Free Web NovelTeachers and caregivers poured out of the brightly lit rooms one after another, their figures melting into the night as they rushed toward Bai Six.
This private welfare home employed more than two hundred staff members. An adult’s stride was more than enough to overtake an overloaded children’s toy car—especially one burdened with a walker.
Under the darkness, the furious faces of the teachers looked even more terrifying than the giggling Deformed Children.
The Deformed Children who had been chasing Bai Six immediately scattered the moment they saw the staff, fleeing as though they had encountered natural predators.
The coin hanging against Bai Six’s chest vibrated once.
[Refresh of “Love Welfare Home Monster Book” — Deformed Child (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Deformed Child (Non-blood-drawing Naughty Version)]
[Characteristics: Likes to appear late at night to play with others, and will take away the children who play with it]
[Weakness: Teachers of the Welfare Home (1/3)]
[Attack Methods: Injection Blood-Drawing (A+), Telephone Tracking (A+), Little Piper (A)]
The Deformed Children retreated, but the teachers were drawing closer by the second.
Unlike monsters, they couldn’t be driven back by the [Passenger’s Blessing].
The welfare home gate was already within sight.
Bai Six looked up at the towering iron gate half-submerged in darkness.
Beyond it, moonlight swayed over the grass. Wind rustled through the weeds outside, sounding uncannily like footsteps—like something waiting beyond the gate, urging them onward.
Run.
Leave this place. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Bai Six made his decision instantly.
“Get off the car and run!”
The children scrambled down in panic.
Mu Ke nearly got stuck trying to climb out of the walker. Bai Six grabbed him and hauled him free.
But the moment they split up and ran, the weakness of the plan became obvious.
The faster children naturally abandoned the slower ones.
The second Xiao Miao Gaojiang landed on the ground, he shoved Liu Jiayi aside and sprinted forward with Xiao Miao Feichi. As the oldest children, they were physically stronger and quickly pulled ahead.
Meanwhile, Liu Jiayi and Xiao Mu Ke lagged far behind.
One was blind. The other weak and sickly.
Bai Six dragged both of them along, but his own stamina was limited. Before long, all three of them had slowed considerably.
Bai Six gritted his teeth, chest heaving.
His lungs burned so badly it felt as though he had swallowed fire.
Still, he forced himself to calm down.
Without hesitation, he pulled out the soul notes and ordered:
“Come back and carry them.”
Xiao Miao Feichi and Xiao Miao Gaojiang froze.
Neither wanted to obey.
But under the binding force of the soul notes, they had no choice but to turn around.
One picked up Liu Jiayi.
The other hoisted Xiao Mu Ke onto his back.
Now the five children moved at roughly the same pace—but it was still too slow.
The teachers behind them were closing in rapidly.
Bai Six could already hear furious shouting and the vicious grinding of teeth.
“Filthy little brats!”
“Close the gate!”
Bai Six ran harder.
Sweat soaked through the thin hospital gown hanging from his body. Beads of sweat slid from his lashes as he stared fixedly at the slowly closing iron gate ahead.
Moonlight illuminated his pale, sweat-drenched profile with a hazy silver glow.
Wind rushed past his ears like whispering voices.
Leave this place.
You’re a bad child. No one here wants you.
So hurry and run.
Bai Six lowered his head and accelerated again.
Then suddenly—
Xiao Miao Gaojiang cried out.
Bai Six immediately looked over, thinking he was about to cause trouble again.
Instead, he saw Liu Jiayi vomiting blood onto Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s back.
Thick black blood spilled through the gaps between her pale fingers.
Her face turned deathly white almost instantly.
Even now, Liu Jiayi tried desperately not to make noise. Curled weakly against Gaojiang’s back, she covered her mouth tightly, suppressing her coughing so she wouldn’t slow the others down further.
But blood kept leaking through her fingers anyway.
Along with tears.
“It hurts...”
Her voice trembled faintly.
Her unfocused eyes streamed with tears as more blood poured from her mouth.
Still half-conscious, Liu Jiayi murmured softly between coughs, instinctively calling for the guardian who wasn’t there.
“Gege... Gege... it hurts...”
Warm blood soaked through Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s clothes.
Panicked, he shouted:
“Bai Six! She’s coughing blood!”
Bai Six’s expression darkened immediately.
Only then did he realize that when Liu Jiayi claimed she was sick earlier tonight, she hadn’t been pretending.
She really had been enduring all of this in silence for their sake.
A memory surfaced instantly—
What Bai Liu had told him earlier that day about the blind little girl.
[There’s a player among the children named Liu Jiayi. She’s unusual. Her starting health points aren’t 100, but 50.]
[I suspect it may be some kind of delayed mushroom toxin, though that’s only a guess.]
[Pay attention to her. She’s special—and potentially very dangerous.]
Very soon, Liu Jiayi no longer had the strength to hold herself upright.
Her body slowly slid from Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s back.
Even so, Bai Six still ordered Gaojiang to keep carrying her.
But Gaojiang was already reaching his limit.
Constantly readjusting Liu Jiayi while running slowed him down further and further.
Finally, he snapped.
“Bai Six!” Xiao Miao Gaojiang roared, eyes bloodshot. “Forget about her! She’s useless! Even if we escape, she’s going to die anyway! Maybe if we leave her behind, the welfare home doctors can still save her!”
Xiao Miao Feichi was no better off.
Sweat drenched his entire body as he carried Mu Ke. Panting violently, he snarled:
“Bai Six! Where the fuck did you suddenly get this kindness from?! Ditch them already! If we keep dragging these two burdens around, all of us are going to get caught!”
If this had been the old Bai Six, he would have abandoned them without hesitation.
Protecting his own interests had always come first.
That rule still hadn’t changed.
The problem was—
There were now two versions of himself.
And the two people slowing him down happened to matter to the other “him.”
Bai Six’s eyes moved slowly across Xiao Mu Ke’s frightened face, then to Liu Jiayi, whose consciousness was fading from pain.
Emotionlessly, he evaluated them.
Measured them.
Calculated.
If he abandoned them now, he could escape safely.
His own interests would remain intact.
But if he saved them—
Then perhaps none of them would make it out alive.
Yet the interests of the other “him” would be protected.
At last, Liu Jiayi completely lost consciousness and slipped from Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s back.
Covered in blood, she instinctively grabbed his leg while falling.
Xiao Miao Gaojiang stumbled violently and crashed straight into Xiao Miao Feichi.
The two boys collapsed together.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Xiao Miao Feichi immediately threw Xiao Mu Ke off his [N O V E L I G H T] back and grabbed Bai Six’s arm.
“Why are you bringing dead weight with us?!”
“Come on, Bai Six!”
“They’re not the same as us!”
Everything suddenly slowed in Bai Six’s vision.
The ragged sound of his own breathing.
Footsteps pounding across the dirt.
The teachers’ furious screams growing closer and closer behind them.
Xiao Mu Ke reaching toward him from the ground with terrified eyes.
Liu Jiayi lying in a pool of blood, weakly calling for “Gege.”
Xiao Miao Feichi and Xiao Miao Gaojiang glaring at the two “burdens” with twisted, ugly expressions.
All of it flickered repeatedly before Bai Six’s eyes like frames from an old film reel.
A line divided the scene neatly in two:
Good child.
Bad child.
If he stayed, then Bai Six was a good child.
If he ran, then Bai Six was a bad child.
So this was how the world judged children.
Bai Six understood suddenly.
But he had always been a bad child.
At least, that was what he believed.
The other “him” clearly didn’t think so.
That strange person had even given him a new name.
The “Bai” from daylight.
The “Liu” from willow shade.
[You only earn the right to choose to become a bad person once you grow up.]
[Until then, leave the things bad people should do to me.]
[I’ll bear the consequences for you.]
...Right.
I promised him.
Bai Six’s hand closed around the coin-shaped game manager hanging at his chest.
That had been Bai Liu’s payment.
[As a Wanderer, your duty is to honor every transaction.]
[Even with me.]
Bai Six’s thoughts snapped back into focus.
All those thoughts had passed through his mind in less than a second.
Just as Xiao Miao Feichi tried dragging him away, Bai Six suddenly stopped.
Xiao Miao Feichi stared at him in disbelief.
“Stop.”
Bai Six’s voice was perfectly calm.
“Go back and pick up Xiao Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi.”
Xiao Miao Feichi looked at him as though he’d gone insane.
“Have you fucking lost your mind, Bai Six?!”
“I said go back and carry them.”
His tone remained flat and emotionless.
“That’s an order. Not a discussion.”
Bai Six lifted his eyes.
“Go.”
“Fuck!!!”
Xiao Miao Feichi and Xiao Miao Gaojiang completely lost it.
Cursing furiously, they turned back, grabbed the crying Xiao Mu Ke and the barely conscious Liu Jiayi, and started running again like stray dogs being hunted through the night.
“You’re seriously fucking sick, Bai Six!”
“I thought you were one of us!”
“Turns out you’re some goddamn saint!”
“If we all die because of this, I swear—!”
“If we can’t get out...” Bai Six suddenly laughed.
For the first time, he truly looked his age.
He ran wildly through the night wind, breathing hard, laughing recklessly like an ordinary child.
“If we can’t get out...” he repeated, smiling carelessly.
“Then somebody else can deal with the consequences.”
“Anyway, he said he’d clean up my mess for me.”
