’t expect that he would even participate in Earth-level games when he didn’t have ‘Echo,’ until he washed away all his memories.”

Qi Xia knew that even though he hadn’t participated in the situation at that time, based on Qiao Jiajin’s character, he would definitely do such a thing.

“Because Old Qiao lost his memory, he would once again go off to get himself killed with a passionate fervor…” Chen Junnan stared at Qi Xia, his eyes carrying a trace of resentment, “Although this stinking kid beat me up, he and I have been through life and death together, so I couldn’t let him die miserably again.”

Chen Junnan returned to the room.

Under his “unremitting efforts,” everyone would only have their skulls cleanly shattered by Man-Goat, then lose their memories and continuously loop through this day.

“That kid Han Yimo must have had something wrong with him… he also lost his memory.” Chen Junnan added, “I hadn’t been in contact with him for a long time. Every time I left the room, I would just walk away directly. I don’t know from which time onward that kid lost his memory. I didn’t realize it at the time, and I ended up being the only person in the entire room who retained their memory.”

Qi Xia deduced Han Yimo’s situation on his own. The condition for his “Echo” was most likely “fear.” If someone wanted him to lose his memory, it would necessarily mean he had found a decent “backer” that made him temporarily forget his fear, but then he accidentally lost his life.

This was probably what it meant to thrive in adversity but perish in comfort.

“So with your own strength alone…” Qi Xia said, “You made everyone in the entire room ‘stuck’ for seven years…”

“Yeah.” Chen Junnan nodded, then lazily slumped in his chair, “This young master didn’t want everyone to go out and rack their brains only to die miserably.”

After Chen Junnan finished this sentence, Qi Xia furrowed his brow.

“How strange…” Qi Xia touched his chin, his eyes looking coldly at Chen Junnan, “For everyone who has lost their memory… each death is their first death. What’s the significance of you ‘saving’ these people? They won’t be troubled by constantly dying, nor will they be happy because of your salvation.”

“I…” Chen Junnan furrowed his brow, and his expression also darkened.

“You clearly had better options…” Qi Xia said, “That was a full seven years… In those seven years… didn’t you ever think about letting Qiao Jiajin rejoin your organization? Didn’t you ever think about leading everyone to struggle one more time?”

Qiao Jiajin and Zheng Yingxiong simultaneously looked at Chen Junnan. They didn’t expect him to actually fall silent. He said nothing, merely staring into Qi Xia’s eyes.

After a few seconds, Qi Xia seemed to realize something and could only nod, saying: “Perhaps I’m overthinking it. Please continue.”

Hearing this, Chen Junnan also breathed a sigh of relief and continued: “You all know what happened after that… Lin Qin came to our room, but I didn’t control my ‘conviction’ well and died in Lin Qin’s place two times in succession. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise—now that Xiao Ran has disappeared, our room is already in a state of ‘all Echo holders.'”

Qi Xia nodded with a heavy expression.

“However… speaking of which…” Chen Junnan lowered his voice and asked again, “Although I can now sit here and chat freely with you all, I’m not sure whether ‘I’ am still ‘me.'”

Qi Xia also came back to his senses and looked Chen Junnan over. He had been in contact with Chen Junnan before. Honestly speaking, these two people had completely identical temperaments, and even their micro-expressions and small movements when speaking were exactly the same.

They had the same memories and the same form. How could one deny that the Chen Junnan before them wasn’t Chen Junnan?

This was still the “Watch Theory.”

When you discover you have two watches with different hour hands, as long as you randomly smash one of them, the time on the other one is correct.