In the Game Lobby, Core Screen Area.
Because Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang had fallen slightly behind in their previous confrontation with Bai Liu, their small TV data had declined, causing their promotion positions to slip from near the [King Promotion Slot] down into the Core Promotion Slot.
Meanwhile, Bai Liu’s small TV ranking had risen slightly, though his data still wasn’t strong enough to break into the [Nightmare Rising Star Promotion Slot].
The result was that both sides had ended up meeting in the [Core Promotion Slot].
Bai Liu held a slight advantage: his promotion slot was positioned directly above the Miao father and son’s.
Viewer traffic flowed very easily between players placed vertically in the same promotion slot, because viewers could see what was happening on both sides. When a player performed well, the audience in front of their small TV would tense up and cheer with excitement. Although audiences watching different small TVs couldn’t hear one another, that kind of atmosphere naturally attracted nearby viewers.
As a result, one side could easily absorb the other’s audience. One player would rise higher and higher, while the other fell lower and lower.
Right now, Bai Liu and the Miao father-son pair were locked in exactly that kind of stalemate.
And stalemates like this easily caused audience loss.
Fortunately, Bai Liu’s side hadn’t lost too many viewers. The rare big shots standing in front of his small TV still hadn’t left, and Wang Shun couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief.
The main reason was that Bai Liu’s playstyle was simply too nerve-racking.
That kind of heart-stopping gameplay, where he looked as if he might °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° crash at any moment, was very good at hooking people’s curiosity.
A high-level player from the Kabbalah Guild, ranked fourth, commented on Bai Liu with a mixture of amusement and helplessness.
“He really keeps people on edge. This guy’s playstyle is perfect for the [Death Comedy] zone. No wonder people say he fell into that place during his very first game.”
High-ranking members of the Kabbalah Guild wore green ornaments shaped like growing branches on their heads, making them extremely easy to recognize. Wang Shun identified him at a glance.
The darker the branch ornament, the higher the member’s rank.
And the ornament on this viewer’s head was almost dark green, which meant he was a high-ranking executive within the guild.
“Indeed. I’ve rarely seen such a reckless player,” another viewer agreed.
He wore a neat white uniform. On the left side of the chest, over the heart, a winged lyre was embroidered in gold thread.
The viewer had a handsome, elegant mixed-race face and bright golden hair combed smoothly back. His expression was somewhat indifferent as he spoke.
Wang Shun recognized the uniform.
It was the league team uniform of the Golden Dawn Guild, ranked third.
However, Wang Shun had never seen this person compete before. He was somewhat “face-blind” when it came to members of that guild, since many of them were foreigners, but this person was most likely a substitute who had joined the team this year, holding a position similar to Zhang Kui’s before his death.
“But Bai Liu should have a very hard time handling the current situation.” A lazy-looking viewer spoke up.
His clothes were extremely tattered, making him look like a beggar on the street.
In the entire game, there was only one guild with such tasteless clothing preferences—Heavenly Kingdom, ranked seventh.
It was a very strange guild.
Its founder had been an extraordinarily wealthy beggar who had already died in the game. Yet under the influence of his spirit, the entire guild had followed his peculiar style and wore rags.
The names of Heavenly Kingdom’s players appeared most frequently on the game’s [Report Wall], with people reporting them every day for exhibitionism or improper attire.
The clothes of the Heavenly Kingdom player who had just spoken were already hovering on the edge of being reportable.
He didn’t care in the slightest.
He lifted a finger, pointed at Bai Liu on the small TV, and said with interest, “So the newcomer halo really does exist.”
“The small TV system is designed to let newcomers receive tipped points from the audience so they can buy items and survive, preventing mortality rates from becoming too high just because they have no points.”
“But for old players who’ve been in the game for more than a year, any points tipped to their small TVs are transferred to the system wallet first. Only after the game ends will those points be handed over to the live-streaming player, and the system deducts a tax of five to twenty percent depending on the total amount earned.”
“A newcomer currently in a livestream can judge whether their choices are correct based on how many points they’re being tipped. Old players don’t get that benefit. They can only rely on their own experience.”
The viewer raised an eyebrow.
“But in a stalemate like this, the newcomer halo becomes useless, because he isn’t receiving many tips.”
“And once a newcomer realizes that a mistake has caused a sharp drop in tips, many of them lose their mental balance and end up walking straight into a dead end.”
The viewer stared unblinkingly at Bai Liu on the small TV.
“What will you do, Bai Liu?”
“You poor, penniless bastard. How are you going to take your next step?”
“Miao Gaojiang and Miao Feichi are waiting for you at the hospital entrance, demanding that you hand over the Life-Saving Remedy. They’ve said that if you refuse, they’ll kill you.”
“Miao Gaojiang isn’t the kind of player who casually tolerates unstable factors around him.”
“Will you obediently hand over the task clue you worked so hard to obtain?”
On the small TV, Bai Liu lowered his eyes and hurried through the hospital corridor toward the place where the Investors had gathered.
Aside from players like Bai Liu, there were other Investors attending the ceremony.
However, all Investors looked exactly alike. Unless they took the initiative to greet one another, there was no way to tell who was who while standing at the hospital entrance.
But Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang were still easy to recognize.
After all, Miao Feichi liked fiddling with the two Pig-Grass Knives in his hands, and the person standing beside him was usually Miao Gaojiang.
Bai Liu, currently disguised as Mu Ke, walked over and greeted them respectfully.
The moment Miao Gaojiang saw him, he went straight to the point and asked about the Life-Saving Remedy.
Bai Liu couldn’t hide it from Miao Gaojiang, nor could he lie to them about it.
That was because the two of them needed to obtain the correct Life-Saving Remedy for the system to confirm that they had unlocked the main storyline task. Otherwise, the system would not react.
Moreover, Bai Liu exchanged a glance with Miao Gaojiang.
The man was watching him with an extremely scrutinizing gaze.
Bai Liu needed to prove his value in front of Miao Gaojiang.
So Bai Liu simply handed over the pages he had torn out, though he mixed in several unrelated pages to serve as confusing information.
After Miao Gaojiang and Miao Feichi scanned through them, their expressions froze for a moment.
A system panel must have appeared in front of them, unlocking the main task.
Miao Gaojiang’s expression toward Bai Liu softened for a second.
“It really is the Life-Saving Remedy.”
But even with the extra confusing information mixed in, Miao Gaojiang quickly sorted out the entire method.
His face darkened considerably.
“But it requires us to kill children and take their blood. If we do that, half of our health points will be shaved off.”
“Classic Level 2 game mechanics.” Miao Feichi dug his pinky into his ear, looking utterly indifferent. “Forcing the player to consume half their total health.”
“I already find that brat of mine annoying anyway. He’s troublesome and useless. Earlier, he kept staring at me and swallowing like he wanted to eat my flesh. Disgusting.”
“If he has to die, then let him die.”
“And that little Bai Liu...”
Miao Feichi rubbed his hands together. He licked his lips, revealing an unmistakable look of craving.
“This game mechanic where we kill children really suits my taste. I like killing kids and eating their meat afterward.”
“After the blood’s drawn, I can just eat the flesh. Nothing wasted. Perfect.”
“But it’s best not to do it today.”
Miao Gaojiang gave Miao Feichi a warning look.
“Your stamina bar will need at least another day before it recovers enough for you to use a stamina recovery agent. If you act during the day today, your skills will be severely restricted.”
“Tsk.”
Miao Feichi glanced sideways at Miao Gaojiang.
“I know. But even if the monsters here are A+, do you really need to be this nervous? How many Level 3 games have we cleared?”
Miao Gaojiang spoke in a gentle tone, patiently persuading him.
“Caution comes first.”
Miao Gaojiang’s vigilance was far too strong.
Without eighty or ninety percent certainty, he would not act easily.
Earlier, when he had taken those things from Bai Liu, they had included points. Because he was wary that some of the items might be trade-entrusted items belonging to Bai Liu, he did not place them directly into his system inventory.
Instead, he wrapped them in a cloth-type item called Deceptive Fabric, similar to the one Du Sanying had used in the previous game.
The system’s description of this cloth was [The Falsehood of Reality].
In other words, it was a cloth that existed in reality but could not be touched.
Objects wrapped in this item were not counted as being directly owned by the player. Therefore, Bai Liu’s trading skill would not take effect, because the other player had not truly “obtained” the traded item.
It was like the status of an online buyer who had placed an order but had not yet received the goods.
Furthermore, when speaking to Bai Liu, Miao Gaojiang deliberately avoided using imperative sentences.
He was extremely careful.
Any sentence Bai Liu ended with an interrogative tone would be silently deflected by Miao Gaojiang.
Bai Liu tried several times to extract information from Miao Feichi, but Miao Gaojiang blocked him every time.
Now Bai Liu finally understood what the tag [Meticulous, Deep-Seated Shrewdness] in Miao Gaojiang’s popularity vote meant.
Miao Gaojiang was indeed an extremely difficult opponent.
His observational ability and attention to detail were airtight.
Even though Bai Liu currently held the initiative, he couldn’t find a single loophole in Miao Gaojiang.
After several failed attempts at fishing for information, Bai Liu could only pretend to be obedient and shut his mouth under Miao Gaojiang’s increasingly suspicious gaze.
He had no choice but to think of another method.
They waited until nearly ten o’clock.
The Dean who had brought the Investors here yesterday finally arrived. She would be leading them to the welfare home to watch the baptism.
They followed the same path as yesterday and walked behind the classroom building where Bai Liu had first logged in.
There, they could see a church built on a remarkably complete scale.
This was a building that did not exist in reality, because the real one had been cut down several times due to financial difficulty.
It was a very typical church, with a pointed roof and an exterior of pure white marble.
Many runes Bai Liu couldn’t understand were carved into its foundation. He looked them over several times and determined that they were not from either the New Testament or the Old Testament.
It was an extremely strange kind of prayer script, not belonging to any language Bai Liu knew that would normally be carved onto church walls.
The symbols were twisted, savage pictographs.
At the highest part of the building were many niches filled with little angels.
Those angels were the size of real human children. Their features were vivid and lifelike, as though the statues had been molded directly from real faces.
Their eyeballs were abnormally large, looking as if they might roll out of their faces at any moment.
Strange divine patterns covered the angels’ faces, like dark blood vessels bulging beneath wrinkled skin—or like cracks left behind after the surface paint had peeled away under years of wind and sun.
However, the rest of the church looked far too new. The sculptures shouldn’t have weathered to this extent.
Bai Liu quietly withdrew his scrutinizing gaze and followed the other Investors into the church.
The interior was vast—high-ceilinged and echoing, every footstep reverberating against the stone floor. Sunlight poured through the towering windows on both sides, falling across the pale faces of the terminally ill patients seated inside, each of them carrying the heavy aura of approaching death.
The pews all faced a holy altar.
Atop the altar stood a crucifix over a meter tall.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary church structure. But after staring at it for a while, Bai Liu narrowed his eyes slightly.
Something was wrong.
Horror games often borrowed heavily from religious imagery. Bai Liu had seen hundreds—if not thousands—of depictions of Jesus suffering upon the cross.
But this one was clearly different.
First of all, it was an inverted cross.
Second, the figure bound to it was not Jesus.
It was a teenager.
The boy on the inverted cross looked slightly older than Bai Six. His eyes were closed, and his hands and feet were restrained by thorned vines.
The cross of Jesus was traditionally called the Cross of Suffering, yet unlike the conventional depictions of agony and sacrifice, this statue showed no pain at all.
There was only a strange, almost immaculate indifference on the boy’s face—as though he felt absolutely nothing about his own suffering.
Thorns spiraled across the wooden cross, winding around his ankles, neck, and face. Bai Liu could almost make out the shadows cast by the boy’s long eyelashes against skin scarred by the thorns.
But this was impossible.
It was only a pure white stone statue. It shouldn’t have possessed such impossibly delicate detail.
And yet, despite that, it remained breathtakingly beautiful.
Its limbs were elegant and smooth, the proportions of the face almost unnaturally perfect. The boy lay among the thorn branches growing from the inverted cross, his head tilted slightly to one side, resting against his bound arm.
Light from the side windows fell upon his peaceful sleeping face, creating a faint sacred glow within the dim church.
Like a sleeping god.
The Dean stepped in front of the statue, blocking Bai Liu’s view.
She looked out over the seated patients.
“Today, we gather here to welcome new life.”
“But baptism is only the beginning.”
“Killing children within the church is strictly forbidden. Please, Investors, do not be impatient.”
“You must first confirm that the child is truly the one you desire—and confirm that the child can genuinely grant you new life.”
“Only then may you take them away.”
“Not every child can grant you new life.”
The Dean swept her gaze slowly across the crowd below.
Then she raised both arms and cried out sharply:
“Only children with pure bloodlines can bring you a brand-new life!”
The Investors below responded almost instinctively, voices filled with feverish excitement:
“A brand-new life!!”
Seated behind Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang, Bai Liu heard Miao Feichi turn around and complain lazily:
“Why the hell did this game set up a safe zone for the kids? Killing children inside the church is prohibited. If they all run here when we try catching them later, won’t that be annoying?”
“Perfectly normal.” Miao Gaojiang remained calm and analytical. “This is a Level 2 game. It’s not going to let you clear it that easily.”
“But I think the key condition is that you have to catch your own child. That phrase ‘pure bloodline’ probably refers to shared blood with us. Only a child who meets that requirement can become the main medicinal primer capable of cultivating the Blood Lingzhi we need.”
He paused briefly before continuing:
“Still, based on the usual structure of Level 2 games, I doubt one child’s blood is enough to save a player. That would make the mortality rate too low.”
“To be safe, we should catch several.”
“One player corresponding to two children should be about right.”
The two of them casually discussed how to deal with the children.
Ever since obtaining the Life-Saving Remedy, they had immediately categorized the children as enemies.
Now they were openly discussing how to drain blood from their younger selves.
Miao Feichi even giggled while suggesting that he buy a giant juicer from the system and toss the children inside to see whether more blood could be squeezed out that way.
Bai Liu listened silently from behind them.
He wasn’t surprised that the Investors were unable to attack the children today.
According to both the nursery rhyme and the conventional symbolism of baptism, children before baptism were considered sinful and impure. Which meant there was a high chance they couldn’t yet be used for blood extraction.
If the Investors had been allowed to attack immediately—and with dangerous players like Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang present while the children had no means of resistance—then Bai Liu would have arranged for Bai Six to lead everyone away first thing that morning.
Soon, after leading the Investors through several prayer verses, the Dean brought out a group of children.
The children wore pure white robes that hung all the way to their ankles.
They were barefoot.
A stir immediately spread through the Investors seated below.
Their identical faces all carried the same expression:
Greed.
Fervent greed.
They stared at the children led forward by the Dean as though gazing upon living embodiments of vitality itself.
This was their new life.
Even the usually lazy Miao Feichi straightened up in his seat.
The way he craned his neck to examine the children resembled a juicer inspecting fruit about to be fed into its blades—filled with cruel anticipation and greedy excitement at the thought of crushing them apart.
His nose twitched several times, and a look of intoxicated delight spread across his face.
“These little brats smell delicious.”
Like a predator preparing to feed, Miao Feichi repeatedly licked his lips while staring fixedly at Bai Six among the line of children.
“That Bai Six... his skin looks so tender.”
“I haven’t eaten an entire child in ages.”
“Maybe he’ll do nicely.”
Bai Six wore the loose white robe trailing around his ankles. Barefoot, he lowered his head and looked quietly at the flat candle burning in his hands.
The flickering flame illuminated his calm face.
He walked at the very end of the line and finally stopped atop the platform under the Dean’s guidance.
At her command, the children lined up horizontally across the stage, each holding a candle.
Bai Six slowly lifted his eyes.
Below him sat countless identical faces—gaunt, pale, smiling strangely as they scrutinized the children.
Under the wavering candlelight, their features seemed to twist and warp in the heat, transforming into grotesque masks with screaming mouths stretched wide, as though preparing to pounce upon them.
Xiao Mu Ke, standing beside Bai Six, stole a single glance downward before immediately lowering his head in fear.
Bai Six, however, continued calmly sweeping his gaze across the crowd without the slightest emotional ripple.
Finally, his eyes stopped on Bai Liu.
And did not move again.
It was obvious he had been searching for Bai Liu among the Investors from the very beginning.
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow slightly in surprise.
All the Investors below looked exactly the same.
How had this kid recognized him?
At that moment, several people carried out something resembling a bathtub.
Or rather, it was unmistakably a bathtub.
The Dean explained that it was the basin used for baptizing the children.
Inside was sloshing clear water.
Around its rim lingered a ring of dark bloodstains that looked impossible to wash away completely.
The basin was placed directly in front of the children.
The Dean stood before them all and gestured for them to raise their heads.
A gentle smile appeared on her face.
“Alright, children. First we will sing the hymn together, and afterward we will begin baptizing each of you one by one.”
“Remember to add your own name at the end of the hymn.”
The children’s uneven voices slowly rose together.
Their singing was innocent and clear, candle flames flickering brightly in their naive eyes.
“We are born on Monday (Yueyaori)
We are baptized on Tuesday (Huoyaori)
We are married on Wednesday (Shuiyaori)
We fall ill on Thursday (Muyaori)
Our illness worsens on Friday (Jinyaori)
We die on Saturday (Tuoyaori)
We are buried in the earth on Sunday (Riyaori)
This is our life—this is the life of Bai Six.”
(Each child substituted their own name.)
“Very good.”
After the strange opening hymn, the Dean opened the register in her hands and began reading names aloud.
“Next, each Investor will baptize the child they have invested in.”
“It’s very simple. You only need to immerse your child in this basin of clear water.”
“But clear water can only wash away the bacteria these children carry from the outside world.”
She paused, then smiled apologetically.
“Oh, forgive me. Not bacteria.”
“Sin.”
“Clear water alone is far from enough to cleanse the sins clinging to them.”
The Dean slowly raised her head.
The smile on her face became sinister and malicious.
“After washing them with clear water, you may draw a portion of the child’s blood to cleanse their sins.”
“Then you may take another portion of blood back to the hospital for testing, to determine whether any further sins remain within them.”
“If no further sins are found...”
“...you may return on Wednesday to take them away.”
“Or rather—”
“—to adopt them.”
Bai Liu’s gaze shifted slightly.
No wonder this place held such an oddly distorted version of baptism.
These Investors feared contamination.
They were afraid the children carried diseases, viruses, or filth.
So before drawing blood, they staged this so-called baptism ceremony to “purify” the welfare home children spiritually—washing away their sins through ritual.
At the same time, they would collect blood samples for medical testing to verify that the children’s blood contained no infectious diseases or abnormalities.
These Investors were incredibly particular.
Spiritually and physically, they considered the children filthy.
So they created this grandiose baptism ceremony as a screening process for blood quality.
In essence, it was simply a pre-selection experiment.
And by Wednesday, they would officially begin taking the children away.
