Chapter 1323: The Unnoticed Departed
All the memories rushed into Chen Junnan's embrace like children who had been away from home for a long time.
They were laced with nearly every emotion in the world, causing Chen Junnan to feel as if he had lived through a long and despairing life in the blink of an eye.
This was no mere deadly "Heavenly Level Moment"... It was clearly the key that plunged one into the deepest despair.
It opened a terrifying Pandora's box, unleashing all the lost emotions in a torrent, making a person experience joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, and all seven human emotions at once within a single second.
He didn't know how much time had passed. When Chen Junnan opened his eyes again, he could barely remember the names of the two people before him who had been separated from him for seventy years.
In the corridor, after a few minutes of silence, everyone began to open their eyes one after another.
The look in their eyes had all changed.
The entire corridor was now strangely silent. Both the "Zodiacs" and the "Participants" were staring at each other with complex expressions. There was no hostility, no will to fight—only silence.
As dawn was about to break, a long-lost sunrise seemed to dawn in everyone's eyes.
"What the... hell..." Chen Junnan trembled all over, muttering to himself. "Qi Xia... you tricked me...?"
He felt his mind was in chaos. Countless memories clamored for his attention, vying to be remembered.
He remembered how all his teammates in his room had been driven away one by one by irresistible forces. Then he had stayed alone in that empty room for a whole year. The next time he opened his eyes, he had become Qi Xia's teammate.
"Damn it..." Chen Junnan didn't know what he was feeling now, but he couldn't stop trembling. Qin Dingdong and Jin Yuanxun in front of him seemed to still be bowed in silence. If they were the same as him, would they soon remember everything?
"This isn't right... damn it... goddamn it..." Chen Junnan gritted his teeth. "What evil possessed me... to be so hell-bent on helping Qi Xia escape from here... But what about my innocent teammates... my former friends... who will pay for their lives?"
Chen Junnan turned his head with a face full of anger and looked around the room.
"Qi Xia... you goddamn played us all... I was willing to lay down my life for you, and you went and killed everyone important to me..."
While Qin Dingdong and Jin Yuanxuan were still incapacitated, Chen Junnan picked up a thigh bone from a corpse on the floor and began chiseling at the wall.
*Thump—*
*Thump—*
His emotions were now extraordinarily conflicted.
He knew he had spent over seventy years in the "Land of the End," and only the last ten had been with Qi Xia.
If that was the case... what reason did he have to abandon all the friends from the previous sixty years and unwaveringly help Qi Xia escape...?
How were those people supposed to escape? Where were they supposed to go?
Qi Xia talked about taking everyone out, but he had already started killing countless people.
*Thump—*
*Thump—*
Why him?
Why did it have to be him, the "scapegoat"?
"You knew all along I wasn't your teammate... Qi Xia... you hid too much from me... You led Old Joe and me around by the nose..."
*Thump—*
*Thump—*
Since he himself wasn't from this room, and Qi Xia hadn't originally been from this room either...
Then what exactly was this room?
Soon, the wall was breached by Chen Junnan. He threw the thigh bone aside and reached out to pull open the wooden panels.
What lay outside made Chen Junnan fall silent again.
It wasn't a starry night sky or the next room...
Instead, it was a vast expanse of yellow-white, jelly-like substance.
That "jelly" was slightly squirming, as if it had a life of its own.
After the breach was made, the sounds of fighting outside became clearer.
What was this room wrapped inside...? And who was fighting out there?
Chen Junnan knew that no matter what the truth was, he couldn't change anything in Qi Xia's scheme. Even if he was going to die here, he would at least die knowing the truth.
Chen Junnan enlarged the hole, then looked up toward the direction of the fighting. Through the "jelly," he could vaguely see several dark figures.
What was going on... Someone was fighting inside the "jelly"...?
"I can go take a look." A voice sounded behind him, startling Chen Junnan.
When he turned around, he found that Jin Yuanxun had also awakened from his silence. His eyes no longer looked like those of a teenager, but rather like those of a very old man.
The two exchanged a glance and remained silent for a long time.
"Alright." Chen Junnan knew no further explanation was needed, and simply nodded.
Jin Yuanxun sighed. The next second, he disappeared from before their eyes and reappeared inside the "jelly." It seemed that recovering his memories had made his "Echo" more adept.
About a minute later, Jin Yuanxun returned to the room. He was dragging one person with his left hand, another with his right hand, and carrying someone on his back.
"There are acquaintances here, bro."
Chen Junnan looked over and saw that Jin Yuanxun was dragging Jiang Ruoxue with his left hand, Lin Qin with his right, and carrying Yan Zhichun on his back. All three were unconscious, and he had no idea what had happened.
"What is that 'jelly'?" Chen Junnan asked. "And what were those three doing inside it?"
Jin Yuanxun laid the three on the floor, then said, "Bro, I'm not sure. But they weren't inside the 'jelly'—they were on its surface. It's like a large, yellowish-white, faintly glowing ground. A 'ground dog' was fighting someone else up there. Both sides were injured. It should be over soon."
"The outside must be the 'Land of the End'..." Chen Junnan reasoned that since they could hear the bell from this room, they couldn't be far from the "Land of the End." But was there really a large, faintly glowing, yellowish-white ground in the "Land of the End"?
"Wait a minute..." Chen Junnan's eyes suddenly went wide. He whirled his head to look at the "jelly" exposed through the broken wall, and his thoughts suddenly became clear. "Damn... could it really be that abstract..."
Chen Junnan pondered for a long time, but still couldn't come up with any leads.
Not only was someone standing on the sun of the "Land of the End" fighting, but their interview room was also hidden inside the sun.
Add to that the flickering memories, and Chen Junnan's mind became even more chaotic. He could only stop his train of thought there.
After all, dawn was coming, and all of this would soon be over.
He turned around, his expression grave, and looked at the three girls before him. Invisible threads began to stir their hair and touch their brows.
It seemed it wouldn't be long before they, too, would live through that fleeting moment of life.
"Bro..." Jin Yuanxun turned to him. "Why did you get so angry? Isn't regaining your memories a good thing?"
Chen Junnan opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head. "Xiao Jin... my anger has nothing to do with you. It's just some personal grudge."