“But there are no useless ‘Echoes’ on this land, are there?” Zhang Shan asked.

“Of course, I’ve only just realized this truth now.” Chu Tianqiu smiled. “Perhaps my ‘Echo’ isn’t the most useless one… but the most useful. It can allow me to become a ‘god’ here.”

Little Glasses pondered for a long while on the side before speaking with slight helplessness: “But Mr. Chu… forgive my directness, but you seem quite severely insane. Can you really reach that step?”

“My ‘Echo’ has destined me to be a madman.” Chu Tianqiu grinned. “If I had accepted the role this ‘Echo’ gave me earlier, I’m afraid I would already be a deity by now.”

After saying this, he swept his gaze across everyone and asked softly: “Will you join me?”

Old Lu rubbed his face and said: “But Chu, kid… does ‘Heaven’s Mouth’ still exist? I always feel this place is already finished…”

“It doesn’t matter.” Chu Tianqiu said. “‘Heaven’s Mouth’ was never mine to begin with, so now I’m just returning it. Besides, as long as I’m here, I’m not afraid of being unable to gather helpers. It’s just that I don’t know what you’ve all decided?”

After hearing this, everyone fell into deep thought.

Chu Tianqiu had presented an extremely bizarre path.

The front of this path was an abyss, the back was fog.

The several people present knew neither what had happened in the past nor could they predict what would happen in the future. They only knew that if they didn’t agree, they would continue living here, and if they agreed, they might be completely annihilated.

A careful calculation would make it clear… just how absurd was the suggestion Chu Tianqiu had proposed?

“Zhang Shan.” Seeing that no one responded, Chu Tianqiu turned his head toward Zhang Shan. “What do you say?”

“I…” Zhang Shan knew he had just agreed to work for Chu Tianqiu, so naturally there was no reason to go back on his word on the spot, but he always had one question in his heart. “Can you… tell me about Nie Bei…?”

“You mean him… commanding a city?” Zhang Shan asked.

“That’s right. It may seem incredible to you all, but that’s the actual situation. Apart from the city we’re in, all other cities have clear leaders, leading the entire city’s population forward.” Chu Tianqiu sighed slightly at this point. “But just as I said, he also ‘bloomed and withered like an epiphyllum.'”

“You mean… he also reached that peak?”

“No…” Chu Tianqiu shook his head. “How should I put this…”

He lowered his head and thought for a moment before speaking: “Many years ago, Nie Bei and I met once and set a plan. So he and I started from the same starting point, but later we took different paths. First, he was more suited to be a leader than I was, and could quickly command a massive force of nearly ten thousand people, but I couldn’t. Second… he walked that path to its end.”

“What path?”

“‘Gambling against the Zodiacs.'” Chu Tianqiu answered with a serious expression. “He was a person worthy of respect. I heard that when ‘Whirlpool City’ was declared fallen, the ‘Zodiacs’ standing guard there spread the news to each other, as if they had gained new life.”

“This…”

Everyone’s faces showed shock after hearing this. Little Glasses slowly asked: “Mr. Chu… are you saying that person called Nie Bei led ten thousand people to constantly gamble their lives against the ‘Zodiacs’?”

“Yes.” Chu Tianqiu nodded. “Would anyone else here have this kind of courage? In his eyes… this itself was a war.”

“But he failed.” Zhang Shan said. “If even ten thousand people gambling their lives against a hundred ‘Zodiacs’ couldn’t win, what can we few people do?”

“He did fail.” Chu Tianqiu agreed. “But he also made us discover something… those ‘Zodiacs’ can also feel fear… even the ‘Earth-level’ ones are the same. At the same time…”

Chu Tianqiu looked at Zhang Shan again: “I understood another thing.”

“What?” Zhang Shan asked.

“It’s ‘troop deployment.'” Chu Tianqiu smiled. “This feeling is wonderful, suddenly discovering a strategy set by a dead person more than a year later. This strategy made me understand even more things.”

As Chu Tianqiu spoke to this point, he suddenly felt something unusual behind him.

He slowly turned around and found a lean figure walking toward them from outside the school gate.

Even separated by a hundred meters, they could still feel the other party’s extraordinary aura.

No one spoke, just watching that figure walk toward them step by step.

Han Yimo, who had been stunned on the side for a long time, swallowed and asked: “Chu Tianqiu… should we continue killing?”

“Kill…?” Chu Tianqiu turned his head back toward Han Yimo with interest. “Kill with your ‘Seven Black Swords’?”

Han Yimo nodded: “That’s my only method.”

“Can’t your ‘Seven Black Swords’ only judge evil people?” Chu Tianqiu couldn’t help but laugh. “If I’m not mistaken… those swords can’t touch him at all.”

“What?” Han Yimo looked at the distant person with some disbelief. “Are you saying that person has no sins at all…?”

“If you don’t believe it, you can try.” Chu Tianqiu said. “The only people who will die here are you and Little Glasses. Everyone else is absolutely safe.”

“But who exactly is that?” Han Yimo looked at the distant figure.

“He…” Chu Tianqiu said. “Is another ‘epiphyllum.'”

Qi Xia saw the several people standing on the playground from afar, paused slightly for a step, then continued walking forward expressionlessly. After a few steps, he revealed an extremely strange smile.

Chen Junnan, Qiao Jiajin, Tiantian, Zheng Yinxiong, and Qin Dingdong had been following Qi Xia from a distance all the way to “Heaven’s Mouth,” and had just watched him walk into the school gate. Just as they were about to follow, their peripheral vision suddenly caught another figure quickly walking from a corner wall to the school gate.

The five people turned their heads in unison and discovered that the person sneaking over was actually Qiao Jiajin.

Chen Junnan and Tiantian turned their heads at this moment to look at the Qiao Jiajin beside them. The atmosphere was indescribably strange.

Before everyone could react, that person changed into Chu Tianqiu in half a second with a flash.

This “Chu Tianqiu” faced the several people on the playground, looking from afar, neither speaking nor making any movements, but one could tell his thoughts were chaotic. He seemed unable to control his own “Echo.”

In another blink of an eye, “Chu Tianqiu” changed into a young woman again.

“Wait… why is she changing right in front of us?” Chen Junnan said softly as he walked forward. “Sister Xu, are you showing off?”