Chu Tianqiu sat in the dim room eating breakfast when he suddenly heard a faint knocking at the door.

“What is it?” he asked.

“He has a question… he wants to ask you,” came the voice from outside.

“Let me guess…” Chu Tianqiu slowly stroked his chin. “Could it be… he wants to ask how long I’ve been here?”

“That’s right.” The shadow outside the door nodded.

“How very interesting.” Chu Tianqiu revealed a meaningful smile. “Qi Xia, this is exactly right…”

“It’s all my fault…” The voice outside sounded hesitant and stammering. “I didn’t expect Qi Xia to see through the flaw.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” Chu Tianqiu shook his head. “Even if we could fool everyone else, it’s impossible to fool Qi Xia. He would have discovered it sooner or later, just much earlier than I anticipated.”

“So how should we answer this question?” The voice outside sounded troubled. “He said if you answer incorrectly, he’ll make you completely ‘eliminated.'”

“Is that so?” Chu Tianqiu nodded slightly and walked over to sit down at the table, where there was a notebook.

The notebook was filled with many inexplicable words.

There were numerous emotions written down—”Anger,” “Despair,” “Fear,” “Reluctance,” “Longing,” “Pride,” “Sorrow,” “Regret”—covering an entire page densely. But strangely, many of these words had been crossed out.

“Has Qi Xia still not ‘Echoed’?” Chu Tianqiu asked.

“No,” came the reply from outside.

Chu Tianqiu’s expression darkened as he picked up the pen and crossed out “Regret” as well.

Now only one word remained on the notebook: “Sorrow.”

He capped the pen and gently tapped the two characters for “Sorrow” with his finger, then said, “I may have found the answer.”

“Really?” The shadow outside also began to ponder. “But could it be… that the ‘Regret’ we gave Qi Xia simply wasn’t enough?”

“Oh?” Chu Tianqiu thought for a moment. “Are you saying… he doesn’t care about his teammates’ lives at all?”

“I can’t say for certain,” came the reply from outside. “I can’t read anything from his expression.”

“Interesting.” Chu Tianqiu nodded. “That means he deliberately walked into the trap… knowing it was futile yet doing it anyway, willing to sacrifice teammates just to draw out my existence.”

“Sacrificing teammates…” The voice outside sounded somewhat hesitant. “Tianqiu, we also lost two teammates… Is that person called Qi Xia really that important? Is he even more important than Jin Yuanxun?”

Chu Tianqiu didn’t answer this question. After a moment of silence, he asked instead, “Did Lin Qin join ‘Heaven’s Mouth’?”

“Yes.”

“What a rare sight to see in a hundred years…” Chu Tianqiu tapped the table. “I’m planning to meet her.”

“But, but she’s an ‘Extreme Path’ member!” The voice outside sounded somewhat panicked.

“There aren’t many ‘Extreme Path’ members with such deep credentials.” Chu Tianqiu slowly stood up. “She’s still different from those newly promoted madmen.”

After a long silence outside, the voice said, “I understand.”

Chu Tianqiu smiled faintly. “Does your mouth that Qi Xia injured still hurt?”

The person outside didn’t answer. After a long while, they finally asked slowly, “How exactly are you going to answer Qi Xia’s question?”

“That’s not difficult. Tell him ‘I never left.'”

Qiao Jiajin held a cloth bundle, his mood exceptionally good.

“Psychologist, Writer Boy, you two are pretty smart too.”

He opened the bundle and counted—this time in the “Man-Dog” game, they had actually earned six “Dao.”

He just didn’t know if six “Dao” would be enough to buy alcohol.

Lin Qin frowned slightly, reached out to take the cloth bundle, and in the process inadvertently touched Qiao Jiajin’s fingers again.

Qiao Jiajin didn’t pay attention. Seeing the bundle taken away, he put both hands in his pockets.

Lin Qin sighed softly and asked, “Qiao Jiajin, what are you thinking about?”

“What am I thinking?” Qiao Jiajin blinked. “Why ask so directly?”

He was thinking about using the “Dao” to buy alcohol, but unfortunately couldn’t say it outright.

“I…” Lin Qin felt that Qiao Jiajin was somewhat strange.

Just like Qi Xia, no matter how she touched him, there was absolutely no sign of an “Echo.”

Lin Qin felt that to fully trigger Qiao Jiajin’s ability, she would need to release her entire “Echo,” but doing so would ring the bell, making things somewhat thorny.

“Are you suppressing your inner feelings?” Lin Qin asked.

“Huh?” Qiao Jiajin was startled. “Why would I suppress my inner feelings?”

Although Qiao Jiajin adamantly denied it, Lin Qin still discovered the problem.

She felt that Qiao Jiajin wasn’t truly being Qiao Jiajin, or rather, he wasn’t being himself.

“Qiao Jiajin, think about who you really are,” Lin Qin said. “Don’t suppress the thoughts in your heart.”

“Who I really am…?” Qiao Jiajin’s eyes slowly grew cold and stern.

“Who are you? Before coming here, did you have any unfulfilled wishes?”

“I…”

A faint, indistinct sound of bells seemed to ring in Qiao Jiajin’s ears.

Without the disguise, the taste of memories was unbearably bitter.

“This is just who I am.” Qiao Jiajin interrupted his train of thought, showed a smile, and turned his head to say, “Psychologist, I don’t have money to book an appointment with you, so you don’t need to diagnose me.”

He lazily stretched his arms, then walked straight ahead.

Lin Qin knew that the difficulty in triggering Qiao Jiajin’s “Echo” wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This indicated that his “Echo” was extremely powerful.

Lin Qin turned her head to look helplessly at Han Yimo, muttering to herself, “At least it’s much more powerful than ‘Calamity Attraction.'”

The three of them wandered aimlessly through the city. Just as they were preparing to head to the next game, they suddenly heard an enormous bell sound.

“What?” Lin Qin was slightly startled. The bell sounded very close.

Who had “Echoed”?

Was it one of their own?

“Let’s go take a look.” Lin Qin pointed toward where the bell had rung, and the three of them immediately changed direction.

But just as they walked near the giant display screen, the deafening bell rang out once more.

The “Echo” had ended.

Only a solitary line of text remained on the screen.

“I heard the Echo of ‘Calamity Attraction.'”

“Someone near death just ‘Echoed’?” Lin Qin’s lips moved slightly as she muttered to herself.

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen, pondering for a moment before asking, “Whose ‘Echo’ is ‘Calamity Attraction’? Why has it been there all along?”

“It’s…” Lin Qin glanced at Han Yimo, but seeing that he showed no reaction, she could only say awkwardly, “I don’t know either.”

The three of them waited in front of the screen for a while. Finding nothing else, they were about to leave when the screen suddenly started displaying several lines of text in rapid succession, as if being spammed.

Immediately following came enormous, continuous bell sounds. The three people standing in front of the giant bell were shaken by these sounds until they could barely stand steady.

“I heard the Echo of ‘Shifting Blame.'”

“I heard the Echo of ‘Cause and Effect.'”

“I heard the Echo of ‘Original Object.'”

Adding the original “Calamity Attraction,” there were now four lines of text flashing simultaneously on the screen, looking exceptionally terrifying.

“Wha—what’s happening?” Han Yimo froze in place.