I didn’t know if I was too unsuited for conversing with people, or if Zhang Qiang was simply the same kind of person as me. We had clearly met many times, but our first proper communication was extremely difficult.

“You don’t participate in games either?” Zhang Qiang asked again.

“That’s right,” I nodded. “The ‘Human-level’ games have low difficulty and low rewards. The ‘Earth-level’ games are very strange—even if the rules don’t sound difficult, they always cause casualties. I suspect there are some hidden rules that can only be known after entering the game. This is also the fundamental reason for ‘Participant’ deaths.”

“Right,” Zhang Qiang responded. “I’m not a smart person. I don’t have the ability to participate in those ‘Earth-level’ games single-handedly, but I also can’t find suitable teammates. After all, there are too many fools in our room.”

After the two of us finished speaking, we couldn’t help but look at each other. I seemed to understand his thoughts.

“Brother Qiang, do you want to team up with me?” I asked. “Although I don’t know if we can earn enough three thousand six hundred ‘Dao,’ it’s still better than nothing, right?”

“No…” Zhang Qiang thought for a while and said, “If you really want to collect ‘Dao,’ I suggest trying another method.”

“What method?” I asked.

Zhang Qiang paused and said, “It’s been three cycles now, hasn’t it…? Every time we die, we come back here again.”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

Zhang Qiang led me around and around until we arrived at a small alley. He squatted down at a very hidden corner and reached out to wipe a brick near the ground.

Somewhat confused, I followed him and stood behind him, looking toward what was in front of him.

I saw a fresh marking on that brick—”ZQ.”

“Look,” Zhang Qiang said. “This is the character I carved in the last cycle.”

Seeing this scene, I instantly understood something.

So people could reincarnate and be reborn here, but the time in this city wasn’t paused… It had always been flowing forward.

I found this concept very difficult to understand. Perhaps it was like the production principle of old animated films? Characters could move against a static background?

No… We were clearly static people, yet we were moving in a flowing venue.

We had been misled by “people.” It wasn’t that when “people” started over, time would start over as well.

“Zhichun,” Zhang Qiang looked at the marking on the wall and said to me in a deep voice. “You’re a smart person—you should have thought of it… We only just obtained ‘Echo’ and preserved our memories, but that doesn’t mean we just arrived here. Perhaps we’ve already been reincarnating here for several months.”

I nodded. “That’s right. And… if time can flow, that means this city may not have originally looked like it does now.”

“What the city looks like isn’t important. We can’t interfere with these supernatural matters anyway,” Zhang Qiang said. “Let me ask you… Suppose there are other powerful ‘Participants’ who started collecting ‘Dao’ long ago. But there’s a strange phenomenon in this place—people who survive until the tenth day will inevitably be annihilated no matter what. In that case… what would those strong people who collected ‘Dao’ do? How would they ensure their labor achievements don’t disappear?”

I carefully considered Zhang Qiang’s question and quickly arrived at an answer.

“They would hide the ‘Dao’ before being annihilated?”

“Exactly,” Zhang Qiang nodded. “You really are smart. That Baiyang was right—neither you nor I could possibly disappear from the room.”

“I understand what you mean…” Yan Zhichun said. “So you’ve never participated in games…”

“That’s right, Zhichun,” Zhang Qiang turned his head to look at me and said. “Since we’re all collecting ‘Dao,’ since it’s all three thousand six hundred of them… we can completely avoid participating in games. Instead, we can try to become ‘Thieves.’ What do you think?”

“Thieves…” After hearing this, I slowly lowered my head. “You’re right… We just need to steal the ‘Dao’ that those people have hidden… Then we can leave.”

“Whether we can leave or not is hard to say,” Zhang Qiang shook his head. “But this path will be safer. Not only can we avoid contact with other people, we can also avoid deadly games. So I wanted to find someone to try this with.”

After saying this, he stood up, covered the letters in the corner with a stone, then turned back to me and said, “People who come here are all guilty of crimes, right? I was originally a thief. What about you?”

“I…” I stared into Zhang Qiang’s eyes and thought carefully for a long time before saying, “It’s not convenient for me to say.”

“It’s fine if it’s not convenient,” Zhang Qiang said. “I can see you’re unsociable like me. I can probably guess pretty close to the truth. Do you want to cooperate with me?”

Honestly, I had indeed been somewhat inconsiderate.

Because I knew I wasn’t a bad person myself, I subconsciously assumed that the people here weren’t bad either.

But I was wrong. Zhang Qiang was a habitual burglar.

I had once heard a saying… All burglars who break into homes carry weapons on them.

Although they engage in “theft,” if the homeowner suddenly returns home during the theft, they would transform into murderers.

Each of them carried out theft with the psychology of being prepared to kill. They weren’t the “same kind” as me.

But I couldn’t tell him here that I wasn’t the “same kind,” otherwise the situation would become even more dangerous.

“What’s wrong?” Zhang Qiang interrupted my train of thought. “If you don’t want to cooperate, that’s fine too. I can do it myself. I just felt that you’re a smart person and we could look out for each other.”

After thinking for a few seconds, I smiled slightly and said, “I’m willing to cooperate. Let’s do it together.”

“You’ve thought it through?” Zhang Qiang asked.

“Yes,” I nodded. “This is the ‘Hedgehog Theory.’ When it’s cold, hedgehogs huddle together to keep each other warm, but they also maintain distance to avoid hurting each other. We’re like those two hedgehogs.”

“Didn’t realize you were an educated person,” Zhang Qiang nodded. “Then let’s do it this way.”

Thinking carefully about it, when exactly did I start to develop doubts about the entire “Land of the End”?

It should have been on this day.

Twelve years ago, on the day I decided to become a “Thief” with Zhang Qiang.

Do you know how many hidden “Dao” we found after spending a full ten days?

One.

Since this place was no different from the real world—people went out during the day and rested in buildings at night—we could only choose to act during the day to avoid being seen.

The two of us walked through all the hidden corners in this city. We even climbed up buildings that were about to collapse and crawled into sewers that had been abandoned for many years.

Zhang Qiang, relying on his professional experience, took me to find one suitable hiding place after another.

But all the corners were completely empty. We could find anything except “Dao.”

The only “Dao” we found was lodged in a deep crack in the broken ground. Zhang Qiang used two wooden sticks as chopsticks to pick it out.

It was very strange… This “Dao” didn’t look like it had been hidden here. Instead, it looked like it had been dropped here.