The gods set up twenty-eight deadly astral trials, wagering human lives on who would go mad first.
I can hear everyone’s echoes: their true thoughts, hidden motives, and prophecies of death.
Even the dead.
The first round, Horn Mansion: “First Impressions.” Ten people sit together and vote someone out. The person with the most votes dies.
The silent woman was voted out unanimously. Before she left, she looked at me.
“Chi, have you forgotten me?”
She said her name was Su Nian.
And I had been searching for her for a hundred years.
The third round, Root Mansion: “Obedience.” The boy A Jiu pressed the button that electrocuted him to death for my sake.
As he fell, I heard my own echo for the first time.
It was a woman’s voice.
“Chi, don’t be sad. He’ll come back.”
It was Su Nian’s voice.
In the eighteenth round, I discovered the truth about the Forsaken Land:
Every game duplicated souls. Dead players were “copied” into new personalities and sent back into the game.
And the reason I could hear the echoes of the dead was...
Half of Su Nian’s soul lived inside me.
In the twenty-seventh round, Chariot Mansion, she took off her mask.
It was Su Nian’s face.
She said, “Chi, you finally came.”
I asked her, “Who are you?”
She smiled, just as she did in every frame of my memories.
“I’m the person you’ve been searching for for a hundred years.”
In the twenty-eighth round, I faced a mirror. The person in it said:
“Are you ready?”
With my final echo, I heard the truth.
“You are not Su Chi. You are the half of Su Nian’s soul that split away. The real Su Chi died in the first round. You lived under his identity for a hundred years, waiting
