The teachers and caretakers ran out of the brightly lit rooms one after another. In the darkness, they became shadowy figures with indistinct faces, writhing as they charged toward Little Bai Liu (6).
This was a private welfare home with more than 200 staff members. An adult's stride was fast enough to catch up with an overloaded children's cart or a walker. They rushed out of the classrooms, furious and ferocious. In the night, they were even more terrifying than the giggling deformed children.
The deformed children chasing Bai Liu seemed afraid of the teachers. The moment they saw them, they screamed as if they had encountered a natural predator, then scattered into the distance.
Little Bai Liu (6)'s coin vibrated.
[The Love Welfare Institute Monster Book has updated—Deformed Child (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Deformed Child (naughty version without blood drawn)]
[Features: Enjoys playing with others late at night and taking away the children who play with it.]
[Weaknesses: Teachers of the welfare home (1/3)]
[Attack Methods: Blood Ejection (A+), Phone Positioning (A+), Flute-Playing Child (A)]
The deformed children fled, and the teachers drew closer.
The teachers were obviously not monsters, so they couldn't be blocked by the buff item "Passenger's Blessing." Meanwhile, the welfare home's gate was very close.
Little Bai Liu (6) looked up at the large iron gate, half-shrouded in darkness.
Moonlight flickered beyond it, and he could hear the sound of grass rustling in the wind. It was as if someone were walking outside in the grass, luring them—tempting them to run out, to escape.
Little Bai Liu (6) immediately gave the order. "Get out of the car and run!"
The children panicked and scrambled out. Mu Ke struggled to get out of the walker and only managed it with Bai Liu (6)'s help. However, there was a fatal flaw in scattering and running separately: the fast runners would abandon the slow ones.
The moment Miao Gaojiang jumped out, he left Liu Jiayi behind. Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang were the oldest and physically strongest. They ran the fastest and quickly pulled far ahead.
Liu Jiayi and Mu Ke were much slower. One had a heart condition, and the other was blind. Bai Liu (6) dragged them along, but his own strength was limited. Before long, the pace of the three children faltered.
Panting, Bai Liu (6) clenched his teeth and forced himself to calm down. He took out the soul money and issued a command to Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang.
"Come back and carry them."
Neither of them wanted to return, but under the suppressive force of the soul money, they were compelled to turn back.
The two of them quickly hoisted Liu Jiayi and Mu Ke onto their backs. Now Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang were carrying the others while Bai Liu (6) ran alone. The speed of the five barely balanced out, but it wasn't fast. Behind them, the teachers were closing in, their footsteps growing quicker and heavier. Bai Liu (6) could hear them shouting curses at the "dirty children," some yelling for the gate to be shut.
He ran desperately. His lungs burned as if he had swallowed a flaming torch, every breath scraping painfully through his throat.
Sweat soaked his hospital-style pajamas. It slid from his eyelashes as he stared at the iron gate ahead, which was slowly grinding shut. Moonlight washed over his pale, sweat-drenched face, giving it a faint, starlike sheen. The wind rushed past his ears like whispering voices.
—Get out of here. Get out. You are a bad child, unloved by God. Leave quickly. No one here likes you.
Bai Liu (6) drew in a sharp breath and forced himself to run faster.
Suddenly, Miao Gaojiang shouted. Bai Liu (6)'s sharp gaze swept over instantly, thinking he was about to cause trouble again. Instead, he saw Liu Jiayi on Miao Gaojiang's back, covering her mouth as she coughed violently. Dark blood seeped through her snow-white fingers. Her body went limp, her face turning as pale as paper.
She seemed afraid of slowing the others down. Curled up like a shrimp, she tried to muffle her coughing, but blood still spilled between her fingers. Tears slipped from her unfocused eyes.
"It hurts…" she whispered hoarsely, unable to suppress another cough.
As she choked on black blood, she called out in a daze to the protector who wasn't there. "—It hurts so much, Brother… Brother…"
Warm blood soaked through Miao Gaojiang's back. Panic flashed across his face as he looked at Bai Liu (6). "Bai Liu (6)! She's coughing up blood!"
Bai Liu (6) reacted immediately. Liu Jiayi's earlier complaint to the teacher hadn't been an excuse. She truly had been unwell—she had only endured it in silence.
He recalled what Bai Liu had told him.
[Among you children is a player named Liu Jiayi. She's unusual. Her initial health isn't 100, but 50. I suspect it might be due to a delayed effect from the poisonous mushroom, though that's only a guess. Pay attention to her. She's special—and dangerous.]
Liu Jiayi's strength quickly gave out. She began sliding off Miao Gaojiang's back. Though Bai Liu (6) ordered him to hold her, Miao Gaojiang staggered repeatedly, forced to constantly adjust her slipping weight. His speed dropped.
Seeing the teachers gaining on them, Miao Gaojiang roared, eyes bloodshot, "Bai Liu (6)! Abandon her! She's useless! She won't survive even if she gets out! She's already coughed up so much blood! Leave her here—there are doctors in the welfare home!"
Miao Feichi, carrying Mu Ke, was nearly at his limit. Sweat drenched his hair as he bared his teeth and shouted, "Bai Liu (6)! Where the hell did you get this sudden kindness? Drop them! If we don't abandon these two burdens, we're all getting caught!"
The old Bai Liu (6) would not have hesitated. He always prioritized his own interests. That principle hadn't changed.
But now, there were two of him.
The two burdens dragging him down were tied to the interests of his other self.
His gaze fell on Mu Ke, who looked at him anxiously, whispering his name. Then it shifted to Liu Jiayi's bloodstained, pain-stricken face. His emotionless eyes passed over both of them, weighing their value—calculating whether to protect his own survival or the survival of his other self's interests.
If he abandoned Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi, he could escape smoothly. His own safety would be ensured.
If he didn't, they might all fail to escape—but the interests of the other him would be preserved.
Liu Jiayi finally lost her grip and slipped from Miao Gaojiang's back. Instinctively, driven by her will to live, she grabbed at his ankle. He stumbled and crashed into Miao Feichi. As they fell, Miao Feichi cursed, flung Mu Ke aside, and grabbed Bai Liu (6)'s wrist to drag him away.
"They're useless! Why insist on taking them? Hurry up, Bai Liu (6)! They're not like us!"
Everything in the eyes of Bai Liu (6) became as slow as slow motion. The sound of his rapid breathing, the rustle of his feet running on the sand, the cursing teachers getting closer and closer behind them, waving something unknown in their hands.
Mu Ke, who panicked after being thrown on the ground and reached out to him for help, Liu Jiayi's blood-stained face as she called out for her brother, and Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang's gloomy and indifferent faces as they cursed the two people—in Bai Liu (6)'s eyes, there was a strange dividing line. It was just like the scene of an open-air old movie he once saw. In front of his eyes, it repeatedly played in front of him with a boundary between 'good boy' and 'bad boy.'
If he stopped, then Bai Liu (6) was a good boy. If he ran away, then Bai Liu (6) was a bad boy.
Bai Liu (6) suddenly thought that by the secular definition, this was the way to define whether children were good or bad. However, he was a bad boy. Yet the other him didn't think so. Oh, that person also gave him a strange new name—Bai, or white, as in the daylight, and Liu as in the willow tree, which makes the shade.
[You don't have the right to choose to be a bad person until you're an adult.]
[Leave what bad people should do to me. I'll bear the consequences for you.]
I… promised to help him save Liu Jiayi and Mu Ke. And he paid me.
His right hand tightened around the coin-shaped game manager hanging at his chest—the reward Bai Liu had given him.
[I am a wanderer. As a wanderer, all you need to do is keep your end of the deal—with anyone, including me.]
Bai Liu (6)'s consciousness drifted back from a long distance. These seemingly long thinking fragments were actually completed in only a few seconds in his mind. The moment Bai Liu (6) was pulled away by Miao Feichi, he stopped.
Miao Feichi looked back at Bai Liu (6) with surprise.
"Stop." Bai Liu (6) was very calm. "Go back and carry Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi."
Miao Feichi stared at Bai Liu (6) with astonishment and disbelief. "Are you crazy, Bai Liu (6)? You fucking…"
"I said go back and carry them." His tone was utterly flat. "I'm giving an order, not asking for your opinion. Understood?"
He lifted his eyes. "Go back and pick them up."
"Fuck!!" Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang nearly went mad. Yet compelled, they rushed back, hauling up the crying Mu Ke and the barely conscious Liu Jiayi. They ran like rabid dogs, cursing Bai Liu (6) the entire way.
"You're fucking sick, Bai Liu (6)! I thought you were rational like us, but you're some damn saint! If we can't get out, just wait and see what I'll do to you!"
"If we can't get out?" Bai Liu (6) suddenly broke into a bright, unrestrained smile—the first truly childlike expression on his face. He ran as if he might leap into the air, laughing breathlessly, playful and reckless.
"In any case," he said between gasps, "someone promised he'd clean up my mess. It's up to him now."