Bai Liu did not remain at the children’s welfare home for long. He was about to enter a game instance with Mu Ke, so after briefly surveying the layout of the welfare home, he prepared to leave.
However, before leaving, Bai Liu still needed to give Lu Yizhan a brief explanation.
So he told Mu Ke to head home first and wait for him there. As the young master left, he kept turning back every few steps, visibly reluctant to part, even asking Bai Liu when he would return. Bai Liu simply handed Mu Ke his apartment keys and told him to wait there, earning increasingly strange looks from Mu Ke’s father.
The moment Bai Liu stepped outside, he saw Lu Yizhan leaning against the entrance of the welfare home, waiting for him.
The moment he saw Bai Liu, Lu Yizhan could not help teasing him.
“Where’s that little young master? Driving a ten-million-yuan luxury car just to trail after you, and he kept glaring at me too. Since when did you become this charming?”
Bai Liu replied without changing expression, “What’s the point of being charming? For your sake, I still rejected him and made him leave first.”
Lu Yizhan laughed despite himself, though he quickly restrained his smile and returned to business.
“So? You looked around. What did you find?”
Bai Liu answered unhurriedly, “Besides the poisoned children, there are also missing children in this welfare home. I already know enough about the poisoned children, but regarding the missing ones...” He paused slightly. “I suspect this is not the first disappearance to happen here, right?”
Lu Yizhan froze. “How did you know?”
“The attitude was wrong,” Bai Liu said calmly. “That teacher gave me a strange feeling. Normally, people instinctively avoid places where disappearances happened. But when she was introducing the welfare home to us, despite being afraid, she still subconsciously led us toward the site of the disappearance—the children’s playground.”
“That isn’t the reaction of someone dealing with this for the first time. More likely, it’s happened many times already, to the point where she’s afraid of it, yet accustomed to it.”
“...Yes.” Lu Yizhan bit down on his unlit cigarette irritably. “I spoke to the director. Apparently, this has happened almost every year for the past decade.”
Bai Liu asked evenly, “Your side should have annual disappearance records like this. Why haven’t I heard about them before?”
“Because they weren’t classified as disappearances. Most were treated as runaway cases. Even when reports were filed, they were processed as children running away.” Lu Yizhan ground his teeth against the cigarette filter, his gaze darkening. “In the records, it might only amount to a single line. If you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to miss.”
In a private welfare home, investing major resources into searching for missing children was a thankless task. If the children were never found, there were no parents or relatives left to pressure anyone or demand accountability. The scattered reports were simply shelved and left to gather dust, while those vanished children disappeared silently into the crowd with only a few meager lines left behind in the archives.
“After discovering that those entrepreneurs recovered from their illnesses after investing in this welfare home, I did a thorough investigation into this place.” Lu Yizhan exhaled slowly. “But private welfare homes aren’t regulated nearly as strictly as public ones. Most of the management is internal. There’s no guarantee the records we received about the number of children here at any given time are even accurate.”
“For example, if the director concealed the disappearances for several years, it’s entirely possible nobody would ever know.”
Lu Yizhan fell silent briefly before continuing.
“I strongly suspect that group of entrepreneurs is involved somehow. But right now they’re powerful, wealthy, and well respected. So many years have passed, and we don’t have any evidence. There’s no way to launch a deeper investigation.”
Bai Liu continued calmly, “Assuming those entrepreneurs really did something to the children back then, and given that we don’t know the children’s identities or backgrounds, they could easily erase them from the welfare home through staged ‘disappearances.’ You would have no leads to investigate.”
“...Yes.” Lu Yizhan inhaled deeply, only to choke on the smoke-less breath and cough. “But Bai Liu, those were human lives.”
He looked at Bai Liu with reddened eyes.
“I can’t accept it. Their deaths being written off as accidents... Even if they truly were accidents, I would only be satisfied after ruling out every other possibility. But now...”
“You have no evidence.” Bai Liu looked ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) at him calmly. “You can’t eliminate those possibilities. And technically, this isn’t even your jurisdiction. Coming here personally is already going far beyond your responsibilities.”
Lu Yizhan stayed silent for a while.
Soon enough, however, he reverted to his usual self—or perhaps it was simply his stubborn refusal to give up—and began discussing the details of the disappearances with Bai Liu.
There was a peculiar resilience in Lu Yizhan.
If Bai Liu knew something was impossible, he would never waste effort on it. But as long as Lu Yizhan believed there was even a chance of helping someone, he would keep trying no matter how futile it seemed.
And more often than not, he dragged Bai Liu along with him.
Lu Yizhan explained the disappearance cases one by one, showing Bai Liu photos of the missing children from each year. The pictures were all annual Children’s Day group photos from the welfare home. Lu Yizhan had photographed them on his phone and swiped through them while pointing out which children had later disappeared.
When the first photograph appeared, Lu Yizhan suddenly fell into a strange silence.
Because among the missing children in that picture was Bai Six.
“You think he looks a lot like me at fourteen, don’t you?” Bai Liu pointed directly at Bai Six’s face on the screen and commented flatly. “I think so too.”
“You two don’t look alike at all.” Lu Yizhan’s voice was low.
He looked at Bai Liu with unusual intensity, refuting him with rare stubbornness.
“Because he’s already dead. But you’re still alive.”
——————————
“Have you ever encountered something like this before, Mu Shicheng?” Bai Liu asked while walking home, phone pressed to his ear. “A future version of me entered the game as a Player and was confirmed dead inside a game instance set ten years ago, yet the present me, ten years later, is still alive.”
“It sounds like the Grandmother Paradox.” Mu Shicheng sounded both suspicious and astonished. “Bai Liu, your luck is seriously god-tier. Forget seeing something like this—I’ve never even heard of it happening before.”
The Grandmother Paradox is a classic time paradox proposed in science fiction. If someone travels back in time and kills their own grandmother, then their future self should never exist in the first place. But if they never existed, how could they travel back and commit the act?
Bai Liu’s situation resembled exactly that kind of contradiction.
If the future Bai Liu entered the game and died inside a game instance that took place ten years in the past, then how was the current Bai Liu still alive?
“Parallel universe theory?” Mu Shicheng tried offering an explanation. “That’s the most common solution to the Grandmother Paradox. Let’s say our current world is Universe A. The Bai Liu you saw might have been a failed version from Universe B that somehow got loaded into Universe A’s game instance.”
“Then you absolutely shouldn’t enter that welfare home instance.” Mu Shicheng’s tone turned serious. “As long as you choose not to enter it, you won’t die there. That way, you can branch off into a different parallel timeline from the one where you died.”
“I don’t think parallel universe theory applies here.” Bai Liu remained perfectly calm. “Our ‘Real World’ is the Official Version of the game. The reality we see is already the final converged result produced from every possible algorithmic outcome within the Beta World.”
“Theoretically, no parallel timelines should exist anymore.”
“Because our reality is already the convergence point of all possibilities. Once convergence is complete, divergence into parallel worlds should no longer occur.”
“...That’s true too.” Mu Shicheng subconsciously agreed before abruptly reacting. “Wait—then doesn’t that mean you’re guaranteed to die in that game instance ten years ago?!”
“But I’m still alive now, which proves I didn’t die there.” Bai Liu’s reasoning remained perfectly clear. “Otherwise, the two simultaneous propositions of [I am alive] and [I am dead] would create a paradox within a single, non-divergent timeline.”
“Then...” Mu Shicheng sounded utterly lost. “Then what the hell is going on?”
Bai Liu did not particularly care whether Mu Shicheng understood. By then, he had already reached his apartment door and pulled out his keys.
Balancing the phone against his shoulder, Bai Liu asked, “When are you planning to enter a game instance?”
“...Why?”
Just hearing the question gave Mu Shicheng a headache.
“Damn it, I barely slept at all after agreeing to join the league yesterday. What exactly are you planning? Sure, I can grind through twenty-six instances in two months if I really push myself, but at least gather the team members first!”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss.” Bai Liu unlocked the door. “I need you to help train a few newcomers.”
“Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu. They tied for first place among the previous batch of rookies. Both have personal skills and C+ panel ratings. Take them through a Level One instance, help them practice their abilities, and teach them the basics of the game.”
“Don’t protect them too much.”
After the hotpot gathering the previous night, Bai Liu had already spoken with Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu. He openly explained the dangers of the league and asked whether they were willing to participate.
But the middle-aged couple barely hesitated.
Holding hands, they cried as they agreed.
From beginning to end, they only asked Bai Liu two questions.
The first was:
“If we win... we can bring Guoguo back, right?”
“Theoretically, yes,” Bai Liu answered. “But you could also slowly accumulate points through normal gameplay. It would be safer than participating in the league, though much slower. You can think it over and give me your answer tomorrow.”
Xiang Chunhua looked nervously toward Liu Fu, fingers clutching tightly at her apron.
Behind her, the television continued broadcasting news about Li Gou likely receiving the death penalty.
It was a rerun. The volume was loud, filling the cramped room with the male anchor’s monotonous voice.
[The suspect in the high school girl dismemberment case will likely receive the death penalty.]
Xiang Chunhua looked at Bai Liu seriously.
“If we join this competition... it’ll help you too, right?”
That was the second question they asked.
Bai Liu fell silent briefly.
“Yes. But the mortality rate in this competition is extremely high. You should think about it more carefully—”
“We’ll join.” Xiang Chunhua smiled through her tears, wiping them away with the back of her hand. “There’s no need to think about it anymore. We trust you, Bai Liu.”
“Besides, earning points is earning points no matter where you do it, right? Isn’t this just another kind of competition?” She laughed softly. “Back in school, I was on the women’s volleyball team too, remember, Liu Fu?”
—
Author’s Note:
Not only does 6 personally carry his own child teammates, he even makes the monkey help carry teammates too.
Guess the idiom that describes 6’s behavior—
Revealed tomorrow!
