“What do you mean?” Qin Dingdong asked. “What do you mean the ‘Echo’ of this place isn’t ‘Parasitic Flying Bird’?”

“Qin Dingdong, you didn’t participate in that game,” Qi Xia said. “But it allowed me to find ‘Heavenly-Snake’s’ flaw.”

“That’s right…” Chen Junnan said. “We were almost tricked by that old guy Earth-Monkey. If Old Qi hadn’t seen in advance that he could cheat, we’d probably all be done for by now.”

“I’m a bit confused…” Qin Dingdong said. “What’s the relationship between Earth-Monkey and Heavenly-Snake?”

“They have no relationship,” Qi Xia said. “This matter probably has nothing to do with these two people. It’s just that Earth-Snake’s words made these two people’s situations contradict each other, and also shrouded the truth of this place in a layer of fog. I believe that ‘Echo’ is not the only thing that exists.”

Qin Dingdong was naturally no fool. After hearing everyone’s conversation and thinking it over briefly, she quickly reached a conclusion: “Tricked by Earth-Monkey? Are you saying that seeing through playing cards… Earth-Monkey and Earth-Snake are the same kind of people?”

“Exactly,” Qi Xia said. “Unless there’s another ability in this place that can also see through playing cards, then this situation has a discrepancy.”

“Damn it,” Chen Junnan said. “That Earth-Snake kid must have lied just now. I’m going back to question him!”

“No need,” Qi Xia said. “The conversation has already reached this point. If Earth-Snake knows the truth, there’s no way he would conceal it—it would be meaningless for him.”

Chen Junnan let out a heavy breath, then nodded: “So you just said that ‘Heavenly-Snake’s’ research direction was wrong…”

“Either the research direction was wrong, or there’s another rare possibility,” Qi Xia said.

“What possibility?”

“In my memory, the situation of ‘Echo coexistence’ does indeed exist,” Qi Xia pointed up at the sky and said in a deep voice. “The ‘Echoes’ possessed by those people up there can highly overlap with ours at the same time. For example, ‘Dream Entry’ can exist simultaneously, ‘Immortality’ can exist simultaneously.”

“Hiss…” Chen Junnan thought for a while and said, “But didn’t that old guy just say? The three of them each have multiple ‘immortal techniques,’ but these ‘immortal techniques’ don’t overlap with each other, so they can coexist. So from this perspective, even though ‘Parasitic Flying Bird’ can also see through playing cards, it doesn’t conflict with ‘Spirit Vision’…”

“That’s right, which is why I said ‘Heavenly-Snake’s’ research direction might be wrong,” Qi Xia said. “He has been researching ‘Echoes’ that don’t conflict with each other all along, but perhaps what he should really be researching are ‘Echoes’ that do conflict. When the same ‘Echo’ is ‘implanted’ into different people, it might trigger some special reaction.”

“Old Qi… this young master doesn’t quite understand,” Chen Junnan scratched his head. “If it’s going to conflict… does that mean only one person can have an ‘Echo’? For instance, once this young master has ‘Scapegoat,’ no one else in the world can have ‘Scapegoat’ anymore?”

“I’m also not clear about the specific effects,” Qi Xia said. “But I feel this is more in line with ‘Heavenly-Dragon’s’ purpose. He probably doesn’t want ordinary ‘Participants’ to have overly powerful ‘Echoes.’ ‘Heavenly-Dragon’ wants a stable situation after all—he needs people to collect ‘Dao’ for him and needs the games to continue smoothly.”

Qin Dingdong launched another kick at Chen Junnan, but Chen Junnan dodged it as if he had anticipated it.

“Still joking around at a time like this?” Qin Dingdong said.

“How is this joking? It’s really unlucky,” Chen Junnan said somewhat aggrieved. “Forget it, probably no one can understand how powerful an ability ‘Scapegoat’ is. Whether that ‘Heavenly-Dragon’ kid wants it or not is up to him.”

Qi Xia nodded: “This reasoning is correct. I believe this so-called ‘implantation’ can not only use ‘natives” eyes, but can directly use living people’s or ‘Participants” eyes as well. After all, what ‘Heavenly-Snake’ wants are the ‘Echoes’ in the eyes, so as long as the owner of the eyes is an ‘Echoer,’ the conditions can be satisfied. That’s why those ‘ants’ come out every night to collect eyes.”

“So that’s how it is…?” Chen Junnan said thoughtfully. “Those ‘ants’ want eyes?”

“What they’re looking for isn’t just ‘eyes,'” Qi Xia pondered for a while and said. “But in this city, it can only be ‘eyes.'”

Qiao Jiajin scratched his head on the side: “So they’re like ‘movers’? These things transport ‘eyes’ to those people?”

“They transport ‘Dao,'” Qi Xia said. “In this city, ‘Dao’ are made from eyes, but I believe ‘Echoes’ still exist within ‘Dao.'”

Naturally, this was everyone’s first time learning that ‘Dao’ were made from eyes, but through various signs they had already anticipated this.

“This young master has been puzzled for a long time,” Chen Junnan shook his head. “What people here painstakingly win are actually dead people’s eyeballs.”

“Yes. Turning eyes into ‘Dao’ isn’t any profound technique,” Qi Xia said. “Making these ‘Dao’ should require abilities related to ‘illusion’ and ‘decay retardation.’ Overall, it’s not difficult.”

“Decay retardation…?” Qiao Jiajin looked at Qi Xia.

“You should still remember that the nearly two thousand ‘Dao’ Chu Tianqiu once gave me would emit a putrid smell the instant they were opened,” Qi Xia said. “According to him, these ‘Dao’ had been collected for a very long time and had probably already begun to rot. What’s strange is that no change could be seen from their appearance, so I believe that even if these things have completely decayed, to us they still appear to be ‘Dao.’ In summary… the ‘Heaven-level’ should have used a specialized appearance-changing ‘illusion’ and ‘decay retardation’ to prevent short-term decay.”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan nodded: “So you’re saying that aside from these two changes, there’s no difference between ‘Dao’ and ‘eyeballs.'”

“Yes. The only inconvenient point is that each ‘Dao’ looks exactly the same. Once mixed together, it’s very difficult to determine who its owner is, which means the ‘Echo’ it contains is also unknown,” Qi Xia said. “Rather than this, it’s better to directly use living people’s eyeballs.”

“Wait…” Chen Junnan seemed to suddenly discover a problem. “If ‘Dao’ and ‘eyeballs’ only differ in appearance and are otherwise completely the same… how do those ‘ants’ distinguish between ‘Dao’ and ‘eyeballs’?”

“That’s why I said… what the ‘ants’ were originally looking for were ‘eyeballs,'” Qi Xia said with a serious expression. “The managers of this place used a strange scheme to allow the ‘ants’ to accurately collect five types of chips.”

“In that case, the ‘ants” collection of ‘eyeballs’ isn’t stable, because most of what they find are ‘Dao’ that can’t be directly used,” Qin Dingdong interjected. “Student Qi, if the other side wants to obtain ‘Echoers” eyeballs in bulk…”

“Someone needs to provide them regularly,” Qi Xia answered.

After these words, the three people beside him fell silent.

“Although I don’t want to admit it…” Qi Xia pondered for a while. “But this place has probably always had people providing eyeballs to the ‘Zodiacs.'”

Chen Junnan’s brows tightened: “Then doesn’t that leave only that Little Chu kid? Birds of a feather.”

“Chu Tianqiu is only the provider on the surface,” Qi Xia said. “But I suspect most of the eyeballs he provided were made into ‘Dao,’ after all, among the upper echelons I know of, there aren’t many people who possess ‘Heaven’s Mouth’ abilities.”

When Qiao Jiajin and Chen Junnan heard this question, they seemed to think of something as well.

If talking about ‘overlapping abilities,’ Heaven’s Mouth’s abilities indeed rarely appeared on ‘Divine Beasts’ and ‘Heaven-level.’

What was suspicious instead was…