Zhou Yun smiled and said, "Oracle isn't a person. It's a profession."
"You've heard of Mutation, right?"
Lin Jie nodded. "I know about it."
"Some players in the Realm of the Dead can activate Mutations through the rings on their hands."
"It's something like a superpower."
Zhou Yun hummed in agreement. "That's right. Only rings of green rank or above have any chance of activating a Mutation."
"And most people can never upgrade their rings in their entire lives. They stay at white rank forever."
"So only a handful of people can possess Mutations."
Lin Jie raised an eyebrow. "I've heard friends talk about all that, too. But what does it have to do with Oracles?"
Zhou Yun's voice rang out. "Oracles are people who have unlocked the Prophecy Mutation."
"They're the prophets of the Realm of the Dead. They can predict the future!"
"The prophecies Oracles deliver are extremely accurate. They've never been wrong!"
"This Mutation is incredibly powerful, and Oracles are exceedingly rare. As far as I know, there are no more than four Oracles left in the world."
Then Zhou Yun proudly patted his chest. "And our Realm of Life has one of them!"
What?
Lin Jie was astonished.
Someone could actually predict the future perfectly?
He hurriedly asked, "Then have you asked the Oracle whether you ultimately succeeded in escaping the Realm of the Dead?"
Zhou Yun's expression dimmed at the question. "Of course we have."
"But the Oracle's answer was very vague."
"I can't relay it to you accurately, either."
"You can discuss that question with her in person when you meet her."
Lin Jie keenly picked up on the sadness in Zhou Yun's eyes.
Could it be that the answer wasn't optimistic?
Zhou Yun stood up. "All right, we're almost there. That's your little sister outside, right? Don't keep her waiting until she gets anxious."
Lin Jie looked back. Sure enough, Lin Zhi was peeking curiously through the doorway.
He still had plenty of questions, but they could only be resolved once they reached the Realm of Life's headquarters.
For now, he should go back and wait patiently.
Lin Jie stood up and headed for the door.
Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly looked back. "One last question."
"How come I haven't seen your ring?"
Ever since arriving in the Realm of the Dead, Lin Jie had been secretly observing the colors of other people's rings.
Lin Zhi's, Xia Qu's, and Chen Li's rings were white.
Zhao Tian's and Yu Ze's rings were green.
And the God of the first game, Canglang, had worn a purple ring.
Fox's ring was gold.
But when Lin Jie examined Zhou Yun's hands, he found them completely bare.
"Oh! You mean this!"
Zhou Yun reached toward his neck and pulled out a chain.
A blue ring hung from the end of it.
"I have to hold a gun. Wearing a ring on my hand was too much trouble, so I made it into a necklace."
"What do you think? Pretty convenient, right?"
Lin Jie's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean the ring can leave your finger?"
Zhou Yun asked in puzzlement, "Why couldn't it? As long as you don't lose the ring, nothing happens."
He looked up in sudden realization. "Oh! You must have seen an Administrator kill someone!"
"They take the ring straight off the person."
"That really can kill someone."
"But taking the ring off yourself is fine. Just keep it on you."
With his left hand in his pocket, Lin Jie silently stroked the ring on his finger with his thumb.
He had always thought that people would die if their rings left their fingers.
After all, when Canglang had killed the chubby boy, he had done so by "seizing" his ring.
And when Lin Jie had killed Canglang, he had snatched his ring away, too.
Even now, Lin Jie still had Canglang's purple ring on him.
So the condition for death wasn't the ring leaving your hand, but someone else taking it away?
To keep others from noticing his ring's color, he had kept his hand in his pocket all this time.
After all, the color of his ring was simply "too unusual."
Black.
If the ring could leave his finger, he wouldn't have to go to so much trouble.
He tentatively slipped the ring off inside his pocket.
Nothing happened.
So that really was how it worked.
"General Zhou, there's something else I'd like to ask. Have you ever seen a black ring?"
Zhou Yun shook his head. "Ordinary people's rings only come in five colors: white, green, blue, purple, and gold."
"Black rings don't exist."
"Why do you ask? Could your ring be..."
Zhou Yun's gaze shifted to the hand Lin Jie had kept in his pocket, and he leaned forward curiously.
Lin Jie openly pulled his hand out and gave a casual wave.
"All right, I have no more questions. Bye, General."
He appeared to be waving goodbye, but in fact, he was deliberately displaying his ring's color this way.
The ring on Lin Jie's hand-
Was green.
In the rear carriage.
"Bro, I distinctly remember your ring being black."
"How did it turn green?"
Lin Zhi voiced her questions quietly.
Lin Jie pressed a hand to his forehead helplessly. He had wanted to hide the fact that he had a black ring from his sister, but he hadn't expected her to be so observant.
Fortunately, she hadn't brought it up in front of Zhou Yun.
"This isn't my ring."
"Remember? Zhao Tian's ring was green."
Realization dawned on Lin Zhi. "Don't tell me you secretly took his ring after he died?"
Lin Jie nodded. "I didn't think much of it at the time. I never expected it to actually come in handy."
When Zhou Yun had looked over earlier, Lin Jie had secretly taken off his black ring inside his pocket and put on Zhao Tian's green one.
That had completed his sleight of hand.
His tone turned serious. "Sis, you heard what the general said. Black rings don't exist in this world."
"To avoid trouble, don't tell anyone I have a black ring."
Lin Zhi looked just as serious. "Of course. I understand that much."
At that moment, Lin Jie suddenly fell silent.
His eyes dimmed, and he asked quietly, "Sis, do you still remember how you came to this world?"
He had suddenly asked because he had thought of the Illusion Zhou Yun had mentioned.
He had briefly returned to reality and witnessed his sister being killed.
But had all of that merely been a false world Fox created?
If so, the gunman coming to Lin Jie's home, his sister taking a bullet for him;
Lin Jie taking revenge, shooting the man dead, then killing himself...
None of it had actually happened?
Then why had Lin Zhi still died?
Lin Zhi seemed to recall something unpleasant, and her expression grew a little sad.
"A stranger came to our home and shot me..."
Lin Jie nodded. "Mm... that matches my memories. You took a bullet for me..."
Lin Zhi's eyes widened in astonishment. "Bro, what are you talking about?"
Lin Jie didn't understand her reaction. "What? Did I get something wrong?"
Lin Zhi shook her head vigorously. "Of course you did!"
"There were only two people at home: me and that gunman."
"You never came home!"
"You'd been missing for a whole day."