Chapter 82: Echo
"What…?" Qi Xia turned his head, a look of calm detachment on his face as he stared at Jiang Ruoxue.
"I don't know the reason, but I'm not stupid," Jiang Ruoxue said with a smile. "If you were afraid I'd stop you, why did you keep me alive?"
Qi Xia clutched his wound, his face growing increasingly pale.
"Let me guess. You wanted me to send word to the other 'Pathseekers,' to make everyone think 'Qi Xia has given up.' That's why you spared my life, right?"
"Pathseekers?" Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze exchanged bewildered glances, completely lost.
"You really are quite clever," Jiang Ruoxue nodded. "But you miscalculated one thing—I couldn't care less whether you collect three thousand six hundred 'Paths.' I won't stop you."
Qi Xia's expression turned unusually dark. He hadn't expected her to see through all his thoughts.
"Though we're all 'Pathseekers,' each of us has different pursuits," Jiang Ruoxue said, pulling a hair tie from her wrist and tying her loose hair into a bun. "Some are obsessed with sabotaging games, some like destroying 'Paths,' and others swagger around the streets pretending to be natives. But not me."
"What makes you different?" Qi Xia asked.
"I enjoy experiencing different games, watching people scheme and plot against each other," Jiang Ruoxue answered without hesitation. "Though 'Pathseekers' are all a bunch of lunatics, liars, and gamblers, each of us protects this place in our own way. And my way of protecting it is to incite the decent folks to join the games."
"So… you're a 'shill'?" Qi Xia hit the nail on the head.
"A shill…?" Jiang Ruoxue thought for a moment, then nodded. "If you put it that way… I guess I am a shill. Only no one pays me."
Qi Xia fell silent for a moment, his mind churning with one question—what exactly was the 'Path'?
"And what about you?" Jiang Ruoxue asked. "Are you really going to give up?"
"What do you think?"
Qi Xia released his hand from the wound and showed Jiang Ruoxue the blood on his fingers. "Can you heal me?"
"That, I truly cannot do," Jiang Ruoxue shook her head. "I can't figure out the 'logical relationship' required to heal you. Otherwise, I would definitely save you… after all, you just spared my life."
Seeing that Qi Xia and the other two were still watching her warily, Jiang Ruoxue decided not to overstay her welcome. She stretched, revealing the seductive curve of her figure, and asked, "Are you going to kill me? If not, I'm leaving."
None of the three were murderous villains, so naturally, they had no reason to kill Jiang Ruoxue. On second thought, they didn't even have a reason to keep her.
"I'm really going now?" Jiang Ruoxue confirmed once more.
Seeing that no one responded, she sighed helplessly and stirred up a distant chime.
Hearing the soul-stirring sound, Qi Xia finally couldn't help but ask, "What does the bell mean?"
Jiang Ruoxue turned back, thought for a moment, and said, "Since you saved my life, I'll break the rules and answer that question. But you have to answer one of mine."
"Deal," Qi Xia nodded.
Seeing him agree, Jiang Ruoxue finally spoke. "As far as we know, the bell rings in only two situations: first, when someone 'hears the Echo,' and second, when an 'Echo disappears.'"
"What is an 'Echo'?" Qi Xia asked again.
"That's the second question," Jiang Ruoxue shook her head. "Are we really that close?"
Qi Xia clutched his wound, his face growing dim.
Perhaps feeling a bit reluctant to leave him hanging, Jiang Ruoxue added, "Qi Xia, I'll break the rules once more and answer one extra question. An 'Echo' is a very abstract thing. Some people never understand it in their entire lives, and even those who do may not be able to harness its power… I was very lucky today. I succeeded in 'Echo' twice in a row. That's the only reason you're all still alive."
Zhang Chenze seemed to have a realization. "So… the man I killed with the glass… that was your doing…"
"If you're still stuck on the idea of 'doing,' I'm afraid you'll never understand the 'Echo,'" Jiang Ruoxue turned to leave. After three steps, she stopped as if remembering something. "Qi Xia, don't suppress your own sorrow. People only hear the 'Echo' under extreme emotions."
With that, Jiang Ruoxue pushed open the door of the inn and stepped onto the street.
"Hey, don't you have a question for me?" Qi Xia called after her.
"I'll save it for later." Jiang Ruoxue waved without looking back.
Her words left everyone bewildered, but Qi Xia felt like he had grasped a clue.
From what he could deduce, the 'Echo' seemed to be some kind of superpower.
This superpower would randomly appear in certain people.
At that moment, the great bell would ring, and the screen would display, 'I have heard the Echo.'
In other words, every time the bell had rung before, it meant someone had acquired this superpower called 'Echo.' The second ring signified that the user had concealed the power or… that the user had died.
"Officer Li was an 'Echo bearer'…" Qi Xia murmured to himself.
"Officer Li?" Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze both looked at him.
"The first bell rang just before Officer Li died, and the second rang after he died." Qi Xia tried to link the strange behavior of Officer Li with this superpower. "That means he obtained this ability just before he died, but his actions were odd."
Qi Xia pulled the old metal lighter from his pocket and said to Lin Qin and Zhang Chenze, "At the time, he was like a magician—pulling a cigarette from an empty pack and a lighter from an empty pocket."
"What?" Zhang Chenze looked at Qi Xia in confusion. "Didn't you bring him those things?"
"No," Qi Xia shook his head. "I kept it from you then because I didn't want you to dwell on it, but now that I think about it, he did briefly possess this superpower."
"So you're saying…" Lin Qin gestured with her hand. "This superpower called 'Echo'… can make things appear out of thin air?"
"No," Qi Xia shook his head again. "If we carefully analyze Jiang Ruoxue's words and combine them with everything that's happened so far, we can make a bold assumption… this thing called 'Echo' comes in many categories. Each person's ability is different. From what we know so far, there's 'Disaster Summoning' and 'Frame-Up,' as well as Officer Li's 'Telekinesis.'"
At this point, Zhang Chenze chimed in, "And Jiang Ruoxue's ability seems different from Officer Li's… She appears to be able to control the 'logical relationship' of an event."