A heavy, snow-white statue suddenly appeared on the monster standing nearby.
The statue was absurdly heavy. Back on The Last Train to Blast Off, its weight alone had been enough to force Bai Liu to his knees. Now, hung on the body of this unnaturally tall and emaciated plant-patient monster, it produced only one result—the patient staggered under the sudden burden draped across its shoulders. Its footing slipped. Swaying unsteadily, it pitched forward and collapsed directly onto Mu Ke.
Everything seemed to slow down.
Miao Feichi’s descending twin blades slashed heavily into the snow-white armor covering the plant-patient. The blade tips flashed coldly, striking with a metallic clang. The statue exploded into countless plaster-like fragments that rained down over the half-dead Mu Ke beneath it.
After cleaving through the ordinary-grade item, Miao Feichi’s blades barely paused before continuing downward. Only when they were about to sever the muscles of the patient-monster’s upper body did they finally stop—dangerously close to Mu Ke’s eyes. It could be said that this devastating strike from Miao Feichi had been blocked with precision no thicker than a strand of hair.
Bai Liu’s face was pale. He breathed lightly, gaze calm.
It worked.
An ordinary-grade statue item only possessed durability slightly above one hundred. There was no way it could block an attack from Miao Feichi, whose attack power numbered in the thousands. Even if Bai Liu had placed the statue directly on Mu Ke, Miao Feichi would still have split him in half without slowing down.
So Bai Liu had played a small trick.
He used the statue’s overwhelming weight against the tall, skeletal plant-patient—and this patient was an A+ monster.
By making the patient collapse onto Mu Ke beneath the statue’s weight, the combination of [Statue + Patient] became Mu Ke’s shield, barely intercepting Miao Feichi’s earth-shaking blow.
The moment Mu Ke saw the item, his eyes—pinned beneath the monster-patient—lit faintly. With difficulty, he tilted his head toward Bai Liu in the corner and silently mouthed his name with a hoarse breath. His fingers, shriveled to little more than skin after being drained by the plant monster, brushed against the fallen white plaster dust.
Mu Ke trusted with unreasonable, almost blind certainty that Bai Liu would never let him die so easily.
Just like before.
That was why, even at the very last second, he had not retreated.
And Bai Liu had indeed done it.
Countdown: eight seconds.
Miao Feichi’s eyes widened. A bloodthirsty grin spread across his face, the expression of a hunter finally spotting prey. His twin blades swept through the floating debris and slashed straight toward the patient wearing the shattered statue armor atop Mu Ke.
“Bai Liu, you finally couldn’t resist using an item! You’ve exposed yourself at last!”
Mu Ke staggered upright. He still had to keep acting like a monster until the very end, so he bared his teeth and lunged for Miao Feichi’s wrist.
Miao Gaojiang rushed forward, fist raised to smash the little monster apart.
Bai Liu reacted instantly. With a sharp kick, he overturned a hospital bed, blocking the path between Mu Ke and Miao Gaojiang. It stopped Miao Gaojiang from attacking Mu Ke, but at the same time also prevented Mu Ke from reaching Miao Feichi.
A strange sense of familiarity surfaced in Miao Gaojiang’s chest, and he glanced sharply at Bai Liu.
This move again...
Bai Liu smiled weakly and coughed, his expression flawless. “I was trying to stop him from sucking Miao Feichi’s blood.”
Countdown: six seconds.
Miao Feichi’s twin blades carved violently along the wall, forcing the plant-patient into a corner. After taking several hits, the monster roared and snapped at him.
By now, Miao Feichi had completely identified this monster as Bai Liu. Combined with Mu Ke’s earlier inability to break through his defense no matter how desperately he bit, Miao Feichi arrived at the wrong conclusion. Faced with the monster lunging to bite him, he merely sneered contemptuously, hardly bothering to defend himself.
And indeed, he didn’t need to.
Even if the monster bit him, he would neither die nor suffer serious consequences. But the moment it attacked, the system would issue an attack notification—and that notification would reveal the truth:
This was a real monster.
Not the player Bai Liu.
Bai Liu stepped onto the overturned hospital bed.
Mu Ke pretended to pounce at Bai Liu like a crazed monster. Suspicious once more, Miao Gaojiang immediately moved to crush the fumbling “monster” with another punch.
Bai Liu’s gaze remained unnervingly calm.
He hooked his foot beneath a fallen bookshelf and kicked it upright from atop the hospital bed, using it to block the “attacking” Mu Ke. At the same time, the bookshelf perfectly cut off Miao Gaojiang’s path.
On the surface, Bai Liu seemed to be stopping Mu Ke from attacking others.
In reality, he was stopping Miao Gaojiang from attacking Mu Ke.
The entire sequence was smooth and natural.
But after seeing it happen several times in a row, Miao Gaojiang’s suspicion deepened.
...This familiar feeling of having his attacks interrupted...
Yet Mu Ke really had done similar things before by accident—shoving hospital beds into the way during fights.
...So where exactly was this unsettling sense of dissonance coming from?
Miao Gaojiang frowned, but his attention quickly shifted elsewhere.
The “Mu Ke” in his eyes—that is, Bai Liu—stepped off the hospital bed and sprinted several steps toward Miao Feichi.
At that very moment, the real patient-monster opened its bloodied jaws and lunged for Miao Feichi’s throat.
Miao Feichi did not evade.
He simply danced his twin blades up and down through the air, steadily harvesting the creature’s health points amidst the shrieking background chorus of wailing spirits.
Bai Liu watched him, his eyes flickering slightly.
At this point, his and Mu Ke’s health, sanity values, and appearances were almost perfectly identical.
There was only one difference left.
Bai Liu lowered his gaze and touched his neck.
The wound.
The injury on his neck differed from Mu Ke’s. One had been left by the constriction of a whip. The other was a bite mark from a monster.
This was the final step in their identity exchange.
The same wound.
Countdown: four seconds.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has switched to Player Mu Ke’s system template and is now using Player Mu Ke’s personal skill.]
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu’s personal skill [Thief’s Stealth] is about to become unusable due to critically low stamina. Final usage window: 10 seconds. 10, 9...]
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has forcibly pushed [Thief’s Stealth] to maximum output. Stamina severely depleted. Skill duration remaining: 1 second. Speed +7000.]
Miao Feichi raised his blade again in a reverse hook.
The monster let out a despairing roar and lunged toward his neck.
For an instant, a narrow gap opened between Miao Feichi and the monster.
Bai Liu calmly stepped forward.
After that single step, his body blurred under terrifying speed, as though something had violently yanked him from his original position. In the blink of an eye, he appeared directly between Miao Feichi and the monster.
Then Bai Liu adjusted his posture—
And deliberately offered his neck to the monster’s bite, right over the whip wound.
The instant the monster’s teeth sank in, both Bai Liu’s Adam’s apple and the monster’s throat moved simultaneously.
The monster swallowed because it was sucking blood.
Bai Liu swallowed because exhaustion flooded through him as the last of his stamina vanished.
His eyes even lost focus for a moment.
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s stamina has reached zero. Please replenish immediately!]
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu is being drained by the plant-patient monster! Health and sanity values are rapidly decreasing! Please retreat to a safe zone immediately!]
“Miao... Feichi...”
A sheen of moisture gathered in Bai Liu’s eyes. He looked up at the man standing inches away, voice weak as a fading breath.
“Bai Liu controlled me and dragged me over here. Kill him quickly.”
“Fuck, he’s still using you as a shield even now.” Miao Feichi cursed viciously, eyes locking onto Bai Liu’s head. He drove both blades forward with force.
Standing this close, Bai Liu could smell the heavy stench of blood and raw meat on Miao Feichi’s breath.
Miao Feichi sneered.
“Bai Liu’s just a dying idiot making his last struggle. What’s the point? I’ll kill him either way. Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, you won’t die.”
Bai Liu looked exhausted, but amusement flickered faintly in his eyes as the corner of his lips curved upward.
“Thank you, Miao Da-shen.”
Countdown: three seconds.
Miao Feichi gripped the inner curves of his blades with both hands and embraced Bai Liu almost intimately. With ruthless precision, he slammed the blades inward.
The tips met.
They pierced straight through the monster’s skull.
At the same moment, the monster clamped down on Bai Liu’s neck with sudden ferocity. Near his ear came the sickening crack of bone.
Bai Liu’s collarbone twitched under the force of the bite. Fresh blood streamed down from his neck, pooling in the hollow above his collarbone.
He let out a soft breath.
Thick fluid dripped steadily behind him, soaking the hospital gown with a nauseating stench. Slowly, the monster released Bai Liu’s neck from between its fangs.
Its skull had been brutally impaled by the twin curved blades.
The creature swayed unsteadily, blood still smeared across its teeth. Then it staggered backward.
Miao Feichi ended its final struggle with a cold horizontal slash.
The monster’s face—which looked identical to everyone else’s—split apart beneath the blade. Its head fell to the floor, eyes wide open and unable to close. Moments later, the headless corpse collapsed beside it, never rising again.
Bai Liu also slumped to the ground, his stamina completely exhausted.
Head lowered, he panted softly while clutching the puncture wounds on his neck, blood still slowly seeping between his fingers.
Gradually, his breathing steadied.
His scattered focus sharpened again when the monster’s severed head rolled to a stop near his feet.
The calmness returned to his eyes.
[System Notification: Does Player Bai Liu wish to clear all system warehouse items and points and drop them on the ground? Confirm?]
Bai Liu: [Yes.]
Countdown: one second.
Beside the dead monster-patient, a large pile of dropped items and points suddenly appeared.
It looked exactly like the aftermath of a player death.
Among the scattered objects were several gleaming mirror fragments and a collection of miscellaneous items, glowing faintly amid the dust and darkness of the ward.
“Mirror shards?” Miao Gaojiang crouched to inspect them, quickly scanning the rest of the loot before glancing toward the monster’s severed head with a complicated expression. “All of Bai Liu’s items and the points he earned in this instance are here.”
“Because the main identity line split the life values fifty-fifty under the game system, we can’t see a standard death panel...” He paused. “But this should be Bai Liu.”
“What do you mean, ‘should be’?” Miao Feichi crouched down and licked his lips. “This is Bai Liu. Right, Mu Ke?”
He casually nudged Bai Liu with the handle of his blade.
“And honestly, you didn’t need to shield me just now. The monsters in here are only A+ at best. They can’t bite me to death.” He tossed Bai Liu a bottle. “Still, thanks. Stamina recovery potion. Drink it.”
Bai Liu lowered his eyes and gave a faint hum of acknowledgment as he accepted the potion.
Afterward, Miao Feichi sliced a strip of flesh from the monster’s face with his knife, tossed it into his mouth, chewed once, and spat it back out in disgust.
“Tsk. Rotten meat.” He frowned. “Bai Liu mutated badly.”
Miao Gaojiang gathered up the dropped items and points. Then his ears twitched slightly.
Frowning, he pushed open the ICU door.
Outside, the nurse station lights had already turned on. A group of nurses was making its way toward the ICU corridor.
It was nine o’clock at night.
The night-shift rounds had begun.
“Feichi, stop fooling around.” Miao Gaojiang glanced at Miao Feichi, who was still casually hacking at “Bai Liu’s” corpse with his twin blades. “It’s nine. The nurses are out. We’re leaving.”
“Fine.” Miao Feichi withdrew his blades and looked around lazily. “What about the other monster? Let’s kill that one too. Maybe it’ll improve the final dungeon rating and earn more points. It’ll only take a few seconds anyway. It’s already half dead. Just cleanup.”
In truth, Miao Feichi did not care about those extra points at all.
He simply hadn’t finished enjoying the killing.
And while his skill buff was still active, it would be a waste not to use it.
Hidden beneath the bed, Mu Ke held his breath so tightly he nearly bit through his own fist. His body was pressed flat against the underside of the frame, and he did not dare make even the slightest sound.
One last step.
Just one last step.
Please let me survive this.
Bai Liu coughed weakly at exactly the right moment. Blood covered both his mouth and neck. He looked as though he might collapse dead at any second.
“No need. There’s no time.” Miao Gaojiang glanced toward the “Mu Ke” sitting weakly on the floor—that is, Bai Liu—and lowered his voice. “We still need to carry Mu Ke back. Your stamina’s nearly gone too. Don’t create extra trouble.”
“We already obtained the Life-Saving Remedy and killed Bai Liu. Let’s leave. The hospital’s full of monsters anyway. Once you recover, you can kill as many as you want.”
Miao Feichi swept his gaze across the ward once more.
His eyes paused briefly on the half-dead “plant monster” lying there—Mu Ke.
Bai Liu clutched his neck and coughed softly again. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, staining his pale lips crimson.
Outside the ward, the crisp rhythm of nurses’ heels echoed closer and closer through the corridor.
They would arrive at the ICU at any moment.
Finally, Miao Feichi clicked his tongue and withdrew his blades.
“Fine. It’s just a regular monster anyway. Not worth many points.”
Relief nearly made Mu Ke collapse beneath the bed.
Thank god. They’re finally leaving.
Miao Gaojiang, who still had stamina remaining, hooked an arm beneath “Mu Ke’s” armpit and hoisted Bai Liu up like a sack of grain.
Bai Liu’s head hung low, his breathing shallow.
That final bite had nearly reduced his health to zero.
Miao Feichi slipped out of the ward first. Miao Gaojiang followed close behind carrying Bai Liu. The two moved swiftly, disappearing into the emergency stairwell just before the nurses reached the ICU.
Miao Gaojiang spoke steadily as they descended.
“These nurses begin their rounds on the first floor and move upward by elevator. They won’t use the stairwell. Feichi and I are assigned to the fifth floor. Mu Ke, your room is on the ninth. We still have time before they check our wards.”
Then his tone abruptly darkened.
“Looks like we have time to settle accounts first.”
Without warning, Miao Gaojiang threw Bai Liu from his shoulder onto the ground.
He crouched down and seized Bai Liu’s thin neck in one massive hand. His fingers tightened around the exposed Adam’s apple.
“Mu Ke...” His voice turned cold. “Or should I say—Bai Liu pretending to be Mu Ke?”
Miao Feichi froze.
“Dad, what are you talking about?” He frowned. “Isn’t he Mu Ke?”
Bai Liu lowered his eyes slightly, voice rough and hoarse.
“...What are you talking about?”
“Bai Liu’s abilities specialize in control.” Miao Gaojiang’s gaze deepened, sharpness flashing through his eyes. “Before entering the ICU, we confirmed that Mu Ke had broken free of Bai Liu’s control. But after entering that chaos...”
“It would have been impossible for Bai Liu to directly control players with S-rank templates like Feichi and me.”
His grip tightened around Bai Liu’s throat.
“But controlling Mu Ke again?” Miao Gaojiang pressed down on his larynx, slowly lifting his chin. “That would have been very easy for Bai Liu.”
“I suspect that not long after entering the ICU, Mu Ke was controlled by you. That’s why he kept interfering with our attacks. And in the end, you likely pushed him out as a scapegoat so we would kill him.”
Miao Gaojiang sneered. “I only pretended to believe you were Mu Ke so I could get you out of the ward first. The nurses were coming, after all. If Feichi and I had been trapped in the ICU, things would have become troublesome for both of us.”
His eyes turned cold.
“But you want to play a double-agent game in front of me?”
As he spoke, Miao Gaojiang pinched Bai Liu’s chin between two fingers, his grip slowly tightening.
Bai Liu felt his throat being crushed. Breathing became difficult. Even coughing was impossible beneath Miao Gaojiang’s hand. His limbs curled slightly and trembled from suffocation, and a flush of oxygen deprivation spread across his pale face.
Miao Gaojiang narrowed his eyes.
“The last monster we killed used an item. Only a player can use items. But the item that monster used was called [Siren’s Statue]—a reward for unlocking the Siren Statue entry in the monster book in Siren Town.”
“That item is wrong.” Miao Gaojiang paused. “Bai Liu does have that item, yes. But he already used it in The Last Train to Blast Off when he was facing Mu Ke. I’ve watched your small television videos many times. I remember it very clearly.”
His tone remained calm, but his gaze was ruthless.
“Of course, I won’t rule out the possibility that you bought another Siren’s Statue from the trading market. But for a newcomer like you, there would be no need to buy such a low-level item.”
“Coincidentally, we checked Mu Ke’s warehouse earlier. He has a Siren’s Statue.”
“That monster we killed was most likely Mu Ke. He subconsciously used the item to save himself, and the things that dropped afterward were deliberately thrown onto the ground by you.”
“All to make us believe that monster was Bai Liu, correct?”
Miao Gaojiang smiled coldly.
“Unfortunately, the item Mu Ke used—Siren’s Statue—is the one flaw in your entire plan.”
“Bai Liu no longer has that item.”
Choked to the point of breathlessness, Bai Liu instinctively tried to pry Miao Gaojiang’s hand away. His voice came out rough and strained.
“I really am Mu Ke. That item was taken by Bai Liu after he controlled me in the ward...”
Miao Gaojiang clearly did not believe him. Seeing Bai Liu like this, he even gave a mocking laugh.
“Brat, you’re still too inexperienced. Come back and fight us after you’ve rolled around in the League for a year.”
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has loaded Player Mu Ke’s system template. Loading complete.]
In the split second before he was strangled to death, Bai Liu opened the system template.
The panel appeared before everyone.
The moment Miao Gaojiang saw it, his eyes narrowed again. His grip loosened.
Bai Liu clutched his neck and leaned back, gasping for air. Purple bruising already marked his throat. His lips were so pale they carried the coldness of a corpse, and his frantic breathing made them tremble faintly.
He had nearly been strangled to death by the merciless Miao Gaojiang.
Miao Gaojiang stared at the system panel with suspicion.
It was indeed Player Mu Ke’s system panel.
And among the warehouse items, one Siren’s Statue was indeed missing.
Unfortunately, Miao Gaojiang was not the sort of player who placed absolute trust in panels.
Having survived in the League and fought through countless matches, he was far too calculating. He always harbored doubts toward anything presented too directly. He kept remembering that Bai Liu was a control-type player—and because Bai Liu was a newcomer who had only cleared two games, the exact mechanism of his skill remained unknown.
The somewhat absurd guess that Bai Liu could share another player’s skill panel did cross Miao Gaojiang’s mind.
But that would infringe upon the system’s authority and fall under the highest category of skill: [Rule Skills].
Players such as Spades, Queen of Hearts, and the Inverted Cross Inquisitor—the third-ranked player on the points leaderboard—all possessed [Rule Skills]. Such skills granted them an authority level equal to the system itself.
It was unlikely that Bai Liu possessed a personal skill of such a high rank.
Owners of skills like that did not need to play mind games with Miao Gaojiang, even in the early stages of a game. They could simply charge in head-on.
Because [Rule Skills] were overwhelmingly dominant.
They could truly kill across level gaps.
Of course, it was not impossible that Bai Liu did possess such a skill, only with many restrictions.
But that possibility was too small.
At the very least, Miao Gaojiang had never seen such a bizarre personal skill in the game.
Bai Liu cleared his throat. He lowered his head and explained softly, “When I entered the ICU, I was indeed controlled by Bai Liu for a while. But later, Bai Liu’s sanity dropped too low, so he released his control over me. Before that, however, he took one of my items.”
“That was also how I became certain that the monster was Bai Liu.”
“Is that so?” Miao Gaojiang’s gaze was murky.
After all, he was a veteran player who had seen enough storms and survived the League. Although he usually listened to Miao Feichi on many matters as a way of indulging his son, Miao Gaojiang was far more cautious and cunning than the bloodthirsty young punk Miao Feichi.
Even after seeing the Mu Ke system panel Bai Liu showed him, Miao Gaojiang did not fully believe it.
Instead, killing intent began to rise in his eyes.
When faced with a player whose camp and danger level he could not determine, Miao Gaojiang’s usual choice was to kill them outright and eliminate the future risk.
But before killing him...
The main reason they had chosen to bring this Mu Ke along was the Life-Saving Remedy.
Miao Gaojiang’s tone suddenly softened again.
“Mu Ke, it’s not that I don’t believe you. But you need to prove your worth. This system panel can prove your identity, yes, but it isn’t enough for us to continue bringing you with us.”
“In the ICU earlier, you said you had found the Life-Saving Remedy.”
His expression turned kind.
“Why don’t you show it to us?”
The Life-Saving Remedy was something Mu Ke had claimed in order to restrict Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang’s actions and disrupt their attack rhythm.
Mu Ke was still in the ward searching for it. At the earliest, he would finish by tomorrow morning.
Bai Liu did not have any Life-Saving Remedy on him.
But Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, these two veteran players, were watching him like predators. Their attitude was very clear.
If he could produce the Life-Saving Remedy, Bai Liu, as “Mu Ke,” would at least be able to return safely to the ward tonight.
If he could not, these two would very likely kill him on the spot to eliminate the risk.
Unless Bai Liu could prove he had some other value to them.
The atmosphere fell silent for a moment.
Only Bai Liu’s slow, recovering breaths remained, along with the sound of Miao Feichi standing behind him, slowly grinding his twin blades together.
Miao Feichi was still hesitating.
“Dad, are you really sure he’s Bai Liu? He saved me just now...”
Miao Gaojiang glanced at Miao Feichi indifferently.
“Listen to me on this.”
Miao Feichi paused.
The tacit understanding built through many games made him quickly choose to believe his father unconditionally. He raised his twin blades and approached Bai Liu.
Although Miao Feichi’s stamina was empty and he could not use his personal skill, with his panel’s attack stats, killing Bai Liu would still be effortless even without a skill.
The sharp, curved Crescent Moon Twin Blades slowly and coldly circled around the back of Bai Liu’s neck.
A chilling aura pierced through his skin.
Miao Gaojiang pressed both hands onto Bai Liu’s shoulders. It looked like a gesture of comfort, but with his strength, he only needed to close his hands to strangle Bai Liu, who had only ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) six health points remaining.
“Sorry about this.” Miao Feichi grinned. “Offense intended. My dad suspects you, so you’d better prove your innocence.”
Miao Gaojiang crouched in front of Bai Liu, staring intently at him with an extremely kind smile on his face.
There was not the slightest trace of warmth in his eyes.
“Show me the Life-Saving Remedy you found, Mu Ke.”
Attacked from both front and back, Mu Ke’s escape skill was still on cooldown, and Bai Liu’s current stamina was zero. He could not use any skills.
There was no way to run.
Miao Gaojiang’s tone was gentle.
“What’s wrong? Can’t remember, Mu Ke? Do you need me to help you recall it?”
“When you were under the bed, you suddenly shouted that you had obtained the Life-Saving Remedy and interrupted our attack rhythm. At that time, had you already been controlled by Bai Liu?”
“If those words were forced out of you by him to deceive us, and we went through so much trouble to bring you with us only to gain nothing...”
Miao Gaojiang smiled.
“Then we would be very angry.”
“You won’t be able to bear the consequences of our anger.”
He advised Bai Liu like a benevolent elder, but his hand suddenly clamped around Bai Liu’s neck. Murderous intent flashed in his eyes as his grip tightened.
In the final second before Miao Gaojiang lost patience, the phone on Bai Liu suddenly rang.
Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang exchanged a look.
They had not expected this person’s child to actually call him.
Before Bai Liu could say anything after picking up the phone, Miao Gaojiang snatched it away.
He looked at Bai Liu in silence.
Bai Liu instantly understood what Miao Gaojiang intended to do.
Miao Gaojiang was indeed an old player. His mind was as full of holes and schemes as a honeycomb briquette.
Perhaps Bai Liu’s control-type skill, whose activation method remained unclear, had made this battle-hardened veteran highly wary. Even though Bai Liu had shown the system panel, Miao Gaojiang still suspected his identity.
He still suspected that this was Bai Liu.
Aside from the system panel, there was one other very important way to determine a player’s identity in this game.
The child corresponding to that player.
This phone call was a one-on-one, single-line connection bound between player and child. Because the system required players to carry the phone at all times in order to answer calls from the children, the phone was effectively bound to the player.
It could not be discarded or exchanged.
In other words, a player’s phone could only receive calls from their own corresponding child.
To a certain extent, the child calling the player could definitively reflect that player’s identity.
Furthermore, the child on the other end had no idea what was happening on the player’s side.
If the investor player standing here was actually Bai Liu disguised as Mu Ke, then Bai Liu could only pull off this disguise because he and the investor Mu Ke had the same appearance—and even the same voice.
But the child on the phone, Bai Six, had no way to change his identity.
He was Bai Six.
There were many differences between him and the child Mu Ke.
For example, their voices.
An S-rank player like Miao Gaojiang could very easily distinguish between the voice of the child Mu Ke and the voice of the child Bai Liu.
Even if he did not know their specific voices yet, tomorrow was the welfare home’s baptism. At that time, Miao Gaojiang would see both the child Mu Ke and the child Bai Liu.
If Bai Six’s voice now did not match the voice of the child Mu Ke he would see tomorrow, then this Bai Liu would absolutely be exposed as not being Mu Ke.
Bai Liu calmly looked at Miao Gaojiang, who had taken his phone.
Miao Gaojiang did not speak, even though the nurses downstairs had already begun searching upward.
This man was extremely patient.
After thinking for a second, Miao Gaojiang tapped Bai Liu’s shoulder with his index finger, then held the phone up to Bai Liu’s ear and jerked his chin coldly.
His meaning was clear.
He wanted Bai Liu to speak.
He wanted Bai Six to believe that his investor was still the one on the phone.
And Bai Liu could not let slip that someone else was holding the receiver.
That way, the child on the other end would speak while completely unaware of the situation here.
In other words, the voice on the other end would definitely belong to the child corresponding to this player.
“Good evening,” Bai Liu said steadily under Miao Gaojiang’s gaze, doing as instructed.
From the other end came the sound of several children running, their breathing hurried.
The footsteps were dense and chaotic, as if a group of children were sprinting. Faint crying mixed with strange, ethereal children’s laughter that trailed closely behind those footsteps.
It was impossible to tell exactly how many children were running and panting.
“Good... good evening, Mister Investor.”
It was the soft, timid voice of a little boy.
He seemed to be getting dragged along while running, his voice carrying a sob.
“I... I, boohoo, am Mu Ke. I came to call you.”
It really was little Mu Ke’s voice.
The corner of Bai Liu’s lips curved almost imperceptibly.
Good job, Bai Six.
After hearing the child’s voice, Miao Gaojiang stared fixedly at Bai Liu for a full minute before slowly withdrawing the hand around his neck.
The person on the other end had stated their identity while knowing nothing.
Miao Gaojiang now had no reason left to doubt that Bai Liu was Mu Ke.
At last, he lowered his guard and patted Bai Liu’s shoulder.
“The nurses are coming up. Go back to your ward first. Sorry about my attitude just now. Mainly, Bai Liu is too cunning, so we had to confirm things several times.”
“Your child’s willingness to call you is a great help to us.”
“That’s all for tonight. As for the Life-Saving Remedy...”
“I know what the Life-Saving Remedy is,” Bai Liu interrupted. “But the formula is too complicated. I’ll give it to you directly after I finish making it tomorrow morning.”
By tomorrow morning, Mu Ke should have finished reading the books in the ICU and would be able to give the information to Bai Liu.
Everything was timed perfectly by Bai Liu.
And the news that Mu Ke—or rather, the person they believed was Mu Ke—had the Life-Saving Remedy clearly softened Miao Gaojiang’s attitude by quite a bit.
He nodded.
“Then I’ll trouble you. Later, we’ll do our best to help you clear the game.”
“The nurses are coming. That’s all for tonight. Everyone, return to your wards.”
After returning to the ward, Bai Liu went to Mu Ke’s previous room.
Once he locked the door, he picked up the receiver, which was still connected, and asked softly, “Bai Six?”
“I’m here.”
The voice on the other end abruptly changed back into the cold voice of a little boy.
Beside him, there was still the sound of a child crying and running. It was probably little Mu Ke.
Bai Six asked very calmly, “Who else was listening to the call just now?”
“How did you know someone else was listening?” Bai Liu asked with interest. “You only heard my voice.”
Bai Six said coldly, “I heard three people breathing. Also, your voice was too far from the receiver. It wasn’t the normal calling position from when you called me last night.”
“It sounded like the phone wasn’t in your hand.”
“More like you were being forced to take my call.”
