“At least I’m not mad,” Qi Xia said.

“Oh?”

“After experiencing countless things that normal people couldn’t accept, I can still maintain such rationality. This is enough to prove I’m not mad.” Qi Xia said expressionlessly.

“Quite the contrary,” Qinglong said. “This only proves you went mad long ago—irredeemably mad.”

After hearing this, a smile gradually spread across Qi Xia’s face. “So I’ve contracted the madness disease, and it can’t even be cured?”

“That’s right. Only by being mad enough… can you reach the best state. This is very good.” Qinglong also smiled with a mad look in his eyes. “Mad enough, ruthless enough, cold-blooded enough, and without needing to empathize with any ‘mortals’—this is the prerequisite for becoming a ‘god.'”

“But I don’t want to become a ‘god,'” Qi Xia said. “The purpose of everything I’m doing isn’t to go on a killing spree to please myself.”

“Go on a killing spree to please myself?” Qinglong raised an eyebrow, as if he had heard an extremely ridiculous viewpoint. “What kind of statement is that? Would I be such a person?”

“Aren’t you?” Chu Tianqiu also interjected at this moment. “When someone gathers enough ‘chips,’ you kill everyone. Logically speaking, wouldn’t it be enough to just kill the person who gathered the chips?”

“Interesting. As ‘gods,’ we cannot empathize with ‘mortals,’ and as ‘mortals,’ you also find it difficult to empathize with ‘gods.'” Qinglong nodded. “Chu Tianqiu, let me ask you. If a nest of ants entered your home, what would you do?”

“A nest of ants…?”

“You discover that this nest of ants wants to bite you every day, but they can’t hurt you at all. You just observe them with interest every day. They transport food here, establish a base, fight with each other, experience birth, aging, sickness, and death—for bored you, it’s simply the best entertainment.” Qinglong continued. “But after a long time, there are one or two ants who think they’re clever, who understand all the rules, and want to crawl into your eyes every day.”

After hearing this, Chu Tianqiu seemed to think of something and pursed his lips without speaking.

“Would you single out those one or two ants and kill them?” Qinglong slowly clenched his hand into a fist. “No one would do something so troublesome. The best method is naturally to pour boiling water into the entire ant nest and destroy them all, settling everything once and for all. Because I am a ‘human,’ and you are as lowly as ‘ants.’ Just as I am a ‘god,’ and you are as lowly as ‘mortals.’ If I want to kill, I kill. I don’t care what the ants think.”

Chu Tianqiu and Qi Xia looked at Qinglong in silence. Previously, the position he stood at was too high, and every sentence was difficult to understand.

“Qi Xia, you don’t want to become a ‘god,’ you want to get out?” Qinglong asked.

“Yes.”

“A yellow millet dream.” Qinglong said. “Why are you even more naive than Chu Tianqiu?”

Qinglong’s single statement made both of them frown slightly.

Qi Xia pondered for a moment and said, “So… you’re not even bothering to disguise things anymore? The two of us fought our way up from among the ‘Participants,’ and we now represent the identity of ‘Participants.’ Are you certain you want to directly tell us we can’t escape?”

“Of course.” Qinglong nodded. “Lies are meant for the general masses, not for the elite. That you two could wait here for my arrival is enough to show that such small lies no longer work on you. Why would I continue using that same rhetoric to fool you? Being able to hear the truth from my own mouth is an honor you’ve earned yourselves. Those masses can only envy you. After all, you two are the most excellent ants before me.”

Qi Xia looked coldly at Qinglong. Though he had long known that escape from this place was impossible, when this statement came lightly from Qinglong’s mouth, he still felt indignant in his heart.

It was as if he had spent decades finding a murderer, and upon their first meeting, the murderer admitted to all his crimes and told him, “I never intended to hide it from you.”

Seeing the particularly wonderful expressions on the two, Qinglong smiled again. “What about 3,600 ‘Strings,’ 1,800 ‘Hooks,’ 3,600 ‘Dao,’ 3,600 ‘Vortexes,’ 57,600 ‘Jades’—isn’t each one more interesting than the last? As long as Heavenly Dragon sets a rule, large numbers of people will die for this ridiculous ‘rule,’ just like holding sugar in your hand and commanding ants to snatch it from each other… But ‘humans’ are ultimately far more interesting than ‘ants.'”

After speaking, Qinglong slowly walked up to Qi Xia and asked, “Do you know that this absurd rule was set several times, and when it came to ‘Jade City’… do you know what Heavenly Dragon said to me?”

“What did he say?” Qi Xia asked coldly.

“He said, ‘Let’s set an exaggerated quantity, and directly transform teeth into green ones, without even needing to modify the shape. Let’s see if these ridiculous mortals will die for it.'”

“You…” Chu Tianqiu seemed to want to say something, but it was as if something was stuck in his throat and he couldn’t make any sound.

“He also said, ‘We can arrange a batch of workers to help us justifiably slaughter other participants, greatly slowing down everyone’s speed of collecting these things. As long as we casually give them a title, they’ll forget everything else and only focus on promotion before them. Whether we call them “Heavenly Stems” or “Earthly Branches,” or even directly call them “Constellations” or “Zodiacs”—it doesn’t matter. When the time comes, as long as we tell them they can escape by slaughtering their own kind, they’ll willingly become running dogs.'”

“Oh right… as the saying goes, ‘Accompanying a ruler is like accompanying a tiger.'” Qinglong said. “Accompanying a ‘god’ is even more terrifying than accompanying a ‘tiger.’ These people were originally ‘ants.’ We gave them face and reluctantly let them stand with us, but if they didn’t cherish it and broke rules or did wrong things while being running dogs, then that would be too unfortunate.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded. “You turn them into real ‘ants.'”

“Hahahahahaha!” Qinglong turned back with a completely crazed expression. “How did you guess?!”

“It’s hard not to guess,” Qi Xia said. “Those insects that crawl out at night are all your masterpieces.”

“Yes… of course!!” Qinglong laughed. “We gouged out their eyes, cut off their noses, pulled out their teeth, cut off their eyebrows and destroyed their ears, then instilled a thought in their minds—’As long as you can find your own facial features, they can come back, and then you can become human again.’ Interesting, right?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded. “Interesting.”

“This way they’ll be released by ‘Heavenly Ox’ every night to collect the ‘Dao,’ ‘Hooks,’ ‘Jades,’ ‘Strings,’ and ‘Vortexes’ scattered throughout the city and on various bodies. Not only does this prevent the ‘Participants’ here from benefiting, it also saves us some effort when manufacturing chips… Simply too perfect!”