After Wei Yang finished speaking, he lowered his head and picked up his watering can, thrust the pitchfork viciously into the ground, then walked forward a few steps and pushed Qi Xia aside with his filthy palms.

“It’s getting late today.” Wei Yang turned his head back, sweeping his crafty eyes across the three of them. “Will you stay for dinner? There’s a young woman I dismembered just yesterday. After sitting for a day, the texture is still quite good.”

Upon hearing this, Qi Xia’s expression darkened even more. After a moment, he finally opened his mouth to ask: “Earth-Sheep, did I make you do all these things?”

“Ha, not entirely. I just have my own preferences.” Earth-Sheep laughed and stretched lazily. “When I was doing fraud overseas, I often thought of an old phrase from novels and storybooks—’returning to pastoral life.’ Back then, I thought, if I could wash my hands of it all and live a self-sufficient pastoral life, how pleasant that would be?”

Chen Junnan looked at the severed limbs scattered across the farm and frowned. “So this is your ‘pastoral life’?”

“Yes, but not entirely.” Wei Yang shook his head. “An ordinary pastoral life only lets you grow vegetables, water plants, and if you’re extravagant, raise some cattle and sheep… That’s not the ‘pastoral life’ of my dreams. Only here will do. Here, I can do whatever I want. If I want to kill, I kill. If I want to torture, I torture. I can even tear at and gnaw on the severed limbs of young women… Do you understand?”

“We don’t understand.” Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin said in unison.

“Preserve more memories, and you’ll all understand.” Wei Yang said with indifference. “Here, you can do anything you wouldn’t dare do in the real world, because you yourself may not remember, and others may not remember either.”

“Stop deceiving yourself.” Qi Xia interrupted coldly. “Keep those severed limbs to gnaw on yourself. We’re no longer the same kind of people.”

“Hahahaha…” Wei Yang, who was about to enter the door, laughed aloud at Qi Xia’s words. “Not the same kind of people? We’re all ‘Sheep’…”

“But I’m a ‘true Sheep.'” Qi Xia said. “And you?”

“Interesting…” Wei Yang turned around, speaking in an extremely faint voice. “I’m also a ‘true Sheep.'”

In an instant, Qi Xia’s brows furrowed, but in the next second, Wei Yang turned and entered the room, slamming the door heavily shut.

Wei Yang was indeed a true Sheep.

Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin were both somewhat dazed at this moment. They had agreed to come find Wei Yang for a chat, but the conversation between Qi Xia and Wei Yang was far too obscure to comprehend at all.

Seeing Qi Xia’s expression, the two naturally understood something. They knew that it was fine for them to be confused, as long as Qi Xia understood.

As Qi Xia led the two on the return journey, he suddenly turned his head and asked, “Chen Junnan, when I used to think… did I touch my chin?”

“Used to…?” Chen Junnan thought carefully. “You know what… you really know what… It seems like you really didn’t! Although you used to rack your brains a lot too, you had all sorts of poses, but it wasn’t just touching your chin.”

Chen Junnan pondered his distant memories. Even he himself couldn’t remember when exactly Qi Xia started liking to touch his own chin.

Was it from this meeting seven years later?

Listening to Chen Junnan’s words, Qi Xia knew there were now two problems that needed solving.

Besides “touching the chin,” there was also “true Sheep.”

Through this brief contact, Qi Xia knew his thought process was very similar to Wei Yang’s.

In other words, since the other party had thrown out the “touching the chin” puzzle, it meant the other party believed the current known conditions were sufficient, and the accurate answer could be completely deduced.

Now, with the long road stretching ahead, there was enough time for Qi Xia to list out all the conditions.

He had no habit of stroking his chin before, but now he did. It was highly likely this habit was also learned from Wei Yang.

Looking at it this way, the result was already obvious.

Qi Xia spent a few seconds connecting all the clues one by one. His expression darkened again, and even his eyes filled with sorrow.

Indeed, as long as he started exploring, every path would lead to this answer.

Qi Xia had even forgotten who Wei Yang was, yet he always subconsciously made this gesture. This meant…

Things carved into the subconscious would not be forgotten after rebirth.

Once this conclusion emerged, countless clues in Qi Xia’s mind—like an electrical circuit being powered for the first time—connected together with a thunderous roar in this moment.

Even Wei Yang probably never anticipated that Qi Xia would reach the answer before walking even ten steps.

But how could Qi Xia believe this terrifying answer?

If he could control his own subconscious, it meant he had foreseen this problem long ago, which is why he improved himself in each experience.

Weren’t all the “roads” he had previously laid down for himself the best proof?

He would carve all knowledge into his mind over and over, hoping that someday in the future, this knowledge could save his life subconsciously.

He would attempt and fail again and again, until he could succeed.

As long as he didn’t die completely, some subconscious things could always remain, whether knowledge or habits, whether memories or…

This was what Wei Yang wanted to express.

“Some things that can remain…”

In Qi Xia’s mind, the figure in the pure white dress involuntarily surfaced.

“Yu Nian’an, are you just a trace of my lingering thought… or half of my life?”

Qi Xia felt his mind buzzing. Everything he had persisted in all along was almost about to collapse thunderously in this moment.

Could Yu Nian’an, including those strange memories… be something his former self, on some day, through some method, carved into his subconscious?

Even if once wasn’t enough… what about many times?

Through repeated brainwashing and hypnosis, could he fabricate a realistic memory for himself?

“So there’s no need for any ‘Echo’ or ‘magic’ at all…” Qi Xia looked at the sky with a bitter smile. “I don’t need those things at all… I can push myself into a desperate situation all by myself…”

“Liar boy… what’s wrong with you?” Qiao Jiajin felt something was odd. Qi Xia had been muttering to himself since just now.

“Old Qi, are you alright?” Chen Junnan also asked. “Were you scared silly by that lunatic Wei Yang?”

“I was scared silly…?” The bitter smile on Qi Xia’s face seemed imprinted on his visage, preventing him from thinking clearly. “Qiao Jiajin, Chen Junnan… tell me, why exactly do we want to escape?”