Mu Ke was dragged out of the elevator on the fifth floor by Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang and hauled all the way into Miao Feichi's room. The door slammed shut from Miao Feichi's kick. Outside, a nurse began patrolling in high heels, the sharp, clear clicks echoing through the night.
Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang stood beside the trembling Mu Ke, blocking the door and preventing any escape. Miao Feichi crouched down to look at Mu Ke on the floor. He stuck out his long tongue and licked his dry lips.
"Alright, time for the interrogation. Tell us where Bai Liu is."
Mu Ke gritted his teeth. His shoulders trembled violently as he lowered his head in silence.
Miao Feichi impatiently grabbed Mu Ke's chin, pinching his jaw and forcing his head up. "I'll ask you again. Don't think I can't torture you just because you only have 6 health points left. I have plenty of ways to keep you on the brink of death and make you suffer. Or you can open your system panel right now and let us see what you've been communicating on that keyboard."
Mu Ke's jaw felt as if his temporomandibular joint were about to dislocate. The pain was sharp and aching, and tears welled up in his eyes as he replied in a hoarse, unclear voice, "I don't know what you're talking about—"
Miao Gaojiang also bent down, wearing a falsely gentle expression. He looked like a greasy middle-aged man coaxing young people at a dinner table to drink more wine.
"Mu Ke, if you're just an ordinary player seeking refuge with us, we won't go too far. I only want you to be honest and explain. It's the support season. Killing you will affect our support rate. But if you'd rather die than surrender and open your panel for us to check, then there's nothing we can do."
Mu Ke was short of breath, but he still refused to speak.
"Forget it. He's probably being controlled by Bai Liu and can't disobey him." Miao Gaojiang straightened up and nudged Miao Feichi's shoulder with his index finger, his tone flat. "Kill him. The keyboard in his backpack will drop. Even if we can't understand it, at least Bai Liu will lose an accomplice."
What should he do?
Mu Ke's heart was pounding violently. LFG. Bai Liu meant that he should seek cooperation with Miao Gaojiang. But asking for cooperation would inevitably expose his communication with Bai Liu on the keyboard. Still, there was a chance they wouldn't understand it.
If he refused and was killed, the keyboard would fall out anyway.
"I'll show you," Mu Ke said, raising his head.
He struggled to steady his trembling hands as he opened his system panel and took out the keyboard. He prayed that Bai Liu hadn't sent any new information during this time.
The moment the keyboard appeared, Mu Ke closed his eyes.
Three new keycaps were missing.
Miao Feichi leaned closer with interest. "I can guess what this means. The missing keys are 9, 0, and 6. That should be a ward number."
"This must be Bai Liu's room number." The smile on Miao Gaojiang's face shifted from fake politeness to genuine satisfaction. "Mu Ke, is your master asking you to meet him?"
Miao Feichi pressed against Mu Ke's neck and ordered, "Reply to him. Tell him you'll be there soon."
"There's a nurse outside," Mu Ke said, his hands still shaking. His mind was in chaos, but he forced his tone to remain calm. "How are you going to get up there?"
"Kill the children and take the emergency staircase." Miao Feichi patted Mu Ke's face lightly with one of his knives. "Did you forget? My physical strength has recovered. I'm faster than the nurses."
Under pressure, Mu Ke used the keyboard to reply that he was coming up immediately.
Miao Feichi glanced at Miao Gaojiang and silently asked, Kill Mu Ke now?
Miao Gaojiang considered it before shaking his head. Bai Liu was quick-witted and highly intelligent. He might continue contacting Mu Ke through the keyboard during this time. If Mu Ke didn't respond, Bai Liu would grow suspicious. For now, they would keep Mu Ke alive. After meeting Bai Liu, they could execute both of them together.
Mu Ke heard this and felt despair sink into his chest.
When the nurse took the elevator to patrol another floor, Mu Ke was dragged away. They moved quickly up the emergency staircase toward the ninth floor.
Deformed children lurked in the stairwell.
Mu Ke watched in horror as Miao Feichi casually dealt with the very same children who had chased them through the hospital the night before. They were sliced into pieces beneath his twin knives. The blood vessels at the severed edges writhed as if alive and starving. The children's shrill cries echoed through the stairwell.
Miao Feichi clicked his tongue in boredom. His knives flashed, and he slit a child's throat. The head rolled to Mu Ke's feet, its eyes wide with resentment and unwillingness. But its mouth could no longer scream.
This was overwhelming strength.
Mu Ke had already developed a fear of Miao Feichi's knives last night. Now that fear deepened. He didn't even know if his interpretation of LFG had been correct.
Did Bai Liu really want him to obey Miao Feichi?
If this continued, they would reach the ninth floor without obstruction. Mu Ke began praying frantically that Bai Liu wasn't in Room 906.
-----------------
At the same time, in the welfare house—
Little Bai Liu (6) lowered his body as he ran out to make a call, glancing around vigilantly as he moved.
"According to your instructions, the keycaps for 906 were removed. Is that your ward number? Are you currently in 906?"
"Yes," Bai Liu replied calmly. "Earlier, someone contacted you through the keyboard. How did you respond?"
"I told him to team up. Whether he lives or dies, the keyboard will drop and expose him as a spy. It's better to let him surrender first." Little Bai Liu (6) frowned. "You said those two are likely to attack you at night. I thought you wanted me to send them to 906 so you could escape. Why are you actually in 906? If they go up there, you'll be caught…"
"You don't need to worry about my side. I'm using this game to trap them," Bai Liu said evenly. "Just make sure everything is fine on your end. You did well earlier. It was correct to let the other party seek cooperation with the enemy group. What about you? Are you ready to escape the welfare home?"
Little Bai Liu (6) looked at the deformed children roaming the playground. He quickly slipped into hiding to avoid being spotted.
After two days of being chased, he had become skilled at concealing himself. During the day, Bai Liu had instructed him to escape with the other children tonight, since tomorrow was Wednesday—the matching day.
"From 9 p.m. to midnight, deformed children are wandering around, and the teachers aren't fully asleep. It's not a good time to run. We're likely to be caught by either the children or the teachers," Bai Liu (6) reported calmly over the phone. "But today is the baptism day, and the gates of the welfare home haven't been closed yet."
"After 12 o'clock, the gates of the welfare home will be closed. In the early hours of the morning, children playing the flute will come to take the remaining children away. So we have to escape before 12."
"If you choose to run away before midnight, avoiding the teachers and the deformed children will be a problem, right?" Bai Liu asked thoughtfully.
"Yes," Little Bai Liu (6) replied coolly. "It's very difficult to escape from them. But I think it will be even harder later on. There are five deformed children tonight, and their number increases by two every night. That already matches the exact number of children who plan to flee tonight."
"If there were only three, I would consider having Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang lure them away while I escaped with Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi. But there are five tonight. On average, each of us would be chased by one deformed child. Even if I had Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang lure some away, it would only account for three at most. It wouldn't work."
Bai Liu grew interested. "You managed to get Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang to cooperate with you so quickly?"
"It was easy to convince them," Little Bai Liu (6) replied indifferently.
"How did you convince them?"
"I made a deal with them," Little Bai Liu (6) explained calmly. "I told them I could take them out, but they had to make a transaction with me."
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. "You used my personal skill to purchase their souls? You learn quickly."
"No. I didn't buy their souls. They're paying me to safeguard them. They paid me 12 yuan and 50 cents. They entrusted themselves—their souls—to me, and I will take them out."
"I don't know why, but the soul money I received from Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang is different from what you described." Little Bai Liu (6) sounded puzzled and slightly annoyed, as if he had been shortchanged.
Yet this little friend had earned two souls and 12.5 yuan without spending anything.
Little Bai Liu (6) frowned. "After trading with them, the coin system prompted that the transaction was incomplete. I only obtained partial soul-debt rights. I can't use their skills or access their system panels. I can only view their system panels."
"What can you do with the soul money?" Bai Liu asked.
"Nothing," Little Bai Liu (6) replied, somewhat displeased. "The system states that you must collect the entire soul or complete the trade for the entire soul at once. Otherwise, if one part of the soul dies, it will simply return to the remaining portion. This soul money is only valid for transactions. It's not entirely useless—I can use it to restrict Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang's actions. That will make escaping tonight easier."
Bai Liu fell into thought. This had been one of the reasons he handed the coin to Little Bai Liu (6). He wanted to see whether the child could obtain the souls of Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang and indirectly control them from the children's side.
However, the result was only a half-finished product.
Soul money with only partial debt rights was like a banknote torn in half. It looked like something of value, but it couldn't actually purchase anything from the trading partner.
To obtain the other party's complete soul, Miao Feichi or Miao Gaojiang would have to willingly sell it to him in full, as defined by the system.
The probability of that happening was zero.
Miao Gaojiang wasn't a fool. Why would he do something like that? The incident with Puppet Zhang had already made him extremely cautious. He might not know Bai Liu's exact method, but he had clearly realized that Bai Liu's skill was far more complex than it appeared.
Throughout the entire day, Miao Gaojiang hadn't taken anything from Bai Liu or fallen into any of his verbal traps. He barely responded to Bai Liu's imperative or interrogative sentences and deliberately used active statements when speaking to him. This was one of the weaknesses of Bai Liu's control skill. If the opponent remained in absolute defense, it was difficult for Bai Liu to take the initiative and initiate a controlling transaction.
There was a second possibility: kill Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang and allow their souls to return to their secondary identity lines.
The likelihood of that was even lower than zero. Still, it wasn't entirely impossible.
"Little Bai Liu (6), don't forget what I warned you about when using this skill," Bai Liu reminded him. "This trading technique binds both parties. You agreed to take Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang out. You must fulfill that promise, or you will—"
"—Turn into half of a soul banknote and be locked inside an old wallet, right?" Little Bai Liu (6) finished quietly.
From beginning to end, Bai Liu had never revealed his true identity. He had registered as an anonymous investor, and no one knew his real name. The system seemed to deliberately prevent the children from learning their true identities. For the NPC children generated in the welfare home, they were more like phantom projections.
It was difficult to imagine that these children would realize that the strange, gloomy investors were their future selves. Yet Little Bai Liu (6) had guessed. And Bai Liu wasn't surprised.
Little Bai Liu (6)'s voice remained steady and without emotion. "You should have anticipated that once you gave me this coin, I would infer the truth from the information embedded in it. I am a very curious person. Once I see enough clues, I will piece them together. That's how I finally understood why you were willing to die for me."
"I'm like the other children. I am your secondary identity line—the other half of your soul. Right? Bai Liu of the future? Or should I say… the kind investor who has always remained anonymous?"