Free Web NovelMu Shicheng understood Bai Liu perfectly well.
Yes—between Bai Liu, Du Sanying, and himself, they clearly held the strongest advantage and should be the first group to clear the game. Once the explosion started, everyone would be too busy saving themselves to care whether Bai Liu still possessed control over them or not. As long as they survived the blast itself, nobody would have the chance to circle back and ambush Bai Liu afterward.
After a brief silence, Mu Shicheng asked:
“Out of the remaining three, who are you planning to send with the bomb?”
Bai Liu shifted ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) his gaze toward him.
“Why? Do you have a recommendation?”
Mu Shicheng hesitated slightly before answering:
“Liu Huai. I think you should choose him.”
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow.
“Reason?”
He didn’t believe Mu Shicheng was the type to make decisions purely out of personal resentment.
“It’s not personal.” Mu Shicheng’s tone was complicated, difficult to read. He avoided Bai Liu’s eyes slightly as he spoke in a low voice. “Liu Huai’s personal skill is called [Assassin Flash]. Its range is long enough to cross an entire carriage.”
“You only have one health point left. Once Zhang Kui dies, Liu Huai can break free of the puppet threads. If he wants the mirror fragments, he can instantly flash over and assassinate you.”
Mu Shicheng paused.
“My stamina’s already been drained dry and it’s recovering slowly. Against Liu Huai’s skill... I might not be able to protect you.”
At those words, Liu Huai slumped weakly.
A miserable laugh escaped him.
The moment Mu Shicheng spoke, Liu Huai already knew exactly what he was about to say.
Back then, he had used that very skill to ambush Mu Shicheng from behind and nearly kill him. It really was a lethal ability that had to be dealt with.
Closing his eyes in despair, Liu Huai silently accepted his fate.
There was no way Bai Liu—sitting at only one health point—would tolerate a player with a skill like that once control was broken.
“Oh.” Bai Liu toyed absently with the coin hanging at his chest. After seeming to think for two seconds, he suddenly spoke. “That does make sense.”
“But I already made a deal with someone earlier.”
When Bai Liu acquired the souls of Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu, he had promised them he would help them execute Li Gou.
There had been no time limit attached to that deal, but if he let Li Gou go now, the cost of dealing with him later would increase several times over.
And based on Bai Liu’s understanding of the real world, Li Gou had nearly gathered enough points and items to leave prison. If Bai Liu allowed him to clear the game and continue accumulating points, then once released, Li Gou—a criminal driven by violent impulses—might very well seek revenge against Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu.
And Bai Liu did not operate on poor cost-performance.
The plans he chose were always the ones with the highest return and the greatest efficiency.
Risk itself had never factored into Bai Liu’s calculations.
Because without risk—
There was no profit.
Bai Liu lifted his eyes calmly.
“So my choice is Li Gou.”
“He’ll carry the bomb.”
Everyone froze.
Liu Huai opened his eyes abruptly, unable to believe he had escaped death yet again.
Li Gou, on the other hand, exploded instantly.
He struggled like a madman, eyes bloodshot, desperately trying to grab his knife and charge at Bai Liu. But the moment Zhang Kui’s puppet threads tightened around him, his limbs were forcibly restrained.
Li Gou had completely lost his mind.
Even as the puppet threads cut into his flesh and made blood stream from his arms and legs, he still thrashed violently against them. Staring at Bai Liu with bloodshot eyes filled with terror and rage, he screamed:
“Bai Liu!! Why the fuck did you choose me?! Didn’t you hear what Mu Shicheng said?! Liu Huai’s the one who can kill you!! Why are you making me go die instead?!”
“I’m about to get out of prison!!!” Li Gou roared hysterically, veins bulging thickly across his neck and forehead. “You can’t let me die here!!”
For several seconds, the red-eyed Li Gou stared at Bai Liu’s utterly expressionless face.
Then, as though realizing Bai Liu would never be intimidated by him, all the strength abruptly drained from his body.
He collapsed to his knees like a heap of rotten meat.
About ten seconds later, something seemed to snap inside him again.
Li Gou suddenly began sobbing and kowtowing frantically toward Bai Liu, palms pressed together as tears and mucus streamed down his face.
“Bai Liu! I’m begging you!! Don’t make me go! Bai Liu-ge! I listened to everything you said! I never cut corners! Let Liu Huai go instead—he’s the one who wants to kill you!”
“Please, don’t choose me! Bai Liu-ge, you’re joking, right?! You’re not choosing Liu Huai even though he’s a threat, and instead you’re choosing me?!”
Even Mu Shicheng frowned disapprovingly.
“Why Li Gou? He’s far less dangerous than Liu Huai. If Liu Huai attacks you later, you’re going to be in serious trouble.”
In front of the small TV screen, Wang Shun also frowned in confusion.
“What’s going on? Bai Liu isn’t the type to suddenly go soft at the last moment. Why would he choose Li Gou? He only has one health point left.”
The other viewers were equally anxious.
“Liu Huai nearly killed someone as fast as Mu Shicheng! Even with Mu Shicheng protecting him, Bai Liu might not survive that!”
“Damn it, I seriously don’t understand Bai Liu’s choice. It makes no sense!”
Not a single viewer understood.
They were confused, worried, disappointed.
Only one couple standing quietly at the back of the crowd covered their mouths as they struggled not to cry aloud. Their bodies shook from suppressing their sobs, and they had to lean against one another just to remain standing.
Reflected in their tear-blurred eyes was Bai Liu’s pale, quiet profile on the screen.
They understood.
They knew exactly why Bai Liu had chosen Li Gou.
They knew why this young man had made such a dangerous choice for himself.
Xiang Chunhua lowered her head and cried hoarsely, cloudy tears spilling through the fingers covering her mouth. Liu Fu wiped them away with his rough, calloused hands, but his own tears had already soaked the gray hair at his temples.
“Thank you... thank you, Bai Liu.”
“Thank you.”
They were simply too exhausted.
Every day since Guoguo’s death had felt like walking through hell half-alive. Every hour had been spent drowning in guilt and torment.
Countless people had offered them sympathy.
But sympathy was fleeting.
People would comfort them for a few sentences, tell them to restrain their grief, tell them the dead were gone and life had to continue. They would say Guoguo wouldn’t want to see them suffering like this, that they should try to move on and be happy.
Then they would leave.
As though those empty words alone could heal anything.
Meanwhile, Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu clung desperately to every shred of hope, only for it to collapse over and over again. Their grief had twisted them into ugly, hysterical people who screamed day and night for someone—anyone—to make Li Gou pay.
Xiang Chunhua was no longer the warm, approachable Auntie Xiang everyone knew.
Liu Fu was no longer the honest, easygoing Uncle Liu.
Little by little, they had become people others avoided and resented.
They didn’t want to become like that either.
But if they didn’t—
Who would still remember Guoguo?
They had asked themselves that question thousands of times.
Why Guoguo?
Why did it have to be their daughter?
In their ugliest moments, they had even thought viciously about the other girls in the alley—girls prettier than Guoguo, girls luckier than Guoguo.
Why hadn’t Li Gou chosen them instead?
Why could those parents stand there pretending to pity them while saying things like:
“At least Guoguo died. If she’d survived after being violated, the rest of her life would’ve been ruined. She wouldn’t even have been able to marry. Maybe death was kinder. Maybe in her next life she can be reborn clean.”
There were so many bright, innocent girls in the world.
Before Guoguo’s death, Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu had loved children like their own daughter.
But afterward, only one thought remained:
Why wasn’t it someone else?
Why did it have to be Guoguo?
Why was Li Gou so “lucky” that the girl he picked happened to be theirs?
Li Gou crawled toward Bai Liu on his knees, only for Mu Shicheng to kick him violently away.
Blood spilled from the corner of Li Gou’s mouth.
Terrified, he scrambled backward a little before looking up at Bai Liu again. Tears streamed endlessly down his face.
“Bai Liu-ge... why me?! Even if you don’t want to choose Liu Huai, you could choose Fang Ke instead! Why does it have to be me?! Why do you have to choose me to die?!”
Bai Liu looked down at him calmly.
“If you want the honest answer, then it’s simple.”
“You’re just unlucky.”
Unlucky enough to follow Zhang Kui into the same game Bai Liu entered.
Unlucky enough to cross paths with him inside it.
Unlucky enough to become Zhang Kui’s puppet—
And unlucky enough that Zhang Kui himself had fallen completely under Bai Liu’s control.
“But if you insist on knowing the reason you’re dying...” Bai Liu crouched down slowly, looking thoughtfully at Li Gou’s tear-streaked face. “Then I can tell you.”
His voice was soft.
“Do you still remember Liu Guoguo?”
The moment he heard that name, Li Gou shuddered violently as though electrocuted.
He jerked his head upward, staring at Bai Liu in horror.
Bai Liu’s expression remained tranquil.
“If you absolutely need a logical explanation,” he said evenly, “then think of it this way.”
“You chose Liu Guoguo back then.”
“So now, I’m choosing you.”
“That’s all.”
“How... how is this because of Liu Guoguo...” Li Gou collapsed completely, sitting limply on the floor as his eyes lost focus. “She’s already dead...”
Although Li Gou had gone to prison because of Liu Guoguo, he had long since forgotten her.
To him, she had merely been a night of pleasure.
In his memories afterward, Liu Guoguo was no longer even human—just a mangled pile of flesh.
But hearing Bai Liu speak her name so clearly suddenly dragged Li Gou’s memory back to that night.
The mangled flesh in his mind abruptly pieced itself back together into a real girl.
A girl who cried.
A girl who screamed.
A girl who desperately begged him to let her go.
Back then, when Li Gou had pinned the struggling Liu Guoguo beneath him and slapped the crying high-school girl while grinning at her to stop screaming—
Liu Guoguo had begged him too.
She had screamed for help too.
She had looked up at him with empty, broken eyes, tears drying into dirty streaks across her cheeks, and asked in a hoarse voice:
Why me?
The exact same question Li Gou was now asking Bai Liu.
And back then, Li Gou had only sneered.
Holding down Liu Guoguo’s wrists with one hand while unzipping his pants with the other, he had licked his lips and laughed:
“Call yourself unlucky, little beauty. I just watched some videos and got worked up.”
The female voice of the subway announcement suddenly rang out:
“We are now approaching the next station—[Reservoir]. Passengers, please hold on securely. Boarding passengers, please line up outside the doors and allow disembarking passengers to exit first—”
Bai Liu’s eyes sharpened instantly as he swept his gaze across everyone.
“We’re arriving.”
“Li Gou, take the bomb.”
“Zhang Kui, get the mirror.”
“Mu Shicheng, stay with me.”
“Everyone else, focus entirely on collecting the mirror fragments.”
“The train is now arriving at [Reservoir]. Passengers, please prepare to board or disembark—”
Bai Liu’s voice dropped low.
“Move.”
The instant the train doors opened and the passengers surged inward, Li Gou’s body was forcibly dragged into motion by the puppet threads.
Carrying the enormous black bomb, he stumbled out of the carriage in terror.
Burning scraps of paper drifted through the entire station like embers. Sometimes they brushed past Li Gou’s face, scorching his flesh until it blistered and split open.
But under the control of the puppet threads, he couldn’t resist.
Not only couldn’t he stop—
He was forced to run directly toward the fiercest flames.
Crying uncontrollably, Li Gou dodged around the charred corpses wandering across the platform. Sometimes he failed to avoid them entirely, and fire scorched across his cheeks in agonizing bursts of pain.
But he still couldn’t stop moving.
“Bai Liu!!! I know I was wrong!! I’ll never do it again! I’m sorry for what I did to Liu Guoguo! Please spare me!!” freёwebnovel.com
His sobbing became completely hysterical.
“I shouldn’t have touched her! I know I was wrong!! Bai Liu, please let me come back! I don’t want to die! Please!!”
“If I could do it over again, I swear I’d never touch her! I swear!! If I ever do it again, may I be hacked into pieces!!!”
