“What? Dangerous?” She looked at me somewhat curiously. “Are you going to confess to me?”

“I—!” I sighed helplessly and said, “Haven’t you always wanted to know what I’m doing? Now I’ll tell you.”

“Oh…?” She pulled over a stool and sat down, then looked at me full of anticipation. “Go ahead, tell me.”

I did indeed need a trustworthy teammate now, and Jiang Ruoxue was a good candidate.

Although I didn’t know what use the “Causality” Echo had, at least I would have someone to discuss countermeasures with.

Jiang Ruoxue and I had completely opposite ways of thinking—perhaps she really could come up with some brilliant strategy.

So I told her in a few words about what I’d encountered. I told her I’d been chosen by a “Zodiac” to become a teammate, and that the ultimate goal of that “Zodiac” was to overthrow the “apex” of this place.

Next, I took out the note and showed her the three difficult problems Baiyang had left me.

“Do you have any leads?” I asked.

Jiang Ruoxue held the note, examining those three sentences with an expression not unlike my own.

These three matters weren’t things that could be accomplished by me alone, or even by the two of us.

“Must these three things be done?” she murmured quietly. “Could this be the reason I appeared here?”

“For me they must be done, but for you they don’t have to be.” I shook my head. “If you have any ideas, you can tell me. If you don’t have any ideas, that’s fine too. Or if you now feel I’m too dangerous and want to leave, I have no objection either.”

“Who did you learn this way of chatting from?” Jiang Ruoxue asked irritably. “Even if I had ideas, you’ve made me lose them with this attitude.”

“I…” Hearing this, I silently lowered my head. “I’m sorry. I really haven’t communicated with people much before, so I like to say all the unpleasant things up front.”

“It’s fine, I have an idea.” Jiang Ruoxue waved her hand.

“What idea?” I instantly raised my eyebrows. “Tell me quickly.”

“Beg me.”

“Ah…?”

Jiang Ruoxue gave me a mischievous smile. “See? This is how good sisters talk. From now on, you can use your approach with anyone else, but you absolutely can’t use it with me.”

“Okay… alright.” I awkwardly smoothed my hair. “Then hurry up and tell me.”

“So you’re not going to beg me?” Jiang Ruoxue looked toward the ceiling with a pretense of profundity. “If you don’t beg me, that’s fine—you can also call me ‘daddy.'”

“You…” I really couldn’t take it anymore and swung my palm to smack her arm. Unexpectedly, it just made her laugh.

“Haha! That’s it!” Jiang Ruoxue said. “When talking to me, if you use lots of techniques and negotiation tactics, you might lose me as a friend. In front of me, say whatever you want to say, do whatever you want to do. This isn’t disrespecting me—on the contrary, it’s showing intimacy toward me.”

Only now did I understand what Jiang Ruoxue meant—yes, I was always carefully guarding against everyone, even those who were preparing to give me their genuine hearts.

I always thought I’d learned a lot of knowledge, but I never expected that even the simplest interpersonal relationships needed Jiang Ruoxue to teach me.

“Zhichun.” Jiang Ruoxue pointed at the note in front of us, resuming a serious expression. “You always say I can’t figure out logical relationships. Now you can try using my way of thinking.”

“Your way of thinking…?” I lowered my head and thought for a moment. “You mean ‘reasoning from effect to cause’?”

“Exactly.” Jiang Ruoxue nodded. “You’ve thought about these three problems for so long and can’t figure out the ’cause,’ so why not try starting from the ‘effect’ instead?”

“I… don’t quite understand.”

I shook my head. For me, Jiang Ruoxue’s way of thinking was truly too abstract—I had no way to apply it skillfully in a short time.

“Think of it this way…” After thinking for a few seconds, Jiang Ruoxue slowly began to speak. “Suppose several years from now, there’s such a team in the ‘Land of the End.’ They obstruct others from collecting ‘Dao’ everywhere, doing all sorts of crazy things to make people despair, and every one of them is an Echo strong individual… Why would that be?”

“Ah…?”

Was this “reasoning from effect to cause”…?

But Jiang Ruoxue’s suggestion did indeed give me a very novel line of thought. Yes… if there were such a team active in the “Land of the End,” what would be the reason?

What would be these people’s motivation?

“That’s not quite right.” I said with furrowed brows. “We need one more condition…”

“What?”

“Since what we’re doing is very dangerous, these people need a way to avoid being focused and eliminated by other forces.” After thinking for a while, I said, “So these people should operate as ‘solo combatants’… they might not even know each other. This is absolute safety. Even if one person is captured, even beaten to death, they fundamentally wouldn’t know where the other teammates are.”

“I see, that’s more thorough.” Jiang Ruoxue nodded, then raised her head to ask, “Then think about it… what would be this team’s purpose?”

Following Jiang Ruoxue’s line of thought, I quickly pondered. Yes… because this team had no way to cooperate, what they needed wasn’t team spirit…

But rather some very abstract things. What they needed was…

Faith.

A “faith” that didn’t require cooperation with others, planted deep in the heart, sufficient for solo combat.

Just like how ancient emperors were clearly mortals, yet called themselves the “Son of Heaven.”

Thus, those who met the “Son of Heaven” would all shout “Long live!” and at critical moments would also risk their lives for the “Son of Heaven.”

Even if these people had never seen the “Son of Heaven,” it was the same.

This was the power of faith.

As long as I could fabricate a lie to make them believe, I could naturally get these people to work hard in various places.

But what lie should I fabricate…?

“Wait…” I raised my hand to lightly touch my forehead, feeling my line of thought was a bit narrow. “I don’t need a lie at all… What I need to tell them is the ‘truth’…”

“Ah?” Jiang Ruoxue turned her head to look at me. “Have you thought of it? The ’cause’ of this matter.”

“Thanks to you…” I nodded. “I’ve thought of it. This is the most suitable path for me. I fundamentally don’t need to build a team—I need to meet strong individuals and tell them the ‘truth’ about this place… As long as three thousand six hundred ‘Dao’ are collected, everything will start over. This way they’ll naturally fall into despair! They’ll also actively interfere with those collecting ‘Dao’ for this reason. In the future, at some point, as long as I gather these people with the same purpose together… they’ll be the strongest ‘team.'”