Chapter 844: My Name Is Yan Zhichun
My name is Yan Zhichun.
I am the "Extreme Dao King."
The ancients said: There are three hundred and sixty trades, and each has its own craft. Those who reach the pinnacle are called "Extreme Dao."
The Daoist scriptures also say: Among the three thousand great paths, every single one can lead to divinity.
But the meaning of "Extreme Dao" is to abandon all other paths and cultivate only one.
Yet the path we cultivate will go against all others—will it not be too perilous?
My life did not begin to change when I entered the "End Land." It was already set in stone the moment I opened my eyes and saw that white ram.
Although three "zodiacs" always stood in our interview room—a white ram, a shar-pei, and a sheep—we could only ever remember the white ram.
The other two "zodiacs" didn’t even need to speak before we would all lose to that aloof white ram.
The game that debuted from the very start was called "The Liars." The nine of us present needed to tell a story about something that had happened before we came here, and then find the liar among us.
It sounded like a simple game, but in reality, none of us nine knew each other.
We had different identities, occupations, hometowns, and ways of doing things. How could we possibly know if someone was lying in their story?
It’s hard for me to explain just how much ingenuity that white ram used in this game. I can’t even remember how many times we died in it. After all, before the white ram taught me how to manipulate "Echo," I couldn’t retain any memories.
Ironically, none of us nine were particularly strong "Echo Users." That meant we couldn’t keep our memories. Each time, it was a fresh start, and in the game, we would make the exact same choices all over again.
Without any external interference, we would simply repeat the same words we’d spoken before, vote at random, and ultimately die horribly.
From the very beginning, I saw the clue to this game. I told the others that since the eight of us didn’t know each other, the liar was most likely the referee, the "Human-Sheep." But I wasn’t good at communicating with people, and I could never convince the rest…
My only supporter was a middle-aged man named Zhang Qiang.
But even if Zhang Qiang and I voted for the Human-Sheep, it was useless. Outnumbered, we would still die. That feeling of powerlessness was overwhelming.
I often wondered: Why was that strange white ram willing to help me out?
In his game, each of us would receive our own identity card. Yet he wrote a passage on my "identity card."
He was teaching me how to properly use my emotions to obtain "Echo." I don’t know how many times he had written that passage, nor how many times he had revised it until it became what it was.
But back then, I was genuinely curious. As the host of the room—someone whose physical abilities and intellect surpassed ours entirely—wasn’t everything he did meant to kill us?
Otherwise, why would he host this game designed to create "gods"? Why go to the trouble of gathering us from different provinces and bringing us here?
Yet that white ram really did help me. He helped me find my opportunity for "Echo."
As long as I tried my utmost to control those who opposed me, I would obtain my exclusive "Echo," named "Heart-Seizing Soul."
This was an opportunity that went against everything I had done before. In my life, I had encountered many people who opposed me, but I had never deigned to convince them.
The white ram told me, "Your 'Echo' is not yet strong enough. At best, you can 'seize the heart.' But if one day you can 'seize the soul,' you’ll have the same power as the 'gods' of this place."
From the day I obtained my "Echo," I learned many things I had never known before.
For example, I learned that after the game "The Liars," there were even "Bamboo Shoots After Rain" and "Death From the Sky." I also learned that the white ram would kill himself after the first game. I even found the "Zodiac Ascension Betting Contract" on his corpse, and I understood what he had been pursuing all along—
He didn’t want us all to die in the room. On the contrary, he wanted everyone to go out and take risks, and then disappear completely from within the room.
But unfortunately, at the bottom of the contract, his name was always obscured by deep red bloodstains. I didn’t know what to call him.
His voice was cold, and he always wore a white ram mask. Why not just call him "Brother Ram"?
Although the two games "Bamboo Shoots After Rain" and "Death From the Sky" were no less difficult for me, I had a huge advantage.
That advantage was that everyone in the room would be controlled by me and would do exactly what I did. Coincidentally, whether it was turning the tabletop together or hanging from the ceiling, as long as the "participants" could mimic my actions in these games, there was a high probability of survival.
I didn’t need to negotiate with them, nor listen to what they said. I only needed them to follow my lead.
That way, I could successfully use my "Heart-Seizing Soul" to lead everyone out of the room, walk down that long corridor, and arrive at this mysterious land.
Unfortunately, because I had to forcibly control the remaining eight people to stand here, they held deep grudges against me. As soon as we arrived in the city, they scattered far away from me and began their own adventures.
It was no different from my experiences in the real world—I was always isolated.
Walking down a shadowy street, I raised my finger and looked at the words I had wanted to say to myself at the age of sixteen: "YNA."
But was I really not lonely?
Though I didn’t want to admit it, people in this world will isolate you for any reason.
Poverty isolates you. Wealth isolates you. Being too smart isolates you. Being too dumb isolates you just the same.
Trying too hard won’t work, slacking off too much won’t work either. Having too many opinions won’t work, having none at all won’t work either.
They can’t accept anyone too different from themselves—whether the difference is positive or negative. People want you to be no different from them, so that you count as "their kind," and then they’ll want to "make friends" with you.
Thus, to fit in, people have to become mediocre.
It’s just a pity I learned this lesson too late. As a child, to fit in and have enough topics to talk about with my classmates, I once spent a lot of time watching cartoons or idol dramas I didn’t even like. I also joined the fan club of an idol group that all the girls in my class were chasing, just to fit in.
But what meaning was there in all this wasted effort?
I somewhat regretted that my life had to be lived to accommodate others, that I had to humble myself and make compromises to win friendship—a friendship that was never real friendship in the first place.
Later, Brother Ram told me that elites are a minority in this world. If you become mediocre to fit in, one day you’ll blend into the crowd, become one of the vast masses, and turn into the most common kind of person in the world.
A few years later, Brother Ram told me to try my best to rise above the "masses" and stand at the top of the pyramid.
The top of the pyramid requires the fewest bricks.
This aligned with my own thoughts. To be honest, I never needed friends or teammates. I had a clear understanding of my own life—I just needed to do what I wanted to do.