"Are you a participant, or a neutral bystander like him?"

That man integrated into the system, which was also a kind of transcendence. He no longer participated in the system personally, although this transcendence did not bring him freedom, but rather another form of eternal imprisonment.

"I'd say it's about half and half."

Lu Zhouming tilted his head and frowned slightly: "I'm actually not very good at explaining myself. I'm a participant, but because of him, I can also be considered a semi-detached one."

"After all, I can lose. You should be able to tell from my minion traits that I am immortal, truly immortal."

Lu Zhouming shrugged: "I think he played me, using me as an experiment to experiment with creating the concept of 'immortality' to cheat within the system, so as to have a higher probability of reaching the end of the system."

"But obviously, his experiment failed, so he left me as the experimental subject; and with the idea of ​​not wasting anything, he made full use of this old piece of trash to continuously guide the strongest members of the tribe who were at the forefront."

"Yes, just like you think. I've done similar things many times. I've been recruited by many people, guiding them to know the truth, leading them to take the final step, to S-level, and opening the door to a hopeless future."

Lu Zhouming paused, then added softly, "Then, we'll die together in despair. But unlike them, I'll take this step again and continue to replicate everything I've done before."

Everyone fell silent and looked at Lu Zhouming.

The young man's tone was calm, revealing neither joy nor sorrow, but rather an incomprehensible, profound loneliness.

Thirty million years, countless times of accompaniment and guidance.

Witnessing one strong person after another stepping onto the critical point, accompanying them to face death, and then starting anew.

Perhaps what confuses him more is his own identity: Am I even human?

Or, when will this endless process end, and how will I reach my own demise?

"Dude..."

Jia Zhengyi stepped forward, opened his mouth as if to offer some words of comfort, but then remembered his own position and felt that he was the one who should be comforted.

In the end, Jia Zhengyi simply patted Lu Zhouming on the shoulder and said, "Buddy, don't be discouraged."

"Feeling discouraged? That's a luxury you can only dream of."

Lu Zhouming blinked, smiling nonchalantly. Jia Zhengyi pursed his lips, then suddenly lowered his voice: "Then I'll ask you a favor, okay?"

"What?"

"If I die in the future, please try to bury me in a good place, okay?"

"If there's a complete corpse, I will."

"Damn it! Will I not even have a complete corpse left? Will I end up like this?"

Lu Zhouming smiled without saying a word, only looking at Su Lin.

Su Lin withdrew his gaze. He had no more questions to ask and had temporarily accepted this new follower who had come with a purpose.

Su Lin's gaze fell on Xiao Linlin, who was still standing motionless in front of him. He wondered if she had taken Lu Zhouming's words to heart or if she was pondering some new question.

"Linlin."

Su Lin gently patted Xiao Linlin's shoulder, and Xiao Linlin quickly turned her head, looking at Su Lin with a smile: "Brother, what's wrong?"

She was still smiling, but it was somewhat forced, and her little face was pale.

These unexpected secrets were clearly difficult for Xiao Linlin to digest and accept.

The reality is not what everyone speculated or analyzed; it is far more cruel and desperate, suffocating.

"It's okay, I'm here for you."

Su Lin gently comforted her, and Xiao Linlin gripped his large hand tightly to show that she understood. She quickly turned to look at Lu Zhouming.

"What about Xu Zhiyi?"

She finally took the initiative to ask, but it wasn't about the mechanism itself; she was more concerned about Chairman Xu as a person: "Is she a survivor, or someone like you?"

"I have no idea."

Lu Zhouming chuckled and shook his head, calmly saying, "She could be considered a survivor, but she's probably another foreshadowing he left behind."

"At least before this, I had never seen a survivor with prophetic abilities."

Lu Zhouming pointed out Xu Zhiyi's special nature with a meaningful expression, and put forward an unspoken conjecture: the mechanism may be dynamic, consciously modifying each escape game.

This may be due to the rules of the mechanism itself, or it may be that his consciousness still exists and he has not completely removed Lu Zhouming as a foreshadowing, and is still actively driving every major change.

"Do you possess the same abilities as her?"

Xiao Linlin bit her lip, then suddenly looked up and stared directly into Lu Zhouming's eyes: "If we can both see the future, are you really here to replace me?"

Su Lin frowned. From this sentence, he was almost certain that Xiao Linlin had analyzed more of the truth about the future from Xu Zhiyi, but she hadn't brought it up.

How can you say it's a replacement?

Lu Zhouming smiled and shook his head: "I'm just accompanying you on this journey."

"Will my brother fail?"

"I will not make predictions, child."

"Then he will win; the prophet doesn't make the wrong bet."

Xiao Linlin took a deep breath, unconsciously clenched her fists, and then quickly relaxed them, as if she didn't want Su Lin to notice the change in her heart.

"Linlin, you're with Xu Zhiyi..."

Su Lin opened his mouth, about to ask what was going on, but Xiao Linlin shook her head and interrupted him: "Brother, I don't know more than you do, I just have some unnecessary worries."

Is that really the case?

Su Lin looked calmly at Xiao Linlin, meeting her gaze openly and frankly, and pointed out the urgency of the next step: "Brother, now that we've stepped into Zone B, there's basically no turning back."

"So we shouldn't delay any longer. Since there are no new questions, we should move on."

"Let's start a new game. We still have two district-level matches left, and two months to go."

Xiao Linlin paused for a moment, then said softly, "Then, we need to take the first step and use our past experience to prove how far our team can go."