Tang Erda’s breathing stopped for a moment.
He remembered.
In the video of The Last Train to Blast Off, when Bai Liu shattered the mirror, the god-level NPC with closed eyes had been inside it.
So that had not been something originally present in the instance.
It had been a reflection of Bai Liu’s own fear?!
Bai Liu brushed away the strands of hair near Tang Erda’s ear that were matted with dried blood, letting Tang Erda lean against his shoulder in a position he could not escape from.
Then he whispered, “Do you want to face my fear directly?”
As he spoke, Bai Liu’s hand slowly moved upward.
A huge mirror flashing with rhombic light appeared before him. Ripples surged layer upon layer across the mirror’s surface, as though something were about to emerge from it in the next second.
“Don’t—!”
Tang Erda tried miserably to turn his head away.
He did not want to see this mirror again.
But because he was so close to Bai Liu, the movement of turning his head caused him to nestle directly into the crook of Bai Liu’s shoulder—a posture that gave the impression of someone having another person to rely on.
Tang Erda, who was not accustomed to relying on anyone, subconsciously wanted to pull his head out from Bai Liu’s shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
Bai Liu’s tone was gentler than ever before.
His fingers slid into the blood-stained hair at the back of Tang Erda’s head, gently kneading and parting it in comfort, like coaxing a manic, uneasy large pet dog.
“This time, the target of the mirror is me. Your Su Yang will be fine.”
The weakened Tang Erda stopped struggling in a daze under Bai Liu’s coaxing.
Bai Liu gently tilted Tang Erda’s face, lifting his chin and forcing him to face the surface of the mirror.
The instant Tang Erda saw the scene inside the mirror, his pupils contracted violently.
—He saw a person.
A child being drowned in water countless times.
He saw that child sealed inside marble sculptures and placed on display for people to admire.
He saw this child bound while his blood was drawn, his whole body covered in needle marks.
He saw this person crushed and cut apart, and after being cruelly dismembered, his still-beating heart was dug out and placed in a room inside a factory, where scalding liquid was continuously poured into it.
Perfume was pumped into the heart like blood, forcing that heart to convulse and beat under the pain.
That heart he had seen in the factory room was actually...
Such a cruel scene exceeded Tang Erda’s limit of endurance.
He could not help trembling all over. He retched and turned his face away, wanting to escape the scene.
He had thought he had already witnessed the limits of torture inflicted upon the living.
But he had never known that torture could actually continue even after death.
Bai Liu did not allow Tang Erda to turn his head away.
Instead, he firmly gripped Tang Erda’s head with his hand and forced him to face the scene in the mirror.
“See? We are the same.”
Bai Liu spoke softly beside the blank-faced Tang Erda.
“We both feel fear, anger, and uncontrollable empathy because someone has been tortured.”
“I am capable of feeling another person’s pain.”
Bai Liu lowered his eyes.
He knelt on both knees and leaned forward slightly. At the moment Tang Erda leaned backward to avoid him, Bai Liu unexpectedly embraced Tang Erda tightly.
“I know you are in great pain, just as much pain as I am, Captain Tang.”
“Please believe me. I won’t cause you any more pain.”
“Let the pain caused by the previous me end here.”
“Although I am not those Bai Sixes, I know there are words you might want to hear me say to you.”
Bai Liu patted his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“And all this time, you’ve worked hard.”
Tang Erda was embraced by him.
Dazed, he looked upward in disbelief as tears slid uncontrollably from his grayish-blue eyes.
Bai Six...
No, Bai Liu.
Bai Liu had apologized to him?
In the mirror, Tawil lifted his eyes.
His silver-blue eyes were like ice crystals melting in sunlight.
Tang Erda was entranced under the gaze of those eyes. A burst of white light appeared before his forehead, making him feel as though he were about to faint.
The white light spread very, very far.
It floated before Tang Erda’s eyes like an aurora.
He seemed to become weightless in an instant, drifting aimlessly inside the light.
Within that light, he saw Su Yang’s smiling face.
That person stood before him, stubbornly and persistently questioning him:
“Captain, why are you so obsessed with convicting Bai Six? There’s clearly no evidence yet, right?”
He seemed to say something that angered Su Yang.
Su Yang had never been this angry before.
He roared at him:
“Captain, if we do things purely based on emotion and desire, then what difference is there between us and those heretics!”
“No matter when it is, you must use your own eyes and the evidence to judge whether this person is a monster or a human!”
After roaring, Su Yang lowered his head somewhat helplessly.
He seemed to want to leave, but was stopped by Su Yang.
The two of them stood at an impasse in the narrow corridor of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau.
After they had stood there for an unknown amount of time, Su Yang suddenly took a deep breath and looked up.
“If one day, Captain really can’t hold on anymore and becomes contaminated like the others...”
“I will definitely save you.”
Su Yang smiled as if he had never lost his temper with him.
He took a step forward and seemed to part his lips, softly saying:
“—”
Bai Liu lowered his eyes and whispered beside Tang Erda’s head:
“—”
The voices of the two people merged and overlapped in Tang Erda’s ears, impossible to distinguish.
“Captain Tang / Captain, if you really can’t hold on anymore, then leave the rest to me.”
Bai Liu held Tang Erda’s head and spoke softly:
“Give your wish to me.”
“Give your soul to me.”
“Give your pain to me.”
“Let me, the one who was originally the culprit, bear all of this for you. This is what I should do.”
Tang Erda was dying.
His breathing was weak, and half his face was missing.
He leaned against Bai Liu’s shoulder, his eyes staring upward as if his soul had been hollowed out. His hands hung down without the slightest strength, showing no reaction at all.
After an unknown amount of time, a tear dripped from Tang Erda’s jaw.
His fingers moved.
Then his arm lifted extremely slowly, with great effort and struggle.
As if he were about to die in the very next moment, he painfully returned Bai Liu’s embrace and sobbed through gritted teeth:
“Bai Liu, this is the last time.”
“The last time I {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} will trust a deal with you.”
A relieved smile appeared on Bai Liu’s face.
“You won’t regret it.”
Tang Erda closed his eyes.
“I give my soul to you. In exchange, you must realize my wish.”
Bai Liu smiled.
“I already left the money for you, so I won’t pay extra.”
Tang Erda froze.
Then he realized that Bai Liu was talking about the room full of coins worth only a few cents each, the ones Bai Liu had left behind at the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau in order to escape.
For a moment, Tang Erda was speechless.
But finally, he relaxed.
He looked toward the far distance, and as though he had thought of something, a faint smile appeared on his face. His tone drifted.
“You really are... as stingy as before.”
“I hope you don’t mind this little habit of mine too much, because it looks like—”
Bai Liu held up a soul bill with Tang Erda’s avatar on it, smiling as he raised an eyebrow.
“—we will be collaborating for a very long time.”
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu used RMB *&@&@ (Amount complex, currently calculating) to purchase player Tang Erda’s soul.]
—
The Temple.
The Hunter card on the table flipped over the moment Tang Erda agreed to the deal.
It changed from a crying hunter into a hunter wearing a werewolf mask, its eyes fierce. Then it floated from the Prophet’s side toward the hooded man’s side.
The hooded man pinched the card that floated over with two fingers.
He looked at the Prophet opposite him and smiled.
“Your last God card that could be dispatched, the Hunter, has also changed sides and become a Werewolf card. What are you going to do now?”
The Prophet’s gaze remained fixed on the Werewolf card.
“The game is not over yet.”
The hooded man looked at the Rose card he had dispatched with a half-smile.
“Soon.”
“All the clues have already been gathered. Bai Six won’t let this game continue for much longer.”
—
Bai Liu walked out of the corridor.
Liu Jiayi looked down at the time.
“Sixteen minutes. You finished dealing with that idiot?”
“Finished.”
Bai Liu tidied his clothes and cuffs. They were covered in bloodstains left behind from holding Tang Erda.
Fortunately, he did not care much.
He turned to look at Liu Jiayi.
“Go in and treat him.”
Liu Jiayi rolled her eyes and walked inside, holding two bottles of antidote.
“You don’t seem to care much about what he did.”
“If I cared about that, then I would have had a problem with you first.”
Bai Liu smiled and met Liu Jiayi’s gaze for a while.
“Clearly, I’m not that kind of person. It doesn’t fit my principle of maximizing profit.”
Liu Jiayi silently withdrew her gaze and obediently walked inside with the antidote.
Bai Liu added another sentence:
“He’ll be needed later to fight the monsters in the inner world. Try to let him recover completely.”
“He is my private property now, and I don’t really want to see him fighting for me while injured.”
“I know!”
Liu Jiayi waved her hand impatiently.
Qi Yifang watched in stunned silence as Bai Liu ordered the Little Witch around so naturally.
In the Kings Guild, the Little Witch’s status was equal to the Queen of Hearts—transcendent and noble.
Even the Queen would not order the Little Witch around like a common soldier.
Bai Liu also saw Qi Yifang.
Without any attempt to avoid him, Bai Liu nodded to Qi Yifang and even hypocritically reached out to shake his hand.
His opening words were:
“I like your skill very much. If you ever have the chance, jump over to our team and play.”
Qi Yifang: “...”
What kind of damn opening line was that!
Bai Liu’s overly candid and shameless attitude actually made Qi Yifang wonder whether this person was genuinely joking with him.
Just as Qi Yifang was suspiciously overthinking the subtext behind Bai Liu’s words, Tang Erda came out behind Liu Jiayi.
The newly converted Captain Tang was clearly not very well-adjusted.
The moment he saw Bai Liu, he wanted to draw his gun. But then he quickly remembered that he had just been saved by the Little Witch Bai Liu had sent in, amid Liu Jiayi’s cynical snort and crossed arms.
Thus, Tang Erda withdrew his gun with some embarrassment.
Tang Erda looked at Liu Jiayi, who was sizing him up with an extremely mean expression, and then at Bai Liu, who stood beside her.
He felt uncomfortable all over.
These people had been genuine enemies before.
The kind who fought to the death.
Not to mention the past. Just recently, before entering the game, he had almost killed Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi with a single shot.
Tang Erda, who had only completed his deal with Bai Liu ten minutes ago, was already beginning to regret it.
He felt that his brain must have been clouded by something ten minutes ago.
Or perhaps Bai Liu had used some item to hypnotize him.
He must have been out of his mind to make the choice to sell his soul to Bai Liu!
While Tang Erda was secretly regretting his impulsive purchase (?), Bai Liu suddenly reached his hand out toward him.
To Tang Erda, whose vigilance and conditioned reflexes toward Bai Liu were both top-tier, this movement made him subconsciously draw his gun and aim it at Bai Liu again.
There was Bai Liu, clearly reaching out a friendly hand.
And there was Tang Erda, aiming a gun at him with a fierce gaze.
The atmosphere froze for a moment.
Liu Jiayi gripped a bottle of poison with an unfriendly expression.
“Bai Liu, are you sure you coaxed this guy properly?”
“He doesn’t trust me very much.”
Bai Liu shrugged.
He took another step forward without concern, completely unafraid as he pushed aside Tang Erda’s gun.
Then he grabbed Tang Erda’s other hand, the one clenched into a fist at his side, lifted it, shook it, and smiled at Tang Erda.
“It’s okay. It’s enough that I trust your ability.”
Bai Liu’s movements were like a patient owner teaching a newly arrived, still-alert dog to shake hands.
Tang Erda, who had been somewhat at a loss because of his own act of drawing the gun, slowly lowered his weapon.
He looked at Bai Liu for a while. His gaze was still wary, but he tentatively returned Bai Liu’s handshake.
Like a big wolfdog that had just been tamed, hiding its fangs, its tail and ears drooping.
The smile on Bai Liu’s face deepened considerably.
Although he is not very smart, he really is easy to fool.
That can be considered an advantage.
—
The Author Has Something to Say:
He has joined the team!
The animal corresponding to 2 is the wolf. Right now, he is almost a dog.
He is very useful—purely in terms of combat power, he is the second strongest in this novel. The strongest is Spades.
As for why Bai Six cannot see Ta-ta in the mirror, this point will be written later.
But I can tell you with absolute certainty: the only 6 who loves Tawil is Bai Liu.
Bai Six does not love anyone.
Also, 2 is not the Joker.
The Joker will appear very soon. He is a separate character.
