TDU Chapter 519
Chapter 519 Tampered?
The moment Chen Junnan voiced his question, even Qi Xia’s mind seemed to seize up.
“What did you say?” Qi Xia froze for a beat.
“I said, ‘when the hell did you become a fraudster’?” Chen Junnan repeated himself, still wearing a baffled expression. “Is this some new identity you cooked up for yourself?”
“Junnan lad, what are you talking about?” Qiao Jiajin broke into a puzzled grin. “Swindler lad had already said it in the {Liar} game—”
Qiao Jiajin stopped mid-sentence, a sudden realization striking him.
They had never played the {Liar} game with Chen Junnan.
In the first two cycles, Chen Junnan had been killed before the game started. In the third cycle, Mortal Goat had committed suicide.
Which meant that from beginning to end, Chen Junnan had never heard Qi Xia’s self-introduction, nor heard him utter the words, “My name is Qi Xia, and I’m a professional swindler.”
In that case, what identity had Qi Xia left behind in Chen Junnan’s mind?
“Then tell me…” Qi Xia’s lips quivered, betraying the emotion he tried to suppress, as he looked at Chen Junnan. “Who am I?”
“What kind of question is that…” Chen Junnan said, brows knitting together. “Are you saying you don’t even know who you are?”
“No.” Qi Xia came to a halt and asked with grave seriousness, “Chen Junnan, in your memory… what story did I tell in the {Liar} game?”
“You claimed you were a swindler who cheated someone out of two million,” Chen Junnan replied without hesitation. Then something struck him as odd. “Hold on, Ole Qi… you haven’t fallen for your own swindle, have you?”
“Wh—” Qi Xia only then noticed the discrepancy. “So the version you heard…was the same as the one I told.”
“Why, did you switch versions too?” Chen Junnan said with a laugh. “Whatever we said back then… wasn’t it all lies anyway? Did anyone actually tell the truth from start to finish? You know what identity cards everyone drew, don’t you?”
At those words, Qi Xia suddenly realized what the persistent sense of dissonance had been all along.
Perhaps everyone had woven falsehoods into their opening stories—yet he alone had not.
In his memory, he truly had swindled someone out of two million, and he had laid it all bare in his recount. After all, he knew that even if he drew the {Liar}, there was no real need to lie, so he had chosen to speak the truth from the very beginning.
Qi Xia collected out his thoughts and then inquired of Chen Junnan, “If what you heard is exactly what I recounted, doesn’t that confirm I am a swindler?”
That made Chen Junnan laugh outright. “Ole Qi, what are you even doing? Why are you trying this hard to convince me that you’re a fraud? What’s the point? Most people would scramble to clear their name the moment they’re accused of being a swindler. You, on the other hand, seem afraid I won’t believe it.”
“I…” Qi Xia shook his head decisively. “This isn’t about being a {swindler}… it concerns something extremely important. Which is precisely why you need to tell me everything you know.”
Seeing the gravity in Qi Xia’s eyes, Chen Junnan sensed that something was indeed amiss. He thought for a moment, then spoke. “Ole Qi, to be honest with you, in the {Liar} game no one told the truth, including you. You once confessed to me that before coming here, you’d only just finished your master’s degree and were currently looking for a job. Among the nine of us, your lies were by far the most outrageous.”
“What?” Qi Xia’s eyes slowly widened. “I… finished a master’s degree?”
“You know it yourself,” Chen Junnan remarked with a puzzled, wry smile. “I might choose not to believe what you said during the {Liar} game, but there was no reason for you to deceive me during your private confession afterward. You’re not about to tell me now that you’ve been lying to me this whole time, are you?”
Qi Xia gave the matter careful thought. Chen Junnan, by all measures, was a good man. Though somewhat loquacious, when it came to conduct and reliability, he was trustworthy, not someone Qi Xia disliked. There was no reason for him to fabricate a lie specifically to placate Chen Junnan.
Yet how could he possibly be a master’s graduate?
He had not continued his education after high school, instead venturing out on his own, struggling to survive, fully exposed to the darker side of human nature. At nineteen, he had met Yu Nian’An. The two of them had been together for seven years. Now, at twenty-six years old, he found himself at {End Point}.
This hellhole had taken Yu Nian’An from him and trapped him here for so long. He wanted to escape, and he wanted to find Yu Nian’An. Wasn’t that the entirety of his life?
The more Qi Xia examined it, the more every hair on his back stood on end.
Wait… why had he swindled that two million in the first place…?
‘Because that scumbag wronged Yu Nian’An…’ Qi Xia murmured to himself. ‘The only time I ever committed fraud was to reclaim two million for Yu Nian’An…’
In the span of a single heartbeat, Qi Xia felt the world spin once more, as a question of cold logic surged in Qi Xia’s thoughts: If Yu Nian’An did not exist…then would he have become a swindler?
“It cannot be…” Qi Xia’s brow knitted, a subtle tremor of doubt in his gaze. “Why does every proof lead inexorably along this path? Why is the pursuit unending? And why does every inquiry I make… circle inevitably back to this answer?”
Seeing the drastic change in Qi Xia’s expression, both Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin grew uneasy. In the past, even when death loomed over them, Qi Xia had never shown such panic.
“Ole Qi, what’s wrong with ya?” Chen Junnan asked with an awkward laugh. “Sure, you’re smart, but there’s no need to insist on being a swindler… This young master only finished high school too, there's no need to feel inferior. A master’s degree really isn’t anything to be ashamed—”
“My memories have been tampered with…” Qi Xia paid Chen Junnan no heed, his gaze flickering as he spoke. “The lies I told in the {Liar} game… have actually become my real life. What kind of twisted situation is this…?”
“Huh?” Only then did Chen Junnan finally grasp what Qi Xia was struggling with. Even so, the revelation was hard to process, leaving him momentarily at a loss for words.
After a long pause, he said, “Ole Qi…uh… the last time you returned to the {real world}—”
“I was already a swindler,” Qi Xia cut in with absolute certainty. “I dropped out at eighteen and have been muddling through life ever since. I even brought back money that had already been laundered. Yu Nian’An was waiting for me at home at the time… and you claim it was all a lie?”
“What?” Chen Junnan felt Qi Xia’s words growing more and more outlandish. “Ole Qi, I won’t argue about anything else… I just want to ask one thing. If all you had was a high school education, how could you possibly have gathered the theoretical knowledge to shepherd us through every challenge?”
TL Note: Rant goes here ( •̯́ ₃ •̯̀)
