While the refugees were secretly picking roses in the flower fields, Bai Liu was inside the tent.
He had transformed into Liu Jiayi earlier, but now, because his stamina bar had been completely depleted, he had returned to his original appearance. His face was pale as he curled up on the small bed in the tent, breathing faintly. After resting for a short while, he closed his eyes and sank into a deep sleep from extreme exhaustion.
Moreover, as a player whose basic attributes were relatively low, Bai Liu no longer had enough stamina to use the high-level skill card, “Queen of Hearts.” He had overdrawn his stamina bar too severely, to the point that even drinking stamina recovery agents could not replenish it. Not to mention, Bai Liu’s current mental value was also on the low side.
Under the combined influence of these factors, Bai Liu knew very clearly that he truly needed rest. He no longer had the strength to go out and pick roses tonight.
Fortunately, the scene Bai Liu had staged earlier had bought him enough time to rest.
However, after sleeping in the tent for only a few hours, Bai Liu, half-dreaming and half-awake, felt an extremely cold hand seize his ankle. It tugged at him lightly, as if trying to wake him.
It had to be known that Bai Liu was currently wrapped inside the item “Magic Space.”
What had happened the day before yesterday happened once again—something had broken through the barrier of “Magic Space” and touched Bai Liu. At the same time, a dizzyingly dense fragrance of roses began to spread through the tent.
Bai Liu had originally opened his eyes because of the thing gripping his ankle, but the instant the overly intense fragrance struck him, his consciousness began to blur.
It was a very strange sensation. Bai Liu’s mind could still maintain a certain degree of thought, but under the effect of the perfume, his limbs and muscles were paralyzed, leaving him unable to move. His breathing became exceedingly slow, and before his eyes, kaleidoscopic, red, spindle-shaped petals began to overlap and rotate.
It was like being caught in sleep paralysis.
Bai Liu felt the hand gripping his ankle realize that he had woken up.
It released his ankle. Then its fingers obediently slipped into the trouser leg of Bai Liu’s protective suit, pressing against his skin as they slowly crawled upward. Those long, ice-cold, smooth fingers, like carved jade, climbed along Bai Liu’s warm thigh.
That faint, almost-touching yet not-quite-touching, human yet inhuman sensation of skin against skin made Bai Liu’s waist arch and tremble uncontrollably.
Bai Liu’s Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably. His eyes were half-lidded, and his breathing gradually became heavy.
That right hand was about to reach his...
Even though Bai Liu was not someone who cared much about things like this, once he realized that the hand inside his trousers was very likely Xie Ta’s hand, his scalp still went numb, and his breathing became strained.
His eyes were flushed, and his head was heavy under the inducement of the fragrance. Bai Liu forced himself to shake his leg. Caught off guard, the right hand slid out of his trouser leg.
The hand seemed somewhat dazed.
It appeared that because it had no eyes and could not see, it had simply wanted to crawl up Bai Liu’s body. Now that Bai Liu had shown resistance by kicking it away, the hand did not seem to know how to react.
In the end, the five fingers of this right hand curled inward beneath the palm, forming a posture somewhat like a well-behaved cat tucking in its paws. It shrank down beside Bai Liu’s foot, its wrist drooping toward the outside of the bed. From the side, it looked like a little octopus curling up its tentacles and lowering its head in self-isolation.
Bai Liu lowered his eyes and looked at this right hand crouching at the foot of the bed. For some reason, from the hand’s “cat-tucking-its-paws” posture, he sensed a trace of grievance.
Bai Liu: “...”
Wasn’t the other party the one acting like a rogue? Why did it feel as if he was the one who had done something wrong...
The right hand did not remain withdrawn for long. Very quickly, it cheered itself up and began laboriously grabbing at the layers of Bai Liu’s protective suit to climb upward. Finally, it fumbled around Bai Liu’s neck and found the cord from which a coin hung.
The pure white fingers pinched the cord and slid downward, seemingly searching for something on it. When they failed to find it the first time, they paused. Then, unwilling to give up, they began searching a second time.
Seeing the movement of the right hand, Bai Liu knew what it was looking for.
—Tawil was looking for the Inverse Cross.
The Inverse Cross was the medium through which the Evil God communicated with his believers.
Although Bai Liu did not know what exactly had happened to Tawil in the Rose Factory instance, judging from the current situation, Tawil, who had only one hand left, clearly had no way to communicate with him normally. At a time like this, the existence of the Inverse Cross was especially important.
With the guidance of the Inverse Cross, a fragmented deity could descend an oracle upon his believer.
But before Bai Liu entered the game, Tang Erda had taken the Inverse Cross from him.
When the right hand stroked the cord around Bai Liu’s neck for the fourth time, Bai Liu leaned forward slightly and raised his hand to interrupt its movements.
After being eroded by the fragrance of roses in the factory and the flower fields for a full day and night, Bai Liu had adapted somewhat to this concentration. Although he still felt dizzy, at least he could keep himself from fainting and move a little.
Bai Liu grabbed the right hand.
But the hand did not seem to believe that Bai Liu would lose the Inverse Cross it had given him. It struggled slightly, trying to break free and continue searching. Its fingers stubbornly burrowed toward the collar Bai Liu had allowed to slip open.
Bai Liu’s strength was no match for this hand’s.
Under the influence of the rose fragrance, his entire body was currently soft and weak. He only had the slightest bit of strength left, and even moving his hand required all his effort.
Seeing this hand act like a rogue without realizing it, Bai Liu knew that if it really burrowed inside, something “indescribable below the neck” would happen.
To prevent such a thing from occurring, and also to ensure that this chapter could successfully pass review, Bai Liu drew upon the professional ethics of a male lead employed by Jinjiang. Very quickly and calmly, he thought of a way to communicate with a single hand without using speech.
Bai Liu used his fingertip to write a sentence in the palm of the right hand:
[The Inverse Cross was taken away. I lost it.]
The right hand stopped struggling.
It slowly retreated two steps, then once again assumed that self-isolating “little octopus crouching” posture.
Bai Liu: “...”
Bai Liu felt a rare sense of helplessness. He gave a faint, almost imperceptible sigh and leaned his head over, resting it against the knuckles of the “little octopus.”
Then he used his finger to gently pry open Tawil’s curled fingers, lowered his eyes, and wrote stroke by stroke on the other’s fair palm:
[Sorry.]
Tawil paused. Then he spread his distinct, well-defined five fingers and raised them, using his fingertips to write on Bai Liu’s palm:
[Do you still remember what I said to you?]
[The key to everything is in the hands of the Little Witch. The antidote and the poison are the keys to your choice...]
[Before true death arrives, the time upon your body is unique and irreversible...]
After he finished writing, Tawil’s palm covered Bai Liu’s face.
Bai Liu’s eyelashes trembled slightly. The other’s index finger tapped the center of his forehead. The cold, gentle touch of the fingertip was just like the soft kiss Tawil had once given Bai Liu’s forehead when descending an oracle.
Then, the pure white right hand turned into scattered pale-pink petals that drifted down to the ground, before being dragged into the earth by the vines that emerged from it.
Bai Liu fell asleep amid that tender, lingering rose-colored prophecy.
The next day.
Bai Liu abruptly opened his eyes.
He sat up. There was nothing around him. Just like before, everything seemed like a dream. But Bai Liu turned his head and sniffed the pillow—he could smell the lingering scent of roses on it.
Furthermore, there was an extremely strong rose fragrance on his thighs, neck, and even his waist. It was so strong that it was as though he had slept among roses all night.
Last night, a right hand had indeed come uninvited.
...Tawil’s appearances seemed to be subject to many restrictions.
For some reason, he kept appearing in a fragmented state, piece by piece. This could be seen from the vines that continuously dragged him back into the ground.
Even so, under such severe restrictions, Tawil had appeared several times, seemingly in order to remind Bai Liu to pay attention to something.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes.
Tawil had reminded him of the oracle he had once spoken.
Was there something he had missed, or something he had not thought of?
“The key to everything is in the hands of the Little Witch... The poison and the antidote are the keys to your choice...”
“Before true death arrives, the time upon your body is unique and irreversible.”
While Bai Liu was still thinking, the sound of footsteps outside the tent grew clearer and clearer.
After resting for a night, Bai Liu instantly equipped the “Queen of Hearts” skill card. The moment the other person’s shadow fell near the tent, Bai Liu’s body changed from that of an adult into a little girl, and even the protective suit on his body shrank accordingly.
Qi Yifang’s surprised voice rang out from outside the tent:
“Did you pick this many roses last night?!”
Seeing that he had returned to the appearance of the Little Witch, Bai Liu lowered his head and looked at himself. Then, all at once, he froze.
In a flash of sudden understanding, he thought of one point.
The core of the sentence “The key to everything is in the hands of the Little Witch; the antidote and the poison are the keys to your choice” was not Liu Jiayi, as he had previously believed.
Because in the current Rose Factory instance, there were two “Little Witches.”
According to the latter half of the sentence—that the antidote and poison were the keys to “your” choice—it could be inferred that the “Little Witch” in Tawil’s oracle did not refer to the real Little Witch at all.
—It referred to the fake Little Witch, which was Bai Liu himself.
Bai Liu slowly raised his head. An interested smile appeared on his face.
Tawil’s oracle had long since foreseen that he would turn into the Little Witch to deceive others.
By the same logic, if the “Little Witch” in this oracle was fake, then the “antidote” and “poison” possessed by this “fake Little Witch” should not refer to an antidote and poison in the conventional sense.
If the “key” in Tawil’s oracle referred to the clue for breaking the game in “Rose Factory,” then from Bai Liu’s perspective as a game designer, the “poison” and the “antidote” were very likely two completely different choices leading to the game’s ending.
Following this train of thought, the “poison” in the game “Rose Factory” was far too obvious.
It was “Dried Rose Leaf Gas.”
Choosing the “poison” meant obtaining the Rose Factory’s secret formula and then becoming the Factory Manager, clearing the game in the most extreme way.
Tawil had said that the “Little Witch” could choose both the “poison” and the “antidote,” which proved that Bai Liu possessed both things.
Then what was the “antidote”?
—
Author’s Note:
My best friend: Let Little Ta touch him! What’s wrong with letting the child touch something when he’s never touched anything in his life! Ah! You even kicked him! Anxious.jpg
Me, with righteous dignity: This book does not contain that kind of plot! Imagine it yourselves!
