“What…?”

“Everyone! Hero has already instructed me—this is precisely why he had me return!” Guyu Gege swept his sharp eyes across everyone present, then said, “Within two days, I’ll be responsible for finding that ‘jade’ and distributing it to each and every one of you! If I can’t find it, I’m willing to accept punishment according to the ‘family rules’!”

His words rang out powerfully, echoing in everyone’s hearts. The scents on the crowd also gradually changed from initial suspicion to reassurance.

They agreed to give Guyu Gege two days to search for that ‘jade,’ and they also agreed to regard me as their sole faith.

That day, after the crowd dispersed, I was about to return to my room when I suddenly caught an unprecedented, shocking scent from a very distant place.

With my back to the crowd, I gazed toward the distance, staring blankly in a daze.

Seeing this, Guyu Gege and Siwei Jie came to my side. They followed my gaze but discovered there was nothing there.

“What’s wrong?” Siwei Jie asked.

“Such a shocking scent…” I stared blankly into the distant sky, lost in thought.

“A scent?” Siwei Jie paused. “But there’s no one there.”

“No…” I stretched out my hand pointing toward the sky. “Very far… but I can smell it… right there…”

Siwei Jie asked: “Is it a ‘fragrance’? Or is it an ’emotion’ or ‘thought’?”

“Neither…” I felt my body trembling slightly. “No, all of them… There’s fragrance, stench, intense emotions, uneasy obsessions… and massive thoughts…”

My words puzzled them both once again: “Massive thoughts…?”

Guyu Gege pondered for a moment and spoke: “Hero, could it be your psychological effect? Looking in the direction you’re pointing, there’s no one for several hundred meters. Theoretically, scents would have difficulty traveling that far.”

“I’m just saying there’s this possibility.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I really smelled it… I sensed that person’s thoughts in my mind.”

“What thoughts?”

“‘Come find me.'” I answered. “He’s telling me to go find him. He said, ‘Whether you see, hear, think of, or sense the changes here, please come find me. No matter how many years pass, I’ll be here waiting for you.'”

After hearing these words, the scents on both big brother and big sister became cautious.

“Hero… usually only when a person’s ‘thoughts’ are extremely strong will you smell them, right?” Jie asked.

“Yes, that person’s ‘thoughts’ are extremely strong. They transmitted directly into my mind.”

I kept looking in that direction. The scent was continuously flowing from there, and so were the thoughts.

“But isn’t this very strange?” Siwei Jie said with furrowed brows. “We have no way to determine whether that person is friend or foe. We don’t know what he wants to do either. Why would he summon you?”

Actually, I didn’t know the reason either, but from that wave of scent, I sensed unprecedented despair and sorrow.

He was calling out to anyone who could sense him.

He needed my help.

“Guyu Gege… where is that place?”

He looked at the direction my finger was pointing and spoke: “You mean…”

“Which city is it?” I asked again.

“It’s ‘Dao City.'” He answered. “It’s about a day’s journey from here.”

Siwei Jie paused and said: “Hero, do you want to go take a look?”

“I…”

I also fell into hesitation. Should I go?

But once I left this city, what would this city become?

“I don’t want to stop you.” Siwei Jie said. “Just as I said before, you can do anything you want to do.”

“No…”

I knew that for a stranger I had never met, to put Guyu Gege and Siwei Jie in danger—I could never do that no matter what.

But that person also said that no matter how many years, he would be there waiting for me, so sooner or later I would have to go see.

In the following days, just as Guyu Gege and Wan Bobo himself had predicted, the people here had no emotional attachment whatsoever to the name “Wan Cai.”

What they needed was never Wan Bobo, but me.

I wonder if Wan Bobo would have anticipated in advance that one day, he truly would become the “guide” he spoke of in his own words.

After he led everyone onto this path, he was mercilessly abandoned.

Guyu Gege told me that many people in the family had already had their thoughts twisted and solidified, and they continued to spread to this day. We had no way to change them anymore. Many of the rules that Wan Bobo had established while alive still had to be followed today.

For example, worshipping the “Divine Dragon,” or using the “Punishment Officer” for executions, or the “slogans.” It’s just that now the faith they worshipped was no longer someone else, but me.

I was the true hero of “Jade City.”

When Guyu Gege found that ‘jade’ and distributed it equally to everyone, everyone’s adoration for me reached its peak.

But I knew this wasn’t right… Now the ones who seemed strange weren’t those “family members,” but us three.

Because we three were too lucid, we were incompatible with those “family members.” If we couldn’t pretend to be like them, sooner or later we would be treated as异类 [outcasts].

So we could only go with the flow, following the crowd in their daily rush.

Fortunately, everyone treated me better and better, and I responded to them with the same attitude. Every day I did everything I could to help each person. I didn’t know how I should treat them, because I had never been a “Hero” before. Who could tell me… what is a true “Hero” really like?

This morning, after I had once again “judged” the “fragrances” on everyone’s bodies and was letting my nose rest for a bit on the side, Guyu Gege called Siwei Jie and me aside.

“What’s wrong…?” Siwei Jie asked.

Guyu Gege sighed and said: “I’m worried about something…”

“What?”

“I’m worried that Hero won’t be able to withstand it one day.” Without avoiding me, he said very bluntly, “When I was in other cities, I once heard that if the ability of a ‘Fragrance’ strengthens a certain part of the body, overuse will inevitably cause a backlash effect.”

“You’re worried about Hero’s nose…”

“Yes.” Guyu Gege said. “But speaking of which… I once saw a very interesting thing in ‘Dao City,’ and I’m now considering the feasibility of replicating it.”

“What is it?” Siwei Jie and I asked simultaneously.

“As I said, there are many clever people in ‘Dao City.’ They found a way to use ‘Fragrances’ to establish a huge display screen. On that display screen is a bronze bell. Once a ‘Fragrance holder’ appears, the bronze bell will be struck, and the display screen will also show the ability of that ‘Fragrance holder’ at that time. However, their terminology is slightly different from ours. Just as ‘Vortex City’ calls them ‘Ripple Soldiers’ and we call them ‘Fragrance holders,’ the people there call those with superpowers ‘Echoers.'”

After hearing this, Siwei Jie imagined that scene and asked: “So on that display screen… it would show ‘Someone has begun echoing’?”

“No… the actual situation is more interesting than that.” Guyu Gege said. “That display screen seems to have developed its own life. It says ‘I heard an echo.'”