“Huh…?” Chen Junnan was stunned at first, but quickly regained his senses. “Old Qi, what are you talking about? That’s not what you used to say.”

“Used to…?” Qi Xia turned his head back to look coldly at Chen Junnan. “Then what was my reason for wanting to escape before?”

“You…” Chen Junnan thought carefully. “If I remember correctly… you wanted to lead the people who followed you out together. You said that since people gave you their sincere hearts, you couldn’t let them be deceived.”

“Ha…” Qi Xia grinned with a smile, his eyelids drooping slightly. “But now I feel so empty… Everyone places their hope on me, but where is my hope?”

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Chen Junnan felt that Qi Xia was influenced by Wei Yang. After seeing that middle-aged man, he suddenly became somewhat abnormal. “Old Qi, listen to me first… There’s hardly a true word that comes out of that fraud’s mouth. If you just listen to him, sooner or later you’ll fall into his trap.”

Chen Junnan did his best to comfort Qi Xia, but he never imagined that Qi Xia’s thoughts ran much deeper than his. He had already considered countless possibilities, and moreover, Wei Yang’s deception techniques could never possibly disrupt his heartstrings.

“Wei Yang was at least not lying about one thing…” Qi Xia turned back to face the two. “Even as a psychology master’s degree holder, I couldn’t possibly have memorized the ‘Leiden Freest Effect,’ because that’s not the field I studied. This shows it’s not knowledge I learned in the real world, but from somewhere else…”

“Huh?” Chen Junnan was also slightly stunned. “You mean…”

“Have you ever had that feeling?” Qi Xia felt his brain aching again. He reached up to grab his hair, his expression gradually becoming pained. “Strange memories, strange dreams always drifting into your mind. Those memories and dreams seem like they happened before, but you have no idea where they happened.”

After listening, Chen Junnan slowly frowned. He didn’t have deep experience with this feeling. Presumably, only those who had lost their memories multiple times could relate.

“Besides those memories and dreams…” Qi Xia closed his eyes, carefully waiting for this bout of headache to pass. “There’s also our brains and bodies… We’re stronger than we imagine ourselves to be… Have you ever experienced this feeling?”

“I have…” Qiao Jiajin said. “Liar boy, to be honest, I feel that in the real world… I wasn’t as strong as I am now.”

Qi Xia turned to look at Qiao Jiajin, knowing his speculation was probably not off the mark.

“My body seems stronger than what I remember…” Qiao Jiajin extended one hand and clenched his fist, but soon smiled. “But this time is an exception… This time I switched bodies.”

After listening to the two’s conversation, Chen Junnan slowly frowned, feeling like he was beginning to understand.

“Rather than calling it ‘experience,’ it’s better to call it ‘subconscious.'” Qi Xia explained. “Everything I mentioned above… is all determined by our subconscious… As long as we can remember something with bone-deep intensity, it’s very likely to be preserved in the days to come, becoming our true ‘flesh and blood.'”

After hearing this, both men widened their eyes. What Qi Xia spoke of sounded fantastical, but upon careful consideration, it seemed to have no flaws.

“I should have discovered this problem very early on…” Qi Xia felt his headache lighten somewhat, and his expression relaxed slightly. “So I’ve been using my professional knowledge… constantly brainwashing and hypnotizing myself. I’ve been fabricating memories for myself… For example… for example, the ‘fraud’ and such…”

When Chen Junnan heard Qi Xia finally say the three words “fraud,” he helplessly shook his head. After holding back for a long time, he finally said: “Old Qi… shouldn’t you admit it?”

“Admit what…?” Qi Xia asked coldly.

“Seven years ago… you never said you had a ‘wife.'” Chen Junnan’s expression also became somewhat sorrowful. “If the ‘fraud’ was something you fabricated yourself… then what about her?”

“She… she is…” The headache that had just dispersed suddenly burst forth in Qi Xia at this moment, nearly making him collapse to his knees. “She… she is real…”

When Qi Xia uttered the four words “she is real,” not only did a sharp pain shoot through his brain, but even the depths of his heart tore violently.

She is real?

Where is the evidence?

All of this was too ridiculous.

If there was no one outside waiting for him, if the real world was just as lonely as this place, why exactly was he laying down a “road” spanning decades?

For all the Participants at the Land of the End who were complete strangers, would he repeatedly take risks, staking hundreds or thousands of lives?

Where exactly was the driving force behind his progress?

Yu Nian’an…

Qi Xia felt his brain and heart being torn apart simultaneously. Then his vision went black, and he toppled straight to the ground.

“Hey!!”

Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin had never imagined that Qi Xia’s headache symptoms could cause him to faint. They hurriedly stepped forward to check his condition.

The two turned him over and found that Qi Xia’s brows were still tightly furrowed, the veins on his forehead throbbing slightly, his face already covered in cold sweat.

“Damn… what’s going on?” Qiao Jiajin somewhat frantically touched Qi Xia’s head. “Is the liar boy sick?”

“What should we do now?” Chen Junnan also said anxiously. “Is it my problem? Should I not have said that woman doesn’t exist?”

“Junnan boy…” Qiao Jiajin said. “Does Qi Xia actually have a wife or not?”

“How should I know?” Chen Junnan also felt somewhat wronged. “He always said he was single before.”

Hearing this, Qiao Jiajin suddenly felt like he had a train of thought: “Liar boy, you said in the past he always said he was single, but when you met again after seven years he had a wife. Is it possible… he got married at the ‘Land of the End’?”

“Come on!” Chen Junnan was startled by Qiao Jiajin’s idea. “Although this place is red all over, it’s not festive! Try getting married here and let me see!”

After hearing this, Qiao Jiajin helplessly shrugged his shoulders.

“Does he look exhausted?” Chen Junnan reached out and patted Qi Xia’s cheeks. “Old Qi, time to eat!”

Qi Xia still lay on the ground with his eyes tightly closed, looking as if he had gone through an extremely exhausting ordeal and was now asleep.