Chapter 1997

Inside the Light Gate, Andre suddenly lifted his head, shockedly looking at Lin An, and, like Jiang Haochen, let out a loud shout.

"Lin.. Lin An!! What on earth are you doing!!"

"What are you saying!!"

His expression was bewildered and helpless, filled with fear, as if he simply couldn't understand why Lin An would kill another version of himself.

However, just as his words fell, he suddenly froze, then his shoulders trembled and he couldn't help but let out a low laugh.

Only seeing Andre shake his head in self-mockery, then lift his head again, he looked at Lin An with a calm expression.

"Interesting, I actually got tricked again."

Before Jiang Haochen and the others could be shocked to the point of collapse, completely unable to understand what the two were doing, the next second, Lin An likewise smiled:

"Shouldn't we make them disappear?"

"Andre, it looks like you've still been affected, and you're different from your former self..."

"There's nothing to be done."

Andre wore a faint smile, and didn't mind Lin An's second probe at him.

"Simulating so many people, there will inevitably be mistakes, and one will inevitably be affected."

"But I'm curious, how exactly did you guess it was me, or rather... when?"

Pa

Andre lifted his hand, casually snapped his fingers, and only heard a crisp shattering sound; the entire mission scene shattered like a mirror in an instant.

Light Gate, Ghost Skull, Zhang Tie, building...

Everything shattered like a scroll at this moment; except for Jiang Haochen, who was unaffected, everything else vanished into the darkness like shattered glass.

As the world was soaked like ink from top to bottom, darkness spread, and in an extremely short time it swallowed everything except the two of them.

In a pitch-black space, Andre looked at Lin An with a hint of curiosity, seemingly unable to fathom how Lin An had discovered the problem.

"No need to keep acting."

When he feigned shock and looked at Lin An, he realized he had made a second mistake; though small and could be covered up, continuing the act would be meaningless.

Compared to Lin An's probing, he cared more about when Lin An had figured out the answer.

You should know that just a few seconds before Lin An moved to kill himself, he was absolutely certain he had won! Lin An hadn't thought of anything!

"When?"

"Probably when Qing Kai left and began to suspect me; speaking of which, I really ought to thank him."

Lin An paused slightly, his memory rewinding to the time when Qing Kai led people away.

One must say, although Qing Kai is arrogant, as a star‑destroyer of an advanced civilization, his judgment was correct.

"Qing Kai suspects that you and I are secretly cooperating, plotting to kill them."

"He thinks I concealed information, thinks this mission's difficulty is off, thinks there are problems everywhere. He believes that a Fourth Stage like you being able to get out alive is already strange, let alone me entering again."

"On what basis? Why?"

"Although his suspicion is wrong."

"But it was then that I suddenly realized that all the problems could be explained by a single answer."

"Mission anomaly..."

"Is it because of you, right?"

As his words fell, Lin An gave a light chuckle, as if even now it seemed somewhat unbelievable.

If all the clues point to one answer, then no matter how absurd the answer, it is the final answer.

Lin An clearly remembers that, before he went to the Stellar Battlefield, the task assigned to him by Number 77 was Ghost Skull.

Judging by Number 77's attitude at the time, Ghost Skull's difficulty, while not small, was about that. In Number 77's view, Lin An could need nothing else and, with Fourth Stage understanding, could complete the task. Moreover, at that time his grasp of the various systems was still at an extremely primitive stage!

Moreover, Ghost Skull's difficulty must be significantly lower than that of the Stellar Battlefield; otherwise there would be no point in swapping.

And the anomaly occurred precisely when, after entering the Stellar Battlefield, Andre emerged from the "instance."

At first Lin An didn't connect the two, after all he couldn't imagine how a Fourth Stage Andre could cause a mutation in a task that even Fifth Stages shy away from! Andre's performance after coming out completely dispelled that notion.

But..

"You say you already died in the mission, remembering nothing. You're merely a 'Fiona' with a bit of memory."

"But why do you still want to enter Ghost Skull? Even if I don't go in here, you'd try every means to re‑enter the mission!"

"Of course, this can be explained by obsession; you vaguely know you died in Ghost Skull, and you're unwilling to accept it."

"But..!"

Talking to himself, in the midst of speaking Lin An's eyes flashed with an odd hue:

"I should have realized this earlier; I can only say that I, too, was as overconfident as Qing Kai, thinking it couldn't be you."

"But if you look from a third‑person perspective and reverse it, no matter what thoughts you have about wanting to re‑enter here, it means another you is still alive! A dead person doesn't need to be sought! You couldn't possibly be trying to kill yourself, could you!?"

"I haven't detected the slightest trace of you, you show no abnormality, and you haven't done anything!"

"That's wrong! If you entered and had no problems, then why did you come in? You weren't brought in by me; you were supposed to come in anyway!"

Listening to Lin An's reasons for suspicion, Andre frowned slightly.

"Just these?"

"This isn't enough, far from enough; this point hardly counts as a problem, there are too many explanations for it."

On his face, He Xi's smile was somewhat cold.

Andre stared straight at Lin An, not thinking that Lin An merely doubted him based on this one point. Know that if he guessed wrong, he would personally overturn the "sure‑win" situation! No one would dare to gamble on this—it has surpassed human nature!

"Of course not enough."

Lin An did not deny Andre's disbelief.

He knew why Andre thought that way.

"If I'm not mistaken, you can read minds, you can read my thoughts, right?"

"Mind Controller Andre... I was just about to really lose..."

Lin An wiped the smile from his face; he appeared relaxed and confident, but only he himself knew how shocked he was when he suddenly realized this.

(Don't think about it! Don't even think about thinking about it!)

On the platform, after Qing Kai left, Lin An felt as if he were fighting himself! He realized Andre might be reading his thoughts! As long as he dared to think of any doubt in his mind, he would have nowhere to die, with no chance of breaking through!

No one can defeat the enemy in the darkness when everything about them is seen through!

"After I realized you could read my thoughts, I could only forcibly stop thinking and turn to finding a way to break through."

"To be honest, that's really hard; I can only rely on normal reasoning tasks to assist my thinking."

Lin An shook his head; it's hard to say what kind of painful 'thinking' method that was at the time.

Just like solving a math problem, he dared not directly calculate the data, could only approach indirectly, bit by bit calculating a large amount of auxiliary information, then stopping at the final step, not daring to write down the answer.

And this is also the reason Xiong Hanzi thinks he's a bit strange.