“Yes.” Jiang Ruoxue rushed to answer before me. “He and Zhichun are friends.”

I looked at Jiang Ruoxue, then smiled helplessly. I was still worried about whether Jiang Ruoxue would get angry hearing about Baiyang, but she was actually speaking well of Baiyang in front of others.

“What kind of joke is this…?” Guyu showed an expression of complete disbelief. “You’re saying a ‘Zodiac’ is a friend?”

“No wonder you don’t believe it.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “You’re from ‘Jade City’ and have stayed in ‘Whirlpool City’ for a long time. Naturally, you wouldn’t believe that someone could become friends with a ‘Zodiac.’ Haven’t you been wanting to ask me about ‘Zodiac’ matters all along? I can tell you.”

What Jiang Ruoxue said next left Guyu jaw-dropped countless times.

She told Guyu about the appearance of the “Zodiac” and some of the promotion rules.

Yes, such a simple and easy-to-understand principle, yet he had never discovered it all along. No one could accept this reality.

“Just by putting on a mask, you become a ‘Zodiac’…” Guyu’s lips trembled slightly. “You don’t even need to go through assessments and training…? There’s no selection by upper-level figures… and no existence of interviewers…?”

“That’s right.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “Just now, Zhichun said to let you stay here… Don’t you know what ‘staying here’ means?”

“What…?” Guyu was stunned. “‘Staying here’ means letting me become…”

“What else?” Jiang Ruoxue said. “The people in your room can’t be changed, so if you want to stay, you can only take a different path. That’s what Zhichun means.”

Wait a moment… Ruoxue doesn’t seem to know…

In my memory, I had changed rooms once.

I seemed to have fallen into habitual thinking once again. Because I myself had changed rooms, I naturally assumed that exchanging rooms wasn’t difficult for others either…

But now cities had already been destroyed. I boldly speculated that those who died gambling with their lives probably only accounted for eighty or ninety percent. The people remaining in the rooms would be trapped there forever because they couldn’t leave their rooms.

Only “Natives” wandering the streets would remain there. These “Natives” would perform various activities based on their memories from life, and at first glance, it would look just like a real city.

Unfortunately, this city had no food. Eventually, all the “Natives” would be killed by their own subconsciousness due to hunger.

If it were truly possible to exchange rooms… then everything would have a solution instead.

Other cities should have large numbers of “refugees” being sent to “Dao City,” but this situation hadn’t appeared.

The people of “Dao City” had always been in “Dao City.” I had never heard of anyone crossing cities and changing their rooms.

But if that’s the case… why did I… appear in my current room?

My interview room changed from “Sheep,” “Dog,” “Sheep” to “Tiger,” “Rabbit,” “Snake.” Could this also be Baiyang’s doing?

Could he even exchange my room…?

No, among all the “Earth-Level Zodiac” I knew, it was impossible for anyone to have such great authority. The person who changed my room could only be someone from higher up.

Thinking this way, Baiyang must have made some kind of deal with them… ultimately liberating me.

Only this way was reasonable. If there was anything different about me compared to other “Participants,” it was that I knew Baiyang and agreed to work for him.

I didn’t know how Baiyang did it, but I suddenly thought of an unrelated matter.

I had said before that my memory had been modified, but the person who modified my memory had failed.

They didn’t understand me, so they modified my life with unreasonable elements. This modification also let me instantly see through the discrepancies.

Now my life had been modified once again…

But this time, what was modified wasn’t my life in the “Real World,” but my life in the “Land of the End” where I had been cycling all along.

Thinking of this, a bold idea suddenly came to me… Were these memories real?

Had I really seen Baiyang, Mianyang, Shapiquan, and Zhang Qiang in that room?

Even if Zhang Qiang remained in the interview room and Shapiquan died, there should still be Mianyang in the city. I should have had a chance to hear about or see him.

But Baiyang told me he had also died.

How bizarre. From my own perspective… except for Baiyang, everyone else seemed to have disappeared.

Starting from the day I parted with Baiyang, I had never seen anyone again.

“You want me to become a ‘Zodiac’… What kind of joke is this…” Guyu came back to his senses and muttered to himself. “All the people who disappeared around us almost all died at the hands of ‘Zodiac’… How can I become a ‘Zodiac’…?”

“You’re wrong.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “The people around you were never killed by ‘Zodiac,’ but were killed by Wancai, as you call him.”

Guyu slowly lowered his head. He also knew that Wancai was the culprit behind everything, but there weren’t many people in that city who hated Wancai.

Hating the leader of a city alone, the few of them would become outcasts, so they could only passively transfer their hatred to the “Zodiac.”

“Even ‘Whirlpool City’ is the same.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “No matter how unreasonable the situation sounds, the person who killed the entire city wasn’t the ‘Zodiac’ at all, but Nie Bei.”

After hearing this, Guyu stood up and looked at Jiang Ruoxue and me with a somewhat desperate expression. “So… if I want to leave ‘Jade City,’ I can only become a ‘Zodiac’?”

After much deliberation, I still swallowed down the fact that I had changed rooms myself.

I didn’t know Guyu very well, but I knew Baiyang couldn’t possibly serve him unconditionally.

“Theoretically, yes.” I said. “I have the safest method that would allow you to become a ‘Zodiac’ without taking risks, but as for whether you’ll encounter danger after becoming a ‘Zodiac’… that’s not something I can decide.”

“What method…?”

“Go to ‘Whirlpool City’ once more. There should be a large number of abandoned masks there.” I said. “Choose the type you can handle, then become the corresponding ‘Zodiac.'”

Guyu looked up at me, paused slightly, and said, “But I can’t choose to become a Zodiac in ‘Whirlpool City’… It’s too dangerous there… Can I bring the mask to ‘Dao City’?”

I shook my head. “None of us have ever become a ‘Zodiac,’ so we can’t be certain, but theoretically it should be possible. After you put on the ‘mask,’ the building closest to you will become your ‘Game Venue,’ and you’ll need to complete the game content as quickly as possible.”

“I see…” Guyu’s eyes seemed to show determination. He nodded and said, “Sister Xue, Sister Zhichun, the two paths you’ve provided me—’going back’ or ‘becoming a Zodiac’—I plan to try them both. Only this way will I not have regrets.”