The nurses finally arrived and carried Bai Liu and Liu Huai downstairs.
The entire night was destined to descend into chaos.
Mu Ke followed anxiously behind them. Even the child monsters roaming the hospital seemed to have been frightened by the tremendous explosion, disappearing one after another into the darkness.
After some rushed and highly unprofessional emergency treatment, Bai Liu and Liu Huai—who had suffered little actual damage from the explosion itself and were mainly weakened from severe blood loss—were quickly wheeled out of surgery and returned to their original ward.
The nurses had initially intended to transfer them to the ICU, but the unit was already overcrowded with critical patients. Compared to the others, Bai Liu and Liu Huai’s injuries were considered minor, so they were left in an ordinary ward instead.
Meanwhile, Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, whose conditions were far more serious, had been moved into the ICU on the second floor. Both remained unconscious and likely wouldn’t wake anytime soon.
Bai Liu had naturally considered going downstairs immediately to finish the two of them off, but unfortunately, the ICU was packed with nurses. There was no opportunity to slip inside unnoticed.
More importantly, none of them currently possessed any meaningful combat capability.
Liu Huai had lost both arms. Bai Liu’s stamina and health points were nearly depleted—someone could probably kill him with a single shove. Mu Ke was in slightly better shape, but even he only had six health points remaining.
Even if Mu Ke took a dagger downstairs and started stabbing them, Miao Gaojiang’s defense was so absurdly high that Mu Ke could slash at him for an entire hour without breaking through it.
And if they accidentally woke those two monsters up, the ones dying first would probably be themselves.
For now, remaining still was the smartest option.
After all, they had already accomplished most of what they came for.
Bai Liu and Mu Ke’s original wards had been destroyed in the explosion, leaving them nowhere to return to. Because hospital beds had become scarce after Bai Liu’s stunt, they also couldn’t stay with the other monster investors. After some coordination, the nurses reluctantly arranged for the three of them to stay together in Liu Huai’s room—Ward 501.
Liu Huai lay on the hospital bed while Bai Liu and Mu Ke tore pages from old books to spread across the floor, making themselves a place to sleep for the night.
But after arranging his makeshift bedding, Bai Liu didn’t lie down.
Instead, he pulled a pen from the bedside drawer, spread several torn pages across his knees, and began writing and sketching across them seemingly at random.
Mu Ke leaned over curiously.
“Bai Liu, what are you writing?”
“I’m organizing the clues,” Bai Liu replied calmly. “Both the ones inside the game and the ones outside it.”
“Oh, right! Speaking of clues—” Mu Ke suddenly remembered something and immediately straightened up. “When I was going through the medical records downstairs, I noticed something strange. The Life-Saving Remedy claims that the meaning of [Pure Bloodline] is that children with blood relations produce the best results...”
Mu Ke frowned.
“But when I checked the actual records, most of the children chosen for blood extraction had absolutely no blood relation to the investors at all.”
“And despite that, the treatment effects were still remarkably good,” Bai Liu continued without even looking up. “People like us, whose NPC children were directly assigned blood relations by the system, are actually the minority.”
“From both a realistic and practical perspective, most investors would never use their own biological children for something like this. They don’t come to welfare homes specifically searching for blood relatives.”
As he spoke, Bai Liu casually sketched a small square house to represent the welfare home, then drew several thin stick-like figures beside it to symbolize the investors.
Between them, he wrote:
[High probability of no blood relation]
His pen tapped lightly against the page.
“So ‘Pure Bloodline’ clearly has more than one meaning within the Life-Saving Remedy. Blood relation is only one layer of it. That definition probably applies exclusively to players like us whose identities were generated by the system.”
“For the other investors here—and for the entrepreneurs in reality—‘Pure Bloodline’ obviously refers to something else entirely.”
Mu Ke nodded immediately.
“That means children who satisfy the conditions for [Pure Bloodline] aren’t limited to biological relatives. There must be another standard entirely.”
He hesitated.
“But I still can’t figure out exactly what criteria the investors use when selecting children for blood extraction.”
“If [Pure Bloodline] referred to matching blood types, then according to the records, there were numerous inconsistencies between the investors and the children, whether classified under ABO or Rh systems.”
“I also compared their biochemical indicators, hemoglobin levels, and even their regional backgrounds. I memorized all of it, but I still couldn’t identify the standard these investors were using.”
Mu Ke’s brows tightened.
“And after reading through so many files, I noticed another strange thing...”
“A huge percentage of the selected children weren’t healthy at all.”
“They all had congenital defects,” Bai Liu interrupted calmly. “Or more precisely, congenital diseases.”
Mu Ke looked startled.
“Yes! Exactly! Why do the investors prefer children with serious congenital conditions instead of healthy ones?”
“I’d already considered that possibility before,” Bai Liu said quietly. “But at the time, I assumed only someone with a brain wired as abnormally as mine would even think in that direction.”
He lowered his eyes and drew a little girl beside the welfare home.
Then he shaded over her eyes in black ink.
“But Liu Jiayi’s background verified my suspicions.”
His tone became unreadable.
“This so-called [Pure Bloodline] has nothing to do with blood type, hemoglobin levels, or any physiological indicators.”
“It refers to the purity of their bloodline in an ethical sense.”
“They are children born from inbreeding.”
“That’s why they’re filled with congenital defects.”
(T/N: This arc is seriously messed up.)
[System Notification: Congratulations, player Bai Liu, for unlocking a hidden branch of the main identity route—the true meaning of Pure Bloodline.]
[System Notification: Among all the children, there exists one special child whose blood alone is enough to save an investor player. No repeated blood irrigation is required, nor any blood relation. They are the universal antidote child within the game “Love Welfare Home.” Guess who it is?]
Silence swallowed the ward whole.
Several long minutes passed before Mu Ke finally spoke in a tiny, horrified voice.
“...No way.”
“These investors are deliberately searching for children with congenital disorders?”
Bai Liu casually drew a square and a circle connected by a line. Above them, he wrote:
[Aa] [Aa]
It was a simple genetic inheritance chart.
“Under normal circumstances, almost everyone carries recessive defective genes,” Bai Liu explained calmly. “Inbreeding dramatically increases the probability of those recessive genes concentrating together, resulting in congenital deformities.”
“The probability itself is called the coefficient of inbreeding.”
“My medical knowledge isn’t particularly advanced, but I researched related material while designing games. Inbreeding also greatly increases the likelihood of chromosomal abnormalities.”
Mu Ke’s expression became complicated.
What kind of horrifying material does Bai Liu usually study while developing games...?
No wonder most of his projects never pass censorship.
“The [Pure Bloodline] children these investors want are not directly equivalent to ‘deformed children,’” Mu Ke muttered thoughtfully. “Inbreeding increases the probability of deformities, but not every disabled child is born from inbreeding.”
“The relationship between the two isn’t absolute.”
He looked back up.
“But when these children arrive at the welfare home, most don’t even have names, let alone known family histories. The only information recorded is their place of origin.”
“So how do the investors determine whether they qualify as [Pure Bloodline]?”
“There’s a screening process,” Bai Liu finally said, lifting his eyes.
“They first gather children with specific congenital conditions—albinism, congenital heart disease, cases like Liu Jiayi’s.”
“Then they filter the remaining children from there.”
Mu Ke still looked confused.
“But without any parental information, how do they confirm the inbreeding standard?”
“There is a way.”
Bai Liu’s voice remained flat.
“You’ve already seen the screening process yourself.”
Mu Ke froze.
“I... have?”
Then his eyes widened as he stared at the drawing in Bai Liu’s hand.
A large mushroom.
Blood Lingzhi.
“The mushroom poisoning incident...” Mu Ke whispered blankly.
“Blood Lingzhi is a parasitic fungus that grows ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ by feeding on children’s blood,” Bai Liu explained while absentmindedly sketching over the mushroom. “And it can only properly develop using the blood of a [Pure Bloodline] child.”
“The mushroom itself functions as a perfect screening tool.”
“If a child consumes it and becomes parasitized without displaying severe poisoning symptoms—showing only mild anemia instead—it means the Blood Lingzhi is feeding on that child’s blood.”
“That child satisfies the conditions for [Pure Bloodline].”
“In reality, mushroom poisoning incidents occur at the welfare home from time to time. I suspect they’ve been using controlled doses to secretly screen children for years.”
“The children who showed no poisoning symptoms after ingestion—the successful [Pure Bloodline] candidates—would later ‘disappear’ around Children’s Day after brief verification by the investors.”
Bai Liu’s tone remained lazy and detached.
“As for whether those children truly ran away... or were quietly transported to investors’ homes to serve as living blood bags after selection...”
“That’s difficult to say.”
Goosebumps spread across Mu Ke’s arms.
“But then...” he asked hesitantly, “Liu Jiayi’s poisoning incident this time doesn’t make sense...”
“Exactly!” Liu Huai suddenly shouted hoarsely from the hospital bed, terror filling his eyes. “At that point there were already no investors left coming to the welfare home! So why would a large-scale poisoning incident still happen?!”
Bai Liu slowly raised his eyes toward him.
“In reality, the welfare home was already on the verge of collapse.”
“No one wanted to take over these abandoned ‘commodities.’”
“But the true value of those commodities was extraordinary.”
“They were equivalent to life itself.”
His voice remained frighteningly calm.
“If you were the person managing those commodities... what would you do?”
Liu Huai stared at Bai Liu in horrified disbelief, clearly disturbed by how coldly he could compare children to merchandise.
But Bai Liu remained completely unmoved.
“If I were the Dean of this welfare home,” he continued evenly, “I would begin independently screening the children myself in order to extract greater value from those commodities.”
“I would select the most useful ones, eliminate the useless ones wasting resources, and use the high-quality products as bargaining chips to approach new investors.”
As he spoke, Bai Liu glanced toward Mu Ke.
Mu Ke suddenly remembered that his own father had once considered investing in this welfare home.
He immediately waved his hands frantically.
“My dad wouldn’t do something like that! Even if he isn’t some saint, he still has basic morals! If the Dean proposed something so horrifying, there’s no way he’d agree!”
“Really?”
Bai Liu’s voice suddenly softened.
He leaned slightly forward.
Mu Ke instinctively retreated several steps under Bai Liu’s gaze.
In the dim hospital ward, Bai Liu’s pitch-black eyes seemed almost ghostlike, carrying an unsettling intensity that made it feel as though he were dragging the ugliest thoughts hidden deep within someone’s heart out into the open.
“What if I told your father this?”
Bai Liu spoke quietly.
‘These five children are already being drained dry by the Blood Lingzhi inside their bodies. Even if you do nothing, they’re going to die soon anyway.’
‘If you report this to the police, I’ll kill them immediately.’
‘You’re not harming them. You’re simply making use of lives that would otherwise be wasted.’
‘You’re getting older too. Cancer, hypertension—those things are inevitable eventually. Don’t you want insurance for yourself?’
‘Your child has congenital heart disease too, doesn’t he? Blood Lingzhi can cure every illness. Including your son’s.’
‘Just let these children live happily for a few short years before they die.’
‘They’re disabled children. Even if they grow up, society will never truly accept them.’
‘Some of them suffer from severe congenital depression and suicidal tendencies anyway.’
‘They won’t live long regardless.’
‘At least this way, they can spend their final years surrounded by toys, candy, cake, and comfort.’
‘They all agreed willingly.’
‘How could we possibly force children?’
‘We’re a welfare home. We’re doing good deeds.’
Bai Liu lowered his eyes slightly, his voice soft and almost gentle—like a devil patiently whispering temptation.
“We love these children more than anyone else does.”
“How could we possibly hurt them?”
“You’re saving them.”
“You’re allowing them to live better lives in this lifetime so they can reincarnate into better ones next time.”
Only then did Bai Liu slowly lift his eyes again.
He looked calmly at Mu Ke, as though the outcome had always been obvious.
“So tell me.”
“What do you think your father would choose?”
Mu Ke felt his entire body turning cold beneath Bai Liu’s gaze.
His lips moved slightly.
But not a single word came out.
“Never rely on morality to stop people from pursuing profit,” Bai Liu said calmly as he withdrew his gaze and leaned back again.
“Because eventually, profit itself simply disguises itself as morality.”
Liu Huai sat motionless on the bed.
After a long silence, he finally spoke hoarsely.
“...Bai Liu.”
“If Jiayi has already been chosen by the Blood Lingzhi... then if we don’t clear the game quickly and solve this problem...”
“...will Jiayi die?”
Bai Liu did not answer.
Instead, he silently lowered his gaze toward the little girl he had sketched on the paper.
The drawn child sat curled up tightly, hugging her knees.
Beside her, Bai Liu had written:
Health Value: 50 (?)
Meaning unknown.
Continuously decreasing.
—
Love Welfare Home.
Wednesday, 3:45 AM.
Handicraft Classroom.
Aside from Bai Six, the remaining four children had all been locked inside the handicraft classroom at the back of the welfare home.
The teacher had thrown them into solitary confinement there.
The room sat deep inside the building. Three walls had no windows at all, while the single windowed wall faced directly into the hallway opposite the bathroom. Caregivers and teachers frequently passed by that area, making the room the perfect miniature prison for children who attempted to escape.
Canvases, glue, fabric scraps, and craft supplies littered the floor.
The mess wasn’t from crafting activities.
It was the result of Xiao Miao Feichi’s violent outburst.
He had swept everything off the tables in fury and was now pacing back and forth like a trapped beast.
Xiao Miao Gaojiang watched him silently.
Suddenly, Xiao Miao Feichi spun around and roared:
“Think of a fucking solution already!”
“Tomorrow they’re taking me away for blood extraction!”
“We’re all dead!”
Just as Xiao Miao Gaojiang was about to respond, the classroom door suddenly opened.
The teacher returned from the infirmary with Liu Jiayi and Xiao Mu Ke.
Both children looked deathly pale.
Liu Jiayi had been vomiting blood.
Xiao Mu Ke had been suffering chest pain.
After their examination, the teacher had still thrown them back into the handicraft classroom to prevent them from escaping.
“There’s nothing seriously wrong with either of you,” the teacher said impatiently. “Behave yourselves tonight. Tomorrow the investors will bring you to a private hospital for treatment.”
Her expression darkened.
“And I don’t want to see anyone trying to run away again.”
Then she locked the door and left.
Xiao Mu Ke clutched his chest and crouched weakly against the wall to rest.
Liu Jiayi leaned silently nearby, breathing heavily.
Her lips were completely bloodless.
Neither child looked remotely “fine.”
The moment Xiao Miao Feichi saw them, rage exploded across his face.
“If it weren’t for you two burdens,” he snarled, storming over, “we would’ve escaped already!”
He raised his hand violently.
Seeing the slap about to fall toward both himself and Liu Jiayi, Xiao Mu Ke instinctively stepped forward to shield her.
He grabbed Xiao Miao Feichi’s wrist midair.
“Even without us, you wouldn’t have escaped!” Xiao Mu Ke shouted back. “There are monsters everywhere outside!”
Liu Jiayi, looking even weaker than before, slowly slid down the wall into the corner.
Her breathing grew heavier and heavier.
Her pale fingers pressed tightly against her lips.
She looked terrible.
But when Xiao Miao Feichi noticed how weak she appeared, something in his expression suddenly changed.
He swallowed hard.
Then he shoved Xiao Mu Ke violently aside and slowly began walking toward Liu Jiayi.
His eyes looked almost unfocused.
His Adam’s apple bobbed repeatedly.
“Fuck...” he muttered hoarsely.
“I’m getting eaten tomorrow anyway...”
“And I still haven’t tasted the thing I’ve wanted most...”
