“Oh?” Qi Xia responded with indifference.

This reaction clearly left the elder before him very dissatisfied.

“Young man, what does this attitude of yours mean?!” the elder said. “Do you think I’ve gone mad?!”

“I just want to ask you…” Qi Xia said, “If a person can neither see nor hear, can’t even smell or eat anything… can this kind of thing be considered a ‘person’?”

“Why wouldn’t it count?!” After the old man finished speaking, he suddenly blinked. “No wonder… this is what the ‘archaeologists’ on TV have always been researching! Researching how people in ancient times survived! Right! I’m now an archaeologist of the ‘Land of the End’… I must persist with my research findings!”

Qi Xia didn’t respond, only stared coldly at the elder before him.

He was actually calling skeletal remains from ten years ago “ancient.”

The elder shook his head and said again, “What a pity… originally I could ‘Echo’ just by digging the ground, but this time it’s like I’ve been cursed—the deeper I dig, the less I ‘Echo’… How strange. Maybe I still need to keep digging…”

“Stop digging,” Qi Xia said coldly. “If you keep digging, something will happen to you.”

“Something will happen…?” The elder paused slightly, then revealed a somewhat nervous smile. “Young man, do you know something?!”

“I don’t,” Qi Xia shook his head.

“Tell me!” the elder said with an excited expression. “I’m really too curious! This question has been bothering me all along. Were the ‘Participants’ active here ten years ago all people without faces?! What a great discovery this is! Just like you said… couldn’t they even walk? Did they have their own way of obtaining information from the outside world? How did they communicate?”

Qi Xia just kept looking coldly at the elder, then slowly took a step back.

The elder stood by the edge of the pit, his eyes constantly flickering. “Are all people like this… or have only a minority undergone mutation? There are many more skulls without faces in this pit… It’s certain that they form a population!”

“How can I resist researching?!” the elder said. “The origin of all progress in this world is ‘curiosity’! Since I know about it, I will definitely find the answer… They’re just some skeletal remains. Would the people in charge of this place kill me because of these bones?”

“They won’t, but others might,” Qi Xia said.

“Even if I die, it doesn’t matter…” the old man said again. “Even if I die, I must research this.”

Qi Xia stared silently at the elder’s back, feeling that “curiosity” was like a plague growing on his body—it couldn’t be cured, couldn’t be dispelled, and would ultimately cause his death.

The elder kept muttering something with his head lowered. Perhaps when Qi Xia first encountered him, he truly hadn’t gone mad, but the joy of digging up this skull had gradually caused him to lose his reason.

He thought he had found the ultimate answer, not knowing that this skull was a ticket to escape the cycle.

After the elder muttered for a long time, feeling that the young man behind him hadn’t moved for quite a while, he turned his head, about to say something, when he suddenly saw a hand push against his chest.

This hand used just the right amount of force—not too much, not too little—just enough to push him into the pit behind him.

The elder hadn’t expected the young man behind him to suddenly reach out. He had no time to grab the other person before his entire body fell straight down.

*Thud!*

With a muffled sound, the elder also let out a wail, but the pit wasn’t very deep after all, and the soil below was relatively soft. He hurriedly stood up and shouted toward the top, “What does this mean?! Young man! What are you trying to do?!”

He waited for a moment, then saw Qi Xia appear at the edge of the pit holding the kerosene lamp. The dim lamplight shone on his grayish-white eyes, making him look like a demon.

“I warned you,” Qi Xia said. “But you refused me.”

“Warned me…?” The elder immediately understood. “You don’t want me to keep investigating?! Why?!”

Qi Xia didn’t answer, only looked coldly down at the elder from above.

The elder felt his whole body go ice-cold under the gaze of those eyes, so he hurriedly lowered his head and used both hands to dig out another skull from the pit.

“Young man, don’t you believe me?!” The elder held up the skull, showing it to Qi Xia. “Look! There’s more down here! It’s full of them down here! There are skeletal remains of faceless people everywhere here, and these bones are buried underground! Aren’t you curious about what exactly happened?”

“I’m not curious,” Qi Xia said. “Because I know the answer.”

“What…?!” The elder blinked.

“I can’t let this answer be known by others, so you can only die,” Qi Xia said.

Hearing these words, the old man slowly raised his head. Clearly he didn’t fear death, but regretted that he couldn’t know the truth. The unwillingness on his face far exceeded his fear.

“What kind of logic is this…?” he said. “You know the answer and it’s fine… but I know the answer and I have to die?”

“That’s right,” Qi Xia said. “Things have reached this point—no complications can arise, so I can only wrong you.”

“You…” After hearing this, the elder slowly lowered his head. “It’s useless… even if you kill me, even if I don’t preserve my memories, I’ll be curious about what’s underground again. Someday I’ll dig up all the secrets… Someday I’ll find the answer to this place. How will you stop me then?”

This was what Qi Xia least wanted to hear.

He said with a gloomy expression, “I didn’t expect there would be someone like you here. Everyone is thinking about how to break through the games, how to stay away from the city, and ultimately how to escape this place. But you’re curious about what’s underground.”

“Isn’t that right?!” The elder raised his head and said. “Maybe if I keep digging through the ground, I’ll find a way to leave here that no one has ever discovered! Young man… won’t you really consider joining me?!”

“I won’t consider it,” Qi Xia answered. “When you really dig through the ground, you’ll discover that what awaits you is an endless abyss.”

“What…?” The elder froze. “Then where exactly are we? And why are these bodies buried underground? It’s fine if you don’t tell me… I’ll definitely find the answer… Someday!!”

“Don’t worry,” Qi Xia said. “You won’t have a next cycle.”

“What?!”

Qi Xia slowly took a step back and disappeared into the darkness.

“Hey! Don’t go!” the elder called out. “What nonsense are you talking?! I won’t have a next cycle?! Do you think you’re a ‘god’?!”

Outside the pit, there was a rustling sound, but no one spoke.

Before the elder could shout a second sentence, he saw that skull thrown back in, followed by large amounts of soil falling from above.