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After leaving the hospital corridor and relying on Liu Jiayi to hold off the monsters, Bai Liu finally made it to the car parked outside. Once he activated the item [Passenger’s Blessing], he brought the three children into the vehicle.
He drove through the night.
All around the car, gaunt and grotesque ghostly faces swayed and hurled themselves at him, only to be violently repelled by the effect of [Passenger’s Blessing]. Bai Liu kept driving steadily in a single direction. By the time the first glimmers of dawn appeared on the horizon, the wandering Investor monsters had noticeably thinned out.
Then Liu Jiayi suddenly spoke.
“The mission to escape the welfare home is complete.”
Beside her, Xiao Mu Ke stared blankly at the game manager pressed against his chest.
“This thing just told me I cleared a mission,” he said in confusion. “What mission?”
Xiao Miao Gaojiang remained curled up unconscious in the back seat, but Bai Liu had already received the system notification confirming the completion of the soul transaction between them.
Bai Liu lazily leaned back against the driver’s seat.
“Click exit,” he said casually. “We’ll talk outside the game. I still have a little business to take care of.”
“What do you mean cli—whoosh—”
Before Xiao Mu Ke could even finish speaking, he pressed the button and disappeared on the spot.
Liu Jiayi glanced toward Xiao Miao Gaojiang in the back seat. She seemed to understand immediately that Bai Liu wanted to speak with him alone. Pressing her lips together, she silently clicked exit as well.
Now only Bai Liu, the unconscious Xiao Miao Gaojiang, and Bai Six—whom Bai Liu had placed in the passenger seat—remained inside the car.
Bai Liu steered with one hand. Hanging loosely from his wrist was a chain attached to the game manager he had stripped from Miao Gaojiang’s corpse, swaying lightly against his skin.
“You’re awake, Xiao Miao Gaojiang-didi,” Bai Liu said without looking back. “Planning to keep pretending to sleep?”
His tone was calm as he drove slowly onward.
“You’re wondering why they were able to leave the game while you can’t, right? That’s because your game manager is in my hands.”
“Your soul is too.”
Xiao Miao Gaojiang’s trembling eyelids finally flew open.
He stared at Bai Liu—bloodstained, relaxed, sitting casually behind the wheel—as though he were staring at a demon.
His entire body shook uncontrollably.
“W-What are you going to ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ do to me?!”
It was difficult to connect this terrified child—so frightened that he had pretended to stay asleep in front of Bai Liu—with the future Miao Gaojiang: the man who would one day stand toe-to-toe with Bai Liu in battles of strategy and manipulation, a ruthless killer who could even treat his own biological son as expendable.
Human growth was a miraculous thing.
The Bai Liu from ten years ago could never have imagined that he would grow into the current version of himself—a law-abiding citizen.
And the current Xiao Miao Gaojiang, already crying so hard that tears and mucus covered his face just because Bai Liu had spoken a few words, probably could not imagine either that he would one day become an infamous old monster who shook the entire horror game world—someone capable of calmly sacrificing Bai Liu’s life for his own purposes.
“I’m not planning to do anything to you,” Bai Liu said. “I can even let you leave.”
He paused slightly.
“But there’s one thing I want from you.”
Xiao Miao Gaojiang cried even harder.
“W-What thing?! My blood?!”
Bai Liu smiled faintly.
“No. Your guild.”
Before entering the game, Bai Liu had asked Mu Shicheng what he would need to do if he wanted to seize control of Miao Gaojiang’s guild.
Although Mu Shicheng had thought Bai Liu was speaking complete nonsense, he had still honestly answered him.
There were two methods.
The first: kill Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang—the two true holders of power within the guild—and seize control through absolute violence and overwhelming strength.
The second: obtain a transfer agreement and force the two of them to sign it.
But both methods were absurdly difficult.
To Miao Gaojiang and Miao Feichi, the guild was practically equivalent to life itself.
According to Mu Shicheng, even if Bai Liu controlled their souls through trickery, the two of them would never willingly allow him access to the guild’s authority. After all, the guild directly determined their access to League resources and, ultimately, whether they could continue surviving.
Compared to the soul, survival itself naturally mattered more.
Getting them to personally sign over control would be nearly impossible. And Bai Liu still lacked the overwhelming power of a top-tier player that would allow him to simply crush everything and take it by force. Even if Miao Gaojiang died, the Carrion Guild would likely be torn apart immediately by larger guilds circling like vultures.
Originally, Bai Liu had planned to manipulate Miao Gaojiang’s panel through soul control and complete the transfer himself.
But the moment he attempted to bypass the system, a warning window appeared:
[System Warning: Guild management transfer permissions are classified as high-level permissions. Player Bai Liu does not possess sufficient authorization. Player Bai Liu only possesses partial soul debt rights over Player Miao Gaojiang and is not authorized to invoke higher-level soul debt permissions. Said permissions belong to the system. Please cease immediately!]
A Miao Gaojiang who understood the value of the guild would never sign the agreement willingly.
But Xiao Miao Gaojiang, who still didn’t understand what the guild represented, was another matter entirely.
Under Bai Liu’s guidance, Xiao Miao Gaojiang shakily opened the transfer agreement panel.
His small hand trembled violently as he signed his name.
Afterward, he looked up fearfully at Bai Liu, whose expression had become visibly more satisfied.
“I-Is this okay now...?”
Bai Liu casually added his own signature and nodded.
“It’s fine. You can leave the game now.”
[System Notification: Player Miao Gaojiang and Player Bai Liu have signed the “Thirty-Five Explanatory Clauses Regarding the Transfer of the Carrion Guild.”]
[No third-party witness detected. The game system shall serve as the sole guarantor of validity. The agreement takes effect immediately upon signing.]
[System Notification: Congratulations to Player Bai Liu for becoming the new Guild Leader of the Carrion Guild. All guild members have been notified of the leadership transfer.]
Xiao Miao Gaojiang felt as though he had lost something extraordinarily important.
But at this moment, the only thing overwhelming him was the relief of finally escaping Bai Liu’s side alive.
He didn’t even have the time to think further.
Letting out a long, shaky breath, Xiao Miao Gaojiang hurriedly clicked exit and disappeared.
Now only Bai Liu remained inside the car.
He didn’t know why he still hadn’t exited the game.
He simply continued driving forward.
The sky gradually brightened as the scenery around him shifted from barren emptiness to flourishing greenery.
Eventually, Bai Liu stopped the car and carried Bai Six out in his arms.
From the system store, he bought a shovel and a tombstone.
Then he dug a grave there.
He placed Bai Six inside, planted the tombstone into the earth, and took out a marker he had brought from the hospital.
On the stone, he wrote:
[Tomb of Bai Liu]
Then, beneath it, he added the epitaph:
[Your future self buried you, but your future has not been buried. Cheer up, Xiao-didi. Your luck will get better.]
Bai Liu even used the marker to casually sketch a crude little portrait of Xiao Bai Six onto the tombstone.
The drawn boy was thin and frail, but his eyes were bright. Around his neck hung a hollowed-out coin.
Above his head, Bai Liu deliberately drew a ridiculous little cartoon mushroom.
It was an extremely crude grave.
Improvised. Informal. Almost laughably shabby.
But Bai Liu felt that Bai Six probably wouldn’t mind.
After all, neither of them liked wasting money on meaningless things.
“I brought you away from the place you hated most,” Bai Liu said quietly as he stood before the grave, “and buried you somewhere even I don’t recognize.”
Sunlight slowly climbed upward from his ankles, inch by inch, until it illuminated his face completely.
“But I actually like this place quite a lot.”
He smiled faintly.
“I think you’ll like it too.”
“Goodbye, fourteen-year-old Xiao Bai Liu.”
Alongside Bai Six, Bai Liu buried 550,000 in cash—the amount he had just exchanged using points.
This was the money he owed the child.
He spread the bills evenly around Bai Six inside the grave. freeweɓnøvel.com
At least in this regard, Bai Liu thought Bai Six would probably be satisfied with the arrangement.
Bai Liu always honored his deals.
Even deals made with the dead.
Then he turned and walked toward the sunrise.
He raised a hand in farewell, though it was impossible to tell who he was saying goodbye to.
Behind him, there was only a solitary tombstone.
A faint breeze drifted past, carrying with it the distant sound of children singing a nursery rhyme somewhere far away:
“Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Fell ill on Thursday,
Worsened on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
That was the life of Bai Liu.”
Sunlight blazed brilliantly across the tombstone.
Bai Liu’s figure dissolved into the diamond-like radiance of dawn until his silhouette blurred completely and vanished.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has exited the game.]
