Chapter 837: Genesis Law

"You know who built this city...?"

"That's right." Qi Xia nodded. "This person used Qiao Wu and constructed the entire city in an instant."

Chen Jun Nan glanced at the street in front of them, finding the situation a bit absurd. "Qi Xia, I'm not trying to dampen your enthusiasm, but have you ever done any construction work? If you're talking about designing a whole city, just having 'faith' isn't going to cut it. There's so much to consider, like plumbing and electrical systems, or the different layouts for various shops. Even if someone truly believes they can build a city, they need to know the structure of every building inside out. Otherwise, it's all just based on imagination—like a kid stacking blocks. What's the point?"

"No..." Qi Xia's eyes kept flickering with insight. "It's not that complicated at all... We've been overthinking it..."

"What?"

"To build an entire 'city,' you don't need to know anything about construction structures, and you don't have to have any experience in building. We're only stuck in this mindset because we're all 'on our own.' We think that to successfully trigger a Hui Xiang, besides the power of the Hui Xiang itself, you need the theoretical knowledge to support it. But those people are different. Their Hui Xiang can exist in multiple forms at once, and when combined, they can create unimaginable effects."

Qiao Jia Jin still didn't quite get it. He scratched his head and asked, "But Deceiver, if it's really like what you're saying... what kind of abilities would Qiao Wu need to pair with to build a city? From what we know, none of those abilities seem up to the task..."

"Ru Meng would do it." Qi Xia boldly speculated.

"Ru Meng...?" The answer clearly surprised the other three, leaving them baffled for a moment.

"This person entered everyone's 'dreams' and directly replicated the scenes from those dreams," Qi Xia explained. "Some people were in prison before coming here, so there are prisons here. Others were at work, so there are skyscrapers. And some were in school, so there are schools. Since each person's dream is just a small area, it's only by combining many people's dreams that the city ends up looking so vast."

"Ah...?"

The other three stared at him with wide eyes, at a loss for words.

Qi Xia nodded and continued, "In this way, he doesn't need to conceptualize or design the buildings himself. Because everyone comes from different eras, the architecture here is wildly varied, and the contents inside the buildings are all sorts of things. So, this city isn't from any single era or place—it's an empty shell pieced together from countless fragments of memories."

"Qi Xia... um, old Qi..." Chen Jun Nan said, "I'm starting to lose track of your wild ideas. If it's like you say, doesn't that mean each of us could find our own 'hometown' here?"

"Yes." Qi Xia nodded. "There are five cities here, each with about ten thousand people, totaling fifty thousand. That's fifty thousand little scenarios, covering almost every type of building. Finding your exact 'home' isn't easy. Plus, even if you're lucky enough to spot a building from your dreams, it's already completely rundown and hard to connect to how you remember it."

"Hold on... just a second..." Chen Jun Nan rubbed his forehead as he thought it over, then spoke up. "So, if that's the case... with Ru Meng being so insane, it has to be Tian Long, right? Are you saying he built this city?"

"Yes, it's highly possible," Qi Xia replied.

"But that doesn't quite add up, does it?" Qin Ding Dong chimed in from the side. "The main condition for activating Hui Xiang is that you have to believe it's real. If it was Tian Long's doing, how could he believe this city would actually appear here? If he didn't believe it himself, he couldn't replicate those scenes no matter what."

"That's another misconception," Qi Xia said. "For Tian Long, who has both Ru Meng and Qiao Wu, there's a more straightforward way to make him believe it all. Once he uses that method, the city would spring up in an instant."

"What method?"

Qi Xia paused, then answered gravely, "Make himself unable to distinguish between 'dream' and 'reality.'"

Everyone slowly widened their eyes at Qi Xia's words, falling silent for a long while.

"Damn..." Chen Jun Nan finally spoke up slowly. "Shit... Now I get it. This is totally insane. If Tian Long thinks this place is a 'dream,' then naturally, everything from the dream will show up here... and these dreams come from us... This is like a smooth little combo move."

"That's pretty much it," Qi Xia nodded. "We thought Tian Long was moving buildings from dreams into reality, but he's already gone mad. To him, it's just shifting a scene from one dream to another. In other words, he believes these buildings should be here, so they appear."

"Holy crap..." Qiao Jia Jin said, stunned. "That's no different from a 'god.' Our church back home says, 'God said, let there be light, and there was light.' Does 'god' also mix up reality and dreams?"

Chen Jun Nan sucked in a sharp breath after hearing that. "Is Tian Long really that far gone?"

"But there are drawbacks," Qi Xia added. "Tian Long often has to sleep, so he doesn't interfere much with the management of the entire Zhong Yan Zhi Di."

"Sleeping..." Chen Jun Nan frowned and said, "I mean, Qi Xia, don't you think this is getting tricky?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about how Tian Long uses Ru Meng." Chen Jun Nan explained. "That old guy's got Ru Meng, sure, but the problem is, he thinks both waking and sleeping are 'dreams.' How the hell do we break that?"

"The only way is to truly wake him up," Qi Xia replied.

Qiao Jia Jin slowly walked over to a nearby telephone pole and reached out to touch it.

The pole was covered in patchy concrete, with faded missing person notices and small ads that were almost illegible. Every detail was incredibly realistic—was this really from Hui Xiang?

No, more than that, these things were fragments of everyone's lingering memories, echoes of each person's 'past.'