“What…?” Qi Xia turned his head, staring at Jiang Ruoxue with an indifferent expression.

“Although I don’t know the reason, I’m not stupid,” Jiang Ruoxue said with a smile. “If you were afraid I’d obstruct you, why would you keep me alive?”

Qi Xia covered his wound, his complexion gradually turning pale.

“Let me guess. You’re hoping I’ll report to the other ‘Extreme Path followers’ and make everyone think ‘Qi Xia has given up,’ which is why you spared my life, right?”

“Extreme Path followers?” Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze looked at each other, completely unable to understand what she meant.

“You really are very clever,” Jiang Ruoxue nodded. “But you miscalculated one thing—I don’t care at all whether you can collect three thousand six hundred ‘Dao,’ and I won’t obstruct you either.”

Qi Xia’s expression became exceptionally gloomy. He hadn’t expected all his thoughts to be seen through by the other party.

“Although we’re both ‘Extreme Path followers,’ each of us has different pursuits,” Jiang Ruoxue took a hair tie from her wrist, tied her loose hair into a bun, and then said, “Some people are enthusiastic about disrupting competitions, some like to destroy ‘Dao,’ and others swagger through the streets pretending to be natives, but I’m different.”

“How are you different?” Qi Xia asked.

“I enjoy experiencing different games and watching people scheme against each other,” Jiang Ruoxue answered without any evasion. “Although ‘Extreme Path followers’ are all a bunch of lunatics, liars, and gamblers, each person is using their own strength to protect this place. And my method of protecting this place is to incite those good people to participate in games.”

“So… you’re a ‘shill’?” Qi Xia asked, cutting straight to the point.

“A shill…?” Jiang Ruoxue thought for a moment and nodded. “If you put it that way… I really am a shill, except no one pays me.”

Qi Xia was speechless for a moment. In his mind, he could only constantly ponder one question—what exactly was the “Extreme Path”?

“So what about you?” Jiang Ruoxue asked. “Are you really going to give up?”

“What do you think?”

Qi Xia released the hand covering his wound and showed Jiang Ruoxue the blood between his fingers. “Can you heal me?”

“That I really can’t do,” Jiang Ruoxue shook her head. “I can’t figure out the ‘logical relationship’ to heal you. Otherwise, I would definitely save you… After all, you just saved my life.”

Seeing that the three of them were still looking at her warily, Jiang Ruoxue stopped being a nuisance. She stretched languidly, showing off her sexy curves, then asked, “Are you going to kill me? If not, I’m leaving.”

The three of them weren’t vicious criminals to begin with, so naturally they had no reason to kill Jiang Ruoxue. Thinking it over again, they didn’t even have a reason to keep her.

“I’m really leaving?” Jiang Ruoxue confirmed once more.

Seeing that everyone still had no reaction, she shook her head helplessly and triggered a bell chime from the distance.

Hearing this soul-stirring sound, Qi Xia finally couldn’t help but ask, “What does the bell chime actually represent?”

Jiang Ruoxue turned around, pondered for a while, and said, “In consideration of you saving my life, I can make an exception and answer this question for you, but you also have to answer one question for me.”

“Alright,” Qi Xia nodded.

Seeing Qi Xia agree, Jiang Ruoxue finally spoke, “Currently, only two situations are known to make the bell chime. The first is ‘hearing an Echo,’ and the second is ‘an Echo disappearing.'”

“What is an ‘Echo’?” Qi Xia asked again.

“That’s the second question,” Jiang Ruoxue shook her head. “Is our relationship really that good?”

Qi Xia covered his wound, his expression gradually darkening.

Jiang Ruoxue seemed somewhat unable to bear it, so she said, “Qi Xia, this time I’ll make an exception and answer one more question for you. ‘Echo’ is a very abstract thing. Some people can’t understand it their entire lives, while others, even if they understand it, cannot wield the power of ‘Echo’… Today my luck was very good. I successfully triggered ‘Echo’ twice in a row. That’s the reason you’re all still alive.”

Zhang Chenze seemed to think of something. “As I thought… The person I killed with the glass—you manipulated that…”

“If your understanding still remains at the level of ‘manipulation,’ I’m afraid you’ll never understand ‘Echo’ in your lifetime,” Jiang Ruoxue turned to leave. After walking three steps, she suddenly thought of something, stopped, and said, “Qi Xia, don’t suppress your own sadness. People can only hear ‘Echo’ under extreme emotions.”

After speaking, Jiang Ruoxue pushed open the hotel door and walked onto the street.

“Hey, don’t you have a question to ask me?” Qi Xia called out from afar.

“I’ll save it for later,” Jiang Ruoxue didn’t turn back, merely waving her hand.

Her words left everyone confused, but Qi Xia felt he had grasped some clue.

According to Qi Xia’s understanding, “Echo” seemed to be some kind of superpower.

This superpower would randomly appear in certain people.

And at that time, the giant bell would also ring, and the screen would display “I heard an Echo.”

In other words, every time the bell chimed before, someone had obtained this superpower called “Echo,” and when the bell chimed a second time, it meant the user had hidden the superpower, or… the user had died.

“Officer Li was an ‘Echo wielder’…” Qi Xia muttered to himself.

“Officer Li?” Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze simultaneously looked at Qi Xia.

“Officer Li rang the bell for the first time before he died, and it rang a second time after he died,” Qi Xia tried to connect Officer Li’s strange behavior at the time with this superpower. “This means he obtained this ability right before he died, but his behavior was very strange.”

Qi Xia pulled out the old metal lighter from his pocket and said to Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze, “At that time, he was like a magician—he pulled cigarettes out of an empty cigarette box, and then pulled this lighter out of an empty pocket.”

“What?” Zhang Chenze looked at Qi Xia in confusion. “Weren’t those two things brought to him by you?”

“No,” Qi Xia shook his head. “At the time, I was afraid your attention would focus too much on these issues, so I concealed it and didn’t mention it. But thinking about it now, he did briefly obtain this superpower.”

“So you’re saying…” Lin Qin gestured with her hand, “This superpower called ‘Echo’… can make people conjure things out of thin air?”

“No,” Qi Xia shook his head again. “If we carefully consider Jiang Ruoxue’s words and combine them with everything that’s happened before, we might as well make a bold hypothesis… This thing called ‘Echo’ is divided into many categories, and the abilities each person obtains are different. Currently known ones include ‘Bringing Disaster,’ ‘Shifting Blame,’ and Officer Li’s ‘Telekinesis.'”

Zhang Chenze also nodded and interjected at this moment, “That Jiang Ruoxue’s ability also seems quite different from Officer Li’s… She seems able to control the ‘logical relationship’ of events…”