Du Sanying blinked in confusion. "???"
After they returned home, Du Sanying took the parrot out and hung the cage by the window. Bai Liu stood nearby watching.
The moment the parrot saw Bai Liu, it flared up and screeched twice, "Bai Liu, run away!"
When Du Sanying didn't react, the parrot looked around nervously. Then its green eyes slowly widened as it stared blankly at Bai Liu, who was smiling outside the cage.
It seemed to realize it had entered Bai Liu's territory.
After standing stiffly for a full minute, it abruptly buried its head under its wings and shrank into the corner of the cage without moving.
Du Sanying laughed awkwardly. "San San isn't usually like this."
Bai Liu nodded amiably. "Animals often struggle with changes in the environment. But you normally rely on this parrot to remember things, right? Besides teleporting people, it has other special abilities?"
Du Sanying's eyes lit up. "Yes! Mr. Bai Liu, you know how many things in the game can't be remembered in reality—they're tampered with or erased. But San San can remember those erased memories!"
"It's very useful!"
Bai Liu looked thoughtfully at the parrot. "How do you make it remember something?"
"It's simple," Du Sanying replied. "Just keep repeating it until it agrees."
"But San San can't remember complicated things." He scratched his head sheepishly. "It can only retain simple information, so I usually make it memorize only the most important things."
Bai Liu nodded as if he understood.
After Du Sanying finished unpacking, he picked up his basin and clothes. "Mr. Bai Liu, I'm going to shower. Can I use your bathroom?"
Bai Liu nodded.
Once Du Sanying entered the bathroom, Bai Liu stood and walked slowly to the window.
Though the parrot still had its head tucked beneath its wings, its body trembled slightly as Bai Liu approached.
Bai Liu half-closed his eyes and extended a finger, gently stroking its feathers.
The trembling intensified.
"What do you remember?" Bai Liu asked softly. "Tell me nicely, and I won't hurt you."
"Bai Liu, you bad guy!" the parrot shrieked, shrinking further away.
Bai Liu sighed faintly. "Since you're unwilling to cooperate, let's try something else. I'll tell you something you must remember. Help me remember it."
"In return, I'll ensure both your survival and Du Sanying's."
The parrot hesitated, then slowly poked its head out, watching Bai Liu with wary green eyes as if waiting.
Bai Liu turned and sat on the windowsill. Behind him was an unguarded high-rise drop. The night breeze lifted his uneven, half-long hair.
"On August 17, Spades broke my whip and my cross."
The parrot paused for a long time before repeating the sentence.
It tilted its head. "That's all?"
"For now." Bai Liu's voice was gentle. "If he breaks anything else of mine in the future, I'll have you remember that too."
"Is that important?" the parrot asked, genuinely confused.
"It's very important to me." Bai Liu smiled faintly. "I don't want what he owes me to be erased or forgotten again."
-----------------
After showering, Du Sanying emerged in clean clothes and looked at Bai Liu nervously. "Mr. Bai Liu… where should I sleep?"
"I bought two single beds this afternoon. They're in my room," Bai Liu said. "Choose whichever you prefer."
Du Sanying chose the inner bed; Bai Liu took the one near the window.
A small bedside table separated them. The arrangement resembled a sterile hotel layout, but—
Du Sanying turned over carefully, trying not to make a noise. He absentmindedly looked at Bai Liu across from him. Moonlight filtered softly through the window, falling across Bai Liu's peaceful face.
For a moment, Du Sanying felt dazed.
…He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd shared a room with someone.
It had been nearly seven hours since leaving the sanatorium. Just as Bai Liu had said, nothing bad had happened.
"Can't sleep?" Bai Liu suddenly asked without opening his eyes.
Du Sanying jolted upright. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry!"
"It's not that," Bai Liu said, opening his eyes. "This is my first time living with someone, too. I'm a little unused to it."
Du Sanying sat cross-legged. "Has Mr. Bai Liu always lived alone?"
"Yes. I only shared a bed with someone when I was very young. Since then, I've always lived alone."
Du Sanying looked surprised. "When you were little? Where is that person now?"
"Dead," Bai Liu replied evenly. "He committed suicide. Poured gasoline over himself and set himself on fire."
Du Sanying froze. He vaguely felt he had once known this, but couldn't recall the details. A hazy sorrow surfaced instead, and he apologized instinctively. "I'm sorry… I think I've forgotten again."
"It's fine," Bai Liu said calmly. "Not many people need to remember something like that."
Silence lingered.
Desperate to change the subject, Du Sanying blurted out, "Your team's league is starting soon!"
"Yes. We'll begin intensive team training. The intensity will increase."
"Because the league is about to start."
"I think you'll definitely win the championship!" Du Sanying declared earnestly before lying back down. "What will you do after you win?"
This time, Bai Liu didn't answer immediately.
Du Sanying yawned, assuming he had fallen asleep.
Then Bai Liu spoke quietly: "Sleep on a pile of money. With that guy."
Du Sanying blinked—and burst into laughter.
Bai Liu glanced at him. "Is it funny?"
Du Sanying scratched his head, still smiling. "If anyone else said that, it would be normal. But you said it so seriously…"
"I can't help thinking it's funny."
"But it's a wish that makes people laugh," he added sincerely. "When it comes true, you'll definitely be happy."
Bai Liu turned his gaze away, a faint smile on his lips. "Maybe."
-----------------
Killer Sequence Guild – Weapon Modification Room
Hua Ganjiang repeatedly hammered at the cracks in the God-Defying Heavy Sword. Nearby, Spades sat on a high stool, watching silently.
"Stop staring at me like that," Hua Ganjiang said without looking up. "I'm the weapon modification engineer for Deer Hunter. I shouldn't be servicing Killer Sequence."
He sighed deeply. "But your tactician—the Reverse God—is the soul of Deer Hunter. The highest-ranking tactician. The judge who defied god."
"He saved many people. Me included."
"I owed him too much, yet I didn't follow him when he left Deer Hunter. That was already ungrateful enough." Hua Ganjiang's expression grew complicated. "Now that he's joined a new guild and asked for help with weapon modification… I can't refuse."
He shook his head. "What kind of year is this? I'm an independent contractor, yet I've handled modifications for three guilds and outsourced work to two."
Only then did Spades speak. "Is that a problem?"
He lifted his gaze. "Our guild warehouse security is outsourced, too. Golden Dawn handles it."
Hua Ganjiang froze—then burst into laughter, laughing until tears formed.
"The Reverse God outsourced weapon modification to me and prop protection to Golden Dawn. He truly lives up to his name."
"He gathered the best weapon engineers and item protectors in the game and made them work for him," Hua Ganjiang said with a sigh. "Killer Sequence is a brand-new guild that shouldn't have survived. But through the Reverse God's connections, you solved the two hardest problems for a new guild."
He glanced sideways at Spades. "You really did well to recruit him."
"Our guild leader is cold and stubborn. Yet when the Reverse God left, he softened and begged him to stay—said he'd agree to anything. But even that couldn't keep him."
Hua Ganjiang looked at Spades curiously. "I've always wondered—what conditions did you offer to convince him to leave Deer Hunter?"
"You're mistaken," Spades said calmly. "The Reverse God wanted to leave Deer Hunter."
"I simply gave him a suitable excuse."
Hua Ganjiang was stunned and subconsciously retorted, "How could the Reverse God have wanted to leave the Deer Hunter on his own?!"
"The Reverse God has always been the core of the Deer Hunters. He has a good relationship with everyone. He's also a close friend of our president in real life. We've fought side by side for many years."
Hua Ganjiang recalled, "The president always put the Reverse God's decisions first in everything he did. He was seriously injured several times in the arena while protecting him. And the Reverse God never disappointed the president—his tactics always protected everyone."
"Everyone truly loves and admires the Reverse God, and he genuinely cares about everyone in the guild. He is the soul of the entire guild."
"So when the Reverse God transferred this year…" Hua Ganjiang looked down at the heavy sword the Reverse God had sent him to repair and slowly exhaled. "I'm just a blacksmith, and even I can't accept it—let alone the others."
Hua Ganjiang placed the heavy sword, now glowing red from repeated hammering, into the furnace. Then he hooked a bench with his foot and sat down next to Spades.
He wiped the oil from his hands on his apron, stared at the cross-shaped heavy sword slowly melting in the furnace, and muttered, "…How cruel. This heavy sword once protected us in the hands of the Reverse God, but now it's aimed at us."
"And I'm still helping him fix it."
Hua Ganjiang snorted in self-mockery, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, flicked one out, lit it using the flames of the furnace, and held it loosely at the corner of his mouth as he exhaled smoke.
"Want one?" he asked, offering the pack to Spades.
Spades refused.
Hua Ganjiang narrowed his eyes through the smoke. "The Reverse God doesn't allow you to smoke, right?"
"He was like that in Deer Hunter, too. Hypocritically banning smoking. The funniest part is that our president is the biggest smoker, yet he was also banned by the Reverse God."
"The president obeys every order from him. He was the Reverse God's main attacker, so he developed that habit. After the smoking ban, no matter how uncomfortable he felt, he never touched another cigarette."
"Meanwhile, the Reverse God himself pretended to obey but secretly broke the rule. Whenever he craved a cigarette, he'd hide in my little workshop and smoke one."
Hua Ganjiang chuckled. "I didn't even smoke at first. He's the one who got me started."
After a brief silence, Hua Ganjiang suddenly said, "I still can't understand why he wanted to leave."
"The Deer Hunters… was a guild founded by the Reverse God."
"He was the one who pulled us—people who were desperate and on the verge of death—back from nothing. We gathered together and formed a group that could at least warm each other while surviving in misery."
Hua Ganjiang lowered his head. "The Reverse God always said it with a smile, like it was a joke: I can see your future. Your future is very good. Just hold on a little longer."
"So we endured, all the way until now, for the future he talked about."
"I met the Reverse God in real life," Hua Ganjiang said, holding the cigarette between his fingers. "Back then, I was just a useless thug no one cared about. I had a small blacksmith stall, but I couldn't even support myself."
"Later… I couldn't even support him," he muttered. "I picked up a young boy as my apprentice, but raising him only made me poorer. Sometimes, when I was desperate, I did some shady things to survive."
"But once a person starts down that path, things only get worse." He exhaled smoke slowly. "That year, we could have received government subsidies. But because of the crimes we had already committed, we had a record. So we didn't qualify."
"The worse things got, the more money we lacked. The more money we lacked, the more wrong we did. And the more wrong we did, the more punishment we received."
Hua Ganjiang lowered his head. "But when I first started robbing people, I only wanted to have a full meal… and send that kid to a vocational high school so he could get on the right path."
"I never expected that when we were caught, the boy would suddenly stand up and say he did it with me. So we both went to jail."
"I always thought that kid had something wrong with him to be wandering the streets like that… but I didn't expect it to be true."
Hua Ganjiang suddenly laughed. "When I thought there was no way out, I met the Reverse God by chance. He treated me to a meal. It wasn't expensive, but it was delicious. He opened two bottles of beer, and both my apprentice and the Reverse God ended up drunk."
"The Reverse God drunkenly told me everything would be fine—that he could see the future."
"At that moment, I believed him." Hua Ganjiang smiled faintly. "But it didn't turn out that way."
"I logged into a horror game in the alley where I ran my stall. By the time the Heresy Bureau arrived, my apprentice's shattered body had already been cold for half an hour."
Hua Ganjiang was silent for a long time.
"I entered this game… and met the Reverse God again inside it. He helped me several times, so I survived. Later, with his help, I joined the Deer Hunter Guild. Now I work here peacefully."
"I used my points to exchange for a body," he continued quietly. "I shaped it to look like my apprentice, used points to make it move, and pretended he wasn't dead—pretended he was still forging iron beside me."
"But that body can only exist in this hall. So I spend more time here than in reality."
Spades looked at him. "Don't you want to return to reality?"
Hua Ganjiang sneered. "Return to what? I don't even have a home there. At least here I have my apprentice, a workshop, and teammates who treat me well. I'm living a decent life."
"Sometimes I wonder if what I'm doing is wrong. I've thought about resurrecting my apprentice." He tapped the cigarette between his fingers. "On one hand, I don't have enough points. On the other… what's the point of bringing him back?"
"Life is too hard. The best thing that kid ever ate in his entire life was probably the meal the Reverse God treated him to."
Hua Ganjiang's voice grew softer. "During that meal, my apprentice said he'd never eaten shrimp before. I was afraid the Reverse God would think it was too expensive, so I didn't order it. I even scolded the kid for being greedy."
"But in the end, the Reverse God just smiled, ordered a plate of shrimp, peeled them for him, and let him eat as much as he wanted."
Hua Ganjiang stubbed out his cigarette, took a deep breath, and his eyes reddened. "I truly can't understand why someone so kind and gentle would leave so cruelly—without even saying goodbye."
"After learning that the Reverse God had left, our president went to find him and begged him to come back."
Hua Ganjiang stared absentmindedly at the completely melted heavy sword in the furnace.
"Our president is so proud. Yet he lowered his head at the entrance of your Killer Sequence guild hall. He even tried to kneel, but the Reverse God stopped him and said he had already registered for the league as a member of the Killer Sequence."
"He isn't coming back."
"Our president locked himself in his room for a long time. When he came out, he seemed much darker. He used to be the Reverse God's main attacker, but now he has taken over the role of tactician, which has completely changed the team's style."
"Recently, he recruited a new clown—someone with extremely bloody methods—to fill the vacancy left by the Reverse God."
"The Reverse God never liked seeing casualties on the field. But this newcomer… he wants to kill whenever he makes a move."
Hua Ganjiang said faintly, "…Sometimes I feel like the president is just trying to get revenge on the Reverse God for leaving."
Spades replied honestly, "You all really are childish."
Hua Ganjiang exploded in anger. "You, the naive one who benefits from all this, have no right to say that!"