Chapter 849: Pressing for Time
The two of us sat in the empty little hut as the end drew near. All that we had seen and heard over these past few days left our minds filled with questions.
"Zhichun, were we wrong?" Zhang Qiang asked from the side.
"I... I don't know..." I sighed. I truly didn't know how to explain this.
This was a massive city, large enough that at least several thousand people should have been active within it. Yet from start to finish, we had only found a single piece of the "Tao."
Which link in the chain had gone wrong?
"I think there are two possibilities..." Zhang Qiang murmured to himself in a low voice. "Maybe we've experienced a low-probability event... that the two of us are the only ones who have preserved our memories... that nobody else here has even the concept of hiding the Tao..."
"But that's impossible." I cut Zhang Qiang off. "'Echo' is the key point for 'preserving memories.' The bell rings here every day. How could only the two of us have preserved our memories?"
"Then this is all just too contradictory..." Zhang Qiang shook his head in frustration. "So many people have preserved their memories and continuously participate in the game, yet not a single one of them has hidden away their Tao... Did all these people die in the games? If not... how do they bring their Tao to be reborn?"
Come to think of it, our initial guesses shouldn't have been too far off. There were indeed many people here who had preserved their memories earlier than us and had started collecting Tao much sooner.
In any environment, I always assume I am not the strongest—there must be those stronger than me. This place was no exception.
For example, I had heard that a certain "Participant" had been gaining momentum recently, always gathering a group of people to scheme something. Their deeds were often spoken of on the streets.
Zhang Qiang and I were not particularly social, after all, and we had never bothered to find out what those Participants were aiming for. Whenever we saw members of their organization moving about, we simply hurried away.
I had always believed one thing firmly—
A Participant was, after all, just a Participant. No matter how powerful he might be, he could never be stronger than the White Sheep.
That leader couldn't possibly stir up any real trouble. The moment he ran into the White Sheep, he would hit an iron wall.
But where had all their Tao gone? Couldn't an entire "organization" hold onto their Tao?
"Brother Qiang, what's the second possibility you mentioned?" I came back to my senses and asked again.
"That is... there might be other 'thieves' here." Zhang Qiang’s face turned serious. "The things we can think of, others can think of too. Maybe there's a larger, more tightly organized gang also collecting Tao and hiding them in places we'd never find."
Zhang Qiang's idea still left me with many doubts.
As I had said, if several thousand people were active in the city, and many of them had obtained "Echo"... then the Tao they earned should have been abundant.
No—to be precise, since Tao was the only currency here, everyone would try every means to preserve it.
Even if someone had only a single Tao on them when they were annihilated, they would never simply discard it.
From this, I could infer that a vast quantity of Tao should have been hidden here. If some thieving group could sweep up such a massive amount of Tao, leaving only one single stray piece behind, it could only mean that the group's scale was even more astonishing—requiring at least several hundred to a thousand people. But that was clearly unreasonable.
In a place where even the "Zodiacs" couldn't unite, could someone have actually organized a gang of several hundred thieves?
No matter how much we discussed it, we could reach no conclusion. Perhaps the complexity of this place far exceeded our imagination.
"Fisno's Theorem" states that a person has two ears but only one mouth, meaning one should listen more and speak less.
I decided to quietly wait for the annihilation, then go and hear what the White Sheep had to say. He had said "cooperation," not "exploitation," which proved his proposal would benefit both Zhang Qiang and me.
I chose to trust the strong.
Even though he had violated the rules by choosing suicide, for some reason... I felt he would come back.
As I had predicted, when I opened my eyes again in the room, I saw that all three "Zodiacs" were already neatly assembled inside.
Apart from the White Sheep and myself, everyone else wore expressions of shock.
The White Sheep seemed to have just calmed down as well. He took a deep breath and said softly, "Made it just in time."
Before Zhang Qiang or I could speak, the Sheep's emotions immediately flared up.
"White Sheep... you..."
"Long story short. I'm pressed for time." The White Sheep cut him off impatiently. "Do you believe me now?"
"You... you..." the Shar-Pei stared at the White Sheep with an incredulous expression. "You clearly violated the rules... What's going on?"
"So I told you, sometimes there's no need to look at what the contract says. You have to use your own head."
The White Sheep reached up and touched his mask, finding that even the bullet hole at his temple was gone. Only then did he relax and continue, "Let's cooperate. Nothing said here can be monitored, because as you said, everyone who comes to the 'Interview Room' cherishes their life more than most, and no one dares to violate the rules."
"But how did you figure that out?" the Sheep said.
"That I can't tell you." The White Sheep refused flatly. "Shar-Pei, Sheep, let's get down to business. Are you interested in rebelling with me?"
Zhang Qiang and I felt our hearts clench at those words. This situation seemed exactly like the last time—we needed to quickly grasp our "memories."
As powerful as the White Sheep was, every word he spoke was enough to get Zhang Qiang and me killed ten thousand times over.
Without consulting each other, we immediately tried to obtain "Echo."
But this time, it felt strange. The bell only rang once outside. I seemed to have found a delicate tipping point, where I could cut off my train of thought the moment I obtained "Echo," causing the swaying bell to fall silent.
From start to finish, the White Sheep acted as if Zhang Qiang and I didn't exist. He simply fixed his piercing, cold gaze on those two Zodiacs.
"Reb... rebel...?" The Sheep was momentarily stunned. "Rebel... meaning...?"
"Everything in this place is a deception. Even the paper on our bodies... doesn't contain a single truthful word. Rebellion means we make the 'Celestial Dragon' step down from that seat and become the masters ourselves." The White Sheep said. "Otherwise, you'll regret missing this opportunity sooner or later."
"You—"
The Shar-Pei and the Sheep's eyes flew wide open in shock. Zhang Qiang and I quickly lowered our heads.
Though we were not "Zodiacs," we knew these were words sufficient to cost us our lives.
"Who did you say we should bring down...?" the Shar-Pei asked, his voice trembling.
"The Celestial Dragon." The White Sheep said. "We kill him."
Hearing this, the Shar-Pei slowly reached out and grabbed the White Sheep, then turned to the Sheep and said, "Something's wrong. Go get help!"