Outside the factory.
Liu Jiayi held the long pincers clamped around the cart in one hand and raised her poison with the other, alertly pulling the cart along as she scanned her surroundings.
She was surrounded by all kinds of rose employee monsters. With the cart restricting her movement on top of that, Liu Jiayi was being besieged on all sides.
Fortunately, two other members of the Kings’ Guild had run out of the factory to help her. Coupled with Qi Yifang’s large-scale field-control skills, the attack effectiveness of these scattered, non-clustered monsters remained within a manageable range.
“Bai Liu, that person really is...” Liu Jiayi leaned behind cover, exhausted and panting. She raised her elbow to wipe away the sweat dripping down the side of her face, then glanced at the cart she was keeping away from herself with the long pincers and complained under her breath, “Isn’t the stuff on this cart very important to you?”
“...You just handed it over so easily. If I don’t protect it properly, are you planning to use that to blackmail me later?”
A monster suddenly appeared behind Liu Jiayi. She subconsciously blocked the front of the cart and swung her poison, shouting sharply, “Get lost!”
Pitch-black poison splashed into the monster’s open “petals.” With a sizzling sound of corrosion, the monster melted and warped, turning into a pool of bloody water.
The monster’s sudden attack caused the exhausted Liu Jiayi to forget to maintain her distance from the cart in her haste. Influenced by the things on the cart, her mental value entered a staged decline.
Liu Jiayi swayed twice. She focused her mind and reached into her pocket for her rose perfume to restore her mental value, but after pulling it out, she discovered that the perfume bottle was already empty.
The monster corpse corroded by the poison attracted even more monsters, and they gradually tightened their circle around Liu Jiayi. Forced closer and closer to the cart, the influence of the God-level NPC on it grew heavier. She even felt dizzy and had to hold onto the long pincers to keep herself standing.
The influence of the God-level NPC after being dismembered might be even stronger than it had been before in the Love Welfare Home, because the body’s internal parts were exposed!
“Damn it—” Liu Jiayi could not help cursing. She simply let go of the long pincers and raised her poison with both hands, gritting her teeth as she continued blocking the front of the cart.
“Little Witch! Your perfume is almost gone, right? Catch!”
“I have some here too! Take it!”
“Here!”
Three different voices came from three different directions, accompanied by three bottles of perfume thrown from different angles. They came from three reserve team members of the Kings’ Guild—her former teammates.
Liu Jiayi watched the three bottles of perfume fall slowly through the air. She pressed her lips together tightly and withdrew the hand she had wanted to reach out.
She did not want to owe others too many favors.
Previous collaborations could be described as everyone fighting together to pass the game, but in the current situation, with monsters pouring in endlessly, no one had extra perfume to spare.
That guy Bai Liu would be playing in the League in the future. If she encountered Qi Yifang and the others on the field later, then according to Liu Jiayi’s understanding of herself, these debts of gratitude that she could not repay would make her hesitate.
That was not a good thing.
But if she did not take them, she would not be able to hold out much longer.
“Jiayi!” Qi Yifang saw that Liu Jiayi still had her head lowered and was not preparing to catch the perfume. He was so anxious that he began calling her name. “Catch them! Your mental value is about to drop below 40!”
The perfume bottles that were about to fall in front of Liu Jiayi were swept up like a gust of wind by someone who suddenly flipped over the factory wall Liu Jiayi was leaning against. Then they were thrown back along their original paths.
Qi Yifang and the other two hurriedly caught the perfume bottles that had been thrown back to them.
“Thank you all for your concern and help toward our Little Witch.”
Bai Liu landed as lightly as a leaf. He casually took the cart from Liu Jiayi’s hands and moved it in front of himself. At the same time, he tossed her a bottle of perfume, then turned around and brought down his whip without the slightest hesitation, forcefully pushing back the approaching monsters and creating a semicircular vacuum zone.
He slowly raised his eyes, looked at them from a distance, and bowed with a hypocritically polite smile. “But we might become enemies in the future, so it’s better not to be too intimate. Don’t you agree, Jiayi?”
Liu Jiayi breathed a sigh of relief.
Out of the primary instinct of a healer, Liu Jiayi scanned Bai Liu’s entire body first to confirm that he had no major injuries. Only then did she cross her arms and speak with a hint of sarcasm. “I thought you would swallow those three bottles of perfume for yourself.”
“I originally wanted to.” Bai Liu looked at Liu Jiayi with a half-smile. “But you probably wouldn’t have wanted me to swallow them. Or rather, you didn’t want to owe them, which was why you never caught them.”
Liu Jiayi sprayed herself twice with the perfume, took a deep breath, huffed, and rolled her eyes at Bai Liu. “You talk too much!”
After restoring her mental value, Liu Jiayi looked around. “That... what about Captain Tang?”
Bai Liu swept away the monsters trying to approach with another strike of his whip, taking a moment to answer Liu Jiayi. “I had him send me out first to support you, and then I told him to clear the monsters inside the factory first.”
“Once he finishes clearing the monsters inside the factory, he’ll come out and regroup with us.”
“Finishes clearing?” Liu Jiayi frowned. “Most of the monsters are still concentrated inside the factory. Can he clear them all by himself...?”
Liu Jiayi almost could not help questioning Bai Liu—was he putting too much trust in this Captain Tang, who had joined them halfway through?
Almost the instant Liu Jiayi’s words fell, a person vaulted over the high wall behind her with one hand in a practiced, clean, and agile motion.
At the same time, this person’s other hand powerfully swung out a strange-looking silver revolver about a meter long. To mitigate the recoil from continuous firing, his firing stance involved bracing it under his shoulder. This allowed his waist to maintain a very standard and powerful-looking posture even while vaulting over the wall.
The wind blew back the hair on his forehead and the hem of his clothes, revealing a pair of intensely focused, deep blue eyes.
Almost the moment he was still leaping down from the wall, he began an indiscriminate sweep of fire at the monsters constantly approaching {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi.
“Bang—da-da-da-da-da!!”
Firelight and gunpowder smoke instantly drew a warning line in front of Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi that no one dared to cross.
The dense layer of monsters that had been pressing Liu Jiayi turned into ashes in the blink of an eye. Tang Erda landed on one knee on a patch of black ground scorched by bullets, then stood up with a solemn expression.
The strange long-barreled revolver in Tang Erda’s hand folded and retracted with a clattering sound of colliding metal, transforming in a second into a normal-sized revolver about the length of his palm.
He released the cylinder and manually ejected the shell casings. After reloading, he turned to look at Bai Liu, meeting his gaze calmly, as if asking what else Bai Liu needed him to do.
“Wow, that was faster than I imagined.” Bai Liu raised an eyebrow at Tang Erda. “You’ve already cleared the monsters inside the factory?”
Tang Erda’s face held no expression. He did not seem to think he had done anything remarkable and simply replied with one word.
“Yes.”
As if he still felt he had not done well enough, Tang Erda frowned and added, “The workshops for plant workers and above require keys to enter, so I didn’t clear the deeper areas inside the Rose Factory. The rest are cleared.”
Bai Liu gave a very satisfied smile. “Well done.”
This was more than just “well done,” wasn’t it?!
Liu Jiayi looked incredulously at the empty ground in front of her, stained black by gunpowder, then looked up at Tang Erda.
The three Kings’ Guild members on the perimeter were even more dumbfounded. They stared blankly, their expressions horrified, at the gun in Tang Erda’s hand. For once, their thoughts were perfectly synchronized with Liu Jiayi’s.
This was a freaking Level 3 game!!
This guy’s attack power made this place look like flat ground. It was too outrageous!
In order to learn, Liu Jiayi had watched many small TV recordings of League players over the past two years. But except for Spades, she had never seen such terrifying destructive power from a skill or attack.
This was no longer a strength that could be summed up by the four words “League player.”
Liu Jiayi stared straight at Tang Erda, sizing him up. This was the first time since entering the game that she truly regarded this person as an opponent.
She quickly calculated Tang Erda’s panel in her mind.
He could solve a triggered S-grade monster with almost one shot. His single-shot attack value had to be over ten thousand.
Well-trained muscles, excellent combat awareness, fast task execution speed, timely defense, actions that ensured the safety of teammates, and the way he had just reported to Bai Liu—it was all very much like the information feedback a frontline attacker gave to a tactician.
Liu Jiayi looked at Tang Erda in shock.
This guy was a battle-hardened, first-rate League attacker.
This guy’s attack data and combat quality were even more exaggerated than those of many top-tier team attackers. At least according to Liu Jiayi’s understanding, the Kings’ Guild’s team attackers probably would not even be able to face Tang Erda for a single moment.
Where on earth had Bai Liu offended such a hidden, first-rate attacker?
And now, it seemed Bai Liu had successfully taken this terrifying character for his own use!
Because of Tang Erda’s powerful presence, Liu Jiayi, who held a certain level of hostility toward him, could not help taking two steps back and standing behind Bai Liu.
Her eyes drifted down to the shortened revolver in Tang Erda’s hand, and she asked tentatively, “Why did you change your weapon skill after exiting the factory to regroup with us? The weapon just now clearly had higher attack power.”
Tang Erda glanced sideways at Liu Jiayi and replied indifferently, “If I don’t need to clear things quickly, a handgun is enough.”
Damn it! Did that even make sense?!
Liu Jiayi, clutching Bai Liu’s hem, silently cursed in her heart. She added the fact that even his basic attack weapon’s value was likely over ten thousand to her mental file on this Captain Tang.
No wonder this man could solo a Level 3 instance. With this level of strength, he could walk sideways anywhere in the game.
Thinking about how she had opposed him before... Liu Jiayi patted her chest with lingering fear. She glanced at Bai Liu, who was still smiling in front of her, and could not help making an “=_=” expression again.
In every sense, this person Bai Liu was too miraculous. Even after unluckily encountering such an opponent, he had still managed to survive...
But if they had someone like this joining them...
Liu Jiayi took a deep breath.
According to the strange trajectory of events surrounding Bai Liu, maybe this strange team he led really could win the League?
—
After basically clearing the small monsters outside the factory, Bai Liu spread out the cloth wrapped around the small cart and placed Tawil’s head down.
Snow-white skin grew rapidly along the lines where the neck connected. A special vitality appeared on the face that had previously seemed dead. Long silver eyelashes trembled slightly. A peculiar, eerie silver-blue luster stretched along the soft, long curls scattered across the ground. The empty chest cavity began to contract and expand faintly, as if a heart were beating inside it.
Bai Liu lowered his eyelids. He looked at Tawil, who lay motionless on his lap, and fell silent for a minute.
Then he suddenly reached out and placed his hand on that empty chest. As if playing a game, he clenched and unclenched his fist to mimic the shape of a heart. At the same time, he softly imitated the sound of a heartbeat, a very strange smile on his face.
“Thump-thump—thump-thump—”
[If I dig out your heart, and you say your heart won’t stop beating but will keep beating in my hand, is that what it would be like?]
Fourteen-year-old Bai Six playfully held his hand in a fist, mischievously thrusting it in front of Xie Ta and clenching and unclenching it. At the same time, Bai Six pressed his face extremely close to Xie Ta’s, imitating the sound of a heartbeat with his mouth.
[Thump-thump—thump-thump—is your heart beating in my palm like this?]
[If you’re curious...]
Xie Ta suddenly grabbed Bai Six’s hand, the one that was mimicking a heart, and pressed it against his own chest. He looked up and asked him very softly,
[You’ll know how my heart beats by feeling it.]
Xie Ta’s hand was layered over the back of Bai Six’s hand. The heart beat in Bai Six’s palm.
They remained locked in this stalemate for a long time. Neither of them pulled their hand back, letting their two heartbeats gradually lose their rhythm.
Until Xie Ta softly asked him,
[Is it thump-thump—thump-thump—like this?]
[No—]
Bai Six did not know why his throat felt dry. His Adam’s apple slid up and down, and he answered in a hoarse voice,
[It’s thump-thump-thump— thump-thump-thump— thump-thump-thump-thump— beating like this. Your heart is racing.]
[Is it... abnormal for me to be like this?] Xie Ta asked him.
Bai Six turned his face away, wanting to pull his hand back.
[I don’t know.]
But Xie Ta did not let him pull away. Instead, he calmly placed his own hand over Bai Six’s heart, as if feeling his heartbeat. Then Xie Ta seemed to smile, giving a very, very light laugh.
[It seems to be normal.]
[Your heart is beating like this too, just like mine.]
“What is he doing?” Liu Jiayi looked in confusion at Bai Liu, who was kneeling on the ground and holding the God-level NPC. His head was lowered, and she did not know what he was doing, but he was making strange noises with his mouth. “Even if he’s the least affected by the God-level NPC, he can’t keep holding it like that!”
As Liu Jiayi spoke, she anxiously tried to step forward and interrupt Bai Liu’s thoughts. “Even if the influence is small, it’s not nonexistent! Let’s get Bai Liu to put it down quickly and move forward!”
Tang Erda reached out and stopped Liu Jiayi from advancing. “Wait a moment.”
Liu Jiayi immediately became alert and raised her poison toward him. “What are you doing? Are you planning to let Bai Liu keep holding it like that until he goes crazy—”
Halfway through her sentence, Liu Jiayi suddenly stopped.
She saw an expression of great shock on Tang Erda’s face.
He seemed stunned, and also as though he were in awe of the scene he was seeing. After confirming it repeatedly for a long time, he finally spoke with difficulty.
“...When encountering a scene of trauma, mechanically repeating stereotyped actions from one’s memory related to that scene...” Tang Erda almost could not stand steady. He murmured to himself in dawning realization, “...This is a typical symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD.”
Bai Liu had PTSD just as severe as his own.
And yet, he had not noticed it at all.
—
Author’s Note:
I would like to specifically explain here that Bai Liu and the other Bai Sixes had different childhoods; they are completely different people.
