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“I had my dad find someone to do it. Professionals, overseas addresses—it shouldn’t be that easy to trace. My dad said that even if they do trace it, he has ways to handle it,” Mu Ke said to Bai Liu over the phone, then coughed lightly, sounding a little guilty. “Some ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) of the people involved are business competitors of my dad’s, so he deleted some of the less believable parts, like the Blood Lingzhi. He only vaguely exposed the fact that those investors used children in experiments to treat illnesses. You don’t mind that he blew the whole thing up, do you?”
Bai Liu searched the trending topics on his computer.
#Evil Cult Corporate Group#
#Shocking Inside Story of the Welfare Home Poisoning Incident#
......
“I don’t mind,” Bai Liu said.
He was the type who didn’t care much about the process as long as the result was achieved. Leaning lazily back in his sofa chair, he asked, “Right now, they must be spending money like crazy to take down the trending searches, aren’t they?”
“Correct. But it won’t be that easy for them. We’re also throwing money at it from our side to keep it trending. Before the police intervene, it won’t be easy for them to suppress it,” Mu Ke said.
“Thanks for the trouble, Mu Ke,” Bai Liu said. “Rest first and recover your status. We’ll enter the game at twelve tonight. I still have some matters to handle this afternoon.”
Mu Ke yawned.
“Okay, Bai Liu.”
——————
At three in the afternoon, Bai Liu brought a couple back to the hospital.
Sitting across from Liu Jiayi was a husband and wife. They rubbed their knees nervously, looking at the little girl on the hospital bed with hope and disbelief mixed in their eyes. Before long, their eyes grew wet.
They looked at Bai Liu, who was standing to the side, and asked in trembling voices, “Bai Liu, can we really adopt her?”
“...Are we qualified to adopt her?”
Bai Liu leaned against the door and glanced faintly at Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua.
“You meet the adoption requirements.”
Their only daughter had died tragically. The couple had a good reputation, stable family assets, and loved children deeply. At their age, they no longer planned to have more children of their own. They fully satisfied the adoption conditions.
It could be said that Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua were the best kind of adoptive family.
Far better than Lu Yizhan, that low-ranking investigator with an unstable future and mediocre conditions.
For the children in the welfare home, if Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua wanted to adopt someone, they would likely fight desperately for the chance.
To them, this was the best way out.
The best choice.
Liu Jiayi understood that too.
She propped herself up against the bed rail, her voice carrying a hint of wary sharpness.
“Bai Liu, I already said I can stay by myself. There’s no need for you to find such a high-quality adoptive family for me. I won’t be grateful.”
“Besides, I don’t want to keep acting and pretending in front of other people. You should know very well that I’m a player. If they stay with me, they might...”
“They’re players too,” Bai Liu interrupted indifferently.
Liu Jiayi fell silent.
Extreme astonishment appeared on her face.
Bai Liu pulled over a stool and sat down, cutting off everything else Liu Jiayi might have wanted to say.
“They know you’re the Little Witch. I had them buy and watch all your competition videos on the small TVs. They know exactly what kind of child you are.”
“You don’t need to pretend in front of them. When it’s time to enter the game, just enter. Do whatever you need to do.”
“I recommended Lu Yizhan to you before partly because he really does like you, and partly because your gege truly hoped Lu Yizhan would adopt you. He also thought Lu Yizhan was a good person who could give you a perfect family.”
Bai Liu looked up at Liu Jiayi.
“But since you’re unwilling, I’ve made other arrangements for you.”
“Arrangements that will let you act more freely without having to worry about the consequences.”
Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu were still somewhat nervous.
Xiang Chunhua kept rubbing her thighs, staring at the blind little girl with longing in her eyes.
“Our family had a child before, but... something happened.” She paused, her voice becoming hoarse. “Old Liu and I aren’t exactly powerful people. We aren’t very good in the game, and we aren’t very good outside the game either. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have let Guoguo...”
She stopped there for a moment and lowered her head, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm.
“Jiayi, I know you’re a very capable girl. We can’t help you with much, but Bai Liu said you need a place to stay outside the game. It needs to be legal, reasonable, and legitimate. But because you’re a child, there aren’t many good places you can go.”
“We can help a little with that,” Liu Fu continued for Xiang Chunhua.
He leaned forward, speaking somewhat haltingly, his tone cautious and uneasy.
“This adoption relationship is only a temporary measure. If you dislike us, or if you don’t want us to be your nominal parents, then once the game ends, we can dissolve the relationship.”
“If you need anything, you can tell us at any time. If we can do it, we will definitely do our best.”
He looked at her carefully.
“What do you think?”
Xiang Chunhua could not help adding, “Look how thin you are. If you stay with us, at least when you come out of the game, there’ll be hot food and hot soup waiting for you. I’m not good at other things and can’t compare to you, Jiayi, but I’m very good at cooking!”
“I’m also good at making soup,” Liu Fu said, somewhat embarrassed.
They were clearly two middle-aged people who, combined, were nearly a hundred years old.
Yet when they spoke to this eight-year-old girl, they were cautious, using the tone of people negotiating, afraid that even one careless word would frighten her away.
It was as though they felt they had nothing worthy enough to offer her, nothing that could make her stay.
Liu Jiayi sat on the edge of the bed with her head lowered.
She remained there for a long time, silent and motionless.
Only her thin fingers slowly tightened around the quilt, and her toes dangling in the air curled inward.
“The game, a place to live, help covering things up, and a safe place to rest and recover your energy—everything is provided. They are also my people. I can guarantee they won’t harm you, and they can help take care of you.”
Bai Liu looked at Liu Jiayi.
“After all, you’re still a minor. Many things are inconvenient for you. Having two adults on your side will make things much easier.”
“Do you have any other questions? Bring them up, and I can find a way to solve them for you.”
Every problem Bai Liu mentioned was something Liu Jiayi had always solved by herself.
She had spent her life stumbling forward alone, hiding and surviving, long since accustomed to relying on herself to solve every problem she encountered.
No one had ever said to her:
Tell me your problems.
I will solve them for you.
Liu Jiayi finally raised her head.
Her eyes were a little red, but her tone remained cold.
“Fine. Then how am I supposed to repay you for these things?”
Xiang Chunhua froze.
“Repay... what things?”
“The place to live, the hot meals, the soup you make.” Liu Jiayi felt that repaying debts was only natural. “What do you want me to use as payment? Money or points?”
Xiang Chunhua’s eyes reddened. She was about to say there was no need to repay anything, but Bai Liu spoke first.
“I’ll have them list every expense spent on you each day in an invoice. After you leave the game, you can settle it all at once.”
He looked at Liu Jiayi.
“Any other questions?”
Liu Jiayi slowly shook her head, a little dazed.
She felt as though there were still other things she owed.
But for the moment, she did not know what those things were, nor what she could use to repay them.
Xiang Chunhua gazed at Liu Jiayi with emotion in her eyes, wanting to hug her.
After hesitating for a long time, the middle-aged woman, whose face was full of the hardships of life, finally reached out and gently touched Liu Jiayi’s face.
Her voice choked.
“How are you this thin? You’re so small... When Guoguo was eight, she was twice your size...”
Liu Fu’s eyes were red as well, his voice hoarse.
“When we get back, we’ll take good care of you. We’ll feed you until you’re a little chubbier. Braised pork, bone soup—you’ll grow in no time.”
“Eat as much as Guoguo used to, and you’ll grow fast. In the blink of an eye, you’ll be a big girl.”
Liu Jiayi seemed not to know what to say.
She remained silent.
Bai Liu glanced at her.
“The place I found for you will definitely be the place most suitable for your survival. Don’t think too much. Just do what you need to do.”
“I’ll enter the game tonight. If you want to enter, follow me. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. Once Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua adopt you, many things will become much more convenient. You won’t have to hide the way you did before.”
After a long silence, Liu Jiayi gave a soft “Mm” to show she understood.
————————————
After they walked out of the hospital doors, Liu Fu did not know what to say.
He gripped Bai Liu’s arm hard.
When Bai Liu looked over, he saw both Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua looking at him with tears in their eyes.
“Thank you, Bai Liu. Truly, thank you.”
Liu Fu blew his nose. He did not know what else to say, so he could only stiffly move on to practical matters.
“We’re entering the game tonight, right? Should we enter too?”
They had already prepared themselves to die.
They had never imagined that before the end, they would gain a little girl as a daughter.
During their most painful moments, it was not that they had never thought of adopting another child.
But after entering the game, they no longer dared to entertain that idea.
They were careful even when interacting with others, afraid they would affect someone else.
“Yes, you need to enter too. I’ll have Mu Shicheng continue leading you. It may be a Level Two game. Will that be a problem?” Bai Liu asked.
Liu Fu and Xiang Chunhua shook their heads without hesitation.
“No problem.”
......
After dealing with Liu Jiayi’s matters, Bai Liu returned to his small rented room.
Seeing that it was still early, and feeling mentally exhausted, Bai Liu prepared to rest for a while before the next game.
He set an alarm, changed into pajamas, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.
Bai Liu usually slept very well.
He rarely dreamed.
But this time, perhaps because his status was too depleted, or perhaps because he was too tired, Bai Liu had a very strange dream.
He felt a layer of white frost begin spreading over his body from his fingertips, freezing him stiff until he could no longer resist. A cold corpse sat heavily on his chest, making Bai Liu feel as though he were experiencing sleep paralysis.
Except this “ghost” was quite good-looking.
Tawil braced himself over Bai Liu and looked down at him, his pale pupils empty of human emotion.
“Your misfortune is about to arrive.”
Bai Liu could feel Tawil’s forearms planted beside his ears.
The sensation was very cold.
He looked up at Tawil in that half-awake, half-dreaming state. He very much wanted to say that he seemed to have never had particularly good luck in the first place, so he was already quite used to misfortune.
But Bai Liu’s throat felt as though it had been sealed shut by a lump of sticky, half-dried glue.
He could not make a proper sound.
He only managed to let out a few strange, syrupy, broken syllables.
Combined with their current position...
Bai Liu smoothly abandoned his attempt to speak and signaled with his eyes for Tawil to continue.
Tawil leaned down and hooked the cross hanging from Bai Liu’s neck with one finger.
He lowered his head and kissed the cross, then pressed it against Bai Liu’s brow, gently holding it there with his index finger.
“When the wall clock reaches a quarter past nine, a revenger wrapped in hatred from another timeline will descend upon you, carrying the fated death that belongs to destiny.”
“Thus, the deity appears, granting you revelation, blessing you, and protecting you here.”
Tawil looked down at Bai Liu, who was frowning and struggling inside the nightmare. His tone carried an indescribable indifference and solemnity that belonged to a god.
He said:
“My evil believer, remember to evade the hunter’s suicidal bullet.”
“Do not use your right eye to contain desire.”
“Before true death arrives, the time upon your body is unique and irreversible.”
Tawil placed his hand over Bai Liu’s eyes.
He bent down and kissed the inverted cross resting against Bai Liu’s forehead, then spoke with a kiss as ice-cold and holy as the cross itself.
“The key to everything lies in the hands of the witch.”
“Poison or antidote is the key to your choice.”
“The deity is eternal; the soul persists.”
Tawil tucked the cross back beneath Bai Liu’s clothes.
He gazed at Bai Liu, but reflected in his pupils was a pale pink rose whose branches and leaves were slowly stretching open, blooming.
“Beware of the rose.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he transformed into a heap of gorgeous rose petals that scattered across Bai Liu’s body.
An intense rose fragrance that made Bai Liu uncomfortable swirled up from the petals. Then, in an instant, those petals shattered into a puff of pale pink mist.
The mist circled obsessively over Bai Liu’s quilt before finally falling beneath his bed like burnt ash, vanishing without a trace when the wind blew.
Bai Liu’s eyes snapped open.
There were no roses.
No petals.
No Tawil.
He was in his low-rent room, less than three meters high, lying on an old bed with a spring poking out.
Bai Liu sat up and pulled the cross out from under his collar.
Strangely, the cross he always wore against his skin felt ice-cold to the touch.
Bai Liu brought the cross to his nose and sniffed it.
A lingering rose scent remained on the cross, making him uncomfortable.
“Misfortune and death are about to descend upon me...”
Bai Liu rubbed the cross in his hand, narrowing his eyes.
“...Beware of the hunter and the rose.”
Tawil was a god.
Because of the cross, the identity Bai Liu had obtained was [Tawil’s Believer]. Therefore, the hint Tawil had just given him was, in common terms, a [Divine Oracle].
Since ancient times, [Divine Oracles] had always seemed ambiguous and far removed from human speech.
Tawil’s was no exception.
Many things were vague and unclear.
If Bai Liu had used his previous worldview to explain these vague [Divine Oracles], he would have said that because gods did not exist, these so-called [Divine Oracles] were merely fabricated by believers and swindlers. They had to be spoken ambiguously so there would be a larger margin for error when events actually unfolded.
But this time, Tawil’s [Divine Oracle] gave Bai Liu a very familiar feeling.
“It’s a little like the way I speak when I’m being censored.”
Bai Liu thought quietly.
“Because some things can’t be said directly, or they’ll be blocked, one has to use roundabout methods to express the same meaning...”
“So it’s very likely that Tawil is also being censored by some higher-level existence. He can’t directly tell me what I need to avoid, so he can only hint at it this way and make me stay alert.”
The witch was easy to guess.
It referred to Liu Jiayi.
But what did the rose and the hunter imply?
Bai Liu gripped the cross, still soaked with the scent of roses, and looked at the time on the old, broken wall clock.
His eyes narrowed.
It was exactly a quarter past nine.
Bai Liu heard footsteps begin to sound from the hallway outside his door.
The soundproofing in this rental building was poor, allowing him to hear the footsteps outside very clearly. They were not hurried, and all of them passed directly by his door and continued upstairs, seeming no different from ordinary residents of the building.
But when the fourth set of footsteps appeared, carrying a distinct and rhythmic pattern, Bai Liu’s breathing lightened.
He got off the bed, changed his clothes, and put on his shoes.
Then he opened the window and looked outside, rationally calculating his odds of survival if he jumped from the fifth floor.
In the end, he chose to give up.
This building was full of low-rent apartments from top to bottom.
Bai Liu lived on the fifth floor, and there were only four tenants on this floor in total. freēwebnovel.com
That meant the people approaching were not ordinary residents.
Moreover, Bai Liu was very familiar with this kind of well-trained footstep.
He had only heard it from one person before.
—Lu Yizhan.
The footsteps finally stopped in front of Bai Liu’s door.
Behind Bai Liu, the door was violently kicked open.
A group of armed people shouted sternly at him:
“Investigators! Don’t move! Hands up!”
Bai Liu quickly lowered his head, took the coin hanging around his neck, placed it in his mouth, and pressed it beneath his tongue.
Night wind blew in through the open window.
Bai Liu slowly turned around and unhurriedly raised his hands.
The wind brushed through the hair on his forehead. freewebnøvel.coɱ
Although Bai Liu did nothing, he gave off a calmness that made it seem as though he had long expected to be arrested.
He obediently allowed the investigators to twist his arms behind his back and bind him.
He asked nothing.
Nor did he appear particularly afraid.
Although Bai Liu still had not figured out why he was being arrested, the investigators were clearly terrified of him.
The investigators who had broken into his room at a quarter past nine were fully armed.
Leather gloves, protective suits, and shields that Bai Liu estimated to be two or three centimeters thick, made of some unknown metal but looking extremely sturdy.
This equipment made the investigators look like a bomb disposal squad preparing to dismantle an extremely powerful explosive.
Bai Liu, unaware of when his threat level had become comparable to a bomb, dozed off in the car on the way to the bureau.
The car he was in was specialized as well.
The front and back compartments were separated by a thick metal plate, leaving only a small window about fifteen centimeters by fifteen centimeters wide.
Through that window, a young investigator could be seen swallowing nervously while aiming a gun at Bai Liu, as though afraid that this young man, bound hand and foot, would suddenly erupt.
Streetlamp light flickered through the small window and into the rear compartment where Bai Liu sat.
On the wall was a red triangular symbol depicting an octopus with viciously writhing tentacles, beside a stick-figure person whose limbs were scattered apart, blood everywhere.
A large red X had been drawn over the octopus.
Below the symbol was a warning:
[Contains unknown supernatural dangerous item. Tendency to harm humans! Please remain alert and keep your distance!]
The streaks of light flashed across Bai Liu’s expressionless face.
The investigator monitoring him through the window was so frightened that he nearly dropped his gun.
The investigator driving beside him was also startled by the movement.
“What’s wrong with it?! Has it mutated?!”
The young investigator’s voice was almost tearful.
“It! It’s breathing!”
“Calm down!” the driver snapped, taking two deep breaths himself. “It’s the first humanoid heretic monster our branch has ever captured. It’s normal for it to breathe. Don’t be so jumpy.”
—
