Qi Xia still looked at Chu Tianqiu with furrowed brows. After a while, he finally opened his mouth to ask, “Let me confirm… Chu Tianqiu, last time you created this farce just to make me obtain an ‘Echo’?”
“Yes,” Chu Tianqiu nodded.
“So this time you’re fawning over me like a lapdog because you want me to use my ‘Echo’ to help you,” Qi Xia said.
“Yes.”
“But you seem to have gotten something wrong,” Qi Xia frowned. “Our cooperation doesn’t include this clause.”
“Oh?” Chu Tianqiu stroked his chin and thought for a moment. “You’re right. This clause is something I newly added… So you can also propose a corresponding new condition. Let’s try to maintain fairness.”
“Oh…?” Qi Xia sneered. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Then don’t regret it.”
“I won’t regret it!”
Chu Tianqiu’s answer was extremely straightforward—so straightforward it seemed unreal.
“So… Qi Xia…” Chu Tianqiu smiled again. “This time I’m bringing out all my ‘sincerity’—join forces with me!”
“Of course,” Qi Xia nodded. “If I didn’t want to join forces with you, why would I come here?”
“Yes… yes…” Chu Tianqiu smiled and nodded.
Everyone piled all the corpses in the center of the playground, stacking them into a high mountain of bodies. Now there were nearly sixty corpses. Burying them all underground was completely unrealistic—they could only let time digest them.
However, the coming days wouldn’t be pleasant for everyone. “Heaven’s Mouth” would have the freshest stench in the entire “Land of End.”
Qi Xia and his teammates wiped the blood from their bodies and came to their classroom.
“Good work!” Qiao Jiajin still energetically said to everyone, “Thank you all for helping me move my corpses. I’ll treat everyone to canned food later!”
No one really wanted to acknowledge him.
“Fists, come here for a moment,” Qi Xia said softly. “There’s something I want to confirm with you.”
“Oh?” Qiao Jiajin walked to Qi Xia’s side. “Liar, what is it?”
“How did you revive?” Qi Xia asked directly.
“You mean the ‘Heaven’s Mouth Defense Battle’?”
After hearing this, Qi Xia sighed. “What? You even gave this battle a name?”
“Yes,” Qiao Jiajin nodded with a completely serious expression. “Because I’ve been in too many fights, not naming them makes it easy to mix them up.”
“Fine…” Qi Xia answered helplessly. “It’s the ‘Heaven’s Mouth Defense Battle.’ How did you revive at that time?”
“It’s quite strange…” Qiao Jiajin said. “Every time I felt I’d been killed, when I opened my eyes I’d appear nearby again. Then I’d run to where I was killed each time to get revenge. But those people were really quite formidable—it’s hard to fight bare-handed.”
Looking at Qiao Jiajin’s various bizarre ways of dying, one could indeed imagine this had been a bitter battle.
With his combat ability, he still died so many times—ordinary people wouldn’t stand a chance.
“But it seems those invaders were even more afraid than me…” Qiao Jiajin was somewhat puzzled. “I wasn’t afraid even though I was being killed. What were they afraid of?”
Qi Xia paused, then asked, “At that time… I mean at that moment… did you see…”
At this point, Qi Xia slowly reached out and pointed at Yu Nian’an not far away.
“Oh? You’re asking if this girl was at the scene of the ‘Heaven’s Mouth Counterattack Battle’?”
“‘Heaven’s Mouth Counterattack Battle’…?” After hearing this, Qi Xia helplessly sighed. “Yes, did you see her at the scene?”
“No,” Qiao Jiajin shook his head. “After Kung Fu Girl and I successfully defended, we searched for all the survivors in ‘Heaven’s Mouth’ and didn’t see this girl.”
Hearing this, Qi Xia felt his brain hurt a bit again.
He was trying to deduce whether the Yu Nian’an before him was a product of his “Echo.”
But now it seemed she wasn’t something he created. Could it really be the real person?
But why would the real person suddenly appear in the interview room?
“At that time, Doctor, Big Guy, and a few people whose names I don’t know survived—only six people total,” Qiao Jiajin said. “Writer died, Psychologist died, and the rest of the ‘Heaven’s Mouth’ people also died. This ‘Heaven’s Mouth Defense War’ really had devastating losses.”
“Heaven’s Mouth Defense War…” Qi Xia stared at Qiao Jiajin’s eyes. After holding back for a long time, he couldn’t help but say, “Fists, promise me you’ll stop randomly naming things in the future.”
After chatting with Qiao Jiajin for a few sentences, Qi Xia came to Yu Nian’an’s side again.
At this moment, Yu Nian’an was staring blankly at the sky, not knowing what she was thinking about.
“An, are you alright?” Qi Xia asked.
“I… don’t know,” Yu Nian’an shook her head. “Xia, this place is really strange. Aren’t we dreaming?”
“I wish we were dreaming,” Qi Xia said, pulling Yu Nian’an’s hand and having her sit beside him before asking, “An, do you remember how you got here?”
“How I got here?” Yu Nian’an thought for a moment. “I also feel it’s quite strange…”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been here for about four or five days… The people I’ve encountered are all very strange. The air here is very foul, the sky is very red… and…”
“Wait a moment…”
Qi Xia slowly widened his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“You said you’ve… been here how long?” Qi Xia asked quietly.
“Four or five days,” Yu Nian’an said.
Clearly, another thunderbolt flashed through Qi Xia’s mind.
Fake.
Fake again!
“The reason I suddenly appeared by your side…” Yu Nian’an said thoughtfully, “seems to have something to do with a strange person.”
Qi Xia didn’t speak, leaving only Yu Nian’an to narrate on her own.
“That person seemed to have some special ability. About three days ago, she held my hand and said to me, ‘You must understand, as long as your lover appears, you’ll definitely be able to see him.’ That girl repeated this sentence five or six times. I always felt her mental state wasn’t quite normal.”
Qi Xia frowned. So this fake Yu Nian’an came here because of a certain “Echo.”
She was definitely a product of Qi Xia’s last “Echo.”
But she didn’t appear at “Heaven’s Mouth.” Instead, she had been wandering the “Land of End” all along, then encountered a certain “Echoer.” For some unknown reason, this “Echoer” helped her, allowing her to “meet her lover.”
So when he appeared, this Yu Nian’an substitute also appeared.
This way, everything made sense. It also proved another matter—
The created Yu Nian’an indeed wouldn’t disappear with “The End.” She wasn’t within the scope of “Participants.”
“Xia, what’s wrong with you?” Yu Nian’an felt Qi Xia was a bit strange. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
After confirming that the Yu Nian’an before him was a substitute, Qi Xia had nothing more to say to her.
His feelings could only be given to Yu Nian’an, not to a replacement.
“It’s nothing,” Qi Xia shook his head with a cold expression.
“That’s good…” Yu Nian’an smiled bitterly. “Oh right, Xia, yesterday at noon was really strange. I saw many people turn to powder before my eyes. At that time, I thought I’d never see you again.”