Chen Junnan had no intention of baring his heart to Earth-Mouse, and Earth-Mouse naturally reciprocated with the same attitude.

He only told Chen Junnan that there were eight people among “Heavenly-Dragon’s trusted confidants” and specifically pointed out the location of one of them.

A “Monkey.”

Earth-Mouse told Chen Junnan that whether he would reveal information about the remaining seven people depended entirely on how Chen Junnan treated this “Monkey.”

After saying this, he turned off the radio, deliberately ending this conversation.

Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin naturally knew that this place had its own “ears,” so they closed their mouths and stopped speaking. After the three of them sat in silence for ten minutes, Chen Junnan stood up.

He reached out and picked up a bright red peach from the table and handed it to Qiao Jiajin, then grabbed a handful of kumquats for himself.

“Big Rat, thanks for inviting us to listen to music.” He casually tossed a kumquat with its skin into his mouth, chewed a few times, and then said, “If there’s nothing else, we two brothers will take our leave.”

“Are the two leaders not staying a bit longer?” Earth-Mouse also resumed his fake smile. “I have plenty of fruit here.”

“Not staying, we’re leaving.”

The two men left the room with iron-blue faces.

Walking down the road, they felt completely directionless about where to go next.

Outside, the black lines were withdrawing in large numbers, leaving only a ground full of bright red dismembered corpses.

They not only didn’t know where to go now, but also didn’t know where to go in the future.

“Junnan boy, are you going to find that ‘Monkey’?”

“Where?”

“The number of people.” Chen Junnan said decisively. After thinking for a few seconds and avoiding some key words, he said to Qiao Jiajin, “These ‘Zodiacs,’ why must there be exactly eight of them?”

“What’s wrong with eight?”

Chen Junnan paused and said, “I just have a wild idea, which might be very unrealistic, but it’s indeed something I’ve been curious about all along…”

“Go ahead and say it.”

“If we were newly reorganized…” Chen Junnan stopped in his tracks and looked back at Earth-Mouse’s room. “Then where did the original eight people around Old Qi go?”

“What…?” Qiao Jiajin immediately frowned. “My God… Junnan boy, your idea is really too sharp… You’re saying these eight…”

“So I want to go take a look.” Chen Junnan sighed and said, “Actually, I want to find Old Qi even more, but I have no idea what direction he’s in. Now I can only go to Earth-Monkey’s place first and take a shot at it. It’s not necessarily to ‘gamble with life’ against him, just to see if I can make a friend.”

“Understood.” Qiao Jiajin nodded.

The two confirmed their direction, eating the sweet fruit in their hands with great relish while heading toward Earth-Monkey’s game venue.

Tiantian hugged her legs and crouched in the corner, gently resting her face against her knees, watching the boy bandaging her wounds.

This boy named Xiao Cheng was indeed a bit strange. Although he himself was more seriously injured, when Tiantian arrived, she found that he had already finished bandaging Zheng Yingxiong, and was only now starting to treat the shocking wound on his own palm.

Fortunately, this small base had some cloth scraps and bandages, barely enough to stop the bleeding for both of them.

Zheng Yingxiong took out an oddly-shaped flatbread from his backpack, broke it in the middle, and handed it to Tiantian.

“Big sister, eat.”

“Thank you, little brother.” Tiantian smiled at him, took the flatbread in her hand, and then gently took a bite.

The texture of this flatbread was very strange. The grain particles inside were very large, and biting into it felt like it was made with large, hard peanuts.

After eating a few bites with a pained expression, Tiantian seemed to think of something. She turned her head and asked Zheng Yingxiong, “Little brother, you mentioned before that my ability is called ‘Clever Object.’ Do you understand this ability?”

“I don’t understand it.” Zheng Yingxiong shook his head. “I only know its name, not its specific function.”

Tiantian noticed that Zheng Yingxiong was a bit strange. He kept holding the other half of the broken flatbread in his hand, neither eating it nor putting it away.

“Little brother, is your ability being able to distinguish other people’s ‘Echoes’?” Tiantian said. “Isn’t that just like the display screens outside?”

“Yes.” Zheng Yingxiong nodded. “Each person’s ‘fragrance’ name is fixed. Whether it’s a sound or a scent, the name is the same.”

Tiantian nodded with a half-understanding after hearing this.

At this time, Xiao Cheng had also finished bandaging his palm. He seemed to have spent quite a bit of effort, and now his face was somewhat pale from excessive blood loss.

Zheng Yingxiong looked up at Xiao Cheng, then held up the remaining half of the flatbread in his hand.

“Big brother, eat.”

Hearing this, both Xiao Cheng and Tiantian froze at the same time, feeling something was off.

Xiao Cheng didn’t take the flatbread but instead came and crouched down beside Zheng Yingxiong, asking, “Little brother, aren’t you eating? Have you been holding this piece of flatbread waiting for me?”

“Mm.” Zheng Yingxiong nodded. “You two can eat. I’m a ‘Hero,’ I don’t need to eat.”

“What kind of twisted logic is that?” Tiantian felt both angry and amused. “Who told you that ‘Heroes’ don’t need to eat?”

“My subjects did.” Zheng Yingxiong turned his face and answered very seriously. “Since I’m a ‘Hero’ who can save everyone, I must distribute food to everyone. As long as I can save people, it doesn’t matter even if I starve to death, because I’ll come back to life with my memories next time.”

“Nonsense.” Tiantian frowned and scolded lightly. “I think all your subjects are foolish. If you’re a ‘Hero,’ they should be giving you good food. How can it be you giving them good food?”

“Really?” Zheng Yingxiong asked somewhat uncertainly.

“Yes, absolutely yes.”

Tiantian smiled and nodded, then broke the flatbread in her hand into two even smaller pieces and handed one to Xiao Cheng. “Look, now we both have food. You can eat that piece in your hand yourself.”

“How can this work…?” Zheng Yingxiong looked somewhat anxious. “Mine is so big, and yours is so small. If it’s like this…”

“Don’t be like Kong Rong at a time like this.” Tiantian smiled like a little teacher and patted Zheng Yingxiong’s head. “Your stomach is growling so loudly, you clearly want to eat more than anyone. At a time like this, there’s no need to be polite anymore. Big brother and big sister will forgive you this time. Eat quickly.”

After hearing this, Zheng Yingxiong was slightly stunned. He then lowered his head to look at the flatbread in his hand and actually nodded as if he had received a treasure.

Xiao Cheng also felt something was wrong at this point and asked Tiantian in a low voice, “Sister, can you manage eating only this little?”

After hearing this, Tiantian stuck out her tongue and said in a low voice, “Xiao Cheng, this flatbread really doesn’t taste very good. Help me eat some of it.”