Of course, even if he suspected this "Zhou Qiming" wasn't a clone, Jiang Ye still felt—

He probably did have a clone, and it was Zhou Qiming.

Even the information this "Zhou Qiming" revealed was more likely true than false.

Especially the part about the "original" being trapped in the Court of Disorder, which had a very high probability of being true.

And the claim that this "Zhou Qiming" encountered "other clones" in the grave mound area…

That also had a very high probability of being true.

Because this situation could be easily verified.

Jiang Ye thought this and shifted his feet slightly, glancing toward the grave mound he had just crawled out of.

Because of his recent emergence from the soil, the blackened earth of that grave mound had shown a clear hollow.

But as time passed…

The damaged grave mound, its charred soil, actually began to slowly "grow" as if it were alive.

The "grown" black soil gradually filled the cavity he had dug when he climbed out.

Before long, the grave mound returned to looking identical to the others.

Exactly the same, as if pasted and duplicated…

This scene made Jiang Ye wonder—

Could the soil in this endless grave mound area really not be ordinary soil, but some living thing that only looked like soil?

He moved around the mound, circling it.

Sure enough, just like when he had first entered the grave mound zone, from every angle the view here was identical.

However, just as he was nearly done with a full circle,

a faint movement came from a mound not far behind him.

Blackened soil slid sparsely down that grave mound.

It looked…

as if some creature, like Jiang Ye had not long ago, was breaking out of the mound!

Jiang Ye's heart tightened, and he grabbed his hammer and walked over.

These grave mounds really did produce things!

Maybe they were the "clones" Zhou Qiming described that lacked clone-sense.

Maybe they were the "strange men" Zhou Qiming mentioned who had no eyeballs or awareness.

Or maybe…

perhaps it was Zhou Qiming himself, whom Jiang Ye had smashed with a hammer a short while ago?

Jiang Ye tightened his grip on the hammer.

The first thing he saw was a hand breaking through the soil.

Then a head followed.

He saw that the head slowly emerging, as Zhou Qiming had said, indeed had no eyeballs!

Then, with a "bang"!

Before the head fully emerged, Jiang Ye, like hitting a whack-a-mole, struck that newly exposed head with his hammer.

As expected…

That eyeless strange man's head proved just as fragile as Zhou Qiming's—like tofu—easily crushed to mush.

The eyeless body also, like Zhou Qiming's corpse, turned into gray mist and quickly dissolved into the soil.

Only this time, as the gray mist dissipated, Jiang Ye felt a cold stream surge through his body.

From his soles it traveled through his limbs and bones, up to his scalp, then into his eyes.

At first it was a chill, not bone-piercing, but oddly refreshing and awakening.

When it reached his eyes it became a burning heat.

This burning sensation was somewhat similar to what one feels when shedding natural tears.

But Jiang Ye did not cry.

He waited quietly for a moment, and the brief abnormal sensation faded.

The soil of the mound that birthed the strange man also quickly repaired itself.

Jiang Ye found it strange—

Something in his body must have changed after killing the strange man?

This had not happened when he killed Zhou Qiming.

If he understood it like a game…

Could it be some kind of "experience"?

Unable to figure it out, he glanced back at the mound he had just climbed out of.

From the surface alone, it was now completely indistinguishable.

Meanwhile, Jiang Ye in the underground Burial Ground had successfully dug up a coffin from a grave mound beneath Apartment 4444's underground burial area.

According to his agreement with the administrator—

He was supposed to use the bone ash box the administrator gave him to break the coffin's inscriptions and open it for the resurrected administrator.

But Jiang Ye did not do so immediately.

A question came to mind—

Theoretically, the player who emerges from a resurrection coffin need not be the resurrected administrator.

It could be another player who held a resurrection quota.

Like Wan Xin and Yang Wenchao who had been resurrected not long ago.

With two resurrection coffins in existence, even they could not be sure who lay inside each coffin.

So…

even if he dug up a resurrection coffin now, it might not house the administrator.

And Jiang Ye had only one bone ash box to open coffins.

What if he used that quota and the one who came out was not the administrator?

The administrator himself would hardly have overlooked such a problem.

So that old Registrar's apparent agreement with him to open the coffin probably did not really pin hope on Jiang Ye.

According to the administrator's explanation—

If he stayed in the coffin long enough, the administrator had other ways to get out.

So the administrator's real hope was likely placed on those other methods.

With that in mind, Jiang Ye was in no hurry to fulfill the promise to open the coffin.

He rested his hand on the pitch-black coffin crisscrossed with eerie inscriptions, and a bold thought rose in his mind…

Could he use the Clone Shared Space to send this coffin to the area where the Ji Zixuan clone sat in the infinite grave mound zone?

He tried simply to store the coffin in the Clone Shared Space.

Naturally it failed.

The coffin seemed embedded in the mound soil and could not be taken away.

If it had been earlier, Jiang Ye might have given up.

However, after witnessing the living-like soil in the infinite grave mound area…

He tried instead to store the mound soil that held the coffin into the Clone Shared Space.

This time… it worked!

Although these soils looked worthless to other players, after thinking it through Jiang Ye took the entire soil of the dug-up coffin's grave mound into the Shared Space!

By doing so, the mound that had held the coffin was effectively leveled completely.

Jiang Ye also clearly saw—

The coffin's surface was flush with the normal ground plane of the underground Burial Ground.

It seemed as if these grave mounds were formed by placing a coffin on normal ground and then covering it with soil, producing a raised mound.

Previously, when Li Hongbin and the others dug graves they usually only exposed the coffin's surface and left it at that.

Coffins typically still retained one-third to even half buried beneath the soil.

Even when they dug thoroughly, the soil they excavated stayed piled near the coffin.

Not like Jiang Ye this time, who stored all the mound soil into space.

It was as if no mound had ever existed here, just a coffin sitting on the ground.

Jiang Ye began studying the junction where the coffin met the ground, hoping to learn why the coffin itself couldn't be stored.

Meanwhile the Ji Zixuan clone in the infinite grave mound zone pulled up a handful of underground Burial Ground soil from the Clone Shared Space…

Just then, he heard a familiar faint sound.

Soil on another mound began to slide, meaning yet another creature was starting to climb out.

Jiang Ye was now fairly practiced.

He walked over, waited a moment, and once again a hand first probed out.

After more than half an arm appeared, the hand braced on the mound and a head started to erupt.

In theory, Jiang Ye's hammer could once again easily crush the emerging head.

But to test a suspicion…

he struck the arm that was bracing the mound first.

A muffled thunk sounded, not as crisp as a crushed skull.

The feel of hammering the arm was indeed not as effortless as hitting a head!

So…

these creatures emerging from the mounds… were their heads the weak points like zombies?

The thought flashed through his mind, and he didn't risk it—his second blow smashed the head.

This eyeless strange man seemed unfazed by pain.

Even though its arm had been hit first, it did not withdraw it.

Once the head took the second hammer blow, it quickly turned into gray mist and merged back into the mound soil.

At the same time, the permeating sensation coursed through his body, the same as before.

The Ji Zixuan clone's eyeballs warmed briefly again.

But this time, before the mound's soil could "repair" automatically, he tried to fill the empty spot in this mound with the soil from the underground Burial Ground he held.

In effect, he manually filled the pit.

After that he observed the mound he had "modified" with outside soil.

It was indeed changed.

But by naked-eye observation, the "modified" mound still looked identical to the others, showing no visible difference.

It seemed his manual filling had brought no apparent change to the mound.

Jiang Ye felt puzzled, so he actively dug up some mound soil and put it into the Clone Shared Space.

He discovered…

the infinite grave mound area's soil vanished the instant it entered the Clone Shared Space!

It neither turned into gray mist nor flash points of light—it simply disappeared into thin air!

This phenomenon made him increasingly convinced the mound soil was problematic!

He immediately thought, why not level this mound entirely?

Store all the mound soil into space.

Then use mound soil from the underground Burial Ground to build a new mound?

Just as he was thinking and preparing to act, a faint noise suddenly came from the very mound that had just born a strange man!

Soil slid down the mound—the same sound that happens when a strange man climbs out!

This…

the mound that had just produced a strange man had now spawned another one so quickly?

Could it be related to his having filled that mound with soil from the underground Burial Ground?

Jiang Ye pondered and quietly waited for the new strange man to emerge.

He considered letting the new creature fully crawl out to gain more information.

But that carried risk—what if the creature's strength increased once it left the mound?

He mainly suspected his own head might be as fragile as theirs now!

If the creature punched first and smashed his skull before he learned anything, it would be disastrous.

Should he take the gamble?

Lacking sufficient confidence, Jiang Ye decided to play it safe.

Just as he raised his hammer to strike the newly emerging creature…

he suddenly realized—

this one actually had eyeballs!

And they were the same red eyeballs as his!

The brief surprise did not change his decision.

He brought the hammer down on the protruding head.

The head shattered just as easily as tofu.

But this time the strange man did not turn to gray mist.

After a few silent seconds, it revived!

When it came back to life, its entire body appeared outside the mound.

This time Jiang Ye saw the other facial features besides the red eyes, and was stunned!

Because the strange man was none other than…

undeniably shaped exactly like Ji Zixuan!

The red eyeballs and the other identical features!

It looked as if someone had pasted a perfect duplicate together!

But the bizarre thing was…

there was no clone-sense!

This absence of clone-sense left Jiang Ye utterly shocked!

From what he knew…

even if someone wasn't an actual clone, as long as they looked identical, clone-sense would trigger!

Yet now, facing this Ji Zixuan who looked exactly the same as him, he felt nothing!

What did this mean?

Did this eerie infinite grave mound area truly block clone-sense?

Or did this strange "Ji Zixuan" possess some unusual property?

Jiang Ye's shock nearly overwhelmed him as countless thoughts flashed through his head.

He also noticed the Ji Zixuan lookalike's face mirrored the same bewilderment.

After a moment of mutual red-eyed staring,

the strange-man Ji Zixuan suddenly spoke to Jiang Ye: "Just now… did you kill me?"

Jiang Ye was cautious. With a thought he refrained from answering and instead asked: "Are you a clone? Then why is there no clone-sense?"

This strange clone seemed to confirm something, and likewise asked back unanswering: "Was it… clone kills clone? So I resurrected?"

He asked the same question: "Why don't we have clone-sense?"

"Even if you're a fake, you look exactly like me, yet there's no clone-sense?"

"Besides, I don't remember having another Ji Zixuan clone."

This strange Ji Zixuan's tone was full of suspicion.

Jiang Ye was silent for a moment, then replied: "You just used my words!"

"A real or fake Monkey King? Which of us is real?"

On the two identical faces, similar existential doubts showed.

Jiang Ye took a deep breath and said in a low voice:

"Let's exchange information first. Why did you crawl out of the mound? Did you fall behind when following Li Ku as well?"

The strange Ji Zixuan, hearing this, merely answered in surprise: "You did too?"

After this shock, his reddened eyes suddenly widened as if frightened by some terrifying possibility—

"Our memories should overlap a lot, but diverge at some point?"

"Do you still remember what Yang Wenchao said?"

"The Infinite Monkey Theorem… in 'infinity,' anything is possible."

"An infinite number of monkeys could type Shakespeare's sonnets, or type something that differs by only one character."

"Like the endless digits of pi containing every possible combination of numbers. Everyone's ID numbers and phone numbers could appear in pi…"

"So could it be that at the moment we fell behind Li Ku, this infinite grave mound area split into countless versions of us that differ by only a single character?"

This explanation sent chills through Jiang Ye as well.

But he did not dwell on it long; instead he asked the strange Ji Zixuan: "After you fell behind, did you immediately appear inside this mound and then crawl out from it?"