Heavenly-Dog walked a few steps, then leaned against the nearby wall and began taking deep breaths.

He turned his head back with difficulty and asked: “Hasn’t that person called Yan Zhichun arrived yet?”

“Who told you to stop?” Earth-Dog turned his head and asked. “We’ve already sent someone to call Yan Zhichun. Don’t pretend to be pitiful. Continue leading the way.”

“Let me rest for a moment. My back really hurts too much, and we must wait until Yan Zhichun arrives…” Heavenly-Dog said again. “Don’t you trust me yet?”

“Are you going back on your word?” Earth-Dog asked. “You were speaking just fine a moment ago. You should know that we people can kill you right now, right?”

“I’ve already agreed to cooperate…” Heavenly-Dog said through gritted teeth. “Why still treat me as an enemy…”

“That’s really hard to say.” Earth-Dog shook his head. “Someone who would gouge out all his own eyes to seek survival at a critical moment… might very well betray us to stay alive.”

“I said I won’t run away…” Heavenly-Dog moved his back, trying to keep those wounds from rubbing against his clothes as much as possible. “I just want to stay alive. Gouging out my eyes was also a helpless act. To me, it doesn’t matter who the ruler here is… I just want to live.”

Lin Qin frowned as she looked at Heavenly-Dog, then looked toward that distant door, before asking: “So this is the plan you came up with on the spot? To take us to open that door…”

“Yes, don’t worry…” Heavenly-Dog sighed with an evasive expression. “It’ll be over soon.”

She felt that Heavenly-Dog’s decision was very strange. Just now, Earth-Dog had only led everyone to storm into his room, wanting to obtain all the intelligence he had gathered so far using “Spiritual Hearing,” but Heavenly-Dog was surprisingly cooperative.

Not only did he answer every question, telling everyone the current direction of the battlefield and compiling a partial list of those currently deceased, he even proposed a suggestion that even Earth-Dog couldn’t fathom.

After hearing this suggestion, Lin Qin immediately felt something was seriously wrong. She felt that Heavenly-Dog was really too strange… No one would make such a suggestion at a time like this.

After all, Earth-Dog only wanted to know intelligence. From Heavenly-Dog’s perspective, when he revealed all his intelligence, he was already safe. He had absolutely no need to propose this kind of plan that would trap himself.

If Heavenly-Dog wasn’t insane… then he was preparing a deadly trap for everyone.

“So…” Xiao Xiao came to Lin Qin’s side and asked in a low voice, “What do you think about this matter?”

“I really don’t know…” Lin Qin answered quietly. “What other options do we have now? Even if these two dogs want to kill all the ‘Participants,’ all we can do is follow beside them and then stop them at the critical moment.”

“But didn’t you participate in that dog’s game?” Xiao Xiao continued asking. “Based on your understanding of him, would he suddenly switch sides at a time like this?”

“It’s precisely because I feel he wouldn’t that I’ve patiently stayed until now… but that Heavenly-Dog’s suggestion…” Lin Qin paused. “No… I should say both dogs are strange… That Earth-Dog seems to have been waiting for this opportunity all along. He wouldn’t let us go kill Heavenly-Ox, nor would he let us liberate the ‘Ants.’ He’s delayed us for so long, yet in the end wants to take us to find ‘Heavenly-Dog,’ and ‘Heavenly-Dog’ just happens to be waiting here with an even more important task… No matter how you think about it, it’s too suspicious.”

Seeing Heavenly-Dog’s figure standing not far away, Xiao Xiao quickly said to Lin Qin in a low voice: “Wait… Theoretically, after this ‘Heavenly-level’ gouged out his own eyes, he should still have ‘Spiritual Hearing,’ right… He’ll hear our words.”

“It doesn’t matter if he hears.” Lin Qin said. “I just don’t trust him. Things have already reached this point—I don’t need to hide it anymore.”

Heavenly-Dog glanced at Lin Qin, a trace of an aggrieved expression flashing across his fat face, but he could only pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

“Little brother!” Lin Qin directly pulled Zheng Yingxiong in front of her. “I need to ask you something.”

Zheng Yingxiong nodded after hearing this, but his expression wasn’t very natural.

Lin Qin stretched out her hand and pointed at Heavenly-Dog: “Tell big sister, is he lying?”

Zheng Yingxiong was long past being an ordinary child. Naturally, he began to fall silent when faced with this kind of question. He had encountered similar situations many times before. At this moment, whether he answered “yes” or “no,” the result wouldn’t be good either way.

“Don’t be afraid.” Lin Qin added. “Right now he’s at most a ‘Earth-level’ with an ‘Echo.’ His life is in our hands. He doesn’t dare act recklessly.”

Zheng Yingxiong continued his silence for a while, then raised his head to look at Heavenly-Dog. After a few seconds, he turned his head to look at Earth-Dog.

He had already noticed from earlier that the current situation was strange enough to make one’s scalp tingle.

“Big sister…” Zheng Yingxiong said while staring at the backs of the two. “They’re both… lying.”

That brief sentence nearly made both Lin Qin and Xiao Xiao’s expressions change completely. The atmosphere at the scene became even more complex at this moment.

Earth-Dog turned his head back and gave Zheng Yingxiong a meaningful look, then said: “Child, your statement is too one-sided. You don’t know what lies we respectively told, so don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Yes…” Zheng Yingxiong acknowledged Earth-Dog’s words. “I indeed don’t know what lies you two told, but there definitely is the scent of lies on both of you.”

Heavenly-Dog also looked at Earth-Dog after hearing Zheng Yingxiong’s words, his expression instantly becoming extremely nervous: “You’re also lying to me…? Could it be that you don’t plan to let me live in the end?”

“You…” Earth-Dog said with slight hesitation. “Aren’t you the villain complaining first? I’d like to hear what lie you told. I’ve even agreed to this seemingly unreasonable request of yours, yet you still have things you’re concealing?”

Zheng Yingxiong’s single sentence seemed to have plunged the two into a crisis of trust.

“I… I do have something I’m concealing.” Heavenly-Dog scratched his own cheek. “But it’s not anything major…”

“Fine, then let’s be frank with each other.” Earth-Dog nodded. “Before entering the door, let’s confess all our respective lies, to avoid us not trusting each other at the final moment.”

Heavenly-Dog pondered for a while before saying: “If we’re going to put it that way, actually this strategy wasn’t something I thought up myself, nor is it some ‘strategy beneficial to the overall situation’… It was told to me by someone.”

“Who?”

“It was Baiyang, or rather Qi Xia…” Heavenly-Dog slowly lowered his head. “He told me the tactics to follow from very far away, telling me to lead Yan Zhichun, Lin Qin, Jiang Ruoxue, and Zheng Yingxiong together to that door…”

“Qi Xia…?” After hearing this, Earth-Dog narrowed his eyes, feeling that things still weren’t clear. “You’re saying… Qi Xia just told you from very far away that it’s time to initiate the ‘Heavenly-level Moment’ now?”

“Yes.” Heavenly-Dog nodded, and Zheng Yingxiong also noticed that the scent of “lies” on him had already dissipated by more than half.