Free Web NovelThe Dean led them to the ninth floor. There were far fewer patients here than on the lower levels, and their conditions didn’t appear as severe. Bai Liu judged that the patients on this floor were roughly at the same stage of illness as he was. The clearest sign was their height.
From what Bai Liu had observed so far, the more seriously ill a patient became in this hospital, the thinner and taller they grew—until they increasingly resembled that “Slender Man” creature.
Bai Six’s description had actually been remarkably accurate. The child’s sensitivity toward horrific things made Bai Liu realize that he had probably been consciously observing such matters since the age of fourteen.
There were twenty-one wards on this floor. After arranging a room for Bai Liu, the Dean informed him that she still needed to bring up the remaining investors.
Bai Liu was assigned to Room 906, located deeper inside the corridor on the left-hand side. As he surveyed the ward, he found the entire private hospital oddly unsettling.
The hospital itself was lavishly decorated, refined in every detail, yet the lighting was abysmal. Every ward was deliberately sealed off from natural light. Even during the daytime, lamps had to remain on, but the illumination they provided was so dim that it barely improved visibility. In addition, powerful humidifiers stood everywhere throughout the hospital, constantly spraying mist into the air, making the entire building feel like a southern Chinese “Returning South Sky” season, where walls and floors sweated with moisture. Water vapor hung thickly through the corridors like smog.
(T/N: Sounds a lot like the conditions mushrooms grow in...)
Avoiding light while maintaining such extreme humidity—no normal hospital would ever be designed this way. It was almost as though they were afraid the patients might survive.
The combination of darkness and dense mist reduced visibility to a minimum. If the Dean hadn’t guided him personally, Bai Liu doubted most players would even be able to find the corridors. Worse still, the moisture made both the floors and walls slick with condensation. With his current body—tall and all long limbs—it would be easy to lose his footing.
The thought gave Bai Liu a bad feeling. If this map involved a chase sequence, running was probably going to be a problem.
He glanced around the ward. There were three humidifiers inside, but only a single dim lamp.
The strangest thing, however, was the bed.
This was supposed to be an upscale private hospital. Everything else reflected that image—even the bathroom faucets were molded into gilded lion heads. Yet the bed—
Bai Liu lifted the white sheet and raised an eyebrow at the bundle of straw underneath.
It was a straw mattress.
The last time Bai Liu had seen one of these was during childhood, in the comparatively impoverished welfare home where he had grown up. Straw beds were uncomfortable and troublesome, but they were also cheap.
For straw to remain usable, it had to stay dry. Once damp, it rotted easily, attracted insects, and left people covered in itchy red bites. In excessively humid conditions, mushrooms could even start growing out of it.
(T/N: I love when I make a speculative note not knowing what’s coming next, then having my note proved true like three seconds later.)
For example, in the corner of Bai Liu’s bed, after lifting the sheet, he discovered a dense cluster of gray mushrooms sprouting from the straw and spreading all the way toward the wooden bookshelf beside the bed.
Using a straw mattress in a room with three humidifiers effectively turned the bed into a fungal incubator. The straw would rot almost immediately, then become infested with insects, maggots, and mushrooms—countless decomposers crawling over the body of whoever slept there.
In short, during the rainy season in his childhood, Bai Liu would rather sleep on the floor than on a straw mattress.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu (Investor Identity) has triggered the Main Quest — Search for the “Life-Saving Remedy” capable of alleviating your terminal illness.]
A Life-Saving Remedy...
Where exactly was he supposed to find one?
If this had been an ordinary private hospital staffed with doctors, Bai Liu would already have searched the offices for prescription pads and medicine cabinets.
But there were no doctors here. fгeewebnovёl.com
Only nurses pushed stainless steel carts through the corridors. Earlier, when Bai Liu passed the nurses’ station, he had glanced inside. There were no IV bags, no pills, no syringes, not even infusion tubing. The room was practically empty aside from several waist-high steel carts that looked more suited for delivering cafeteria meals than medical treatment.
In a hospital without doctors, medicine, or equipment—one populated only by patients—how was anyone supposed to find a “life-saving remedy” for a terminal illness?
...Only patients.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes and turned toward the bookshelf in the ward.
Behind the door, beside the bed, stood a large bookshelf. He had ignored it earlier because it was crammed with old books. At first glance, it looked too cluttered to contain any meaningful clue—novels, atlases, and all kinds of miscellaneous reading material were packed together so tightly that the shelves were overflowing.
If Bai Liu himself had designed this game, he wouldn’t have hidden a clue inside such a tedious setup. Forcing players to sift through an entire two-meter bookshelf without guidance was simply boring.
Unless there was an exception.
Unless the bookshelf didn’t contain just one clue.
Unless most of the information here was meant to be discovered.
[System Notification: Congratulations to Player Bai Liu for triggering the side quest — Search the Medical Books for a “Life-Saving Remedy.”]
Just as expected.
Bai Liu quickly sorted through the books, tossing aside anything obviously irrelevant to the dungeon, such as old women’s magazines. The remaining pile hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Medical books.
Every single one.
Chinese medicine, Western medicine, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics—even entire English-language medical journals. The stack weighed dozens of kilograms at least.
Finding a “Life-Saving Remedy” hidden somewhere among all these medical texts, without any medical background whatsoever, was practically impossible for Bai Liu.
Yet as he stared at the untouched pile, a faint sense of dissonance surfaced in his mind.
There were no doctors in this hospital, meaning these books could not have been intended for medical staff. Whoever placed them here had clearly expected the reader to possess at least some degree of medical knowledge.
And these books had been left for the people staying in this ward.
For the investors.
Which meant this private hospital did have doctors after all.
The patients themselves were the doctors.
They diagnosed and treated themselves while studying medical texts—patients unlike any normal patients.
Every investor here was obviously wealthy, so why didn’t they trust professional doctors? Why insist on self-treatment instead? Was it because ordinary doctors could no longer cure them? But if even doctors were helpless, then these books should have had little value. Everything written inside them would already have been known to medical professionals.
Bai Liu contemplated the problem briefly.
All the investors here were terminally ill. Which meant that, aside from him, some people must already have begun treatment. In other words, someone had already found and used the “Life-Saving Remedy.”
Newly admitted patients, however, were not given the remedy freely. They had to discover it themselves from this mountain of books.
Unfortunately, Bai Liu had never been particularly diligent during his student years. His efficiency plummeted whenever he was forced to study subjects that failed to interest him. Most of his grades had been mediocre at best.
So whenever Bai Liu couldn’t be bothered to study—or simply couldn’t find the answer—he shamelessly copied someone else’s homework instead.
Back in school, he usually copied Lu Yizhan’s work, because the top student’s answers were always the most reliable.
But inside this game...
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
The important question now was:
Whose homework should he copy?
Who in this hospital could solve the answer hidden within these books faster and more accurately than anyone else?
————————
Mu Ke was also escorted into the private hospital by the Dean. After searching the bookshelf in his own ward, he triggered the same quest to find the Life-Saving Remedy through the medical books.
Now he sat beside the bed, staring at the mountain of texts.
Ever since graduation, he had rarely touched books, much less medical tomes this thick. The room’s lighting was so poor that he could barely distinguish someone standing a meter away, let alone read comfortably. At first, Mu Ke considered buying a desk lamp from the system shop, but the system immediately issued a warning:
“The ward requires minimal light exposure. High-intensity lighting equipment is prohibited. Are you sure you still wish to purchase this item?”
In other words, he could buy it, but he wouldn’t be allowed to use it inside the ward.
Mu Ke then thought about carrying the books elsewhere to read under brighter lighting.
But the moment he stepped into the corridor with a book in hand, he froze.
A nurse pushing a stainless steel cart was patrolling outside. Her face remained utterly expressionless as she stopped him and warned him not to remove items from the ward. Furthermore, newly admitted patients were forbidden from wandering the hospital freely and were required to remain inside their rooms.
So taking the books out was impossible.
Frowning, Mu Ke retreated back inside.
He had no choice but to continue reading beneath this miserable, underworld-like lighting.
But after only a short while, a feeling of helplessness settled over him. His reading speed was normally exceptional, yet under these conditions his efficiency dropped dramatically. Worse, the information lacked any obvious direction. Piecing together a truly effective treatment plan—or the so-called “Life-Saving Remedy”—from such chaotic material was extraordinarily difficult.
Mu Ke realized that simply reading the books would not be enough to reach the correct answer.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of any better method.
After all, the game’s hints were painfully direct. It explicitly told players to search for the answer among the bookshelves, and studying was one of Mu Ke’s greatest strengths.
He lowered his gaze toward the medical text in his hand and let out a weary sigh.
It had been a very long time since he’d experienced this sensation—the frustration of reading without being able to find an answer.
Mu Ke had been an academic prodigy since childhood. After entering middle school, he had skipped several grades in succession. Even after entering the game, his Intelligence stat had reached an impressive 85.
His reading speed, memory, and comprehension abilities were all exceptional.
Under normal lighting conditions, he was confident he could finish these books, organize the clues, and deduce the answer within three days.
He wanted desperately to find the Life-Saving Remedy as quickly as possible and hand it over to Bai Liu.
But reality was suffocatingly restrictive.
In an entire hour, he had managed to finish only one book.
This was nowhere near his actual level.
While Mu Ke was considering what to do next, his system panel suddenly vibrated.
An unfamiliar item had appeared in his inventory.
Mu Ke hadn’t purchased anything recently. Which meant only one thing:
Bai Liu had bought it.
Because Bai Liu could remotely access Mu Ke’s system panel to make purchases, this had become one of their methods of communication.
Now that they were both confined to separate wards, using the system shop to exchange items was discreet enough to avoid drawing suspicion.
Mu Ke opened the storage interface to inspect the newly acquired item.
Audiences could view the system shop, but the warehouse itself remained hidden behind a blur to protect player privacy. In other words, the viewers watching from the “small TVs” had no way of knowing what Bai Liu and Mu Ke were exchanging.
The only circumstance in which their communication could be exposed would be if Mu Ke died unexpectedly.
If that happened, any communication-related item on his body would drop as loot for the player who killed him. A notebook, for instance, or a voice recorder, could instantly reveal traces of contact between him and Bai Liu.
Of course, they could always encrypt messages with passwords. But then another issue arose—how could Bai Liu guarantee that Mu Ke would immediately understand the code while their enemies could not?
Bai Liu disliked exposing information about himself to opponents.
So instead of choosing any ordinary communication tool—
He bought Mu Ke a black keyboard.
A keyboard was something both Bai Liu and Mu Ke were intimately familiar with. More importantly, unlike notebooks, paper scraps, or recording devices—which left obvious traces—communicating through the arrangement of removable keycaps left virtually no evidence behind.
Once the exchange was over, the keyboard could be restored to normal, as though nothing had ever happened.
Moreover, the “passwords” hidden within the keyboard were codes that both Bai Liu and Mu Ke, as game developers, could decipher almost instantly.
Even if Mu Ke died and the keyboard dropped as loot, no enemy would immediately suspect it was a communication device, much less realize that information had been concealed within it.
Of course, Bai Liu had another reason for choosing a keyboard.
While browsing the system’s discount shop, he happened to notice that this particular keyboard cost less than ten points. It looked practical enough, so he bought it on impulse.
Mu Ke froze when he saw it.
The [Ctrl] and [C] keycaps had been removed.
It was one of the most common shortcut combinations on a keyboard:
[Ctrl] + [C] — Copy.
Copy?
Copy what?
At a time like this, shouldn’t they be focused on finding the Life-Saving Remedy?
...Wait.
Mu Ke abruptly understood.
Bai Liu wanted to copy the Life-Saving Remedy.
He wanted to steal the treatment method directly?!
But was that even possible? Where exactly was he planning to steal it from? There were so many wards in this hospital—had Bai Liu already figured out which room contained the Life-Saving Remedy?
Mu Ke stared at the keyboard for a long moment, thinking carefully. Then, hesitantly, he removed the [?] and [NumLock] keycaps and placed the keyboard back into his warehouse. After that, he waited anxiously for Bai Liu’s response, worried that the other party might not understand what he meant.
[NumLock] was the numeric keypad lock key, but interpreted literally, it could also mean “lock the number.” Combined with the [?] keycap, Mu Ke’s intended message was straightforward:
[Bai Liu, which number should we lock onto?]
Every ward in the hospital was identified by numbers. As long as Bai Liu told him which number to target, Mu Ke would immediately know which room he intended to investigate.
Before long, the keyboard disappeared from Mu Ke’s warehouse.
A short while later, it returned.
This time, the [Ctrl] and [C] keycaps had been restored—but three other keycaps were missing.
“1, 7, 0.”
Mu Ke frowned in confusion.
If this referred to a room number, then 0 could not appear in the first position. Which meant the only possible arrangements were:
[701]
[710]
[107]
The seventh floor contained only operating rooms. There were no wards there.
As for [107], that was even stranger.
There was no Room 107 in this hospital at all.
The numbering existed, but the actual ward did not. It had likely been removed and converted into storage or some other facility while retaining the numerical designation. Rooms 106 and 108 existed, but 107 was missing.
Mu Ke found himself stumped.
He silently rearranged the three numbers in every possible combination, then suddenly sat upright.
This private hospital indeed had no ward numbers containing English letters—
But there was one special ward without a numerical designation.
The ICU.
The ICU ward on the first floor lacked a room number entirely, and aside from that area, the entire floor was packed with ordinary wards.
Which meant the ICU was highly likely to be the “blank ward” occupying the nonexistent [107] designation.
Bai Liu hadn’t directly written “ICU” because there was more than one ICU ward in the hospital. Without a specific number, the information could easily become ambiguous. Since Mu Ke had explicitly asked for a “number,” Bai Liu had simply chosen the most precise designation available.
Naturally, Bai Liu never once considered whether the other person could actually keep up with the absurd leaps in his logic.
Fortunately, Mu Ke’s memory and analytical abilities were excellent. He successfully pieced together Bai Liu’s intended meaning.
Bai Liu wanted to infiltrate the ICU and steal the treatment method from the critically ill patient inside.
“Damn it...”
Mu Ke couldn’t help cursing under his breath.
The patients inside the ICU were the original resident investors of the hospital—the grotesque figures over two meters tall who looked barely human. They were almost certainly the dungeon’s monsters.
And according to the nurses, those ICU patients never left their rooms.
So how exactly were they supposed to break in and steal the Life-Saving Remedy?
Worse, there was no guarantee that the so-called remedy was even there.
Bai Liu, however, was almost certain that the ICU contained the “Life-Saving Remedy” mentioned by the system.
If the patients here were functioning as doctors, then among a group of newly admitted “novice doctors,” the ward most likely to contain a treatment plan would naturally belong to the “senior doctor” who had been sick the longest and spent the most time researching the illness.
Which meant the ICU was, in Bai Liu’s opinion, the location most likely to hold the remedy.
Whether he could actually obtain it, however, was another matter entirely.
The ICU patients barely resembled humans anymore, and they remained inside their wards at all times. Bai Liu had no obvious opportunity to enter, nor did he know whether trespassing would immediately provoke a violent attack from the patient—or rather, the monster.
After all, he wasn’t entering with good intentions.
He was planning to loot the place.
That carried obvious risks.
But the rewards were equally substantial.
If successful, Bai Liu would become the first player to obtain the Life-Saving Remedy. That alone would give him enormous leverage over the other players, allowing him to trade it for countless advantages.
Still, two major problems remained.
First:
How was he supposed to get inside?
Nurses constantly patrolled the corridors. Even minor violations of hospital regulations were immediately corrected, let alone forcibly entering the ICU. Any player attempting it would first need to identify a gap in the patrol routes.
The problem was that these nurses possessed terrifyingly sharp senses and moved unnervingly fast. At the very least, Bai Liu was certain that on these slippery floors, he couldn’t outrun women sprinting in stilettos.
Second:
Even if he managed to enter, how was he supposed to steal anything?
The patients inside those wards were deeply abnormal—almost certainly monsters. Looting items directly in front of them would not be easy.
Before Bai Liu could formulate a concrete plan, night fell.
At nine o’clock sharp, the nurses announced curfew.
All patients were forbidden from leaving their wards.
The only sounds echoing through the corridors were the squeaking wheels of stainless steel carts being pushed back and forth. Nurses rotated shifts while patrolling the hallways. If even the faintest sliver of light leaked beneath a ward door, they would stop and knock, ordering the patient to switch off the lights and go to sleep.
It reminded Bai Liu of the dorm supervisors from his high school days.
Except these nurses were far less friendly.
Bai Liu cracked open the door for a brief look outside. The sight immediately reminded him of the nurse monsters from Silent Hill.
Through the humidifier mist drifting thickly across the corridors, nurses in high heels moved silently back and forth, their expressions stiff and lifeless.
Their vision was horrifyingly sharp.
Despite the near-zero visibility, Bai Liu had barely opened the door a crack before one of them noticed him.
Fluorescent green light glowed from the nurse’s eyes like those of a cat in the dark. She fixed her gaze directly on Bai Liu from the far end of the corridor, then began rushing toward him while pushing her cart, high heels clacking sharply against the floor.
Bai Liu immediately slammed the door shut and locked it twice.
Moments later, the screech of braking wheels stopped outside Room 906.
The nurse pounded heavily against the door.
“Patient in Room 906,” she said in a low voice, “did you just open the door?”
“Haven’t you read the hospital regulations? Leaving your ward is strictly prohibited after nine in the evening. Ward doors may only be opened after nine in the morning.”
Her voice grew increasingly severe as she continued pounding on the door hard enough to make it rattle in the dead silence of the night.
Naturally, Bai Liu had no intention of opening it.
After banging for a while longer, the nurse finally spoke again in a drawn-out, eerie tone.
“If you insist on opening your ward door during prohibited hours, the hospital will not be responsible for your personal safety should something crawl into your room.”
Then she pushed her cart away.
“Something...”
Bai Liu frowned slightly.
Whatever roamed the corridors at night clearly wasn’t normal.
But more importantly—
The restricted hours were suspicious.
Patients were forbidden from opening their ward doors after nine at night and before nine in the morning.
And those exact hours coincided perfectly with the designated calling times for the children:
6:00–9:00 AM
9:00 PM–12:00 AM
In other words, the only time children were allowed to contact investors was precisely when the investors themselves were forbidden from leaving their wards.
And according to the nurse, this was also when “something” came out to roam the hospital.
Which meant Bai Six was taking a considerable risk every time he called.
At nine-thirty, just when Bai Liu assumed there would be no call tonight, the walkie-talkie suddenly rang.
Bai Liu picked it up.
Static crackled from the old-fashioned device, mixed with the sound of rapid footsteps and harsh breathing. It sounded as though someone was sprinting at full speed while clutching the transceiver.
Bai Liu remained silent.
He waited until the breathing on the other end steadied slightly before a voice finally spoke.
“Hold on a second. Something’s chasing me.”
The instant Bai Six said those words, Bai Liu’s system interface popped open.
[System Notification: Congratulations to Player Bai Liu for unlocking a sub-identity Monster Book entry.]
[Updating “Love Welfare Home Monster Book” — Deformed Child (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Deformed Child]
[Characteristics: Extremely high movement speed (350–600)]
[Weakness: ??? (Undiscovered)]
[Attack Method: Enjoys “playing” with players’ sub-identities. During play, the sub-identity may permanently disappear from the welfare home.]
About five minutes later, the rustling sound of fabric brushing against something came through the receiver. Bai Six seemed to have hidden somewhere. Lowering his voice, he finally spoke again. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
“Okay. It lost me for now. You can talk.”
Though there were slight fluctuations in Bai Six’s breathing, his voice remained remarkably calm.
He didn’t sound afraid of the thing pursuing him at all.
Bai Liu asked, “What’s chasing you?”
“A child,” Bai Six answered, his breathing still uneven. “Squatting on the ground and chasing me on all fours like a monkey. Very thin. Smiles and drools constantly. Looks strange—like a natural-born idiot with low intelligence.”
From Bai Six’s description, Bai Liu understood.
He had lived in a welfare home before as well, and children with Down syndrome had very distinct features: slanted eyes, a flat bridge of the nose, a wide mouth, round swollen cheeks, a very short neck, widely spaced eyes, and pupils that tended to roll upward. Back then, Bai Liu had heard some children in the welfare home mockingly call them “frogs,” because they really did look somewhat frog-like.
Now, imagining such a frog-like child crouching on the ground, looking up while drooling and laughing “ge-ge-ge” as it chased after Bai Six...
It was fortunate that Bai Six was obsessed with money and willing to call him for the sake of payment. Otherwise, any normal child would have been frightened to tears long ago, let alone kept running without hanging up.
“Has he left?” Bai Liu asked.
“No.”
The instant Bai Six answered, Bai Liu heard laughter from the other end of the line, followed by the sound of limbs striking the ground. Cloth scraped over dirt and gravel in rapid succession.
The sound was incredibly fast, producing a hiss like a snake slithering forward.
Clearly, the child chasing Bai Six was moving at terrifying speed.
After that single “no,” Bai Six went silent again.
Through the receiver, Bai Liu could hear only Bai Six’s rapid breathing, his pounding footsteps, the child’s innocent laughter, and the continuous si-si-si of trouser fabric dragging against the ground, following him like a shadow.
The sound grew closer and louder.
Judging by how much fabric seemed to be scraping against the ground, the child chasing Bai Six was probably dragging the lower half of his body as he moved.
And he was about to catch up.
Bai Liu didn’t speak.
He waited quietly, careful not to disturb Bai Six while he was being pursued.
About five minutes later, Bai Six finally spoke again, panting.
“It’s fine now.”
“You lost him?” Bai Liu asked.
“No. He went after someone else.” Bai Six’s tone held no sympathy whatsoever. “Other children came out to make calls too. They got chased the moment they stepped out. Now they’re crying and running, so that child stopped chasing me.”
Bai Liu understood.
There was likely only one strange child roaming the welfare home at night. Now that its aggro had shifted to someone else, Bai Six was temporarily safe.
He asked, “What’s the situation on your side? What happened after the Dean took you in?”
“After we were brought inside, everything followed the normal procedure. The welfare home staff assigned us rooms. I’m staying with three other newly arrived boys. The blind girl lives in another building opposite ours. All of us are on the first floor.”
Bai Six’s thoughts remained very clear. After briefly summarizing the general situation, he began reporting the points Bai Liu would most likely care about.
His breathing still hadn’t fully steadied.
“Our children’s phones were originally supposed to be confiscated. The teachers here strictly forbid us from carrying communication devices. But later, they said we were new and needed an adjustment period, so they allowed us to keep them for one week. They also set call times for us—the same hours you mentioned. And they said we’re not allowed to make calls inside the rooms because it would disturb others’ rest.”
“Also, every teacher and childcare worker I met warned me not to follow the sound of a flute at night. They said if I heard a flute, I shouldn’t go outside, because the person playing it would kidnap children.”
Bai Six’s tone remained extremely calm.
“Then, at 9:03 PM, I heard someone playing a vertical flute outside. Wu-wu-wu, playing a few messy nursery rhymes.”
“I didn’t want to go out, but the flute player’s timing was too coincidental—right after nine o’clock. Still, there was no helping it. You said you’d pay me based on the duration of every call I made to you, so I came out anyway.”
Don’t follow the sound of the flute.
Bai Liu pondered silently.
In the real-world welfare home case, there had been a similar detail. Those four children were said to have gone outside voluntarily after hearing flute music, then disappeared.
Bai Liu immediately thought of a fairy tale.
“They told you not to follow the flute, or you’d be kidnapped,” Bai Liu said thoughtfully. “What does that remind you of?”
Bai Six fell silent for a moment.
“Since you’re asking, I assume we’re thinking of the same thing. The Pied Piper of Hamelin, I think.”
“That’s the one,” Bai Liu said. “It’s a British children’s poem.”
The story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin told of a town suffering from a rat plague. The townspeople were tormented by swarms of rats and tried every method they could think of, but nothing worked.
Then a piper dressed in colorful pied clothing came to the town. He claimed that his flute could lead the rats away, but demanded payment in return.
The townspeople agreed.
The piper began to play, and rats emerged from every corner of the town, forming a line behind him. As he walked and played, the rats followed happily, never straying from his side.
The piper led them into a small river. The water rose to his waist.
The rats followed him in as well, and every last one drowned in the waist-deep water, floating away down the river.
The plague ended, and the townspeople rejoiced.
But they broke their promise and refused to pay the piper.
So the piper played his flute once more.
This time, when the music sounded, what emerged from every direction of the town were the townspeople’s children.
The children laughed and played, lining up behind the piper just as the rats had done before. They skipped after him, delighted. No matter how the townspeople cried or tried to stop them, the children never looked back.
The piper led them away from the town.
And they were never seen again.
Some versions said the piper led the children to the same waist-deep river and drowned them in revenge. Others said he turned them into rats, sending them to plague the next town so he could continue collecting rewards.
“Did you see who was playing the flute?” Bai Liu asked.
Bai Six recalled for a moment.
“No. The sound came from every direction. I think there may be more than one person. But whoever it is, they aren’t very good. They played several wrong notes. They’ve been repeating the same few nursery rhymes for more than half an hour. It feels like a beginner practicing.”
“Did any children come out after hearing the flute?” Bai Liu continued.
“No.”
This time, Bai Six answered very quickly.
“Except for the newcomer room where we’re staying, which has no teachers sleeping inside to watch over us, all the other rooms have teachers or childcare workers accompanying the children. So only we could come out to make calls.”
From the other end of the line came the shrill, piercing cries of children and the airy, foolish laughter of the child chasing them.
As though only just remembering, Bai Six added, “By the way, the one being chased right now is Little Miao Feichi, the child of another investor.”
“Little Miao Feichi?” Bai Liu asked with interest. “Why did he come out to make a call? Ah, right. That child has a rather nasty habit. Stay away from him.”
Bai Six asked, “What habit?”
Bai Liu said, “He likes eating human flesh.”
The other end of the line fell silent.
Then Bai Six’s calm, rational voice sounded again.
“Then I understand why he came out at night. He probably saw that child crawling on the ground and wanted to come out. I thought he ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) was making a call, but after what you said, he may have only used that as an excuse to come out and hunt.”
Unfortunately, he had run into a hard target.
“I have a bit of a grudge with that child’s investor,” Bai Liu said. “Don’t interact with him too much.”
“Then do you need me to do anything for you?” Bai Six’s tone remained flat even when discussing such malicious things, not at all like that of a fourteen-year-old boy. “For example, trip him so he falls and gets caught and killed?”
“But if I do something for you, you have to pay me.”
“Mm, no need for now. Just protect yourself. You’re more important to me than he is.”
Bai Liu stroked his chin and chuckled.
“I don’t remember being this bold at your age, daring to do such lawless things.”
Bai Six replied indifferently, “Maybe because when you were my age, you never met an investor willing to pay you an astronomical amount just to chat—and who clearly wasn’t a good person?”
Bai Liu paused subtly at that.
He remembered his fourteen-year-old self.
...He had to admit that if Lu Yizhan hadn’t been so determined to drag him onto the path of a law-abiding citizen back then, and if he had met an investor willing to pay him to do whatever he wanted, he really might have done things like this.
“You don’t need to worry about Little Miao Feichi,” Bai Liu said, naturally changing the subject. “But if you run into two other children and they’re in danger, help them.”
“One is named Mu Ke. The other is that blind girl.”
“Of course, I’ll pay you for helping them too.”
Bai Six’s tone turned slightly strange.
“You want to save both this boy and this girl? What’s your relationship with them? You’re paying me to save them? They do look quite good...”
“What are you thinking?” Bai Liu immediately understood Bai Six’s implication and felt somewhat speechless.
Bai Six’s evaluation of his adult self’s moral standards was far too low.
“She’s the child a friend of mine wants to adopt. I’m not as bad as you think. I’m not interested in children.”
Then, considering his usual habit of valuing money over his life, Bai Liu added, “But no matter what you do to help them, your own safety comes first. You are the most important one to me. Remember that.”
On the other end, Bai Six went quiet for several seconds.
He didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he said without emotion, “Call duration: seventeen minutes and three seconds. I’ll round it down for you—seventeen minutes. One hundred per minute. Total: one thousand seven hundred.”
“You said it yourself. Remember to settle the bill.”
“And also, you don’t suit the ‘good person’ persona at all, so don’t say those concerned-sounding things to me.”
Bai Six’s voice was expressionless.
“They’re disgusting to hear, Mr. Investor.”
With that, Bai Six decisively hung up.
Bai Liu: “...”
About a minute later, the walkie-talkie rang again.
Bai Liu picked it up, only to hear the same courteous, emotionless voice from the other end:
“By the way, Mr. Investor, I fell three times tonight. Please reimburse the medical expenses. I’ll ask the Dean to send you the bill.”
“Good night.”
Click.
Hung up again.
Bai Liu slowly lowered the walkie-talkie and muttered to himself in genuine disbelief,
“...Was I really this irritating when I was fourteen?”
