Free Web NovelXiao Mu Ke hugged Bai Six’s head and burst into loud, heartbroken sobs.
But he only cried for a short while.
Soon, he wiped his tears away with force and stood up. His tear-streaked face turned toward Xiao Miao Gaojiang, who had been trying to quietly slip away. The look in Xiao Mu Ke’s eyes was almost vicious.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Xiao Mu Ke glared at him coldly. “Bai Six is dead, but I’m still alive. He gave the item that controls you to me. So you’d better behave.”
Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s body stiffened mid-step.
Slowly, he turned around.
Xiao Mu Ke’s face was still covered in tears, but his expression was utterly blank. For some reason, that expression frightened Xiao Miao Gaojiang more than crying would have. It left him feeling only a hair’s breadth away from trembling.
Grinding his teeth, Xiao Mu Ke said:
“If you dare disobey me, I’ll kill you. I’m not as soft-hearted as Xiao Bai Six. I won’t leave you any way out. Now come over here and carry Xiao Bai Six on your back.”
As he spoke, Xiao Mu Ke glanced at Bai Six’s pale, bloodless face lying silently on the floor.
His eyes reddened again.
But this time, he forcibly held the tears back.
His voice turned hoarse.
“Carry him. Unless I tell you to put him down, you are absolutely not allowed to drop him. If you do, I’ll kill you.”
Xiao Mu Ke took a deep breath and looked up toward the baptismal pool beneath the statue.
Hidden underneath it was the escape passage Bai Six had told him about.
Tears shimmered in Xiao Mu Ke’s eyes, but his resolve never wavered.
“We’re going to drain his blood,” he said quietly, “and take it to save his investor.”
“Hurry up.”
His voice trembled faintly, as though he wanted to cry again, yet no tears fell.
“Put Bai Six’s body into the baptismal pool. I’ll find a way to heat the water...” Xiao Mu Ke lowered his head and swallowed hard. “...Don’t let the blood in his body turn cold. If it does, it’ll be hard to extract.”
—
Wednesday, Ward 501, 6:15 AM.
Bai Liu stared at the silent phone for a long moment before finally lowering it.
His expression remained calm as he announced:
“Since no one has called by now, my child is probably dead.”
Mu Ke’s face instantly turned pale.
Bai Liu only had 0.5 HP left.
“Then what are we supposed to do?!” Mu Ke asked anxiously. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
“There is still a way.” Bai Liu’s tone remained composed. “I anticipated this possibility. Although this situation is extremely unfavorable, I prepared a backup plan in advance. It’s simply a bit more dangerous.”
As he spoke, his gaze shifted toward Liu Huai, who sat blankly at the edge of the hospital bed.
“The key to breaking this deadlock lies with you, Liu Huai.”
Liu Huai slowly raised his head, eyes unfocused.
“With me?”
After enduring an entire night of chaos, severe HP depletion, the aftermath of his sanity dropping below ten, and the flood of information Bai Liu had forced upon him, Liu Huai’s mental state was hanging by a thread.
His consciousness drifted in and out.
He thought he could hear Liu Jiayi’s soft laughter calling his name from somewhere far away.
The world around him twisted and swayed. The air seemed to turn to mud, and within that mud countless fish struggled desperately to crawl ashore. Behind Bai Liu, he vaguely saw a filthy little girl standing there with a bright smile, her hands resting lightly on Bai Liu’s shoulders.
Liu Huai knew these were hallucinations caused by the sharp drop in his sanity.
Even understanding Bai Liu’s words felt difficult.
“The key to breaking the deadlock...” Liu Huai looked blankly down at his blood-covered body and the empty space where his hands used to be. His expression was distant and bewildered. “Why me? I’m about to die anyway, aren’t I?”
Bai Liu spoke quietly.
“Yes. You do look like you’re about to die. But Liu Jiayi definitely won’t let you die so easily. Which means you are indeed the key to clearing this game.”
The moment Liu Jiayi’s name was mentioned, Liu Huai’s expression froze.
Bai Liu either didn’t notice or simply didn’t care.
“From another perspective,” Bai Liu continued calmly, “this game isn’t safe for Liu Jiayi either. With both Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang here, she’ll need to continuously drain her own blood to heal you if she wants to keep you alive.”
“Although her HP can regenerate, the system has weakened her healing skill. During the gap between draining blood for you and the cooldown ending so she can heal herself, she’ll still be vulnerable.”
Bai Liu lifted his eyes slightly.
“Possibly even more vulnerable than we are.”
“So we need to take advantage of that opening. We seize her during that interval and force her to restore our HP.”
Mu Ke frowned. “But Liu Jiayi is too cautious.”
“Yes.” Bai Liu’s gaze slowly settled on Liu Huai’s dazed face. “She won’t lower her guard against anyone.”
A pause.
“Except you, Liu Huai.”
“I want you to restrain her at her weakest point, while she’s draining blood to save you.” Bai Liu’s tone remained flat and practical. “I won’t kill her or hurt her. We’ll simply bring her along to clear the game.”
He lowered his eyes toward the phone that had remained silent all morning.
“It’s only a minor use of her value.”
“After all...” Bai Liu said softly, “she also used the tiny spark of kindness that existed in the other me.”
“She probably killed my child.”
Liu Huai stayed silent for a very long time.
Finally, he lowered his head and took a deep breath.
“...As long as you don’t hurt her, I’ll cooperate.”
The moment Liu Huai finished speaking, Mu Ke’s phone rang.
Mu Ke answered in surprise.
From the other side came Xiao Mu Ke’s sobbing, breathless voice. He sounded like he was running.
“Is Bai Six’s investor there?! Let him answer the phone!”
Mu Ke and Bai Liu exchanged a glance before Bai Liu took the phone.
Xiao Mu Ke was still gasping and crying uncontrollably.
“Bai Six... he... Bai Six...”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Bai Liu finished calmly.
That single sentence instantly shattered Xiao Mu Ke’s restraint.
He burst into violent sobs.
“Yes!!” Xiao Mu Ke cried hysterically. “Liu Jiayi used some method to kill him!”
The child with congenital heart disease cried so hard he could barely breathe as he stammered through everything that had happened.
When he reached the part about forcing Xiao Miao Gaojiang to carry Bai Six’s corpse while they escaped, Bai Liu’s tone suddenly turned cold.
“What about you?” Bai Liu interrupted. “Mu Ke, you have heart disease. You can’t endure strenuous exercise. If Xiao Miao Gaojiang is carrying Bai Six’s body while you try to keep up, you’ll collapse long before reaching the hospital.”
“The tunnel connecting the welfare home and the private hospital isn’t short. At this rate, something will happen to you before you arrive.”
And Bai Liu was right.
Xiao Mu Ke’s breathing had already become dangerously rapid.
First he had run from the handicrafts classroom to the church alongside Bai Six. Then he’d spent a long time helping drain Bai Six’s blood. Now he was running through the underground escape tunnel beneath the statue toward the hospital.
The tunnel was cramped and suffocatingly narrow.
Xiao Mu Ke clutched the still-warm blood extracted from Bai Six in his arms while stumbling forward with gritted teeth. His «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» lips and complexion had already started turning faintly bluish-purple from lack of oxygen.
Yet he still stubbornly held the phone and forced himself onward.
“Leave Bai Six’s body behind.” Bai Liu’s voice was emotionless. “Have Xiao Miao Gaojiang carry you instead. Bai Six’s corpse no longer serves any purpose. Keeping it with you will only slow you down.”
Xiao Mu Ke froze.
Then his breathing suddenly turned ragged with disbelief and fury.
“Bai Six died to save you,” he shouted, “and you want me to throw his body away in this pitch-black tunnel?! Leave him behind for those monsters that eat children and suck their blood dry?!”
“Yes,” Bai Liu answered flatly.
“Because he no longer has value.”
Xiao Mu Ke sucked in two sharp breaths.
He tried desperately to hold back his tears.
But in the end, he exploded.
“I WON’T THROW HIM AWAY!!”
The child screamed into the phone with a raw, childish fury, crying so hard his words broke apart.
“You dog-bastard!! You used Bai Six from the very beginning! You lied to him! You tricked him into thinking you were a good person!”
“You’re not a good person at all!!”
“He died for you!!”
His voice cracked violently.
“But he knew you were using him, and he still willingly died for you! Every single drop of blood in this bag was spilled for your sake! I was the one who drew it out with my own hands!”
Xiao Mu Ke screamed until his voice turned shrill and broken, tears and mucus running down his face together.
“You don’t deserve it! You have no right to treat him like this! Even if he’s dead, you still can’t treat him like this!!”
After shouting all of that, Xiao Mu Ke finally seemed to exhaust himself.
The only sound left on the line was his harsh breathing.
After a long silence, Bai Liu heard faint, restrained sobbing from the other side. Xiao Mu Ke sounded as though he were covering his face while desperately wiping away tears, crying so hard he could barely breathe.
Then, through gritted teeth, he forced himself to speak again.
Even now, his voice was full of resentment.
“Even dead, Bai Six still has value,” Xiao Mu Ke whispered hoarsely, as though he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “There’s a coin hidden inside his body. It controls Xiao Miao Gaojiang. That coin was meant for you.”
“Don’t tell anyone where it’s hidden.”
“I’m not leaving him behind.”
It sounded as though Xiao Mu Ke was trying to convince Bai Liu.
Or perhaps convince himself.
But Bai Liu remained indifferent.
“You can control Xiao Miao Gaojiang even without that coin. He’s already a fugitive now, which means he’s naturally on your side.”
“I know you don’t want to abandon Bai Six,” Bai Liu continued calmly, “but he’s already become a burden.”
“I would also willingly die for Bai Six.”
“But his death wasn’t only to save me. It was to save you, Mu Ke. To save all of us.”
“If you continue carrying his corpse, then everything he sacrificed himself for will be wasted.”
Bai Liu’s voice remained steady and rational.
“The road he paved with his own death will become meaningless.”
“If your heart condition flares up during the escape and you collapse, then everything Bai Six did will have been for nothing.”
A brief pause.
Then Bai Liu asked quietly:
“Do you want his blood to have been wasted too?”
The other side of the line fell silent.
Only Xiao Mu Ke’s rapid breathing remained.
Roughly half a minute later, Xiao Mu Ke finally spoke again, his teeth chattering through suppressed sobs.
“Xiao Miao Gaojiang...” he whispered shakily, “...put Bai Six down by the wall. Carry me instead.”
Then he spoke into the phone again with vicious hatred.
“You don’t deserve to be saved by Bai Six at all.”
“You should just die from your illness, you trash investor!”
“I hate you!!”
Bai Liu said nothing.
He simply waited quietly while Xiao Mu Ke cried his heart out on the other end of the line.
Eventually, Xiao Mu Ke spoke again.
His voice sounded exhausted, helpless, and deeply miserable.
“Just stay in the hospital and wait, you worthless investor.”
“I’m bringing his blood to save you.”
Then the line disconnected with a violent click, as though Xiao Mu Ke couldn’t bear to speak to Bai Liu for even one second longer.
Bai Liu: “...”
