Back in the game, Su Yang had founded a guild and gathered a team around him. His eyes had shone with almost feverish determination as he gripped Tang Erda’s hand and told him that if they won the competition, they would be granted a wish.
“Captain, then we can wish for everyone to leave this game alive! We from the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau can form a team and fight together. We already deal with these heretical objects in the real world—there’s no reason we should lose inside a game when we even have skills and items to help us!”
“Don’t give up on the world so easily, Captain. And stop being so pessimistic,” Su Yang had said with a smile.
The rest of the team had immediately joined in, laughing and shouting over one another.
“Exactly, Captain!”
“The whole Third Branch is here—what # Nоvеlight # are you scared of?!”
“Don’t chicken out the second you enter a game!”
“Just charge in!”
“Real men don’t surrender that easily!”
They had fought through life and death side by side. They had been stubborn, fearless, unwilling to yield even a single step.
And in the end, they really did win.
But every single team member died on the road to victory, entrusting their unfinished wishes to the captain they trusted most before departing without regret.
Su Yang had stood firmly in front of him. He looked back at Tang Erda once, relief written across his face, as though he had already guessed what was about to happen. Then, mouthing the words silently, he told him:
Captain, keep going.
Everything afterward replayed endlessly before Tang Erda’s eyes like a slow-motion film in the dead of night.
A pure white bone whip coiled around Su Yang’s slender neck and yanked him away as easily as a rabbit being dragged off by a predator. A silver bullet pierced straight through his skull.
Blood splashed across Tang Erda’s face.
His pupils dilated violently.
And in the end, the only one left alive was Tang Erda.
At first, Tang Erda asked:
Why did you let me survive?
Later, Tang Erda still asked:
Why did you let me survive?
At the very end, after winning everything, Tang Erda knelt upon the championship podium. Below him, countless voices screamed and cheered in frenzy. Above him blazed a brilliant white light so bright it was almost impossible to look at directly.
The champion who had won it all was covered in wounds and already dying.
He slowly raised his head and looked into that blinding light with empty eyes. In a hoarse, cracked voice, he made a wish to a god whose existence he himself was not even certain of—
“I wish for everyone—especially Su Yang—to leave this game alive.”
And so the merciful god cast its gaze upon him and granted his wish.
The god told Tang Erda that if he wanted this wish fulfilled, then everything had to be stopped before it ever began.
Thus, the game bestowed upon Tang Erda a god-level item that allowed him to reverse time itself and return to the past to change everything.
But it was nothing more than a beautifully packaged lie.
Because no matter how many times Tang Erda turned back time, he never once succeeded in preventing everyone from entering the game.
All he managed to do was postpone the moment of their entry again and again through endless temporal reversals, grinding himself down in the process.
And even if he truly succeeded one day, it would still be impossible for everyone to remain outside the game.
Because the [Tang Erda] who possessed the item had to exist within the game itself.
If he did not enter the game, he could not use the item.
And if he used the item, then even if he managed to save everyone else, he himself would never be able to leave.
So Tang Erda questioned the god.
“Didn’t I wish for everyone to leave the game? Why am I not included?”
The god answered him with pity.
“The moment you made that wish, you ceased to be human.”
“You are now a heretic. A monster. Therefore, you must remain trapped inside the game forever.”
“This is the price you must pay for accomplishing a wish beyond your own capabilities.”
And so Tang Erda—who had become a heretic, a monster—accepted both his price and his ending after the initial collapse and madness had passed.
Silently, he continued moving through time over and over in pursuit of a future where everyone except himself could leave the game alive.
This timeline was already the furthest he had ever managed to delay things.
By now, even that bastard Bai Six was already twenty-four years old, yet aside from Tang Erda himself, nobody else in the department had entered the game.
And Su Yang—his vice-captain—had finally lived past thirty-three years old.
The age at which he had originally been destined to die inside the game.
“Captain Tang! Captain Tang! Vice-Captain Su is talking to you!”
Tang Erda abruptly snapped back to reality.
He turned toward Su Yang absentmindedly. “Ah... I’m sure he can handle it himself. There’s no need for you to worry. Just leave it to me. You only need to focus on protecting yourself...”
“Captain Tang, Vice-Captain Su wasn’t asking about that...” One of the team members laughed helplessly. “Are you drunk again? Vice-Captain Su’s kid just turned one month old. He’s inviting you to the celebration. Are you going or not?”
Tang Erda froze.
“Damn, Vice-Captain Su, you move fast!”
“Seriously, married last year and already a father this year!”
“So? Does the baby look more like you or Saozi?”
“With genes like yours, either way the kid lucked out. Unlike me—I can only pray my future wife’s good-looking...”
“Wake up. You’ve been single for twenty-seven years.”
Su Yang’s usually refined and gentle face flushed red from the teasing. His eyes shone brightly with the clumsy excitement of a first-time father.
“You still can’t really tell who he resembles yet...” he said with a smile. “But I think he’s very handsome. Captain Tang, will you come over for the celebration? Xiao An is cooking personally.”
Someone nearby elbowed another person and laughed.
“Back then, everyone said Vice-Captain Su was Captain Tang’s ‘virtuous wife.’ Who would’ve thought the ‘wife’ would outrun the head of the household and become a father first?”
“Vice-Captain Su even said he wants you to be the godfather. So tell us, Captain Tang—how does it feel watching your former ‘wife’ become someone else’s husband and father?”
“Jealous, obviously,” Tang Erda replied lazily.
“When I saw him getting married, I was jealous enough to die. I almost didn’t dare attend the wedding because I was afraid I’d drag the groom away and stop the ceremony.”
The others burst into laughter again.
Tang Erda added casually:
“How can someone move this fast? Getting married and having kids before me...”
Su Yang looked at Tang Erda with unconcealed anticipation.
He was genuinely inviting him.
“I bought the liquor you like,” he said softly. “We’ll drink together when you come.”
“You already skipped my wedding, so you have to come this time. Otherwise it really wouldn’t make sense.”
“I’ve been your vice-captain for so many years. Surely Captain Tang will at least give me this much face?”
Tang Erda looked at Su Yang’s happy expression for a very long time.
Then suddenly, he laughed.
He waved a hand dismissively and turned to leave.
“I’m really not giving Vice-Captain Su this face.”
“I prefer drinking alone.”
“Congratulations on the baby. I’ll send a big red envelope later, but I won’t be coming in person.”
The laughter around them abruptly died away.
“...Captain Tang, you’re seriously not coming?”
“What’s gotten into you lately, Captain Tang?”
“Yeah, why do you keep avoiding us?”
“Ever since Vice-Captain Su got married, you’ve just been drinking yourself unconscious alone every day...”
“It can’t really be jealousy to this extent, Old Tang!”
“With your qualifications, you could find someone anytime you wanted!”
Tang Erda didn’t turn around.
He only lifted a hand lazily in acknowledgment and continued walking forward without replying.
“Tang Erda!”
Su Yang suddenly grabbed his wrist, anger flickering across his face.
“What exactly is wrong with you lately?”
“Why are you always isolating yourself? Why are you avoiding me and the others?”
“Do you have some kind of grievance against us?”
Tang Erda reflexively shook off Su Yang’s hand.
Then, beneath Su Yang’s stunned gaze, he slowly turned around himself, momentarily dazed as well.
Captain, why are you avoiding me?
What’s the point of carrying everything alone?
Tang Erda, we’ve known each other for so many years. Do you really think I can’t tell you’re hiding from me?
At that moment, countless versions of Su Yang from countless timelines seemed to overlap before his eyes.
Tang Erda opened his mouth as though he wanted to laugh.
But in the end, what remained was only an overwhelming exhaustion, as if every last bit of strength had been drained from him.
He stared at this version of Su Yang—a Su Yang who had never been tortured, never died—and his gaze slowly drifted away.
Finally, Tang Erda drew a deep breath, as though forcing himself to let something go, and gave a faint laugh.
“Captain Su, you already have a home now.”
Su Yang blinked in confusion.
“So what if I have a home?” he asked. “What does that have to do with interacting with you normally?”
“That makes no sense. We’ve been friends for years.”
Tang Erda had seen this expression thousands upon thousands of times.
Yet never before had it plunged him into such silence.
“I don’t have any grievance against you,” Tang Erda said quietly after a long pause.
Then he smiled carelessly, almost indifferently, as though trying to ease the atmosphere.
“I just think your life right now is very good.”
“Exceptionally good.”
“Perfect, even.”
“I have absolutely no complaints. I sincerely hope you continue living well.”
The tension in Su Yang’s expression gradually eased.
But then Tang Erda spoke again, blunt and merciless:
“Of course, it’d be even better if you stayed a little farther away from me.”
“Stop following me around and focus on your family instead, Captain Su.”
Don’t foolishly follow me into the game ever again, Su Yang.
The faint smile on Su Yang’s face disappeared completely.
The light in his eyes dimmed, wounded and bewildered.
He looked straight at Tang Erda.
“I don’t understand, Captain,” he said softly. “Why are you saying these things? Did I do something wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Tang Erda paused briefly. “The problem is me.”
“I was thinking about things the wrong way...”
“I finally realized that.”
After saying that, Tang Erda brushed away Su Yang’s hand when he tried once more to stop him, pulled on his coat without hesitation, and walked away.
“From today onward, unless it’s official business, no team member is allowed to contact me privately.”
——————————
Inside Room CEDT-006.
Bai Liu was lying on a mattress in the corner, pretending to sleep.
Only a thin sliver of dim light filtered through the tiny window overhead. Outside the room, steady patrol footsteps echoed rhythmically through the corridor.
Judging by the pattern, the guards passed by roughly once every fifteen minutes.
It felt almost like a prison cell.
After the footsteps faded away once more, Bai Liu swiftly pulled a hollow coin from the edge of his handcuffs—
the game manager.
During the brief interval between Su Yang leaving and Tang Erda entering, Bai Liu had lowered his head to avoid the surveillance cameras and hidden the coin beneath the cuffs after removing it from under his tongue.
Keeping something hidden inside his mouth during repeated, high-intensity interrogations was simply too risky.
Especially considering that, according to Su Yang, this Captain Tang seemed to know quite a bit about him.
Still, Tang Erda had not thoroughly searched him for the game manager afterward.
His reasoning had been simple:
“This room has been reinforced with one of my tools. You cannot enter the game here.”
Tang Erda had already confiscated Bai Liu’s crucifix and fish scales.
The only thing left on him was this coin—the item Tang Erda had abandoned searching for halfway through out of sheer disgust.
No matter what, Bai Liu had to try.
He tightened his grip around the coin and whispered softly:
“Enter the game.”
[System Notification: Bzzz... Signal isolated. Detected Transcendent-grade item (Magical Space). Personnel entry and exit permissions within this space are controlled by the owner. Game signal blocked. Player Bai Liu is unable to log into the game!!]
“Magical Space...” Bai Liu narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
“Wasn’t that the item Liu Jiayi gave to Liu Huai?”
