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Many guilds were asking around for news about the phenomenal newcomer, Bai Liu. Quite a few even posted their recruitment terms directly on the forum, openly stating that they hoped Bai Liu would join them. Whatever conditions he named, they would satisfy them. They would spare no resources in cultivating him.
At this moment, the players of the Carrion Zombies Guild—who still had not figured out the situation or where things were headed—were the first to jump out.
They began boycotting the high-level guild players trying to lure Bai Liu away, indignantly accusing those guilds of poaching wherever they went.
“What are you people doing here?! Look carefully! That’s our new Guild Leader! He’s not going to just follow you casually!”
Although the players of the Carrion Zombies Guild were panicking after losing Miao Gaojiang as their leader, Bai Liu was clearly a potential stock with terrifying prospects.
Before the Carrion Zombies players even had time to feel dissatisfied about the change in leadership, they were already scrambling to stand up and cling tightly to Bai Liu, this life-saving straw that looked as though it was about to be snatched away by other guilds.
For any guild, high-level players strong enough to participate in the League were essential.
But Miao Feichi was dead.
And when Miao Gaojiang came out, his mental state had become completely abnormal. He had even handed the guild over to Bai Liu.
The Carrion Zombies Guild was only a relatively bottom-tier guild to begin with. Aside from Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, who had been somewhat presentable, most of its members were ordinary players. Otherwise, they would not have gone so many years without a single victory in the team competition. ƒrēewebnovel.com
The few players in the guild who had any real ability all ran off the moment they discovered something had happened to the Miao father and son.
Although leaving a guild required paying a hefty penalty fee, for those capable players, anywhere was better than staying in a guild like Carrion Zombies, which no longer had any visible future.
A pure newcomer Guild Leader who had only played a few games—
In the eyes of these seasoned veteran players, this was simply absurd.
Without the connections and resources of other guilds, without League-level players to lead the way and set a benchmark, and without high-level players helping to accumulate resources in the guild warehouse, this guild would collapse sooner or later.
The annual League was extremely important to every guild.
If a mid-sized guild like Carrion Zombies could no longer produce players at the level of the Miao father and son for the League, it would immediately fragment into smaller guilds, and many people would flee.
As for those who did not leave, the remaining players were all very ordinary members who could only muddle through Level One games.
They did not have the confidence to pay the penalty fee, and other guilds would not easily accept incapable players like them either. With no other option, they could only cling desperately to Bai Liu, their final life-saving straw.
The Carrion Zombies players comforted themselves.
Even if Bai Liu could not participate in the League this year, his potential was enormous. There was always next year!
But no matter how they comforted themselves, these people were currently living in constant fear. Every one of them was like a little chick that had lost its mother hen in a game of “eagle catches chicks,” searching everywhere for their new Guild Leader.
Oddly enough, this new Guild Leader, who had just taken over the guild, showed no hurry to appear.
Whenever other guilds changed leaders, the new leader would immediately come forward to make a speech or offer promises to stabilize the players and prevent a large-scale exodus.
To put it simply, when a new official took office, they would first draw a grand, imaginary cake for everyone.
But Bai Liu did not. freewebnoveℓ.com
He was currently leaning lazily against the edge of the central hall.
On the core screen at the very center of the hall, the King’s Leaderboard small TV was constantly replaying clips of Bai Liu’s game footage. Bai Liu could see some people anxiously looking for him, but he merely leaned in the corner of the central hall and did not step forward.
“Are you going to go up and say something to them?” Mu Ke asked, turning his head to look at Bai Liu.
“No.” Bai Liu lowered his eyes. “Let them cool off for a while first.”
“Once everyone who wants to leave has left, and those who remain have panicked enough, I’ll be in a good position to negotiate with them.”
“I’m not willing to be a Guild Leader for free. This job is essentially no different from going to work.”
Mu Ke obediently closed his mouth.
Fine.
When other new officials took office, the official made promises to the players.
But when it came to Bai Liu, he was probably waiting for the members to make promises to him, offer certain conditions, and set a salary before he would agree to stay and lead them.
He really had squeezed the Carrion Zombies Guild dry from top to bottom.
Thinking back to how arrogant this guild had been toward Bai Liu in the beginning, Mu Ke could not help feeling a trace of sympathy for them.
...How had things developed to this point?
They actually had to pay money to have him lead them?
Usually, wasn’t the Guild Leader supposed to give money to the people doing the work?
Why was everything reversed when it came to Bai Liu?
Where exactly had it gone wrong?
Bai Liu did not care about the complicated expression on Mu Ke’s face.
He opened the system panel and began counting the point rewards and items he had obtained.
Aside from the two items rewarded from the Monster Book this time, there were also the items and points Bai Liu had received from the Miao father and son, Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang. Altogether, it was not a small amount.
Besides those, Bai Liu had also obtained a very special item.
[System Notification: You have obtained a fully assembled item: (Murphy’s Law Ghost Mirror).]
[This item’s quality is unknown, and its specific function is unclear. The only thing currently known about this item is that staring into the mirror for an extended period will cause the object of fear reflected within it to be born.]
[The more you do not want to see something, the more you will see it.]
[The more you do not want something to happen, the more it will happen.]
Bai Liu looked at the item description for a while.
Then he looked at his points for a while.
Finally, he closed the system panel in satisfaction, turned around, and said to Mu Ke, “Let’s log out first.”
“You don’t need to follow me. I have something to handle.”
Bai Liu waved a hand at Mu Ke.
“You worked hard. Go back and rest properly.”
“Oh, Mu Ke. Remember to organize the information on those investors and send it to me.”
Mu Ke froze for a moment, then quickly reacted.
“You’re trying to help that friend of yours investigate the case, right? I’ll have a professional send it anonymously to the relevant department’s email. It won’t be traced. Will that work?”
Bai Liu turned back and smiled at Mu Ke.
“Thank you on behalf of my friend, Mu Ke.”
Before he had even finished speaking, his figure flickered into several chains of data in front of Mu Ke and disappeared.
Bai Liu opened his eyes in his rented apartment.
He reached under his pillow for his phone.
The phone screen was cracked, but it still worked. ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) Bai Liu tapped it on and first checked the time.
He had entered the game at around ten in the morning yesterday.
Now, it was also ten in the morning.
The amount of real-world time he had spent in the previous two games had also been about one day.
It seemed that, relative to reality, the time flow of each game was roughly one day.
However, in the Game Lobby, the temporal and spatial dimensions of every small TV were different.
After entering the viewing area of a particular small TV, the flow of time inside would match the time flow of that small TV’s game world.
Moreover, no matter how many viewers were present, it would not feel crowded, nor would they spill over into the areas outside the small TV.
On top of that, there was the Game Lobby’s strange rule that players could not attack each other—yet Bai Liu’s Siren’s Bone, which could sever time and space, had been able to attack Mu Shicheng previously.
From this, Bai Liu could basically infer that the Game Lobby was a distorted region where multiple temporal and spatial dimensions overlapped.
Logically speaking, humans should not be able to exist in such a place in their normal form, let alone move between different dimensions.
And yet they could.
Allowing so many players to exist simultaneously within a space where multiple times and spaces overlapped—and a space of such abnormal scale—clearly required energy beyond the limits of human common sense.
Thinking of this, Bai Liu lowered his gaze to the cross hanging around his neck.
As expected, the items unlocked from the Monster Book pages of that God-level NPC followed him out every time.
And that being even called himself God.
If it was the unpredictable power of a deity—something humans had never understood and could only be toyed with by or attempt to utilize—then it became understandable.
[“You are my only believer.”]
That creature had once whispered those words to him.
The unemployed believer fiddled with the inverted cross pendant, then looked at the fish scale that had been somewhat cracked by Miao Feichi’s twin blades.
The scale had turned a little gray-white and hung limply against Bai Liu’s neck.
“I wonder if this fish scale can be repaired...”
Bai Liu muttered to himself while touching the surface of the scale.
He got dressed.
After leaving the apartment, Bai Liu headed straight for the hospital where the children were being treated.
As soon as he arrived, he saw Lu Yizhan leaning against the stairwell beside Liu Jiayi’s hospital room, smoking heavily and exhaling thick clouds of smoke.
The morning news was playing on the television mounted in the hospital corridor.
A neatly dressed male anchor spoke in a matter-of-fact tone:
“This morning, a serious knife attack occurred inside a residential building in our city. The perpetrator, surnamed Miao, age forty-nine, used a kitchen knife at approximately 10:01 AM to sever all ten fingers of his twenty-eight-year-old biological son, Xiao Miao, and forced him to eat them...”
“...By the time police arrived, Xiao Miao had unfortunately died from excessive blood loss. Mr. Miao also committed suicide by cutting his own throat after a standoff with police. Before his death, he repeatedly screamed a man’s name.”
“It is understood that the man bearing that name had no connection to Mr. Miao. Considering Mr. Miao’s mental state, it is highly likely that this was merely unconscious shouting. Therefore, the man’s name will not be disclosed...”
“...At present, the police report states that this was a tragedy caused by Mr. Miao’s abnormal mental condition.”
“In recent years, both in our city and across the country, suicide rates and crime rates among mentally ill individuals have continued to rise.”
“Not long ago, Li Gou, the suspect in the high school girl case, was also hacked to death by a prisoner who had lost control of his mental state...”
“Crimes caused by mental instability and psychological problems are becoming increasingly common.”
“Whether this has become a major social issue requiring serious attention, whether the free community psychological counseling rooms established nationwide are truly helping to reduce the escalation of psychological problems among the public, and whether stronger control measures should be taken against mentally ill individuals with criminal tendencies...”
