The plant patient's pale eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. He swayed as he rose to his feet, hands trembling while he staggered toward the Blood Ganoderma lucidum on the hospital bed.
Mu Ke warily retreated, step by step, until his back pressed against the door.
From the corridor came the sharp clicking of high heels—the patrolling nurses. If Mu Ke stepped outside now, he would immediately be caught and forcibly returned to the ward. Patients were not allowed to leave their rooms at night. It was a hospital rule: monsters roamed after dark and would harm any wandering patient.
Moreover, if there was a disturbance in the ICU during the night, the nurses would certainly discuss it the next day. If word reached Miao Feichi's team, all the groundwork Bai Liu had painstakingly laid would be rendered useless.
Mu Ke slowly shifted his gaze between the patient and the Blood Ganoderma on the bed.
Technically, he wasn't at a complete dead end.
The monsters here all had weaknesses—obvious ones. According to the information he'd gathered, the Blood Ganoderma lucidum resided inside the patient's body. As long as the Ganoderma wasn't destroyed, the patient wouldn't die. If it were destroyed, the patient would perish.
But the Blood Ganoderma wasn't just the plant patient's weakness.
It was also a massive buff.
[The Love Welfare Institute Monster Book has refreshed—Plant Patient (2/3)]
[Monster Name: Plant Patient (Blood Ganoderma Activated Version)]
[Features: Movement speed 500. Requires large amounts of water for growth. Prefers humid environments.]
[Weaknesses: ??? (Unexplored)]
[Attack Mode: Bloodsucking; Liquid Assimilation (Upgraded from A-grade to S-grade due to Blood Ganoderma bonus); Poisonous Fog Pollution (Upgraded from A-grade to S-grade due to Blood Ganoderma bonus).]
[The monster "Plant Patient" has received the "Blood Ganoderma lucidum" as an auxiliary enhancement, replenishing blood energy. Comprehensive evaluation upgraded from A-grade to S-grade. Players below B-grade will be killed in one hit.]
Mu Ke, with his C+ panel, had initially intended to charge forward and destroy the Blood Ganoderma.
Then he saw the comprehensive evaluation.
He looked down at the papers in his hand and remembered he hadn't fully transmitted the information to Bai Liu yet.
Gritting his teeth, he stepped back.
The patient appeared to be in a recovery phase. He stood by the bed, devouring the Blood Ganoderma, blood smeared at the corners of his mouth. For now, he ignored Mu Ke.
But Mu Ke knew that was temporary.
Once the monster finished eating and fully recovered, he would be the next target.
Some items in the game couldn't be stored in a backpack—notes and books like these were among them. There was far too much information to transmit manually through ordinary text input.
And if he passed it along in a more obvious way, it would fall out upon his death. If Miao Feichi visited the ICU the next day and found the contact device, Bai Liu's identity would be instantly exposed.
What should he do?
Mu Ke anxiously bit his nails. How could he pass the information on?
His gaze fell on the bookshelf. Then to the torn page in his hand. Gradually, his breathing steadied. Bai Liu was currently in his room. And Mu Ke remembered the exact arrangement of every book on that shelf. That was enough.
Bai Liu's panel suddenly chimed. He still had Mu Ke's personal panel loaded. He hadn't initiated any action himself, so Mu Ke must be controlling it. Bai Liu had been leaning against the door, pretending to sleep while waiting for news. The instant the notification sounded, his eyes snapped open, completely alert. He opened the system backpack and activated the keyboard interface.
'Y, F5.' Bai Liu stared intently at the keyboard. Soon, four new keycaps were removed from the keyboard. 'X, 45.' Then it was 'Z, 678.' Finally, the last one was 'enter.'
This meant that the information input was completed, and the task operation could be started.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes. XYZ, this was a three-dimensional axis. In addition, the shape F was very much like—Bai Liu's gaze instantly moved to the bookcase in the room, and he slightly raised an eye.
Mu Ke's memory was that strong?
Understanding dawned almost immediately. F represented the shelf number. X indicated the book's position on the shelf. Z was the page number.
After skimming the bookshelf, Mu Ke had memorized the placement, shelf index, and pagination of every book in his ward. Then he'd used a coordinate system to transmit the message.
An ordinary person—even one who found the information—would never be able to pass it along through keyboard coordinates alone.
Remembering precise locations and mapping them into a three-dimensional axis wasn't something most people could accomplish.
No wonder Mu Ke's father had tried so desperately to save him. Even one extra year of life from a genius like this could create immeasurable value.
Bai Liu moved swiftly. He located the corresponding book and flipped to the designated page. Instead of folding the page or marking it, he tore it out cleanly. Marking it would be too obvious. To avoid suspicion, he shamelessly tore out several unrelated pages as well.
The hospital might explicitly forbid the destruction of books, but now it was night, and he couldn't be caught. In addition, this was Mu Ke's room, so he tore out the pages without any psychological burden.
After tearing them out, Bai Liu took off another 'enter' keycap to indicate he had completed the execution. Soon, Mu Ke sent a new string of coordinates. Bai Liu quickly found it and tore out the page. The communication speed and execution were very fast. Less than five minutes later, Mu Ke took off the 'end' keycap. This represented the end of the information transmission.
Bai Liu glanced at the information on these pages, and he soon frowned. "If the ganoderma lucidum isn't destroyed, the body won't die…" If it was what he understood… Bai Liu's eyes narrowed. There was something wrong on Mu Ke's side. The patient wasn't dead at all.
Bai Liu's eyes swept over the panel. On Mu Ke's stable panel attributes, the mental value started to decline at a rapid speed, and a small line of red words was next to it.
[System Warning: Player Mu Ke is suffering from the Plant Patient's Poisonous Fog Pollution. This S-grade attack will deplete mental value within one and a half minutes. Player Mu Ke is advised to leave the area immediately!]
Mu Ke crouched beneath Bai Liu's hospital bed, covering his mouth to suppress a cough as the fog thickened.
On the opposite bed, the monster sniffed the air.
His limbs clung to the iron bars like a spider's. His body arched upward while his head hung low, baring jagged teeth.
He chewed greedily on the Blood Ganoderma.
The fungus, once as large as a millstone, disappeared rapidly under those serrated teeth.
The patient's abdomen swelled grotesquely, like a spider's distended belly. Through the stretched skin, Mu Ke could see the consumed mycelium squirming—wrapped in a translucent membrane of blood.
As he fed, a visible red mist sprayed from the monster's body.
The fog spread swiftly, filling the ward with a pale pink haze. Mu Ke had no choice but to inhale it. His vision blurred. His mind grew sluggish. His mental value plummeted at an alarming rate.
He had considered buying a bottle of mental bleach earlier. But after transmitting the information, his main identity line—with only 6 HP remaining—held no further value. If he died, Bai Liu could fully inherit the "Mu Ke" status. There was no reason to waste points saving him.
Mu Ke curled into himself beneath the bed where Bai Liu had once lain.
Yes. Bai Liu had calmly abandoned his own main identity line when it became useless. If it had no value, discard it. Mu Ke could do the same. He closed his eyes, hypnotizing himself into calmness—though the hand clutching the torn pages trembled.
His mental value continued dropping. The monster finished devouring the Ganoderma and let out a satisfied belch. Then he climbed down. Sniffing. Searching. Mu Ke pressed his hand harder over his mouth, trembling uncontrollably.
Tears flooded his eyes. Gasping, he reached out and pried three keycaps from the keyboard.
[Delete] [M] [E]
Delete me. Abandon me. Empty my inventory so my corpse won't drop anything that exposes you. Don't come to save me. That was the message.
Bai Liu had already exhausted Mu Sicheng's borrowed skill. The fishbone was in Miao Feichi's possession. There was nothing left that could save him. Trying would only send Bai Liu to his death. It wasn't worth it. Mu Ke forced himself to remain calm. His role was finished. The information had been delivered. If he died now, it didn't matter.
Bai Liu still had things to accomplish. He needed to live.
In his memories, Mu Ke had always feared death above all else. Yet no matter how terrified he was, he could never escape it. He had been born sick. Since he could remember, death had loomed over him like a shadow, and he had struggled against it desperately, without dignity.
He never imagined he would one day face death so calmly. Perhaps it was because this death wouldn't truly be final. Or perhaps it was because of his blind trust in someone else—a trust that gave him just enough security to dull the fear.
Mu Ke possessed abilities and wealth most people could only dream of. From the moment he opened his eyes to the world, he had stood at its very peak.
If people were divided into ranks at birth, Mu Ke would have stood at the highest tier—whether in talent or in assets.
Logically, he should have been arrogant, condescending, untouchable. A golden young master looking down on everyone beneath him.
But death was impartial. In an instant, it struck him down from the pyramid's summit. From then on, that golden heir was no different from the commoners he once would have stepped over.
He could beg his father and the doctors for survival, kneel down, and beg the audience to reward him and sell his soul to Bai Liu. Yet after all he had done, he still couldn't avoid this moment of death.
It was only 50% of his health, but the sensation of death was 100%. Mu Ke's breathing grew shallow, each inhale scraping against his chest as if his lungs were lined with glass. A dull ache spread from his heart outward, tightening until he instinctively curled in on himself, fingers digging into his sleeves as though he could hold his life in place through sheer force.
His mental value plummeted, slipping below the 40 mark in a blink. Hallucinations bled into reality. His vision blurred, edges dissolving into a hazy distortion, and his eyes gradually lost focus. The hands covering his lips slid down weakly. His chest heaved violently, ragged breaths breaking apart in his throat, and tears gathered silently at the corners of his eyes.
Mu Ke had always possessed an excellent memory. He remembered too much.
As his mental value declined, fragments of the past surfaced with merciless clarity—details he had tried desperately to bury.
He saw his father standing outside a half-closed door, shaking his head with a conflicted expression. Later, that same father began bringing women home, keeping them overnight because he needed a healthier heir. His mother acquiesced without protest. Everyone loved Mu Ke, yes—but it was the indulgent affection reserved for a pet that wouldn't live long. They cherished him gently, cautiously, but never placed expectations on him. They never entrusted him with real power.
He saw doctors shaking their heads again and again. He remembered hiding beneath his quilt, pulling it over his face, praying that tomorrow would arrive slowly—because he never knew whether he would have a tomorrow at all, or whether he would wake to see it.
He refused all strenuous activity. Sometimes he had to crouch down mid-step just to steady his breathing, to make sure his heartbeat wasn't spiraling out of control. Ignorant classmates mocked his awkward posture, mimicking the way he hunched and gasped. Mu Ke had his father teach them a lesson. After that, no one dared laugh.
But no one befriended him either.
His father saw this loneliness. In an attempt to make his classmates understand his fragility—and perhaps pity him enough to approach—his father donated money to the school and asked the teacher to play a documentary called Bubble Boy.
The film told the story of a child with an acquired immunodeficiency disease. Lacking a normal immune system, the boy had to live inside a sterile bubble, isolated from the world. After the screening, the teacher explained that Mu Ke had a similar illness. They shouldn't discriminate against him. They should protect him.
Some students spoke in tones of confusion and pity, not malicious but unbearably sincere.
"It's so sad to live like that. If it were me, I'd rather die."
The boy in the documentary died at twelve.
At twelve years old, Mu Ke lifted his chin and said harshly, "I just want to live. Mind your own business."
Young Master Mu Ke grew up fragile as an ant, alone as an ant—absurdly stubborn, like an ant craning its neck to preserve its pride. Everyone around him was stronger. The only reason he had survived this long was that he lived inside a crystal box built from money.
Every day, he wondered whether he would be buried in that crystal box the next morning. So he began doing reckless things. Desperate things. He forced himself into a company project, insisting on developing games, as though proximity to risk could make him feel alive.
It was through that reckless gamble that he met Bai Liu. In fact, Mu Ke had recognized Bai Liu immediately. The moment he saw him in the game, he remembered—this was the employee who had once lost his computer. Mu Ke's memory was so sharp that he could recall every insignificant detail that composed his small, tightly controlled life.
But he pretended not to know. He was terrified Bai Liu wouldn't save him. So he feigned ignorance. He acted weak. He played the fool. Bai Liu had looked at him with eyes that seemed to see through everything, yet he never exposed Mu Ke's clumsy deception. Instead, he extended his hand and said gently, "This is our first meeting. My name is Bai Liu, the owner of your soul."
"I will save you and let you live. But you must work hard yourself. I believe you have the ability to survive through your own efforts."
For the first time in over twenty years, someone reached into the suffocating bubble Mu Ke lived in and pulled him out.
Someone wanted to entrust their life to him.
To him, a fragile person who had survived only because others shielded him.
Before anything even happened, Bai Liu calmly told him, "I will assume you can do it. If you can't… then we'll die together, Mu Ke."
"You don't have to rely on anyone. Even I can rely on you. You will let us all live. I believe in you, Mu Ke."
Mu Ke's eyes were hollow as the patient with slender limbs dragged him out from under the bed. His mental value was too low; he was drowning in shattered memory fragments. His body moved like a corpse, limp and unresponsive, as the patient lowered its sharp teeth toward his neck.
Thick mucus dripped onto his collarbone. The warm, sticky sensation made his body tremble faintly.
A tear slid from the corner of his eye. In his hand, he still clutched three keycaps—"Delete," "M," and "E." His lips moved weakly.
"Bai Liu…"
So this was what dying felt like. Strangely, it wasn't as unbearable as he had imagined. In his daze, Mu Ke realized something. It wasn't death itself that terrified him. It was dying unnoticed. Dying without worth. If his death could create something greater than its own loss—
"If my death brings greater value than death itself, then it isn't unacceptable." Bai Liu's voice overlapped with his thoughts.
Warm hands wrapped around Mu Ke's trembling fingers. Bai Liu smiled faintly as he guided Mu Ke's grip onto the bone whip and looped it around his own neck. "If my death allows you to enter the ICU safely and obtain the life recovery medicine—if it lets you and the remaining 50% of my health survive—then I'm willing to die for both of us, Mu Ke."
"…I would be willing too, Bai Liu." Mu Ke spoke to the patient whose jaw hung open. He closed his eyes, trembling, inhaled deeply, clenched his teeth, and tightened his grip.
Just as the monster lunged, its mouth stretching wide enough to swallow his thin shoulder whole, the ICU door was violently kicked open. Bai Liu stepped inside, expression cold and composed. A black shadow flashed behind him. It leapt vertically along the wall in several swift movements before landing on the patient's back. The dagger in its hand plunged down mercilessly.
[System prompt: Player Liu Huai has used the personal skill "One Hit Flash." The A+ skill critical hit has caused the plant patient to become stiff for one and a half minutes.]
The patient's blood-slick mouth froze mid-snarl. Its eyes rolled wildly, ten long, blade-like fingers suspended in midair. It went completely rigid.
Liu Huai dropped down, panting heavily. He wiped the sweat from his chin and shouted coldly, "Move! The nurse is coming!"
The sharp clatter of high heels echoed down the corridor, racing toward the ICU. Without hesitation, Bai Liu scooped up the still-dazed Mu Ke. Supporting him with one arm, he uncorked a bottle of mental bleach and forced it to Mu Ke's lips, making him swallow half before Mu Ke could even protest. Then he dragged him forward and ran.
Mu Ke's mind cleared just enough to register what was happening. He stared blankly at Bai Liu's side profile—the calm, indifferent curve of his jaw, the steady focus in his eyes—as this person pulled him away from death once more.
Bai Liu had come to save him again.