Chapter 395: The Cat's Origin
After hearing this, Qi Xia felt only a deep sense of sorrow.
Looking at the big picture, the path they were walking now was no different from the one they had taken ten years ago.
To be precise, their progress was even slower than before.
Very few "Echoers" had shown up so far. Lawyer Zhang, Doctor Zhao, and Sweet Sweet all lacked a clear "Echo."
Even though everyone knew they couldn't afford to repeat the same mistakes, who could truly avoid it?
A room of nine people, with a full seven "Echoers" among them.
Even if Xiao Ran at the time had been completely useless, Qi Xia knew he himself had absolutely not held the team back.
But on second thought, the current lineup seemed a bit better than back then.
Now, all nine people in the room were "Echoers." Lin Qin had removed Xiao Ran and brought in "Ignition."
Add to that his own "Endless Life"... Could this team actually succeed?
"What a shame... you left..." Chen Junnan said with a heavy expression. "We met countless comrades-in-arms in the Land of the End, and yet you still left."
According to Chen Junnan's description, the "Land of the End" at that time had no "Extreme Path," no "Cat," no "Heaven's Mouth," nor any other factions. Only the team led by Qi Xia was considered the "heroes" of this city.
Powerful "Echoers" from Chu Tianqiu's room, Zhang Shan's room, Qian Duoduo's room, and even Su Shan's room all came seeking fame, forming a rare golden age of unity across the entire "Land of the End."
The "Zodiac Games" back then were vastly different from now. Usually, as long as Qi Xia was involved, most games were easily solved.
This situation forced the "Zodiacs" at the time to collectively reduce the "Dao" rewards to slow down everyone's collection efficiency. Typically, a whole team had to complete a "Earth-Level" game just to barely scrape together one or two "Dao."
Just when they were about to collect three thousand six hundred "Dao," the leader of this massive team, Qi Xia, disappeared overnight.
He only told his trusted subordinates Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajing, "I've found a way out," and then vanished forever from the interview room.
"Lao Qi, from that day on, I took over command of this huge team in a time of crisis," Chen Junnan said, his expression growing colder, as if recalling some extremely painful memory.
"But I really feel like something's weird..." He shook his head and said slowly, word by word, "After you disappeared, those 'Zodiac' games started changing... Whenever we cleared out an old 'Earth-Level,' a new one would appear with even stronger games... Games I could barely handle before now required racking my brains every single time... It was as if they had been fully upgraded, completely beyond the original dimension."
According to Chen Junnan's account, the original "Earth-Level" games only caused participants to die, but overall, they weren't very difficult.
As long as one was careful, not only would they not die, but they could even come back fully loaded.
But after Qi Xia disappeared, that situation never returned.
Hearing this, Qi Xia slowly furrowed his brows.
If he guessed correctly, this matter was probably related to him.
"So our team quickly fell apart..."
As the number of accidental deaths skyrocketed, most people were forced to leave the team. Chen Junnan couldn't retrieve them one by one. In just five or six cycles, all the achievements they had accumulated previously went up in smoke.
"Even the people in our own room started losing their memories... Me, Lao Qiao, Lao Li, and Xiao Han became the last hope in our room..." Chen Junnan said, covering his forehead. "But Xiao Han gradually went insane. Since his 'Echo' was too dangerous, I had to give up on him and chose to act alone with Lao Qiao and Lao Li..."
But the problem was that all three of them were impulsive types, making their shortcomings too obvious, leading them to suffer countless consecutive failures.
"Lao Qiao... you were really something..." Chen Junnan looked up at Qiao Jiajing. "At the critical moment, I used 'Scapegoat' for you, but you broke my spell... Who taught you to use 'Echo' like that?"
"Oh...?" Qiao Jiajing let out a silly laugh after hearing this. "Was I that sharp back then?"
"Lao Qiao died alone many times during that period..." Chen Junnan turned his head to look at Qi Xia again. "It's all because of you... Lao Qi, you abandoned him."
Qi Xia's expression also turned somber. It seemed that ever since arriving at this place, all that awaited everyone was nothing but despair.
"So I gave up," Chen Junnan said. "I didn't want to get out anymore. I wanted to find a few like-minded people and secure some benefits for my family here."
"What...?"
Just then, a figure in a leather jacket silently came to the door of their room, but she didn't reveal herself. She just leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette.
"At that time, I took two teammates from our room and went to find Qian Duoduo and Zhou Mo. In my memory, they were people with absolutely no reason to want to leave," Chen Junnan seemed to have noticed the figure at the door, but he didn't call her out. He continued casually, "We came to this prison then, ready to accomplish something big."
"The 'something big' you're talking about..." Qi Xia asked, "Is becoming 'mercenaries' to make money for your family?"
"Lao Qi, that's only the first layer," Chen Junnan interrupted. "As I said, the 'Zodiacs' have fully evolved, but the 'Participants' are devolving. There's a huge gap between us and the 'Zodiacs.' We need to lie low and gather enough intelligence before making any rash moves. I needed to gather a group of people who wouldn't lose their memories and use them as 'signal towers' here."
Chen Junnan then looked at Qi Xia again. "At the time, I thought... what if... I mean, what if someday... that bastard Qi Xia could come back... then we would be a professional team that had undergone countless trials in the 'Land of the End,' the hidden thirteenth 'Zodiac.' Unfortunately, all of us were 'Echoers,' so we weren't qualified to become 'Zodiacs.'"
"So that's the 'Cat'..." Qi Xia said in a low voice.
"Exactly. Actually, I didn't want to call it 'Cat' at first..." Chen Junnan gave a bitter smile. "I was 'Big Baby,' Lao Qiao was 'Second Baby'..."
"I see..." Qi Xia narrowed his eyes and asked, "And the rest?"
"The rest: a Miss 'Three' named Zhang, a Mr. 'Si' named Li, a 'Five-foot' Qian Duoduo, and a Zhou Mo who only wanted to live for 'Six-day' weekends... Counting me, Chen 'Big Baby,' and Qiao 'Second Baby,' the six of us were the 'Seven Calabash Brothers'..."
"Wait... hold on..." Qi Xia clearly didn't follow. "You're six people. What 'Seven Calabash Brothers'?"
"Idiot... haven't you watched 'Calabash Brothers'?" Chen Junnan sighed and said, "One of the seven brothers is the invisible one, so the six of us can play the seven brothers perfectly fine."