Chapter 187: Two Paths

Only the “can yu zhe” will be annihilated.

Qi Xia understood that this sentence meant the “yuan zhu min” and “sheng xiao” would not disappear with the zhong yan.

“But how do you know the ‘yuan zhu min’ haven’t been annihilated?” Qi Xia asked. “Are the ones we see really the original them?”

“I’ve conducted experiments,” Chu Tianqiu said with a smile. “To figure out if those lunatics would be reborn, I spent ten months on it.”

“Ten months…?” Qi Xia furrowed his brow, as if he had realized something.

“This is a dirty story; you probably don’t want to hear it,” Chu Tianqiu said with a smile. “We’re getting off track.”

“Go on…”

Qi Xia looked at him with a disdainful gaze, realizing that Chu Tianqiu was even crazier than he had imagined.

“You know that we ‘can yu zhe’ get a completely new version of ourselves every time we die…” Chu Tianqiu continued seriously, “So, there must be a scenario like this… One day, a person named Old A gains the ‘hui xiang’, but he doesn’t witness the zhong yan and dies before the tenth day.”

“Yes,” Qi Xia nodded. “That’s a normal situation.”

“Good, then…” Chu Tianqiu clenched his left fist and said, “Suppose this is Old A’s corpse.”

Then, he slowly extended his left thumb and said, “This is the ‘hui xiang’ that Old A once gained.”

Next, he held up his other hand, also making a fist: “This is a new Old A.”

He extended the thumb on that hand: “This is the new ‘hui xiang’. Look at this scene—doesn’t it seem strange?”

Qi Xia stared at the two fists Chu Tianqiu held up, each with a thumb extended, pondering what he was trying to convey.

Before Qi Xia could figure it out, Chu Tianqiu asked, “Qi Xia, since ‘people’ can be copied, can ‘hui xiang’ be copied too?”

“You… hold on a second…” Qi Xia felt like he was being brainwashed by a madman, but he quickly interrupted and countered, “Your description seems to have a flaw.”

He pointed to Chu Tianqiu’s left hand and said, “Since this is Old A’s corpse, when he died, the ‘hui xiang’ should have disappeared with him. Your assumption doesn’t hold.”

“No, no…” Chu Tianqiu shook his head and said, “Qi Xia, that’s the flaw in your thinking. The ‘hui xiang’ on Old A’s corpse is just ‘inaudible,’ not ‘gone.’ Do you understand?”

“Inaudible…?” Qi Xia paused, then said, “What’s your point with this example?”

“Let me put it this way…” Chu Tianqiu lowered his hands and said, “I’ve collected a lot of corpses and am trying to extract the ‘hui xiang’ from them. Unfortunately, there’s no morgue here, so the bodies rot in a few days, and I haven’t succeeded yet.”

This left Qi Xia stunned.

“Do you remember, Qi Xia?” Chu Tianqiu continued, “No matter which ‘sheng xiao’ we ask, they all say they want to create a ‘god,’ one as great as Nü Wa. So, if I can gather everyone’s ‘hui xiang’ onto myself, I’ll become an all-powerful ‘god,’ and this place will no longer be necessary because the organizers will have achieved their goal.”

Qi Xia’s expression turned very serious.

He had tried to guess Chu Tianqiu’s plan many times, but he never imagined the man was this insane, beyond any normal reasoning.

He wasn’t collecting three thousand six hundred “dao,” nor was he breaking all the games.

Instead, he was constantly creating corpses to research a way to become a “god.”

That’s why he would unhesitatingly kill anyone in the team.

But this time… was Chu Tianqiu telling the truth?

“When I become that all-powerful ‘god,’ I can send you all out,” Chu Tianqiu said with a smile. “That’s my entire plan. Deal?”

“So, you don’t want to leave; you just want to become a ‘god’?” Qi Xia asked.

“Of course,” Chu Tianqiu nodded happily. “What’s the point of being human? I have the chance to become an ‘all-powerful one,’ but instead, I’d have to go back to the real world and deal with birth, aging, sickness, and death? Don’t be foolish.”

Qi Xia slowly straightened up, instinctively moving away from Chu Tianqiu, and said, “But because of the ‘shang di bo lun,’ this world can’t have an ‘all-powerful one.’”

“‘Shang di bo lun’ was proposed by humans,” Chu Tianqiu said. “After all, humans can’t comprehend an ‘all-powerful one.’ They mock its self-contradictions from their narrow perspective, but why should an ‘all-powerful one’ prove itself to humans? Why should it answer human questions?”

Qi Xia took a deep breath. Now, the only thought in his mind was that he had to race against time.

Otherwise, he would eventually turn into someone like Chu Tianqiu.

Chu Tianqiu and Lin Geng seemed normal on the surface, but deep down, they both harbored extremely mad ideas.

Lin Geng for seven years, Chu Tianqiu for two.

Day after day, they woke up in the “zhong yan zhi di,” gradually abandoning their humanity, morality, and the laws of being human.

So, was retaining memories for so long a good thing or a bad thing?

After a long silence, Qi Xia slowly asked, “Chu Tianqiu, what does ‘I have never left’ mean?”

Chu Tianqiu smiled again upon hearing this.

“Qi Xia, I believe I am someone who has existed since the ‘zhong yan zhi di’ was first created.”

“Oh…?”

“I’m not sure how many memories I’ve lost, but I’ve definitely been here for a long time…” Chu Tianqiu said with a bitter smile. “You can find my writings all over this place. The oldest ones look like they’re years old. It seems I once investigated something, and now I can only piece together the results from the traces I left in the ‘zhong yan zhi di,’ but I can’t remember why I investigated it.”

“An investigation?” Qi Xia knew that if Chu Tianqiu’s trigger for ‘hui xiang’ was truly “witnessing the zhong yan,” then investigating alone would be extremely dangerous. “What were the results of your investigation?”

“I once wrote down a sentence with my own hand: ‘I must make Qi Xia gain hui xiang,’” Chu Tianqiu said with a laugh. “Who knows, maybe you’re just a stepping stone on my path to becoming a god?”

“A stepping stone, huh?” Qi Xia also smiled and asked, “Chu Tianqiu, are you cooperating with me just to create corpses?”

“No…” Chu Tianqiu shook his head. “It’s not that simple. We can pursue two goals at once. Through ‘selling food,’ the ‘tian tang kou’ has already collected two thousand nine hundred ‘dao.’ I’ll work on becoming a ‘god,’ and you’ll collect ‘dao.’ No matter what we do next, we’re increasing the chances of getting out. I’ve said it before—in this place, only you and I are qualified to survive and leave.”

At the end of their conversation, silence fell once more.