Tawil closed his eyes. “Me too.”
“You have to make a choice.” Tawil’s transition was abrupt. He let go of Bai Liu, rested his forehead against Bai Liu’s, and asked softly, “Antidote or poison?”
Bai Liu’s hands curled slightly in the empty space where they had just been held.
Tawil looked at him calmly, his silver-blue eyes like a mirror submerged beneath water, shimmering as they reflected Bai Liu’s expressionless yet wavering face.
He said, “You should know what the antidote is now. Make your choice.”
Bai Liu’s gaze went vacant for a moment. His memory passed through Tawil’s eyes in an instant, drifting very, very far away.
In the old library of Love Welfare Home, an oil-stained volume of old poetry lay open on Xie Ta’s knees. It was a summer afternoon. Sunlight passed through the hair falling over his forehead, as if passing through dense, loosely spread branches, scattering into a grid of fragmented light that fell upon the yellowed, tattered pages of the book.
There were floating dust motes and heat waves in the air. The library window faced a half-open view of unkempt weeds and greenery. Under the blazing daylight, the pond glinted like fish scales, as if ten thousand diamonds had been scattered across the surface of the water, dazzling the eyes.
Bai Liu had no interest in reading. He was drowsy, covering his face with a book and resting his head on his hands as he slacked off. The steam of the heat dampened his collar with sweat.
He no longer remembered exactly what trouble they had caused, but in any case, they had been sent to this library—which looked as though it had not been cleaned once in decades—to work as cleaners. This kind of punishment was very common for both Bai Liu and Xie Ta.
Fortunately, it was a small library, and Xie Ta was in no hurry. He sat quietly by the window, flipping through old books buried under dust, reciting in a low voice:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
...
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
...
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
The deity shall live long, and this gives life to thee.”
Bai Liu was finally awakened by Xie Ta’s endless reciting. He took the book off his face; his eyes remained lazily closed, but his mouth spoke first to refute Xie Ta: “That’s not how the last line goes, is it? Don’t randomly alter other people’s poems while you’re reading them.”
“The original line is [So long lives this, and this gives life to thee].” Xie Ta was not upset at being exposed. He still looked at Bai Liu very peacefully, his gaze seeming as though it wanted to draw Bai Liu into it. “I’m not very good at writing poetry, but I saw you in this poem.”
“This poem suits you very well.”
In his mind, Bai Liu went over this mushy love poem that praised its beloved to an excessive degree. He pretended to stretch and turned over, turning his back to Xie Ta and refusing to look at him. After a moment of silence, he spoke again:
“Don’t just pick some random poem to tease me.”
“I didn’t pick a random poem,” Xie Ta said unhurriedly. “Thy eternal summer shall not fade—this is a poem describing your future. Someone will tell you that.”
“My future? Then what about you?” Bai Liu turned back again, raised an eyebrow, and retorted as if nitpicking. “Only my summer will not fade?”
That had originally been only a joke, but on that day, Xie Ta remained silent for a long, long time before lifting his eyes to look at him. His voice was as light as a leaf that could not fall:
“I have no summer.”
He exhaled softly. “I only... secretly shared your summer.”
Xie Ta’s gaze turned toward the lush summer scenery outside the window. “This summer is indeed lovely and temperate, the most beautiful summer I have ever seen. But these things... do not belong to me.”
“I will leave eventually.”
At the end of that summer, Xie Ta disappeared into the bottom of that pond.
And at the beginning of summer in the Rose Factory, the May roses were in their first full bloom.
The moment Tawil let go, Bai Liu seemed to sense something. He subconsciously grabbed Tawil’s wrist and looked at him very calmly. “You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?”
“We will meet again.” Tawil lightly raised his other hand and stroked Bai Liu’s eyelids and face. “This is not a summer or a rose that belongs to you. I will not stay here, and you should not stay here either.”
Tawil’s ice-cold hand pressed against Bai Liu’s skin, the touch like snow falling on a person’s face.
“When the sun has disappeared by three-quarters, an old friend will come to seek your frozen self. Do not fear the separation brought by death. Do not fear the shattered inverted cross upon the snowy plains.”
“Do not be afraid of me, whether I am living or dead.” Tawil pulled Bai Liu’s head into his arms, lowered himself, and kissed Bai Liu’s damp, rose-scented hair. “Do not be afraid of me leaving your summer.”
“I am a fallen deity without a summer, but I possess an entire winter waiting for you.”
“Now, make your choice: antidote or poison.” Tawil lowered his long, snow-colored eyelashes. As he held tightly to the motionless Bai Liu—who only buried his head in Tawil’s chest—he lightly stroked the dripping ends of Bai Liu’s hair. “No matter what choice you make—”
“You will leave regardless, won’t you?” Bai Liu asked in a muffled voice.
Tawil went quiet for a moment, then answered him honestly: “Yes.”
Bai Liu went quiet again, but Tawil felt Bai Liu’s hands tighten around his waist—this part was exactly the same as when he was a child.
Tawil suddenly felt like laughing.
When he encountered a situation he did not want to face, or was upset by other children or teachers, or faced a separation he did not want to acknowledge, the fourteen-year-old Bai Six would appear unshakable on the surface, and might even make a few sarcastic remarks.
But when no one was paying attention, that thin and small Bai Six would sneak back to hug that huge, patch-covered, Slenderman-like doll, burying himself in it without moving as he released his emotions—it was exactly this posture.
“But no matter what choice you want to make.” Tawil brushed away the hair clinging to Bai Liu’s ear, lowered his head, and whispered beside his ear, “To me, you are always the most important.”
“No matter what else we have to go through, I will definitely, definitely come to see you.”
Bai Liu slowly pushed himself up from Tawil’s embrace. He looked directly at Tawil—he finally remembered why he had not had the habit of looking people in the eyes before the age of fourteen, yet had developed it after fourteen.
Because Xie Ta had said: [Don’t look directly at me. I have very terrifying eyes.]
Bai Six had teased him with ill intent: [But if I don’t look directly at you, how will you know I’m talking to you? What if I’m talking to someone else and you think I’m talking to you? Wouldn’t that be very awkward for you?]
Xie Ta was silent for a while before saying: [But if it’s like that, I can pretend that whenever you are talking to anyone else, no matter who you are looking at, I can tell myself that you are talking to me.]
Bai Liu remembered that the Xie Ta of that time had said those words to him while lowering his head even deeper to hide his eyes, his lips pressed tight.
—Just like right now.
“Don’t say things about leaving,” Bai Liu said, brushing away the hair on Tawil’s forehead and leaning in, smiling as if complaining, “while wearing an expression that makes it look like you’re even more reluctant to leave than I am.”
The Bai Six from ten years ago said: [You don’t [N O V E L I G H T] need to pretend like that anymore. In essence, you are the only person I have to talk to; only you will truly listen to every word I say.]
[So regardless of who I am talking to, I am actually saying it for you to hear. I will always look into your eyes when I speak.]
[I don’t think you’re terrifying.]
The Bai Liu from ten years later said, “I won’t be afraid of your death anymore. In essence, death is already the most terrifying thing to humans.”
“And you will not die. No matter who granted you this—whether a god or a devil—and no matter whether others think you are a monster, a deity, or something else, to me, you are only Xie Ta. I think it is very good that you can remain alive forever.”
“I don’t think you’re terrifying.”
Bai Liu paused for a moment before continuing calmly: “The poison is the Dried Rose Leaf grown from your body, and the antidote is the Blood Lingzhi cultivated with your blood, is it not?”
The moment he saw that diary related to the welfare home, Bai Liu realized what the antidote was.
The function of the Blood Lingzhi item was explained as being able to stop all negative buffs. These negative buffs most likely included the addictive state caused by the Dried Rose Leaf. Coincidentally, the Factory Manager had bought the divine statue from the welfare home—it was highly probable that the mother body of the Blood Lingzhi was still buried inside Tawil’s body.
It was only that, because he had been dismembered, he could not form complete, connected blood vessels and organs, and thus there was no way to produce the blood that could irrigate the Blood Lingzhi.
That Factory Manager must have known this as well, but he had already completely lost control.
Compared to the [Antidote] that could save him, it was obvious that the higher-concentration, even more maddeningly addictive [Poison]—the Rose Perfume—was more attractive to him.
He could not suppress his desire for Rose Perfume, and still less could he put the core production tool, the heart, back into Tawil’s chest, allowing Tawil to once again become a blood-supplying machine that produced Blood Lingzhi to save him. This also completely destroyed him.
The principle of this game was the same—after spying on the core secrets of the Rose Factory’s operation, two paths were placed before the player.
One was to continue using the dismembered Tawil to cultivate Dried Rose Leaves and produce Rose Perfume.
The other was to draw Tawil’s blood, just like those investors in the second instance, letting the thorny chains of Blood Lingzhi grow through Tawil’s body, continuously producing Blood Lingzhi that could save everyone.
The Dried Rose Leaf had no thorns; its withered, smooth stems happened to complement the thorny, rose-like shrub branches of the Blood Lingzhi. These two plants had been designed from the start as a pair that complemented and restrained each other.
“You are escaping, aren’t you?” Tawil gazed at Bai Liu. “Because you don’t want to choose either path.”
“But there is no way around it. You should be clear that from the moment this game was designed, you could only choose between these two paths.”
“That person is forcing you to make a choice—whether to save the world by torturing me, or to let the world suffer in order to make things easier for me.”
Bai Liu knew.
He had known from the moment he stepped into this game—which was why he had been avoiding playing it.
—Someone was trying to force him back into being Bai Six by torturing Tawil.
—
Author’s Note:
The poem Tawil read is the original text of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, which was quoted in the previous chapter! It is very beautiful!
