After little Bai Liu (6) was baptized, several more children were baptized before it was Liu Jiayi's turn.
When it came time for Liu Jiayi's baptism, Liu Huai's movements were gentle. He wasn't willing to let her stay in the water for long and quickly lifted her out. Liu Jiayi behaved well. She took the initiative to roll up her sleeves and allow the man to draw her blood. Liu Huai felt a pang of sadness and finally couldn't hold himself back. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and refused to let the man take her blood. As Liu Jiayi looked on in confusion, Liu Huai returned to the investors' seats below.
Liu Huai sat far away from Bai Liu and the others. He chose a seat in the back and couldn't hear Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang's conversation. Still, he could roughly guess what the two veteran players were discussing. His expression was tense as he gazed at Bai Liu in the distance.
"Today's baptism ends here. Investors, please proceed to the welfare home cafeteria for a meal and some rest." The dean smiled as if announcing the grand opening of a shopping mall. "In the afternoon, the baptized children will present you with a pure song. It will be a choral performance to celebrate our meeting. The performance will take place in front of the church from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Please arrive on time and enjoy the singing."
Bai Liu checked the time. It was 11:40 a.m.
Mu Ke opened his eyes on the straw bed. He quickly sat up and looked at the time. 11:40! He had been asleep from the moment Bai Liu left until now.
Mu Ke gritted his teeth in frustration. He felt he had wasted too much time. He might not be able to go through all the archives in half a day, and he didn't know when Miao Feichi would return. The sooner he entered the archives and recovered his memories, the better.
Still, Bai Liu's method of forcing him to sleep had clearly worked. Mu Ke's mental state was visibly improved.
The safe, worry-free sleep that morning had allowed him to relax completely. Mu Ke went down to the first floor. As expected, most of the patients and nurses were eating in the cafeteria. The patients who weren't there had been given medicine by the nurse in the morning; their doors were now closed. As Mu Ke passed by, he could hear faint chewing sounds coming from inside the rooms. It reminded him of the monster patient taking a huge bite of the blood ganoderma lucidum that night.
Mu Ke instinctively kept his distance from the doors. He recalled the layout of the first floor. The medical records room was behind the nurse's duty station, and he could only enter when no one was there, like now, or during a shift change.
After confirming that no one was around, Mu Ke took a deep breath and rushed into the medical records room. The moment he entered, he gasped.
"Oh no…" Mu Ke stared blankly at the dusty folders, on the verge of tears. "So many! Why are there so many?! There are even more than yesterday!"
It felt like the long-lost panic of cramming lessons and memorizing material right before an exam.
He patted his face to calm himself down, pulled out a file, opened it, and began memorizing. "Name: Wang Guoqiang. Donated 1.7 million to the Love Welfare Institute in 200X. The child is…"
3 p.m.
The children stood in front of the church, pushing and shoving one another, while the investors sat on the chairs the children had arranged on the grass. The dean distributed the program list. All the children in the welfare home would perform in groups. Every performance was a choral piece, and some children would sing more than once. Afterward, a group photo would be taken. The entire event would last four hours.
Bai Liu was no stranger to this kind of elaborate effort to please investors. When leaders visited the welfare home, he and a group of children would always be brought out to perform. The teachers would rack their brains to make them sing and perform from beginning to end. They used to say that singing was better than talking.
The logic wasn't wrong. It was a way to seek more benefits for the welfare home. It was just that Bai Liu rarely benefited from it himself. More often, he felt like a circus monkey being led out to perform tricks without receiving a single coin.
He had never expected that one day, he would be the one sitting in the audience while children from a welfare home sang to please him. It was a novel experience.
Bai Liu flipped over the program on his lap. The first performance was "Happy Day," presented by the newly baptized children.
Little Bai Liu (6) stood in a corner. He had changed his clothes, and heavy, gaudy makeup was painted on his face. His cheeks were red, with a red dot on his forehead. The tips of his hair were still damp from the baptism. Standing in the back row, he hummed along lazily, clearly uninterested.
"Happy day, happy day, God saved me and made me happy.
The blood of atonement cleanses my sin, the living water of life quenches my thirst.
Happy day, happy day, God saved me and made me happy."
The flattery in the lyrics was painfully obvious. It was a happy day for the investors—not for the children.
After listening for a while, Bai Liu lost interest. Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, seated in front of him, had their arms crossed and were dozing off. Still, Miao Feichi held his knives in his hands, and Miao Gaojiang wasn't fully asleep. The two veteran players maintained basic vigilance, but the performance was undeniably long and tedious.
The only exception was Liu Huai in the back row. His eyes never left Liu Jiayi. There was a trace of sorrow in them.
Four hours.
Miao Feichi complained several times about the length of the event and even muttered about whether he could just start killing children directly.
For Liu Huai, however, those four hours felt far too short. He looked up at Liu Jiayi, the red dot still on her forehead as she gently swayed and sang. Suddenly, he lowered his head and wiped at his eyes before quickly raising them again. He didn't want to miss a single second of watching her.
Perhaps Liu Jiayi would never know he was looking at her like that. She still couldn't see.
After the singing ended, there were fifteen minutes before the next performance. Bai Liu stood and walked toward the church. The drowsy Miao Gaojiang immediately opened his eyes and narrowed them at Bai Liu.
"What are you going to do? It's only the beginning."
"I'm going to find my child and see if I can teach him how to get out," Bai Liu replied.
Miao Feichi chuckled. "Yes, let him go. It's your only chance to clear the instance."
Miao Gaojiang hesitated but ultimately allowed Bai Liu to leave. They were in front of the church, where killing children was prohibited. Even if Bai Liu intended a sneak attack on the children they had reserved, he couldn't act here. Besides, Miao Feichi's strength hadn't fully recovered yet.
Bai Liu nodded to the father and son before walking into the church, where the children had gone.
Miao Gaojiang stared at his retreating figure, his gaze dark. "I still feel something is wrong with this Mu Ke."
"You're being overly cautious, Father." Miao Feichi leaned lazily against his chair, glancing sideways. "You've seen his system panel and checked his phone. Mu Ke is clearly an ordinary player. His panel doesn't exceed a B rating, and he's only played two games. He's a pure newcomer. It was just bad luck that he got controlled by Bai Liu. Once we kill Bai Liu, the control will be lifted. What's suspicious about him?"
"He has a broken keyboard in his inventory." Miao Gaojiang's low brow ridge made his expression look especially fierce when he frowned. "During the two times I inspected his system warehouse, the missing keycaps were different."
Miao Feichi immediately sat up straight. He knew his father's strength lay in noticing subtle details others overlooked. His suspicions were rarely baseless.
"Father, are you suggesting someone is communicating with Mu Ke through the keyboard? Do you remember which keys were missing?"
"That's the problem." Miao Gaojiang frowned deeper. "I'm not familiar with keyboard layouts. I only noticed that the empty positions had changed. I didn't pay attention to which keys they were."
"Generally, only the owner can access their system backpack, and Mu Ke has been with us the whole time. He couldn't have passed the keyboard to someone else and taken it back. And this method is too risky." Miao Gaojiang's voice grew heavy. "It's more likely someone is sharing the system backpack with him. If a player has a skill that allows them to share backpacks, then this communication method becomes both feasible and extremely covert."
Miao Feichi fell silent. There was only one player present whose skill remained uncertain.
"You mean Bai Liu isn't dead? And his skill isn't just control, but also sharing system backpacks?" Miao Feichi's expression grew solemn, his eyes narrowing. "Mu Ke is a chess piece planted on our side? He's still using the keyboard to communicate with Bai Liu?"
"It's only a guess," Miao Gaojiang said, noting the murderous glint in his son's eyes. "Mu Ke is just a C-grade player. You can kill him anytime. But it's best not to act impulsively. It's currently the support season. Rashly killing an ordinary player who has surrendered won't be good for your reputation. It will affect your approval rate. And there's another important point."
"The ability to share a backpack falls under a 'rule-type skill.' That means violating the system's authority. At present, only a few players possess rule-type skills. I doubt Bai Liu's skill is at that level. If he truly had such a bug-level ability, he could act like the Queen of Hearts and suppress us directly. He wouldn't need to remain so passive."
"Still," he added darkly, "we can't rule it out. He's a newcomer. He might simply not know how to use his skill properly."
Miao Gaojiang cast a sinister glance toward the church. "Wait until you recover. When he reveals a flaw, it won't be too late to kill him."
Meanwhile, Bai Liu walked backstage.
Little Mu Ke and little Bai Liu (6) were sitting face to face, using damp tissues to wipe the makeup off their faces. When Bai Liu entered, little Mu Ke immediately stepped back in fear and vigilance. He didn't recognize Bai Liu as the investor who had baptized him earlier.
Little Bai Liu (6), however, merely glanced at him calmly. He stood up and said softly, "This isn't a good place to talk. Let's go somewhere else."
Little Mu Ke quickly realized this was his investor and greeted Bai Liu awkwardly. Then little Bai Liu (6) led Bai Liu away.
They went to the overgrown grove behind the church. Bai Liu leaned against the wall and looked down at little Bai Liu (6), who was still stubbornly rubbing the blush from his face. The boy scrubbed at it seriously, clearly disliking the smell of cosmetics. His frown distorted his delicate features.
Bai Liu naturally took the damp tissue and crouched down to help wipe it off carefully.
"You can't remove it like that." Bai Liu folded a clean section of the tissue and gently pressed it against the red dot on little Bai Liu's (6) forehead. "If you keep rubbing, you'll just smear the lipstick all over your forehead."
Little Bai Liu (6) remained expressionless as Bai Liu held his shoulder and wiped his skin. "You seem quite skilled at using lipstick. Do you wear it often?"
Bai Liu pretended not to hear the sarcasm implied in the child's words. "I've worn makeup like this before, on an occasion similar to yours. Are you angry that I didn't baptize you and caused you to be punished by the dean?"
"I'm not angry. I just feel like I was fooled." Little Bai Liu (6) watched him and pursed his lips. "Still, because of this, you have to give me—"
"Yes, I know. More money, right? Fine. Whatever you want." Bai Liu leaned closer to wipe away the lipstick that had been smeared at the corners of the child's eyes.
He was very close now. His breath brushed lightly against little Bai Liu (6)'s skin. With his lowered lashes and calm expression, it almost looked as if he were tenderly caring for someone.
"Don't move. There's still some here. The dean said all those things to you. Are you really not angry about being abandoned by your parents, by God, and by me—your investor?"
Little Bai Liu (6) held his breath for a few seconds.
Then he shifted his gaze away, avoiding Bai Liu's eyes, and answered calmly, "I'm not angry. To a certain extent, the dean wasn't wrong."
"That's true." Bai Liu finished wiping his face and stood up. As an investor, he now had a tall, slender body. Standing before the child, he seemed almost to be looking down from above. "God doesn't care about you because you're a bad child who never believed in Him."
Little Bai Liu (6) looked up at him, his eyes plainly saying, So what?
Yes, he was a naturally bad child who didn't believe in God. So what?
"I'm the same." Bai Liu smiled.
Casually, he rubbed the child's head and joked, "Do you want to change your name? If you change it, maybe God will favor you. I did have slightly better luck after I changed mine. Of course, it's still bad."
"Does God choose whom to care for based on their name?" little Bai Liu (6) scoffed. "Then God is stupid—"
Before he could finish, Bai Liu untied the pendant from around his neck. It was the coin wrapped in a broken fish scale, secured with a strip of bandage. Bai Liu bent down and placed it around little Bai Liu (6)'s neck.
"This contains everything I own—my possessions, my skills, all of it. You could say it's the result of selling my soul. It's the most valuable and precious thing I have."
He looked at the boy quietly.
"Now I'm giving it to you. From this moment on, you are me. You have my skills and my money. I'm sorry I didn't baptize you before."
[System warning: Does player Bai Liu wish to transfer the system to his secondary identity? After the transfer, the player will no longer be able to use any skill points from the panel and will be no different from NPC characters in the game. The survival rate will be greatly reduced.]
Bai Liu: [Yes.]
Bai Liu closed his eyes and bent down to hug little Bai Liu (6), who stood there in stunned silence. His tall, thin body curved into an arc, like an elderly man embracing a relative. He smiled softly.
"From now on, you can consider yourself favored by God."
It wasn't some god entangled in an inverted cross who favored Bai Liu (6), the so-called bad child.
It was the strange investor who had appeared out of nowhere.
If there was a god—
It was himself.
Little Bai Liu (6) stood in Bai Liu's arms. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but in the end, he said nothing. He simply accepted the embrace quietly.
—Although he found such warm physical contact somewhat disgusting.
Still, the investor was giving him money.
Little Bai Liu (6) decided he could tolerate this slightly repulsive investor for now.
"The coin I gave you is extremely important. You must protect it carefully." Bai Liu released him. "If you're killed and someone else picks it up, that would be very bad."
Smiling, he tapped the coin on the boy's chest with his long, slender fingers. "My secrets—and my soul—are hidden inside it."
"You just asked if I wanted to change my name?" little Bai Liu (6) suddenly said, gripping the coin. "Let me make this clear first. I won't accept drastic changes. But as repayment for your generous money, I'm willing to indulge your questionable taste, Mr. Investor."
[Lu Yizhan, I can change my name, but I don't like major changes. Do you have any suggestions?]
Bai Liu's eyes paused for a moment. He lowered his voice.
"How about Bai Liu?"
"Bai Liu?" the child repeated suspiciously. "Which 'Bai' and which 'Liu'? It sounds exactly the same. That's not a change."
Ten years ago, Lu Yizhan had looked at Bai Liu with smiling eyes and suggested the same thing.
"How about Bai Liu?"
Back then, Bai Liu had been speechless. "It sounds completely unchanged. What's the point?"
Lu Yizhan had replied, "It's meaningful. It's a good name. Both characters are good."
Bai Liu hadn't understood what was so good about it.
Lu Yizhan had touched his head and smiled brightly, innocently. "Bai is the white of daylight, and Liu is the willow that casts shade—the light that makes the flowers bloom (Chinese Idiom meaning: light at the end of the tunnel). From now on, you'll walk into the daylight beneath willow trees. Bai Liu, your future will be better."
Ten years ago, Bai Liu had fallen silent for a moment before replying, "You're really boring, Lu Yizhan. Still playing word games."
Now Bai Liu gently touched little Bai Liu (6)'s head and smiled the way Lu Yizhan once had—eyes filled with vitality, innocence, and quiet confidence.
Behind the church, the children's clear chorus blended with the summer wind rustling through the grass. Bai Liu's long, thin, almost ghost-like face showed a rare, sincere smile.
He whispered, "Your name means the light of day, the willow trees that cast shade."
Little Bai Liu (6) was quiet for a moment before looking away. "It's a boring word game."
"So you'll change it?" Bai Liu asked.
"I'll change it. You gave me money."
"From now on, you'll be called Bai Liu," Bai Liu said. "My deception will likely be exposed soon. I may die tonight at the hands of my opponents. You're my only hope, so I'm entrusting everything to you. You must live, Bai Liu."
He was fully aware that he was facing two veteran league players. Miao Feichi was impulsive, but Miao Gaojiang was cautious and perceptive. That was why Bai Liu had used the triple-layered paper cup strategy.
But paper cups were still paper cups. They couldn't withstand fire.
If a large-scale player conflict broke out, Mu Ke wouldn't be able to hide forever. Once Mu Ke appeared, Bai Liu's plan of replacing him would likely reveal flaws. Their close relationship—and secret communication—would be exposed.
Judging by Miao Gaojiang's attitude today, he had probably already noticed something wrong. For example, the keyboard in Mu Ke's backpack.
Bai Liu had anticipated this possibility from the start. Once Mu Ke's panel was inspected, the communication item in his backpack would inevitably draw attention. That was why Bai Liu had chosen the keyboard—an indirect and inconspicuous method of communication.
Using missing keycaps to exchange messages exploited Miao Gaojiang's knowledge gap. Though intelligent, he lacked familiarity with digital tools. Still, he wasn't entirely ignorant.
Miao Gaojiang had inspected Mu Ke's panel twice, and the missing key positions weren't the same both times. That difference was caused by the delay while waiting for replies—an unavoidable gap when two people shared items within the same system backpack.
Miao Gaojiang had most likely realized the keycaps kept changing. He simply couldn't decipher what information had been exchanged. That uncertainty was precisely why Bai Liu had chosen the keyboard.
Even so, this made him an unstable factor in the eyes of Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang—especially before an imminent battle. In a level-two game that consumed health, unstable variables were fatal.
To ensure a successful clearance, the safest option would be to eliminate him directly.
Bai Liu estimated that his death was approaching.
Before that happened, he needed to pass on the most valuable thing he possessed to little Bai Liu (6).
The hollowed-out game manager. The broken, coin-shaped game manager.
Bai Liu taught little Bai Liu (6) how to use the game manager and his personal skill. The child was confused at first, but he quickly grasped it. He accepted the fact that his reality was a multiplayer game with surprising ease. Bai Liu didn't need to explain much; before long, the child was navigating the system store on his own.
Before leaving, Bai Liu heard little Bai Liu (6) ask, "You told me the details of those two games earlier so I could adapt quickly to this so-called game manager?"
"This wasn't some friendly game-sharing." Little Bai Liu (6)'s face was emotionless. "You liar. Every word you say, and everything you do, has a purpose. That only makes me more confused about why you'd give up taking my blood and die for me."
"That's not something you would ever do. And I definitely wouldn't do something that stupid either."
"Speak." Little Bai Liu (6) clutched the coin on his chest tightly and stared straight at Bai Liu. "What else do you need me to do for you? The money you gave me is enough to make me do many things."
"I just want you to live." Bai Liu smiled at him. "There's really nothing else."
He walked out from behind the church and happened to see Liu Huai speaking quietly with Liu Jiayi.
Like Bai Liu, Liu Huai wanted to hand everything directly to Liu Jiayi. But she couldn't see, and it wasn't safe for her to carry so many items. Liu Huai might not trust Bai Liu as a person, but he trusted Bai Liu's nature as a trader. Left with no other choice, he said, "If I die, I'll give everything to you before I go. You pass it on to my sister."
He transferred 400 points to Bai Liu as an advance payment.
Bai Liu agreed.
The chorus performance soon ended, and it was time for the group photo. Bai Liu (6), who had just finished removing his makeup, was caught by a teacher and had a large red dot drawn on his forehead again. He stood in the back row lifelessly, his hair still slightly damp, looking at the investors in front of him.
Bai Liu stood among the investors in the front row.
The dean raised the camera. "Group photo of the 200X performance at Love Welfare Institute."
Click. Bai Liu (6)'s distracted gaze was captured in the brightly colored photo.
Bai Liu had always wondered how Bai Liu (6) managed to find him among all the investors. If he had asked, the child would probably have pointed to this very photo and said: You're the only one who doesn't look at us with greed or calculation. You look at us calmly, like you're looking at yourself.
"The chorus performance has ended. Children, please present your gifts to the investors who supported you." The dean clapped her hands. "This was the task I gave you yesterday. Have you finished?"
Scattered replies answered, "Yes, Dean."
The children lined up and began handing out their handmade gifts.
Little Bai Liu (6) stepped forward as well. He passed Bai Liu silently without giving him anything. Since his investor was "dead," there was no need to give a gift.
However, Bai Liu had already asked for the prepared gift backstage. Bai Liu (6) hadn't been pleased about it, but Bai Liu insisted—and promised payment. In the end, Bai Liu (6) yielded to the power of money and handed it over.
It was two drawings he had made himself. One depicted a small fish inside a glass jar. The other showed a shattered mirror burning on an exploding train.
They were the exact two scenes Bai Liu had described to him the previous night. The signature below read: "w."
Looking at the drawings, Bai Liu suddenly understood where the paintings in the real world had come from—and why they had once felt so strangely out of place.
He looked at little Bai Liu (6), standing before him.
Since the child had never truly experienced those games, he had relied entirely on imagination to recreate the scenes Bai Liu described.
This small welfare home was the only world little Bai Liu (6) had ever known.
So he used the narrow, confined imagery of the welfare home to depict the grand, dangerous scenes Bai Liu had mentioned. That was why the paintings had initially felt strange to Bai Liu. The compositions were too "narrow," too "intense." They weren't in his current style.
The strangeness came from the cognitive gap between who he was now and who he had once been.
Bai Liu's gaze fell on the faint smear of lipstick still lingering at the corner of the child's eye. Little Bai Liu (6) quickly looked away. He disliked being stared at directly.
Ah, right.
At that age, he had hated direct gazes.
Bai Liu, as he was now, had developed the habit of looking people straight in the eye—a professional reflex formed at work.
Little Bai Liu (6) was very different from the current him. He was still trapped in this narrow welfare home, still drawn to sharp, highly saturated colors.
But once, Bai Liu had been exactly like that.
At 7:30 p.m., the program ended.
The dean escorted the investors back to the hospital. Miao Gaojiang bid Bai Liu farewell with a meaningful look; Bai Liu responded casually and returned to Mu Ke's room.
The room was empty. Mu Ke was still in the archives room downstairs. Bai Liu checked the time.
He had arranged for Mu Ke to stay there from 12:00 p.m. to 9:15 p.m.—a total of nine hours and fifteen minutes. At Mu Ke's maximum memorization speed, he could remember between 300 and 500 medical records before the nurses' shift change. These included records of the children Bai Liu had visited in the real world, as well as an estimated number of investor files.
There was still nearly an hour and a half left. At this point, Mu Ke should contact him via the keyboard. However—
Bai Liu touched his bare neck.
He had already given the game manager to little Bai Liu (6). Without it, he couldn't contact Mu Ke. He had no way of knowing Mu Ke's current situation, nor could he send him any information.
_________________________________________________
Medical Records Room
Mu Ke covered his mouth as he sorted through the dusty files. He had lost track of how long he had been in this dark room. Unlike the wards, there were no clocks here. He could only estimate the time by observing the nurses' patrol patterns outside.
When he saw a nurse heading toward the cafeteria, his heart tightened.
It was dinner time.
By now, Miao Feichi and the others should have returned.
Mu Ke quickly opened his system backpack. He was about to remove the keycaps to contact Bai Liu when he noticed that the keyboard had already changed.
[Enter.]
That meant entry—Bai Liu had returned.
Mu Ke removed the [Backspace] and [?] keys. Back and question mark.
Should I go back now? He replaced the keys.
The reply came quickly: [End], [?]
Mu Ke responded helplessly: [N], [O]
There were more medical records than he had anticipated. The names alone were hard to memorize, let alone matching each name with a child, the time their condition worsened, and all the detailed information.
At this moment, Mu Ke was grateful for Bai Liu's foresight. After getting some sleep earlier, his mind was clearer and more efficient. Even so, finishing everything in one afternoon was impossible.
There were simply too many records.
Each patient's file also contained detailed diagnoses from other hospitals. Their medical histories were long and complicated—multiple doctors, repeated failed treatments. One record was practically a small book.
The keyboard shifted again: [9], [1], [5]
Mu Ke understood immediately. Leave at 9:15, during the nurses' shift change.
But there was one serious problem. Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang were back. He might run into them on the way out.
Mu Ke removed: [V], [P], [?]
He had wanted to spell "PVP," but there was only one [P] key. Using "VP" would have to do. In gaming terms, it meant player versus player.
He was asking: If I run into Miao Feichi, do I fight?
This time, the response took a long while. Mu Ke waited anxiously, unsure whether Bai Liu had understood.
Finally, the keyboard changed: [L], [F], [G]
Mu Ke inhaled sharply. He had no idea what that meant.
After a while, Mu Ke figured out the meaning from his own memory. LFG was the abbreviation for "looking for group." In multiplayer online games, it meant seeking players to form a team. However, this term is rarely used now. It was an old abbreviated game term commonly used in large-scale online games many years ago. Nowadays, people usually use voice invitations or directly send team invites.
Thanks to Mu Ke's good memory and his study of gaming terminology, he was barely able to recall the meaning of this abbreviation. He pondered it for a moment. Bai Liu meant that he shouldn't panic or act hostile if he met Miao Feichi. He should calmly ask to form a team.
In other words, Bai Liu wanted Mu Ke to pretend to be Mu Ke. It sounded strange, but that was probably what he meant.
However, last night Bai Liu had mentioned that Miao Gaojiang was likely to doubt their identities today. This identity definitely wasn't safe, but if they wanted to attack, the Miao Feichi duo would wait until after 9:15, when Miao Feichi's physical strength and skills had recovered.
In the absence of their main attacker, Miao Gaojiang wouldn't move against them for the time being.
Last night, when they broke into the ICU at 9:15, they had forced Miao Feichi to use his ultimate move. As a result, his physical strength couldn't be restored with recovery agents. He was stuck in a state of automatic recovery and effectively benched.
Meanwhile, Mu Ke had sneaked into the archives room and would come out around 9:15, when the nurses changed shifts. If he encountered Miao Feichi in the last few minutes before 9:15, while Miao Feichi was still in cooldown, Mu Ke would be safe.
Everything connected neatly. It wasn't a bad plan.
Mu Ke let out a long breath. Everything had been arranged perfectly under Bai Liu's planning. He just couldn't figure out when Bai Liu had started laying it out. Now, Mu Ke even felt that Miao Feichi's rampage last night and the consumption of his S-grade skill had all been part of Bai Liu's calculations.
—Even though they had nearly died because of that rampage.
Nevertheless, Miao Feichi's loss of control last night meant he couldn't use his personal skill today. Whether on the children's side or their side, a short-term peace had been established.
This protected both the children and Mu Ke.
Mu Ke felt that, without him even realizing it, every detail had been calculated by Bai Liu and maximized for their benefit.
To be honest, when Bai Liu first told him this plan, it hadn't felt like a plan at all. It had felt too risky.
It was like a desperate gambler pushing all his chips in for one final bet. If Miao Feichi had truly gone berserk last night, Mu Ke and Bai Liu would have been instantly gg. It was an S-grade attack skill—more than enough to wipe out both of their remaining 50% health in a single strike.
But Bai Liu had won the gamble, and today they had peace.
At 9:10, the keyboard moved. Mu Ke opened it and saw the letters [G] and [O].
It was time for him to leave.
Mu Ke took a deep breath. He scanned the entire archives room, then closed his eyes to recall everything he had memorized. After that, he peeked through the crack in the door. The lights in the nurses' duty room were bright, but the corridor was empty. It was dark and silent, the patients locked back into their rooms.
He slowly exhaled, opened the door, and stepped out carefully.
The corridor was dark, filled with the constant hum of humidifiers. Dense fog lingered in the air, creating a strange sense of dampness and stickiness. The only source of light was the dim yellow glow spilling out from the half-closed door of the nurses' duty room.
In the silence, Mu Ke could hear only the sound of his slender footsteps and faint, unknown noises coming from the wards on both sides.
The sounds were subtle—like plants growing rapidly at thirty-two times their normal speed.
From several wards, red fluorescent light flickered through the cracks beneath the doors. Mu Ke had seen this before through the blood ganoderma lucidum. These strange mushrooms emitted fluorescence as they grew. A thick, bloody smell drifted into his nose.
Mu Ke quickened his pace. He avoided the emergency staircase—there had been too many deformed children there last night. It was safer to take the elevator while the nurses were still inside.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed "7."
The doors began to close slowly. The red fluorescence beneath the ward doors seemed to intensify. Mu Ke heard the faint sound of mushrooms bursting and releasing spores.
At the far end of the corridor, a ward door creaked open. It was the ICU room Mu Ke had been in the previous night. A figure emerged—or rather, crawled out. Crawling wasn't quite accurate; the figure was too long. It bent its head to pass through the doorway, then slowly straightened, as if sniffing the blood in the air.
[System warning: Player Mu Ke has only 6 health points remaining. Two monsters have detected you. Please leave the area immediately!]
Mu Ke's breathing grew shallow.
Two?
There had only been one patient. Where was the other?
He scanned the corridor but saw nothing except the patient advancing toward him.
From a distance, every time Mu Ke blinked, the spider-limbed figure seemed closer. It stepped through the red glow seeping from beneath the ward doors, its slender limbs moving one by one, head tilted as it stared at him.
The elevator doors refused to close.
Cold sweat broke out across Mu Ke's back.
This hospital was luxuriously decorated. There was no way they would use a faulty elevator with doors that wouldn't shut. Unless…
If the quality of the elevator was fine and the doors wouldn't close from inside, there was only one possibility. Someone outside was holding the door-open button.
Mu Ke stiffly leaned out to look.
Beside the elevator was a child covered in syringes. His feet were twisted together, seemingly deformed. Kneeling on the ground with his head tilted back, he kept pressing the elevator button. Because he was small and blocked from view, Mu Ke hadn't seen him earlier.
One side of the finger he used to press the button was missing, cleanly sliced off.
When the child met Mu Ke's terrified, hollow gaze, he gave a strangely innocent smile and giggled. "Don't go up. Go down. You have to go down. Someone up there is waiting to catch you!"
Mu Ke's legs nearly gave out from fear, but the patient was almost upon him. He shoved the child aside, retreated into the elevator, and frantically pressed the close-door button.
At the last moment—just before the spider-limbed patient could crawl in—the doors slid shut.
After a brief pause, the elevator began to rise.
Mu Ke collapsed onto the floor and glanced at the clock display. It read 9:14.
In one minute, Miao Feichi's physical strength would be fully restored. As long as Mu Ke didn't encounter him within that minute, he would be fine.
The elevator suddenly stopped at the fifth floor.
The doors slowly opened.
Mu Ke stiffly looked up at the figure standing outside.
Miao Feichi crouched down and waved a finger at Mu Ke, who was still sitting on the floor.
"Good evening, Mu Ke. Where are you coming back from so late? Did you go to see Bai Liu?"
The clock ticked over: [9:15].
Miao Feichi noticed Mu Ke's gaze, and his smile widened. "Oh, it seems my physical strength has recovered."
He pulled out his twin knives and lifted them beneath Mu Ke's chin, forcing his head up. Leaning in close, he spoke in a light, almost playful tone.
"I'll use these knives to fuck you through your rectum." Miao Feichi smiled as he moved his double knives, tapping them against the sides of Mu Ke's body.
Mu Ke shook when he saw the reflection on the knives. He wanted to back into the elevator, but he didn't know when Miao Gaojiang had gotten behind him, staring at him expressionlessly. He had no way out.