Chapter 752: Needle Against Needle
"Of course not." Qinglong shook his head. "What we need isn't a specific man or woman—we need a 'universal god.' That's why pure yang and pure yin are both unacceptable. As a text says, 'When the two vital forces interact, all things are born and transformed.' That's exactly the principle."
Chu Tianqiu and Qi Xia exchanged a glance, then slowly furrowed their brows. Qinglong seemed to be revealing a situation they had never heard of before.
Could it be that someone had come too close to the apex... and so Qinglong was disclosing information that had never been disclosed before?
"As the saying goes, 'When heaven and earth unite, all things are born; when yin and yang connect, transformation arises.'" Qinglong continued. "Two men, naturally, won't work. Without 'yin and yang,' there can be no transformation and generation of all things."
At that moment, Qi Xia suddenly thought of something.
This was indeed an obvious yet consistently overlooked issue.
"Qi Xia, do you see that?" Qinglong pointed to the sky. "The sky is called 'sky' precisely because it stands in opposition to 'earth.'"
The two men turned to look at the sky, pondering the meaning of Qinglong's words.
"'Yin' and 'yang' are both opposed and interdependent," Qinglong said. "If there were no 'earth,' even the 'sky' could not be called 'sky.'"
"An interesting way of putting it." Qi Xia nodded. "You think we are two 'men,' so we cannot succeed."
"That's exactly it." Qinglong nodded.
"So, do we need to bring in a female teammate now?" Qi Xia asked again.
"No, no, no." Qinglong shook his head with a smile. "Why go through all that trouble?"
"Then what's your suggestion?" Qi Xia pressed.
"Simply find a way to reduce the two of you to just one." The madness in Qinglong's eyes grew increasingly hard to suppress. "You clever people tend to overcomplicate things, but to me, this is very simple."
"Ha." Qi Xia opened his mouth, feigning surprise. "Reduce the two of us to one—meaning you're going to arrange for us to kill each other?"
Chu Tianqiu also smiled and looked at Qinglong. "Qinglong, at this point, do you really think we'd do that? No matter how much bad blood there is between Qi Xia and me, no matter how different our endpoints are, in front of you, we represent the same side."
"You may have misunderstood." Qinglong sighed. "If I just made you two slaughter each other here, that would be far too boring for me. Ants that have climbed up with such difficulty—how could they simply stab knives into each other's hearts?"
"Then what do you want?"
Qinglong didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned to Qi Xia. "I have a more interesting game to play... Qi Xia, have you already met the eight 'Zodiacs' on that map?"
"No." Qi Xia replied. "I only met one, but it already served my purpose, so there's no need to see the remaining seven."
"You achieved your purpose, but you haven't achieved mine." Qinglong's expression suddenly darkened as he spoke with a hint of gloom. "Is our contractual relationship so unstable? That map had a full eight 'Zodiacs,' yet you only saw one. How can I dare to continue cooperating with you?"
"Your purpose...?" Qi Xia frowned slightly. "Wasn't your purpose to let me know that those eight people were all my former teammates? They've been through life and death with me—they are the 'needles' I planted. Thanks to your map, I remembered them."
He stated his question bluntly, then looked at Qinglong.
"Oh...? What a coincidence! Hahahahahaha!" Qinglong suddenly threw his head back and laughed. "Qi Xia, Qi Xia, do you remember what I said when I gave you that map?"
Qi Xia thought carefully and realized that something was indeed strange.
All along, his focus had been on his relationship with those eight people, ignoring the relationship between Qinglong and those eight.
When Qinglong had handed him that map, he had clearly stated that these eight people were all "Tianlong's trusted followers" and needed to be killed as soon as possible.
Qinglong had also said that these eight people represented the lives of Qi Xia's current eight teammates. If he killed one less in this cycle, one more teammate would disappear in the next cycle.
"You..." Qi Xia felt there was a critical piece of information he hadn't figured out. "These eight were clearly my teammates—how could they be 'Tianlong's trusted followers'?"
"'Tianlong's trusted followers' was, of course, a lie I told you." Qinglong laughed maniacally. "I originally wanted you to risk your life to kill three or four of them, then I would show up and tell you that these people were actually your teammates. I would have gotten to see your grief and despair. But I didn't expect you to awaken much faster than I anticipated—after meeting just one 'Zodiac,' you no longer needed to see the others."
"If that's the case, then what was your purpose in deceiving me?" Qi Xia asked again. "If it's really just for entertainment, why go through such trouble? You could have simply told me to kill them without giving any reason. You know the principle that 'loose lips sink ships.' No matter how you look at it, those people didn't seem like Tianlong's men."
"Qi Xia, people change." Qinglong said. "Even if those people were once your teammates, how can you be sure that over these ten-plus years, they've remained true to their original intentions?"
Upon hearing this, Qi Xia roughly understood Qinglong's meaning. He nodded and said, "So you're saying some of them have defected and become your and Tianlong's people, ready to betray me at a critical moment."
"That's exactly it." Qinglong nodded. "What if there's such a possibility? You thought you planted eight needles as eight 'Zodiacs' on the trains, but the actual situation is the exact opposite—those eight people were originally Tianlong's needles planted beside you?"
"Ha!"
Qi Xia was clearly amused by this statement. "Interesting. That would be too bizarre. Are you saying those eight were originally Tianlong's people, and I ended up acting out a 'spy versus spy' with myself? Does that hold up?"
Qinglong neither admitted nor denied it. He simply shrugged and said softly, "Maybe that's exactly it?"
"Then my curiosity is reignited." Qi Xia said with a smile. "What is Tianlong's goal? Is he as bored as you? He could have accomplished things so simply, yet he goes through all this trouble. Whether he wants to kill me, take away my sanity, or drive me mad, it should be as easy as moving a finger. So why would he, like me, choose to spend such a long time setting up this scheme?"