“No… I…” Qi Xia felt the situation was a bit strange. “You’re saying what I just wrote was this?”

“Are you alright, Qi Xia… You look really tired.” Lin Qin said. “People need to learn to relieve their own stress, otherwise they won’t be able to handle it.”

“You think I’ve gone mad?” Qi Xia furrowed his brow and looked at the paper in his hand. He knew he was very clear-headed and could never possibly lose his mind here.

The bell sound just now must have been Aunt Tong activating her ability.

She had likely altered what he had written.

Her ability was perhaps similar to Jiang Ruoxue’s “Karmic Causality” ability—whatever content Aunt Tong spoke out loud would unconditionally become what Qi Xia had written.

What made this ability terrifying was that other people couldn’t detect anything amiss at all. It was as if in their memories, this text was always meant to be this way.

Only the person who had written the text could possibly know the content had changed.

Aunt Tong smiled faintly and said, “The principle will be revealed shortly. Does anyone else need me to guess?”

A few more people in the room raised their hands sporadically. Aunt Tong gave her answers without hesitation.

Clearly, her answers were different from what everyone remembered, yet they matched the content on the paper slips.

This caused everyone to start whispering among themselves.

Only when no one raised their hands at all did Aunt Tong turn around. She swept her gaze across everyone, then stared at Qi Xia and asked plainly, “Young man, do you think I’m correct?”

Although Qi Xia knew her answers were wrong, there was currently no evidence to prove this.

“Yes.” Qi Xia nodded. “But could you tell me why you’re correct?”

After hearing this, Aunt Tong nodded slightly. “That’s a clever question. You’re a very intelligent child.”

She turned around and wrote another character on the blackboard: “Belief” (信).

“Actually, there are many people who can hear the ‘Echo,’ but very few who can completely control the ‘Echo.'” Aunt Tong gently tapped the character on the blackboard and said, “The key point lies in ‘belief.'”

After hearing this, everyone still didn’t quite understand.

Qi Xia only knew that Yun Yao had once said that “Echo” was a kind of “faith.” Could these words have come from Aunt Tong?

“The power of ‘Echo’ comes from Mother Goddess. She bestowed this ability upon us so that we could protect ourselves in times of danger. Yet how many truly show gratitude to Mother Goddess? Those ‘Echoers’ use their abilities without displaying their devotion.”

Upon hearing this, Qi Xia realized his deduction had been somewhat optimistic.

The “belief” this auntie wrote referred to “faith.”

Aunt Tong continued, “Among all the ‘Echoers’ I’ve encountered, no one has a higher success rate in activating ‘Echo’ than me. Ultimately, it’s because I believe Mother Goddess will surely protect me—after all, I am her most devoted child.”

Based on this explanation, Qi Xia felt that Aunt Tong’s success rate in activating “Echo” was indeed very high.

Back then, Jiang Ruoxue had only activated the “Karmic Causality” ability twice before saying her “luck was too good.” But looking at Aunt Tong now—she had consecutively stated the contents of seven or eight people’s paper slips without being contradicted even once. This meant she had succeeded every single time.

“Belief…” Qi Xia pondered silently.

He felt as if he had grasped a trace of an elusive clue.

Believe in “Mother Goddess”…?

A moment later, Qi Xia’s eyes slowly widened…

That’s right…

So this was the reason Aunt Tong appeared at “Heaven’s Mouth”!

Her theory was extremely important!

He had been too prejudiced. Just now, he hadn’t taken what she said seriously at all.

“Auntie…” Qi Xia raised his hand again, asking with a serious expression, “Are you saying… in order to successfully activate ‘Echo,’ we must believe that this particular ‘Echo’ will definitely succeed?”

“Yes, you truly are an intelligent child.” Aunt Tong said with a smile. “You must completely believe from the bottom of your heart in the power ‘Mother Goddess’ has granted you. Only then is it possible to glimpse the truth.”

If that was the case, everything became clear.

“If…” Qi Xia continued verifying his thoughts, “my ‘Echo’ is to pull out a stack of cash from my pocket, according to your theory, how should I execute it?”

“Very simple. Your subconscious must believe that there truly is such a stack of cash in your pocket. There cannot be any doubt or hesitation. This way, you can borrow ‘Mother Goddess’s’ power and pull out the cash from your pocket.”

“I see…” Qi Xia lowered his head somewhat bewildered, continuously muttering to himself.

Trains would never drive into the city, and the sky couldn’t possibly rain down meteorites.

Han Yimo was safe.

Because those absurd disasters wouldn’t happen in reality, his subconscious couldn’t possibly believe in the arrival of such disasters.

Even if he remained a “Disaster Bringer,” what he summoned were still disasters “within his capability.”

The harpoons in the room flew wildly about, so he believed he would be pierced—this was within the realm of reason.

But what about the “Seven Black Sword”?

This question was very interesting. Why would Han Yimo believe that the “Seven Black Sword” truly existed in this world?

There was probably only one answer.

When this writer was writing, in order to better advance the story, he always believed that such a sword truly existed in this world. He tried his best to regard himself as a narrator of the story rather than a fabricator of it.

If a writer himself didn’t believe what he wrote was real, how could readers possibly believe it?

So during that pitch-black dawn, he conjured the “Seven Black Sword” out of thin air. And this sword, exactly as he had imagined without the slightest deviation, stabbed him to death.

Officer Li’s behavior could also be explained this way. When he first pulled out his lighter and cigarettes, he was already close to unconsciousness from excessive blood loss. At that time, he might not have even known where he was.

So in his subconscious, he believed his pocket should always carry a lighter and cigarettes.

This also proved why he only pulled out a “Dao” at the very last moment before death. When he clearly knew he only had three “Dao” on him, he absolutely couldn’t possibly pull out a fourth.

But when he was about to give up, about to die, he surprisingly forgot that he had given one to Qi Xia.

So the fourth one appeared.

As for why Aunt Tong could activate “Echo” with such a high success rate, it wasn’t actually because she controlled her “subconscious” properly, but because she completely believed that a “Mother Goddess” existed in this world. Everything was “Mother Goddess’s” power. She believed that as long as she devoutly worshipped Mother Goddess, she would succeed 100% in borrowing this power.

This fortuitous coincidence made her a powerful “Echoer.”

“This makes too much sense…” Qi Xia muttered to himself. “This is simply the most perfect explanation for ‘Echo’… It’s not a ‘superpower,’ it truly is a kind of ‘faith.’ It’s subconscious, it’s continuous…”

Seeing Qi Xia deep in thought, Lin Qin and the others exchanged glances, not knowing what to say for a moment.

“Lin Qin…” Qi Xia suddenly turned his head to look at Lin Qin. “Can you help me with something?”

“Help you?”