“You kissed a silver-blue-tailed merman living in a jar, then kissed a ghost in a mirror aboard a burning train that was about to explode?” Bai Six clicked his tongue lightly, his tone unreadable. “Your romantic history is... unusually colorful.”
Bai Liu didn’t take the remark seriously. “They’re just game characters. Nothing more. But you’ve been listening to me ramble this whole time without hanging up. What, are you planning to stay on the line for the full three hours?”
“If possible, yes.” Bai Six replied evenly. “After all, the call is billed by the minute. Besides, tonight everyone else has been too busy running around and drawing the attention of the Deformed Children. So far, only Mu Ke and I have successfully contacted our investors and informed them about tomorrow’s ceremony.”
“That blind girl, Liu Jiayi, moved quickly too. Even though she can’t see, she kept one hand against the wall while walking. I distracted one of the Deformed Children for her earlier, so she should be able to finish her call and return safely soon.”
“The other two children run fast as well—Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, I think. They managed to make their calls, but they cried the whole time and failed to clearly explain that the investors needed to attend the ceremony tomorrow.”
Bai Six spoke rapidly while running, his breathing faintly uneven, yet his report remained methodical and precise.
“And don’t worry. I’ve been careful. Before I knew you held a grudge against those two children’s investors, Mu Ke and I deliberately avoided them while moving around. They never noticed we were making calls together. In fact, it may be because they were drawing the monsters’ attention that the three of us managed to make our calls so easily tonight.”
“Oh, right. I forgot to mention this.” Bai Six’s tone stayed calm. “There isn’t only one Deformed Child tonight. There are three, all with different deformities. None of them are the child from last night.”
“One crawls on all fours with purple lips. Another has twisted limbs that curve inward. Its feet turn in when it runs, so it limps badly, and the proportions of its body are disturbingly uneven. The third has unnaturally pale skin and hair. I only caught a glimpse while hiding on the slide, but I think its irises were purple too.”
Bai Liu had spent time in welfare homes before and was familiar with many congenital disorders. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Congenital heart disease, osteogenesis imperfecta... and albinism.”
All congenital genetic illnesses.
And notably, they corresponded closely to the conditions shared by the five surviving children in the real world.
Bai Liu immediately noticed two strange points.
First: although welfare homes often housed disabled children, the fact that both the dead children and the surviving children all shared specific congenital genetic disorders was too peculiar to ignore. What exactly did that imply?
Second: why were the deformed children in the real world still alive, while the deformed children here had already become ghosts?
The first question still lacked enough information to answer.
But Bai Liu felt he already understood the second.
His fingers absently brushed the damaged coin hanging against his chest as he fell into thought.
Based on the information currently available in the instance, the healthy children had been lured away by the sound of the flute and disappeared without a trace. Meanwhile, the exact cause of death for the deformed children remained unknown, but after death, they had clearly transformed into monsters that wandered the grounds at night.
That didn’t mean the surviving children in the real world wouldn’t die.
According to the rules of the Love Welfare Home instance, the six children in the real world with congenital deformities—including Liu Jiayi—should correspond to the [Deformed Children] NPCs projected within the game.
And if every Deformed Child NPC in this instance was already dead, then logically, the six children in the real world would also have to die eventually in order to complete the mapping between reality and the instance.
Under Lu Yizhan’s watch, however, the likelihood of those children dying in the real world was extremely low.
The only real exception was Liu Jiayi.
She had entered the game itself and was in immediate danger. Among all of them, she was the one most likely to die and become alienated into a monster.
Yet judging from the system’s consistent logic, the remaining children in the real world would probably still be forced toward death sooner or later.
The question was how.
“If the deformed children in the real world are destined to die eventually, then what will kill them?” Bai Liu murmured to himself as he leaned against the wall.
A game’s loading logic could not completely violate common sense.
If the system forcibly inserted [NPC Death] data into the [Real World], it would create inconsistencies obvious enough for observant NPCs like Lu Yizhan to notice. Naturally, the system could erase the memories of everyone involved, but it could not erase a Player’s memories. Bai Liu himself would recognize the contradiction immediately.
And if the official version of the [Real World] became riddled with such obvious bugs, it would lose all meaning for the Players observing it.
So how could the system arrange the deaths of those six children in a way that remained logically consistent with both the game and reality?
Then Bai Liu suddenly remembered the pile of corpses in the hospital—and Lu Yizhan’s grave expression that day.
“When these children were admitted, their vital signs were mostly normal. But a day later, their conditions suddenly deteriorated... livor mortis and rigor mortis appeared far too early. It felt as though they had died long before the symptoms manifested...”
That was it.
Delayed death.
Bai Liu instantly understood.
This was the most reasonable way for the system to “load” death into reality without triggering suspicion.
It wasn’t that the six children had avoided mushroom poisoning entirely.
More likely, they simply possessed stronger resistance than the others, causing the symptoms to emerge far later. Up until the moment Bai Liu entered the game, they had shown no signs of illness—but that didn’t mean the poison wasn’t already killing them.
Or rather, they were already in the process of dying.
Medical examinations simply could not detect it yet.
Which meant that, aside from Bai Liu inside the game, nobody had realized the truth.
Nobody had noticed that these six deformed children—who appeared to have escaped death—were still trapped beneath its shadow.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes.
And if the real-world case truly functioned as the loading framework for the game instance, then perhaps the deaths inside and outside the game would mirror one another as well.
Bai Six did not interrupt his silence.
He simply waited quietly for Bai Liu’s next question without hanging up.
After all, the call was charged by the minute.
Several moments later, Bai Liu suddenly asked, “Have you eaten mushrooms at the welfare home recently?”
“No.” Bai Six answered concisely. “I’m sensitive to the smell of mushrooms. None of the food I’ve eaten should contain them.”
“Do the Deformed Children chasing you smell like mushrooms?” Bai Liu asked, shifting his train of thought.
“I don’t know,” Bai Six replied immediately. “We’ve been keeping our distance from them, so I haven’t been close enough to tell. Do you need me to approach one and confirm it? Naturally, that service would not be free.”
“Not yet.” Bai Liu rejected the proposal without hesitation. “Those children aren’t slow. Without someone else distracting them, getting too close would be dangerous.”
And according to the Monster Book’s description of the [Deformed Children], once a child player was caught, they disappeared completely.
Bai Liu’s own health was only six.
What he had told Bai Six earlier had not been entirely false. Compared to himself, Bai Six—with his far healthier HP pool—was unquestionably more important right now.
At the moment, Bai Liu intended to do everything possible to keep this absurdly profit-driven little ally alive.
“But you will need me to get close eventually, won’t you?” Bai Six asked calmly.
“Yes,” Bai Liu admitted honestly. “Not only do I need you to approach them, I also need you to identify their weaknesses.”
He needed to unlock the weaknesses of these monsters in the Monster Book.
Only then could he control the Deformed Children that roamed the welfare home every night.
That would be far safer than allowing them to hunt the children unchecked.
After all, Bai Liu felt the “disappearance” attack used by the Deformed Children was even more terrifying—and far more unpredictable—than the blood-draining attacks of the Plant Patients.
It was effectively an instant kill.
The only reason no children had vanished yet was likely because the monsters still had too many scattered targets.
Once a Deformed Child truly locked onto someone, taking them away would be frighteningly easy.
Another thing Bai Liu found troubling was the increase in numbers.
There had only been one Deformed Child last night.
Tonight, there were already three.
The number of these creatures was clearly growing.
“I do need you to get close to them and help me identify their weaknesses,” Bai Liu said quietly. “That information is extremely important to me, and naturally, I’ll pay you for it. But not tonight, little friend. Tonight is too dangerous. I’m not going to throw your life away for something like this. Once I find a way to keep you safe tomorrow night, then we’ll do it.”
The line fell silent.
For nearly a full minute, Bai Six said nothing at all. Then, as though he hadn’t heard Bai Liu’s words in the slightest, he changed the subject with practiced smoothness.
“Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang have already returned to their room. The three children are still chasing me. Mister Investor, tonight’s call lasted thirty-one minutes. I’ll round it down to thirty. That makes three thousand yuan total. Combined with the previous amount, you now owe me six thousand yuan.”
His tone was courteous, but insistently so.
“Delaying payment to a minor providing ‘chat companionship services’ is a very bad habit. I hope you’ll settle the six thousand yuan tomorrow when we meet. Thank you for your patronage. Good night, Mister Investor.”
Normally, Bai Six would have hung up immediately after saying that.
But tonight, even after he finished speaking, the call remained connected.
Bai Liu could hear the sound of rapid breathing carried by the wind over open ground, the shrill giggling of the children pursuing them from behind, and Mu Ke’s desperate attempts to suppress both his gasps and the sobs threatening to escape his throat.
The frantic footsteps gradually steadied.
The texture of the sound changed as well—from the loose crunch of dirt to the heavy echo of concrete.
They were probably close to the dormitory now.
Mu Ke was struggling to keep up with Bai Six.
The little boy had been dragged around all night, and his face had already turned a frightening shade of purple from the strain on his weak heart. Even so, he gritted his teeth and forced himself onward without complaint.
He neither cried nor resisted.
It was obvious he understood that Bai Six was only dragging him along to keep him alive.
Because without Bai Six, there was no way Mu Ke would have survived long enough tonight to finish calling his investor.
And if he failed to notify the investor, he wouldn’t be allowed to participate in tomorrow’s baptism ceremony.
For the children of the welfare home, that was a serious offense—one severe enough to invite punishment.
Mu Ke secretly glanced at the phone in Bai Six’s hand.
This Investor... why had he specifically asked Bai Six to protect him?
And why still hadn’t Bai Six hung up?
They were almost back inside the room. If a teacher saw them still using the phone, they would definitely be scolded.
“Is there something else you want to say?” Bai Liu finally asked tactfully. “You’re almost back already, aren’t you? Why haven’t you hung up? Trying to squeeze a few more minutes of charges out of me?”
“...These few minutes won’t be added to your bill.”
Bai Six still sounded slightly breathless, and his voice had lowered for some inexplicable reason.
He spoke quickly, almost as though trying to conceal something.
“The two horror stories you told tonight were pretty good. They can count as payment.”
Bai Liu lifted a brow in surprise.
“You’re being unusually generous tonight. First you round the price down, now you’re waiving fees too...”
“Beep—beep—beep—”
The line disconnected instantly.
Bai Liu: “...”
So this little brat had stayed on the line purely because he liked hearing him talk about games.
Was he really this awkward and prickly when he was fourteen?
...Disgusting.
Bai Liu put away the phone, but his gaze drifted back toward the overly damp straw bed.
His eyes narrowed abruptly.
Earlier tonight, he had caught the faint odor of decaying vegetation on the patient.
At the time, his attention had been entirely focused on dealing with Miao Feichi and the others, so he hadn’t examined the smell carefully. He had only vaguely categorized it as the scent of damp humus and rotting straw.
But underneath the heavy smell of moldy straw...
There had been another scent hidden there.
Bai Liu touched the bite wound on his neck.
The Plant Patient’s saliva still clung to the skin.
He scraped a small amount off with his fingertip and brought it to his nose.
The smell of blood.
The wet, moldy odor of rotting straw.
And beneath all of it—
A faint trace of something else.
Bai Liu calmly placed his finger into his mouth.
A mushroom flavor.
So faint it was nearly impossible to smell, but unmistakable once tasted.
The children here hadn’t eaten mushrooms.
So were the patients eating them instead?
The only thing ICU patients consumed was the [Medicine] distributed by the nurses.
But the [Medicine] was clearly liquid, not mushrooms. Although it could theoretically contain mushroom-derived ingredients, Bai Liu found another possibility far more convincing.
His gaze settled on the straw bed.
He stepped closer and circled it slowly.
The longer he looked, the stranger it felt.
At first glance, it was obviously a bed.
But under the dim lighting, combined with the constant moisture and the excessively thick layer of moldy straw, the entire thing no longer resembled a bed at all.
It looked more like a mushroom cultivation chamber.
And the straw bed itself resembled mushroom substrate.
Bai Liu pulled back the white bedsheet.
Beneath it sprawled a dense layer of yellowing straw.
As he casually stirred it apart, clusters of fungi attached to the rotting substrate came into view, their roots embedded deep within the damp straw.
Bai Liu recognized them immediately.
Some were edible.
Some were poisonous.
But all of them were ordinary species.
None possessed any life-extending properties. Some could even kill a person outright if consumed. Back when Bai Liu had lived in the welfare home, a child had nearly died after accidentally eating one.
His fingers moved through the mushrooms sprouting from the straw.
After confirming that all the fungi growing from the bed were common varieties, Bai Liu fell silent in thought.
The patients clearly weren’t consuming these mushrooms.
So what exactly were they eating?
His gaze lingered on the bed.
Earlier, in the ICU, the Plant Patient had lain motionless like a vegetable. Because Bai Liu’s HP had already been dangerously low, he hadn’t dared disturb the creature to inspect whether the mushrooms growing beneath that bed were ordinary varieties as well.
But now, it seemed highly likely that every patient’s [Substrate]—their bed—cultivated different mushrooms.
Which raised the real question:
Why were they different?
And what species were actually being cultivated there?
Bai Liu had a feeling every answer pointed toward the thing the system called the [Life-Saving Remedy].
“Mu Ke...” Bai Liu exhaled softly to himself. “Now it depends on whether you can figure out what that Life-Saving Remedy really is before morning.”
———
ICU Ward.
Mu Ke crawled out from beneath the chaotic hospital bed, gasping for breath as he staggered upright while clutching the bedframe.
Even after standing, his vision still swam.
He took two unsteady steps before collapsing weakly onto the bed again, panting hard.
This was the bed Bai Liu had occupied earlier.
Mu Ke fell onto it in exhaustion and buried his face deep within the blanket that still carried Bai Liu’s scent.
Like a fledgling hiding beneath its mother’s wings, he instinctively sought comfort and security there.
The terror from his near-death experience still lingered in his body.
His hands and feet trembled uncontrollably.
Although he had hidden beneath the bed and force-fed himself several bottles of Mental Value Bleach to restore his sanity, the blood loss had pushed his physical condition to the brink.
Too much blood had been drained from him.
His body was cold, hovering on the edge of shock, his muscles twitching involuntarily.
Mu Ke curled tighter into the blanket and pressed one shaking hand down with the other, desperately trying to calm himself.
His eyes were red.
When that monster had been sucking his blood earlier, he had truly believed he was going to die.
Toward the end, his vision had blurred with stars, and even the veins in the backs of his hands had collapsed.
But he had needed to let the monster drain him that badly.
Only then could his condition sufficiently resemble Bai Liu’s.
Only then could Bai Liu successfully disguise himself as Mu Ke and infiltrate Miao Feichi’s group.
Mu Ke closed his eyes.
He forced himself to recall the plan Bai Liu had explained earlier.
Thinking through it carefully helped steady his breathing.
The plan itself had been absurdly simple.
The paper cup and orange game.
An orange hidden beneath one of three cups.
The cups shuffled.
The opponent guessing which one concealed the orange.
The identical investors were the three cups.
And Bai Liu—the target Miao Feichi desperately wanted to find—was the orange hidden beneath them.
But beneath that simplicity lay a frightening number of variables.
“The first problem,” Mu Ke had said earlier, staring at the three paper cups Bai Liu had arranged on the table, “is that you and the patient don’t look exactly alike. The patient is thinner... longer.”
“Correct,” Bai Liu replied calmly. “And there’s another issue. Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang are both S-rank players. They can simply refuse to follow the rules of our little game.”
As he spoke, Bai Liu rotated the paper cups deftly between his fingers.
“They can just crush all three cups at once and directly check which one contains the orange they want.”
With a casual motion, he crushed the cups in his hand.
The oranges hidden beneath them burst into pulp.
Then he tossed the ruined cups into the trash.
Mu Ke swallowed nervously.
“...Then what do we do?”
“So the first step,” Bai Liu said, tapping one of the cups and writing ‘A+’ on it, “is making them believe they can’t casually crush all three cups.”
“Only then will they agree to play by the rules.”
“I’ll disguise myself as an A+ monster and simultaneously impersonate three different monsters. The nurses only switch shifts every fifteen minutes. Even for S-rank players, dealing with three A+ monsters simultaneously is troublesome enough that they’ll likely choose to eliminate only one.”
“But there’s only one of you,” Mu Ke began instinctively. “How can you possibly impersonate three mon—”
His words stopped abruptly.
Bai Liu’s hands blurred.
The cups spun so quickly that only afterimages remained.
For a fleeting instant, the A+ mark seemed to appear on all three cups simultaneously.
Bai Liu looked up and smiled.
“Move speed.”
“As for appearances,” he continued, “the sicker the patients become, the thinner and more distorted they look. For players, [Becoming Sicker] is reflected through two values.”
He looked directly at Mu Ke.
“Health and mental value.”
“So from an objective standpoint, we only need to lower our HP and mental value until our appearance roughly matches the monster patient.”
Mu Ke’s lips tightened immediately.
Disapproval was written all over his face.
“Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang are veteran players,” he argued. “Simple tricks like this won’t fool them. Even someone like me can track the correct cup in a shell game through memory alone. And if we reduce our HP and mental value that far...”
His voice trembled.
“If they see through it...”
“You’ll die, Bai Liu.”
There was almost pleading in Mu Ke’s eyes now.
“You really will die.”
“Mu Ke.” Bai Liu’s voice was calm to the point of cruelty. “The important thing in this plan isn’t whether I live or die. I’m only carrying fifty percent of the HP.”
“The important part is making sure you survive the night safely inside the ICU and obtain the [Life-Saving Remedy].”
“Once you secure the chip tied to the [Life-Saving Remedy], your primary identity questline is complete. As for the children’s side questline, Bai Six is currently progressing the fastest. As long as you keep paying him, he’ll continue cooperating with you. That gives you a path to clear the game.”
“If I die, then you inherit my remaining fifty percent HP and clear it yourself. Understood?”
Mu Ke shook his head frantically, nearly in tears.
“I can’t do it... I really can’t...”
“If you can’t,” Bai Liu said evenly, “then we die together here.”
He was smiling as he said it.
Not threatening him.
Simply stating a fact.
If Mu Ke failed, both of them would almost certainly die.
Mu Ke shuddered at that calm smile.
After a long silence, he finally lifted his tearful eyes.
“...I’ll do my best.”
Only then did Bai Liu soften slightly and pat his shoulder.
“But me dying is still the worst-case outcome. So naturally, we’ll try to avoid it.”
“A normal shell game would absolutely be exposed by veteran players. People like them only need to watch a dozen rounds before they can track the correct cup with perfect accuracy.”
“So what we’re preparing isn’t a normal shell game.”
Mu Ke stared at him blankly through watery eyes.
“Then what is it?”
“A double-layer shell game.” Bai Liu smiled faintly. “Just like this game’s dual identity questlines.”
He took out six identical paper cups and lined them neatly across the table.
Then he wrote labels across them one by one.
[Bai Liu]
[Mu Ke]
[Monster]
Bai Liu placed the cup labeled [Bai Liu] over the cup labeled [Mu Ke].
Then he placed [Mu Ke] over [Monster].
And finally, [Monster] over [Bai Liu].
Mu Ke watched in utter confusion.
“This is the first answer we’ll give them,” Bai Liu explained patiently. “These three cups represent Bai Liu, Mu Ke, and the Monster. Naturally, they won’t trust such an obvious answer. They’ll suspect I’ve hidden my identity somewhere deeper.”
He lifted the top layer of °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° cups, revealing the second layer underneath.
“So this becomes the second answer they see.”
Then he began rotating the cups at blinding speed.
When he finally stopped, he tilted his chin slightly toward Mu Ke.
“Now tell me. Which cup hides the orange representing me?”
Confident in his memory, Mu Ke immediately pointed to the cup labeled [Mu Ke].
“That one.”
“Wrong.”
Bai Liu smiled faintly and lifted the cups.
The orange lay beneath the [Monster] cup.
Mu Ke’s eyes widened.
“How?! I clearly saw you place it under the second-layer [Mu Ke] cup!”
“You remembered correctly,” Bai Liu said lazily. “But I cheated.”
He lifted the [Bai Liu] cup.
Mu Ke stared in shock as Bai Liu hooked two hidden cups apart with his fingers.
There had actually been three stacked cups concealed there.
“What you saw was only the second cup,” Bai Liu explained calmly. “But I hid an additional layer underneath. So the orange was actually concealed beneath the third identity.”
He picked up the orange and rolled it lightly between his fingers.
“In other words, by the end of the game, I’ll create yet another shell around my identity. A third layer of protection designed to mislead the Miao father and son.”
“And they’ll never doubt the final piece of information they receive.”
Bai Liu peeled the orange apart and handed half toward Mu Ke.
“Because it’ll come from the other half of the orange itself.”
“Mu Ke,” he said with a faint smile, “want some orange?”
Mu Ke could only stare blankly and shake his head.
He was still trying to process everything Bai Liu had just shown him.
Seeing the refusal, Bai Liu merely shrugged and popped a slice into his mouth.
The instant he bit down, his expression twisted slightly.
“...Tsk. These hospital oranges are ridiculously sour.”
The ideal outcome of the entire identity-swap plan was simple:
The monster patient would die as [Bai Liu].
Mu Ke would safely survive the night inside the ICU as the [Monster Patient].
And Bai Liu—the true orange hidden beneath every layer—would remain directly under the noses of the most dangerous players in the game while disguised as [Mu Ke].
To achieve that result, Bai Liu had layered multiple overlapping [Identity Cups] over all three participants—or rather, all three monsters.
The first round of cup-swapping provided Miao Gaojiang with a deliberately obvious answer:
The dead monster was [Bai Liu].
The creature hiding beneath the bed was the real monster.
And the monster Bai Liu led away was [Mu Ke].
But Miao Gaojiang would never trust such an obvious answer.
That was when the second round of the shell game began.
Bai Liu intentionally fed subtle inconsistencies to the Miao father and son.
Mu Ke openly helping Bai Liu.
Bai Liu deliberately displaying suspicious behavior while waiting for the patient.
All of it slowly pushed Miao Gaojiang into doubting every identity assignment in front of him.
And ultimately, just like Mu Ke earlier, Miao Gaojiang fell into the same trap:
He trusted his own judgment too much.
Convinced that Bai Liu was hidden beneath the [Mu Ke] identity, he unknowingly triggered the third and final layer Bai Liu had prepared—
The confirming phone call from Mu Ke himself.
Mu Ke glanced weakly at the clock.
9:30 PM.
The nurses had already begun their rounds.
Yet no alarms had sounded.
No signs of battle.
No reports of a patient dying.
Which meant Bai Liu’s final layer of protection had most likely succeeded.
Mu Ke collapsed back onto the bed and let out a long, exhausted breath.
During the entire operation, the role Bai Liu assigned him had actually been very simple:
Lead the Miao father and son into the ICU.
Lower his HP and mental value until his appearance resembled the monster patient.
Remain sane enough afterward to cooperate with the deception.
And finally, survive safely inside the ICU overnight while searching the bookshelf for the [Life-Saving Remedy].
Everything else—
Every truly dangerous part of the plan—
Had been carried entirely by Bai Liu.
Mu Ke closed his eyes.
Even now, his heartbeat still refused to settle.
He pressed a trembling hand against his chest and felt his fragile heart pounding violently beneath his ribs.
Fear.
Shock.
Lingering terror.
Because the plan had nearly collapsed several times.
Miao Feichi had never followed the expected script.
Relying on his overwhelming stats and combat ability, he had attempted from the very beginning to simply slaughter every monster in sight.
And he had nearly succeeded.
If Bai Liu hadn’t desperately relied on skills and items to stall him for ten full minutes, Miao Feichi might genuinely have wiped out every monster in the ICU.
And Mu Ke would certainly have died with them.
After a long while, Mu Ke finally managed to steady his breathing.
He curled up silently for a moment longer before forcing himself upright.
There wasn’t much time left.
He still had to complete the task.
