Chapter 770: Unqualified Pawn

Di Gou was slightly stunned for a few seconds and said:

"But I haven't finished explaining the rules..."

"The known conditions are sufficient," Qi Xia said. "The 'Si Ji' must each fulfill the duties of their respective seasons, and everyone's 'qian' will continually change based on the attributes of the 'Si Ji'; otherwise, your design of 'Si Ji' would be meaningless. The ones opposing the 'Nian Shou' could simply be four warriors armed with firecrackers, rather than the 'Si Ji'."

After hearing this, Di Gou swallowed hard: "Yang Ge... you..."

"So, I have a general understanding of the game's framework, and a counterstrategy has emerged," Qi Xia nodded. "Among the seasons, 'Winter' is the only one that can effectively oppose the 'Nian Shou', so you must have placed your main 'disasters' in 'Winter'."

Di Gou blinked: "But Yang Ge, you just said... that just one smart person is enough. My game is thoroughly a 'cooperative type'—how could one smart person suffice?"

"Don't you believe it?" Qi Xia said.

"No, I find it hard to believe," Di Gou said. "If you were to participate in the game... which season would you choose? 'Winter'?"

"'Spring'," Qi Xia said. "You mentioned earlier that there's a choice in the game called 'transmission', where the first season can pass their 'qian' intact to the second season."

"That's right."

"It means that as long as 'Spring' can control the overall situation, they can convey their ideas to everyone," Qi Xia said.

"But that's impossible," Di Gou said. "This game has no way for communication at all; the soundproofing in each room is exceptionally well done. The only reason we can talk freely here is because of that."

"Actually, all you need is a pen," Qi Xia said again. "With a pen, I could use just a single 'plain qian' to make my strategy known to everyone. Even without a pen, I could use blood or a carving tool. As long as I can write on the qian, everyone will see it."

"You..." Di Gou now realized that the person before him must indeed be Bai Yang. "You've not only figured out how to crack the game but also thought about how to pass that crack to the other three people."

Qi Xia nodded: "Your game is quite good. Though the difficulty isn't high, it still leads to steady casualties among 'participants'. There are plenty of strategic elements involved. If I were a 'participant', I could guarantee a ninety percent win rate, but as the 'referee', I could guarantee one hundred percent."

Di Gou fell silent after hearing this. He was not only surprised that this man had devised a strategy in just a few seconds but also astonished by his claim of a "one hundred percent win rate."

"So, do you believe my identity now?" Qi Xia asked.

"Yes..."

"So, about the question I asked you earlier..." Qi Xia continued, "Who were your former teammates?"

"Yang Ge, promise me one thing," Di Gou said. "Even if you find out who my teammates are, don't inquire about my name from them, or it would violate the 'Sheng Xiao' rules, and I could face deadly consequences."

"Don't worry," Qi Xia nodded. "I'm looking into your background not to uncover your name."

"Alright." Di Gou seemed relieved and said cautiously, "Yang Ge, there aren't many people in my room—apparently only four left now. Their names are Jiang Ruoxue, Zhou Mo, Su Shan, and Fang Zichen. I hear they're still active in the 'Zhong Yan Zhi Di', so you might have encountered them."

Qi Xia narrowed his eyes slowly upon hearing this.

Perhaps it was fate; he had actually met all four of them.

"Adding you makes five," Qi Xia said. "Is that all there was in your room?"

"From what I can remember, it was always just the five of us," Di Gou replied. "Later, I left the room and became a 'Sheng Xiao', but that was many years ago."

"About how long ago was that?" Qi Xia asked.

"Are you asking when I became a 'Sheng Xiao'?" Di Gou thought for a moment and said uncertainly, "Around thirteen years?"

"Thirteen years...?"

Qi Xia furrowed his brow in thought. Although he had recovered part of his memory, he still felt confused about this timeline.

"You became a 'Sheng Xiao' thirteen years ago?" Qi Xia confirmed.

"Yes..." Di Gou shook his head helplessly. "Yang Ge, I know what you're thinking. You cleared everything in just seven years, while I've been at it for thirteen and still haven't gone halfway, but people are different..."

"No, that's not the issue," Qi Xia interrupted. "What you're saying is that thirteen years ago, you were already in that room, and it only had five people?"

"Yeah." Di Gou nodded. "Is there a problem...?"

Based on Qi Xia's own deductions and scattered memories, he should have reformed the room about twelve to eleven years ago and worked with everyone in it for around a year and a half. That's when he gradually became close to Qiao Jiajin and Chen Junnan.

In other words, for him to have all his original room teammates become 'Sheng Xiao', it would have to be before twelve years ago.

But what was Di Gou's status, given that he was in the same room as Su Shan thirteen years ago?

Why had he been drawn into this maelstrom?

"There's still fog," Qi Xia murmured softly. "The most important memories haven't returned..."

"What 'memories'?" Di Gou asked in confusion.

Qi Xia shook his head, but for safety's sake, he asked: "Di Gou, before you became a 'Sheng Xiao', were you a 'Hui Xiang Zhe'?"

"No," Di Gou answered firmly. "I was an 'Unfortunate One', and that's why I became a 'Sheng Xiao'."

This answer cleared some of the fog in Qi Xia's mind.

He felt that things were indeed different from what he had imagined.

If the eight 'Sheng Xiao' on the map were all his teammates, there couldn't possibly be an 'Unfortunate One' in that group.

Because he would have discovered the principle of 'Hui Xiang', and as long as he found the right 'trigger', there wouldn't be any true 'Unfortunate Ones' on this land.

Moreover, he absolutely wouldn't let an 'Unfortunate One' become a 'Sheng Xiao'. Without enough time to build trust and emotional bonds, such a teammate couldn't serve as a proper 'pawn'.

From all this, an 'Unfortunate One' couldn't be one of his own.

This made Di Gou's identity even more mysterious.

Could it really be as 'Qing Long' said—that he was a confidant of 'Tian Long'?

Qi Xia and Di Gou stood in the narrow glass room, facing each other, both seemingly lost in their own thoughts.

If he truly was a man of 'Tian Long', shouldn't he kill him right here?