Chapter 147: A Brand New Self
Whether this reason was fabricated or not, it seemed fairly plausible.
If Chu Tianqiu wanted to arrange a confrontational game, he would have ensured that his own people resonated first as a safety measure.
Besides, if Yun Yao ended up in a team with Qixia, she wouldn't be able to escape if danger arose. How could Chu Tianqiu so easily sacrifice the second-in-command of their organization?
If he had always operated with this kind of strategy, Zhang Shan and Yun Yao would never have continued following him.
Unfortunately, Officer Li's entire team had been wiped out, leaving no witnesses to prove this seemingly conspiratorial move.
Which meant... everything had become very interesting.
"I understand how you feel, Qixia," Chu Tianqiu said with a sorrowful expression. "Losing teammates in a game is extremely painful. Sometimes we'd rather it were us who died."
"But you never participate in the games yourself, so how would you know that feeling?" Qixia replied calmly.
"Who said I don't participate?" Chu Tianqiu shook his head. "Once there's a detailed strategy for a game, I'll lead a team myself. But accidents happen occasionally. My teammates, to preserve my 'memory,' will die in my place. That feeling is worse than death itself."
Qixia stared coldly at Chu Tianqiu, saying nothing.
This man was truly interesting.
He had been telling the truth the entire time.
How could he perform so flawlessly without a trace?
"There's a patch of wasteland behind the school. You can bury your teammates there," Chu Tianqiu said, pointing behind the teaching building. "All the departed members of 'Paradise' from these past few months are buried there. Also... tell me the locations of Little Glasses and Jin Yuanxun, and I'll send people to retrieve them..."
Qixia stared into Chu Tianqiu's eyes for a long time, then the corner of his mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly.
Too interesting.
This was the scene he'd been hoping to see since arriving at "Paradise."
Only by sparring with truly formidable opponents could he continue to tap into his potential.
So what if his teammates died?
So what about the "Human Dragon"?
When he realized Chu Tianqiu wasn't a fool, he felt an inexplicable sense of excitement.
"Let me see what you're capable of, Chu Tianqiu," Qixia thought to himself. "This alone is still far from enough."
...
Under Yun Yao's guidance, Qixia and Qiao Jiajin arrived at the wasteland.
But what greeted them was a vast expanse of graves cobbled together from broken wooden planks.
Dense and numerous.
Even Yun Yao's own grave stood in a corner.
The grave mound was bulging, with something buried inside.
Seeing that mound, Qixia suddenly felt something was off.
"Yun Yao..." Qixia thought for a moment, then pointed at her grave and asked, "If you're standing here... then who's in that grave?"
"So you still don't know..." Yun Yao lowered her head sadly. "Qixia, dead is dead. And when we come back again, we become a brand new self."
"What—" Qixia was taken aback, feeling this statement went beyond his comprehension.
Qiao Jiajin, standing nearby, was completely frozen.
Yun Yao pointed to several different spots.
"Here, here, here, and over there—all of them are me," Yun Yao said with a bitter smile. "I'm clearly buried inside, yet I'm still standing here. So... am I still the same me?"
Qixia's eyes slowly widened.
Wait a moment... this situation was too bizarre.
That meant that Qiao Jiajin, Tiantian, and Officer Li's bodies from their deaths in the first round were still lying somewhere in the "End of the World," yet they could proceed with the second round completely unaffected.
If he could go to the edge of the city now, there would definitely be a corpse of Qixia lying there too.
"A brand new self...?"
Qixia thought of a new perspective.
Based on these two experiences, the so-called "cycle" wasn't accurate.
Because "time" hadn't reset, and "people" hadn't reset either.
Time here was indeed moving forward day by day. There were two pieces of evidence supporting this.
First, the female clerk at the convenience store had given birth and eaten the "little piggy."
If time kept looping within ten days, how could she have given birth?
If things reset every ten days, why would she have become so thin?
Second, the human rat's time of death exceeded ten days.
Her corpse showed a state of decay beyond ten days—that was the best evidence.
But then why did the people entering the "End of the World" think it was a "cycle"?
After all, every ten days, a batch of new people was thrown in.
New time and new people—why would that be called a "cycle"?
Yet due to some mysterious reason, some of these new people would inherit the memories of the corpses.
Believing they were in an endless loop.
But was this truly a "cycle"?
Something capable of such bizarre phenomena did indeed seem like a "god."
But why would a "god" make people die over and over again?
No matter how capable the humans in the "End of the World" were, none of them could cast magic.
Those abilities called "Echoes" looked astonishing at first glance, but upon careful reflection, they were just useless skills, one after another. Were these people supposed to kill a god with them?
"No wonder this place has such a horrifying stench of decay..." Qixia murmured to himself. "The number of corpses only increases. This has exceeded my expectations once again..."
"Is there anything else you can't understand?" Yun Yao sighed and forced a smile. "One day, this world will be filled with our corpses."
Qiao Jiajin slowly laid Tiantian down on the flat ground, picked up a rusty shovel from the side, and began digging in silence.
The topics Qixia and Yun Yao were discussing were too profound for his mind to grasp.
All he knew was that Tiantian was pitiful. She was cold.
She shouldn't have to stay cold any longer.
After a moment, a pit was dug. Just as Qiao Jiajin was about to pick up Tiantian and place her inside, Yun Yao called out to him.
"Wait."
She pulled a lip gloss from her pocket, bent down, and carefully applied it to Tiantian's lips.
Tiantian's pallid face instantly seemed to gain some color.
After a moment's thought, Yun Yao also took out some blush and lightly dabbed it onto Tiantian's cheeks.
"She said she wanted to leave looking pretty," Yun Yao said with a relieved smile. "She looks much better now. No one will laugh at her, and no one will look down on her."
Qiao Jiajin nodded, picked up Tiantian, and gently placed her into the pit. Then he grabbed the shovel and began heaping soil over her.
Watching Tiantian slowly being covered by earth, Yun Yao said with a serious expression, "I like her. Starting from the next round, Tiantian will be my 'official girlfriend.' I'll do everything in my power to protect her. Anyone who opposes her is my enemy."
Qixia and Qiao Jiajin exchanged a glance, unsure how to respond.
Yun Yao was clearly a girl, yet she wanted a girlfriend.
"You don't have to do this," Qixia said. "You pretend to like a lot of people, a lot of things, but it's actually to find the trigger for 'unrequited desire,' isn't it?"
Yun Yao froze. She hadn't expected Qixia to see right through her.
"But genuine liking is different from saying you like something," Qixia shook his head. "You seem to be stuck in a very strange state. When someone says they like everything in front of them, it means they don't want any of it."
"Maybe you're right, but this time is different," Yun Yao shook her head and placed her hand over her chest. "That girl named Tiantian makes my heart ache. She was already having such a hard time, yet she still thought of others. In the real world, I couldn't protect her. But here, I'll do everything I can."
"But she won't remember you," Qixia said. "She'll wake up confused again, go through a painful inner struggle, and then try to die again. How will you protect her then?"
"I have many chances. One day, she'll remember me," Yun Yao said with a bitter smile. "Don't pry into an idol's love life, and don't try to guess an idol's thoughts."
Qiao Jiajin silently picked a dark red wildflower from the side and placed it on Tiantian's grave.
His heart ached too.
To fail to protect the one you wanted to protect—how painful was that?
He felt as though he kept hearing a strange sound in his ears, like a bell.
But the bell's sound was fleeting, never complete.