The two of us sat in an empty little house as the end was about to arrive. What we had seen and heard these past days filled our minds with questions.
“Zhichun, did we make a mistake?” Zhang Qiang asked from the side.
“I… don’t know…” I sighed, truly not knowing how to explain this matter.
In such a vast city, based on its scale there should be at least several thousand people active here, yet from beginning to end we had only found one “Dao.”
Which part had gone wrong?
“I think there are two possibilities…” Zhang Qiang murmured in a low voice. “Perhaps we experienced a low-probability event… The two of us are the only ones who preserved our memories… All the other people besides us simply don’t have the concept of hiding ‘Dao’…”
“But that’s impossible,” I interrupted Zhang Qiang. “‘Echo’ is the key point for ‘preserving memories.’ The bells ring here every day—how could only we have preserved our memories?”
“Then all of this is truly too contradictory…” Zhang Qiang shook his head in frustration. “So many people have preserved their memories and continuously participate in games, yet no one has hidden any ‘Dao’… Could all these people have died in the games? If not… how would they bring ‘Dao’ with them when they’re reborn?”
Speaking of which, our speculation shouldn’t have any bias. There were indeed many people here who preserved their memories earlier than us and started collecting “Dao” earlier.
In any environment, I would assume I wasn’t the strongest—there should still be people stronger than me. It was the same here.
For instance, I heard that recently there was a “Participant” with strong momentum who was always gathering a group of people to plan something. Walking on the streets, you could often hear about their activities.
Zhang Qiang and I were unsociable after all, and we never bothered to inquire about what those participants’ goals were. So every time we saw people from their organization active, the two of us would hastily leave.
I had always firmly believed one thing—
A participant was ultimately a participant. No matter how strong they were, they couldn’t possibly be stronger than Baiyang.
That leader couldn’t stir up any waves. When she encountered Baiyang, she would hit an iron wall.
“Brother Qiang, what’s the second possibility you mentioned?” I snapped back to attention and asked.
“That is… there are other ‘Thieves’ here,” Zhang Qiang said with a serious expression. “What we can think of, others can think of too. Perhaps there’s a larger-scale, more tightly organized gang also collecting ‘Dao’ and hiding them in places we absolutely cannot find.”
Zhang Qiang’s idea made me feel there were still many doubts.
As I said, if there were several thousand people active in the city, and many of them had obtained “Echo”… then the “Dao” they earned should be plentiful.
No… to be precise, as “Dao” was the only currency here, everyone would try every means to preserve them.
Even if they only had one “Dao” on them when being annihilated, they absolutely couldn’t just casually throw it away.
From this reasoning, there should be a huge quantity of “Dao” hidden here. If the opposing theft gang could sweep up such a quantity of “Dao” in one net, leaving only one fish that slipped through, it could only mean this gang’s scale was even more astonishing—requiring at least several hundred to a thousand people. But this clearly wasn’t reasonable.
In a place where even “Zodiacs” couldn’t unite with each other, could someone have organized a theft gang of several hundred people?
No matter how the two of us discussed it, we couldn’t reach a conclusion. Perhaps the complexity of this place far exceeded our imagination.
“Fessno’s Theorem” says that people have two ears but only one mouth, which means people should listen more and speak less.
I prepared to quietly wait for annihilation, then go listen to what Baiyang had to say. He said “cooperation” rather than “exploitation,” which proved his proposal also had benefits for Zhang Qiang and me.
I chose to believe the powerful.
Although he violated the rules by choosing suicide, I didn’t know why… I always felt he would come back.
Sure enough, as I expected, when I opened my eyes in the room again, I could already see three “Zodiacs” neatly arranged in the room.
Aside from me and Baiyang, all the remaining people showed astonished expressions.
Baiyang also seemed to have just calmed down. He took a deep breath and said softly, “Good thing I made it in time.”
Before Zhang Qiang and I could speak, the Sheep’s emotions became directly agitated.
“Baiyang… you…”
“Long story short, I’m in a hurry,” Baiyang interrupted somewhat anxiously. “Now do you believe me?”
“You… you…” The Shar-Pei Dog also stared at Baiyang with an incredulous expression. “You clearly violated the rules… What’s going on?”
“So as I said, sometimes there’s no need to look at what the contract says. Instead, you need to use your own brain,” Baiyang reached up to touch his mask and, discovering that even the gunshot wound at his temple was gone, finally felt relieved and continued, “Let’s cooperate. What’s said here can’t possibly be monitored, because as you said, everyone who comes to the ‘Interview Room’ cherishes their life more than others, so no one dares to violate the rules.”
“But how did you discover this?” the Sheep asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” Baiyang decisively refused. “Man-Dog, Sheep, let’s talk business. Are you interested in rebelling with me?”
After hearing this sentence, Zhang Qiang’s and my hearts instantly tightened. The situation seemed exactly the same as last time—we needed to quickly grasp our “Memories.”
Although Baiyang was powerful, every sentence he spoke was enough to kill Zhang Qiang and me ten thousand times over.
Again we didn’t discuss it, and at the first moment tried to make ourselves obtain “Echo.”
But this time the feeling was rather strange. Only one bell rang outside. I seemed to find a subtle critical point where I could immediately cut off my train of thought when obtaining “Echo,” preventing that swaying bell sound from ringing again.
From beginning to end, Baiyang treated Zhang Qiang and me as if we didn’t exist, only looking at those two “Zodiacs” with extremely cold eyes.
“Re… rebellion…?” The Sheep was slightly stunned. “Rebellion means…?”
“Everything about this place is a scam. Even this paper on us… doesn’t have a single true word. Rebellion means we make the ‘Heavenly-Dragon’ come down from that seat and become the masters ourselves,” Baiyang said. “Otherwise, sooner or later you’ll regret missing this opportunity.”
“You…”
Both the Shar-Pei Dog and the Sheep instantly widened their eyes. Zhang Qiang and I also quickly lowered our heads.
Although we weren’t “Zodiacs,” we also knew these were words sufficient to cost lives.
“You said to bring down who…?” The Shar-Pei Dog asked with a trembling voice.
“Heavenly-Dragon,” Baiyang said. “We’ll make him die.”
After hearing this, the Shar-Pei Dog reached out and slowly grabbed Baiyang, turning his head to the Sheep and saying, “The situation is wrong—quickly go call for help!”