“You’re going to tell them the ‘truth’?” Jiang Ruoxue asked.

“That’s right.” I said to her in a very serious tone. “If someone really collects three thousand six hundred ‘Dao,’ everything will start over. So the ultimate goal of this organization is to ‘protect this place.'”

Jiang Ruoxue stared at me for a long while, then smiled. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“Help…?” I thought for a while and said, “Actually, just helping me clarify my thoughts is already very good. I’m not a smart person—I’ve just read a few more books than others. Sometimes I can’t figure out many things. This time you’ve helped me tremendously.”

“What do you mean ‘I’m not a smart person’?” Jiang Ruoxue laughed at me again. “There aren’t that many smart people in this world to begin with—does it need to be specially emphasized? I’ve never heard anyone say ‘I’m very smart’ when introducing themselves.”

“That’s not quite what I meant…” I shook my head. “In any case, just having you listen to me is already giving me tremendous encouragement. Next, I’ll try working hard in this direction.”

In the time that followed, Jiang Ruoxue and I not only became the best of friends but also became teammates cooperating and bustling about in this place.

Acting together with her was much more comfortable than acting together with Zhang Qiang. Although she had a bunch of bad habits, she just wasn’t annoying.

She liked calling every good-looking girl “wifey,” and she liked getting handsy with all the girls. She would suddenly hug you, and she would also suddenly ignore you.

She acted without plans, doing whatever came to mind. Sometimes she wanted to go east, sometimes she wanted to go west, but I felt this was just right.

She lived much more freely than I did.

She told me that people live in this world for just a few decades total—if you’re timid and cautious, mistreating yourself while considering others, it’s as if you never came at all.

Although this saying was very beneficial to me, it came too late.

It should have appeared before my worldview and personality were completely formed—I believe I would have had a more brilliant life. But wanting to change now… for me it was already too late.

For the next roughly two years, Jiang Ruoxue and I wandered around the “Land of the End” as friends.

I told quite a few people the “truth,” but no one would believe me at all.

Trust between strangers was already difficult to establish, especially difficult in this kind of place. Everyone thought you approached them with a purpose, so before you could even open your mouth to speak, everyone had already rapidly built up their psychological defenses.

Under these circumstances, wanting to rely on my silver tongue to make others believe an absurd truth was simply a fantasy.

I couldn’t produce any substantial evidence, nor could I promise them any benefits. I could only make pale and powerless demands that they do as I said.

But this wasn’t reasonable. If someone spoke to me this way, I would also refuse.

Fortunately, over two years Jiang Ruoxue and I met quite a few people and remembered the names of some strong individuals. Jiang Ruoxue told me that Liu Bei invited Zhuge Liang three times—these people weren’t as smart as Zhuge Liang, so perhaps they needed to be invited a few more times.

Besides this, we also had a very large “competitor”—that was the nameless giant organization active in this city.

Its influence had already spread to every corner, and legend had it that its founder was that very prominent Participant from two years ago.

Because I didn’t like participating in this kind of large-scale activity, every time I saw people gathering I would take a detour. News about them was basically all conveyed to me by Jiang Ruoxue.

She told me this organization was somewhat similar to the organization we were about to establish. Although the organization seemed very large, the core personnel were somewhat mysterious. Their greatest leader never showed his face, and outsiders didn’t even know his name. Each time he would only assign matters to his subordinates to handle.

Now countless strong individuals were bringing their teammates from the rooms to join the organization. They conquered games along the way and seemed to have already beaten all the “Zodiacs” here.

Now I was somewhat curious about that leader—could he really be so capable?

Two years ago I had doubted this “Participant’s” abilities, thinking that if he continued this way, sooner or later he would meet Baiyang, and then he would lose miserably.

But now he was growing bigger and bigger, while I remained at a standstill.

Just as I said from the beginning, no matter where I went, I could never be the strongest person. There are always stronger people among the strong.

If I wanted to complete Baiyang’s goal, should I choose to cooperate with him?

But what was my status now? I was an isolated and helpless Participant. I only had Jiang Ruoxue by my side.

Not only were we two not strong enough, what we wanted to do was also not presentable. This organization’s fundamental tone was completely incompatible with us.

Then another three years passed—to a time about seven years ago from now.

Jiang Ruoxue and I still had no way to establish a powerful organization. Even if we could have some temporary companions, they would quickly leave the organization or fall into amnesia.

But I hadn’t accomplished nothing either. With Jiang Ruoxue by my side accompanying me, my personality seemed to have grown quite a bit. I was no longer as cold and numb as before—sometimes I would even become fond of joking with people.

But how long could this continue?

It had already been a full five years. Fortunately, Baiyang hadn’t contacted me yet—I still had time.

But thinking from another perspective, even after determining my goal, I had still accomplished nothing within five years. This was really too incompetent.

Time was stuck here, causing my work goals to also be stuck. Even with the same person, I might need to persuade them many times.

It was also on that day over seven years ago that Jiang Ruoxue told me a piece of news that I didn’t know whether to consider good or bad.

She told me something was being wildly discussed in the streets—everyone was saying that the leader of that massive organization seemed to have disappeared.

He didn’t die, didn’t lose his memory, didn’t become a native resident, but “disappeared.”

But this matter was indeed neither here nor there for us two. I completely didn’t care. Perhaps Jiang Ruoxue had some connection with them, but it absolutely didn’t count as friendship.

The leader of an organization had just disappeared—perhaps he was tired, perhaps he was weary, or perhaps he had found another path. Where there are people, there are conflicts. Strong individuals would soon emerge here to take this organization into their possession.

But what exactly should I do…?

“Zhichun, what are you thinking about?” Jiang Ruoxue suddenly asked me.

“I…” I fell silent. Now even I didn’t know what I was doing.

My life seemed to have returned to before—I had no goals at all.

I felt I had no way to become stronger, and no way to complete the difficult problems Baiyang had given me.