"You said you kissed a merman with a silver-blue tail in a jar and a ghost in a mirror that was about to explode on a burning train?" Little Bai Liu (6) asked softly, his tone nonchalant. "Your relationship history seems rather extraordinary."
Bai Liu didn't care. "They're all just characters in the game. By the way, you stayed on the line with me for so long today without hanging up. Why? Do you want to talk for the full three hours?"
"If I could, I would," Little Bai Liu (6) replied indifferently. "After all, it's billed by the minute. Today is a rare occasion—everyone is running around, drawing the attention of the deformed children. At present, only Mu Ke and I have managed to call and inform our investors about what will happen tomorrow."
"However, the blind girl, Liu Jiayi, moves very quickly. She can't see, but she's been feeling her way along the walls. Just now, I covered for her and led the deformed child on her side away. She should be able to finish her call and return soon."
"The other two children are also running quite fast. I remember their names are Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang. They managed to make their calls, but they cried the entire time. They didn't explain to the people on the other end that they would invite investors to watch tomorrow's ceremony."
Little Bai Liu (6) quickly briefed Bai Liu on the situation, his breathing slightly uneven, yet his explanation remained precise. "You can rest assured—I'm more cautious. I didn't know you had a grudge against the investors of those two children, but I deliberately avoided them while running with Mu Ke. They didn't notice we were on the phone together. Also, perhaps because they're attracting the monsters' attention by running around, the three of us were able to call so easily tonight."
"Oh, I almost forgot. There's more than one deformed child tonight," Little Bai Liu (6) added calmly. "There are three, each with different deformities. They're not the same as the ones from last night. One crawls on all fours with purple lips. Another has malformed limbs that fold inward when he runs, causing him to limp. The proportions of his limbs, torso, and head are very strange. The last one has abnormally white hair and skin. I hid on the slide and saw it briefly. I couldn't see clearly, but its eyes should be purple."
Bai Liu had grown up in a welfare home and was familiar with common deformities. After a moment of thought, he said, "It sounds like congenital heart disease, incomplete bone development, and albinism."
They were all congenital genetic conditions and largely matched the illnesses of the five children who had survived in the real world.
Bai Liu quickly identified two peculiar points. First, there were indeed many disabled children in the welfare home. Both those who died and those who survived had certain congenital diseases. That in itself was unusual. What did it imply? Second, why could the deformed children in the real world survive, while those in this world became ghosts?
For the first point, Bai Liu needed more information before he could conclude. As for the second, he felt he already had an answer.
He absentmindedly played with the broken coin hanging against his chest, deep in thought. Based on the information currently available in the instance, normal children—those without deformities—were drawn away by the sound of the flute and disappeared, never to return. The manner of death for the deformed children remained unknown. After dying, they became monsters and came out at night to "play."
Yet it wasn't as though they couldn't die.
According to the rules Bai Liu understood about the Love Welfare Institute, the six children with congenital diseases in reality—including Liu Jiayi—should exist in the instance as NPCs, like the deformed children here. If all the NPCs in this instance died, then those six children who hadn't suffered accidents in reality would also have to die to conform to the logic of the instance.
However, those six children were currently under Lu Yizhan's close protection in the real world. The likelihood of their deaths was extremely low. The only one at risk of dying and becoming a monster was Liu Jiayi, who had entered the game.
Yet according to the system's usual logic, most of the children in reality would still have to die to maintain consistency with the instance. The question was: if they were going to die, how would it happen?
"There's a high chance the deformed children who survived in reality will eventually die," Bai Liu murmured as he leaned against the wall. "But they were still alive when I entered the instance. If they die… how will they die?"
Game loading couldn't be separated from routine logic. If the data for "NPC death" were forcibly loaded, the real world might develop bugs. Lu Yizhan, who was closely monitoring the NPCs, would notice something was wrong. Of course, the system could use crude methods to erase the memories of NPCs paying attention to the matter, but it couldn't erase the memories of players. Bai Liu would detect the inconsistency. If that happened, the "official version" of the real world would lose its meaning for many players.
So how could those six children die in a way that aligned with both the game's logic and the real world, without being treated as a forced loading bug?
Suddenly, Bai Liu recalled the pile of bodies he had seen at the hospital and what Lu Yizhan had solemnly told him. The children's vital signs had been normal when they were admitted. The attacks began only a day later. Livor mortis and rigor mortis had appeared too early—it was as if they had died earlier, but the signs of death had been delayed.
Yes. That was the key point: delayed death.
Bai Liu's thoughts sharpened. It was the most reasonable way to load a death without arousing NPC suspicion.
Those six children hadn't escaped mushroom poisoning. They were simply more resistant than the others, so the symptoms were delayed. That was why they showed no signs when Bai Liu entered the game—but that didn't mean symptoms wouldn't manifest later.
In other words, they were already dying. Medical examinations simply couldn't detect it. No one knew—except Bai Liu, inside the game. The six deformed children who had survived were still living under the shadow of death.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes. If the real world were merely a loaded copy of the game, would those children die the same way both inside and outside it?
Little Bai Liu (6) didn't interrupt his silence. He waited quietly for the next question, without hanging up. After all, he charged by the minute.
After a pause, Bai Liu suddenly asked, "Did you eat mushrooms at the welfare home today?"
"No," Little Bai Liu (6) answered concisely. "I'm sensitive to the taste of mushrooms. The food I ate didn't contain any."
"For the deformed children chasing you—do they smell like mushrooms?" Bai Liu asked, shifting his line of thought.
"I don't know. I've kept my distance and haven't gotten close enough to smell them. Do you need me to approach them to confirm? Of course, not for free."
"No. Not for now." Bai Liu immediately rejected the brave proposal. "These children aren't slow. Without someone diverting their attention, getting too close would make it easy for you to be caught."
According to the monster book's description, once a player's child was caught by the deformed children, they would completely disappear. Bai Liu's health was only six points. What he had told Little Bai Liu (6) earlier wasn't a lie. Compared to himself, this greedy child's life was far more important—his health was high. Bai Liu would use every means necessary to ensure his safety.
"However, you do need me to get closer, right?" Little Bai Liu (6) asked calmly.
"Yes," Bai Liu admitted. "Not only do I need you to get closer, but I also need you to find their weaknesses."
He had to unlock the monsters' weaknesses. It was far safer to control the deformed children wandering every night by exploiting those weaknesses than to let them continue hunting his child. After all, Bai Liu felt their "missing" attack was far more terrifying than the blood-sucking attack of the plant patient—it was practically a one-hit kill.
So far, no children had gone missing. That was probably because the deformed children had too many scattered targets. But once they locked onto someone, it would be easy to take a child away. What made Bai Liu uneasy was the pattern: one deformed child last night, three tonight. Their numbers seemed to be increasing.
"I do need you to approach them and find their weaknesses. It's very important to me, and I'll naturally pay you," Bai Liu said softly. "But not tonight. Tonight is too dangerous. I won't sacrifice you for something like this. Tomorrow night, once I find a way to protect you, we'll try again."
There was a strange silence on the other end. Then, after a minute, Little Bai Liu (6) changed the subject as if he hadn't heard anything.
"Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang have returned to their rooms, and their three children are now chasing me. Mr. Investor, tonight we've been on the phone for a total of 31 minutes. I'll waive 1 minute and only charge you for thirty. That comes to 3,000 yuan. You now owe me 6,000 yuan."
His tone was polite yet aggressive. "It's not good to default on wages owed to minors. I hope you'll settle the 6,000 yuan when we meet. Thank you for your patronage. Mr. Investor—good night."
According to yesterday's routine, Bai Liu (6) should have hung up neatly at this point. However, today he didn't end the call after speaking.
Bai Liu could hear his breathing as he ran across the empty yard. Behind him came the laughter of the children chasing him, along with little Mu Ke struggling to suppress his gasps and cries. The sound of their footsteps gradually slowed, shifting from the rustling of dirt to the hardness of concrete. The eerie laughter behind them faded as well—they were probably heading back to their rooms.
Little Mu Ke struggled to keep up as Bai Liu (6) dragged him along. He had been pulled around all night. Because of his weak heart, his lips had turned purple, yet he still gritted his teeth and kept running. He seemed to understand that Bai Liu (6) was dragging him along for his own good.
Little Mu Ke knew that if Bai Liu (6) hadn't pulled him, he definitely wouldn't have been able to call his investor tonight. Without notifying his investor, the investor wouldn't attend tomorrow's ceremony. For the children of the welfare home, that was a serious matter—he might even be punished. If it weren't for Bai Liu (6)'s investor asking him to help, the indifferent Bai Liu (6) wouldn't have cared whether Mu Ke lived or died.
Little Mu Ke glanced at the phone in Bai Liu (6)'s hand. Why would that kind investor ask Bai Liu (6) to help him? And why hadn't Bai Liu (6) hung up yet? They had already returned to their dormitory. If a teacher saw them, he would be scolded.
"Is there something you want to say?" Bai Liu asked with interest. "You're already back in your room. Why haven't you hung up? Trying to earn more money from me?"
"…These few minutes won't be counted." Bai Liu (6)'s breathing still hadn't completely steadied. His voice was low, and he spoke quickly, as if trying to hide something. "The two horror stories you told tonight are enough to cover it."
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You're being so generous tonight? Rounding down and waiving the fee…"
"Beep. Beep."
The line disconnected.
Bai Liu: "…"
He had clearly just praised him for telling good stories. Did he really have such an awkward personality at fourteen? How embarrassing.
Bai Liu put away his phone and lowered his gaze to the damp straw bed.
Earlier that night, he had smelled a rotting odor coming from the plant patient. His attention had been focused on fighting Miao Feichi, so he hadn't investigated further. At the time, he assumed it was simply the scent of decaying straw. But beneath the strong straw odor, there had been something else.
He touched the bite on his neck, where some of the plant patient's mucus still lingered. Scraping it off with his fingers, he brought it to his nose. There was the smell of his own blood, damp rotten straw—and beneath it, a faint trace of something else.
Calmly, Bai Liu put his finger into his mouth.
There was a very faint mushroom flavor in the mucus. He couldn't smell it, but he could taste it.
The children here didn't eat mushrooms—but the patients did?
The only thing the ICU patient consumed was the "medicine" delivered daily by the nurse. The medicine was clearly a liquid, not a mushroom. It couldn't be ruled out that it contained mushroom extract, but Bai Liu felt another possibility was more likely.
His gaze settled on the straw bed before him.
He stepped closer and circled it. The more he observed, the stranger it seemed. It looked like a bed—but there was dim lighting, constant humidity, and straw that was excessively thick and moldy. The environment felt less like a dormitory and more like a standard mushroom cultivation room. The bed was the growing medium.
Bai Liu lifted the white sheet, revealing a large patch of yellowed straw. He sifted through it casually and saw mushrooms sprouting from the decaying straw.
He had seen these mushrooms before. Some were edible; some were not. Generally, they were common varieties that couldn't prolong life. Some were poisonous and could kill instantly. A child at his old welfare home had once eaten some by mistake and never recovered.
Bai Liu continued rummaging through the mushrooms growing from the straw. He confirmed they were common species. The patients shouldn't be eating these visible mushrooms. So what exactly were they consuming?
His eyes returned to the straw bed. Earlier in the ICU, the plant patient had been lying motionless on his bed. Because Bai Liu's health was low, he hadn't dared disturb him. Now, searching beneath his own straw bed, Bai Liu found only the same common mushrooms.
It seemed that everyone's "medium"—the beds used to cultivate mushrooms—was different.
The key question was: why were they different? And what kind of mushrooms were being grown?
Bai Liu felt that the answer lay in what the system called the "life recovery medicine."
"Mu Ke," Bai Liu murmured. "Tonight, it's up to you to find out what the life recovery medicine really is. What exactly are those patients eating?"
_________________________________________________
In the ICU ward.
Mu Ke crawled out from beneath the chaotic bed. Grabbing the bed frame for support, he pulled himself upright, gasping for breath. He felt dizzy after just a few steps and had to collapse onto the hospital bed, panting heavily.
He sat on the very bed Bai Liu had previously occupied. Completely drained, he buried his face in the quilt that still carried Bai Liu's scent—like a fledgling bird hiding beneath its mother's wings, seeking safety.
The terror of nearly dying made his hands and feet tremble uncontrollably. While hiding under the bed earlier, he had drunk several bottles of mental bleach, restoring his mental value to full. His sanity had stabilized—but he had lost too much health. His physical condition was terrible.
He had been drained of too much blood and was on the verge of shock from blood loss. His limbs convulsed faintly.
Mu Ke gritted his teeth and curled up beneath Bai Liu's quilt. With his trembling left hand, he pressed down on his right, trying to steady himself. His eyes were red.
When the monster had been sucking his blood, he had truly thought he was going to die. By the end, his vision had blurred, and the veins on the backs of his hands had shriveled.
But he had needed to be drained to that extent. Only then would his appearance match Bai Liu's closely enough for Bai Liu to impersonate him and join Miao Feichi's team.
Mu Ke shut his eyes and forced himself to recall the plan Bai Liu had explained earlier. Focusing on it helped steady his breathing.
The plan was simple—and audacious.
It was the paper cup and orange game.
Hide an orange under one of three paper cups, rotate them, and let the other party guess which cup concealed the orange. The identical appearances of the investors were the three cups. Bai Liu was the orange hidden beneath the one Miao Feichi had to choose.
Yet beneath this simple idea lay many complications.
Mu Ke glanced at the three paper cups Bai Liu had placed on the table earlier and frowned. "You and the patient in the ward don't look exactly alike. He's taller than you."
"That's true. And that's not the only issue." Bai Liu rotated the three paper cups smoothly, his tone steady. "Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang are S-grade players. They can ignore the rules entirely."
"They have the ability to simply crush all three cups and check directly which one hides the orange—that is, me."
As he spoke, Bai Liu calmly squeezed the three cups in his hands, flattening them. The orange beneath was exposed. He then tossed the crumpled cups into the trash.
Mu Ke swallowed. "…So what do we do?"
"The first step is to make them believe they can't crush the cups so easily. Force them to follow the rules of the game." Bai Liu picked up a paper cup and wrote A+ on it. "I'll disguise myself as an A+ monster and pretend there are three monsters at once. The nurses' shift change only lasts fifteen minutes. Even if they're S-grade players, facing three A+ monsters simultaneously, they'll likely choose to kill only one."
"But it's just you. How can you pretend to be three at once—"
Mu Ke stopped mid-sentence.
Bai Liu spun the paper cups at a dazzling speed. Only afterimages remained. For a moment, it seemed as though all three cups bore the A+ mark at the same time.
Bai Liu smiled and lifted his gaze. "By relying on movement speed."
"As for the difference in appearance, the sicker a patient is, the thinner they become. For players, there are two indicators of sickness: health and mental value." He looked at Mu Ke. "Objectively speaking, I only need to reduce my health and mental value to match the monster's."
"Lowering health is simple. As for reducing mental value," He gave a faint smile. "I'll use the patient monster."
Mu Ke pressed his lips together. The opposition on his face was obvious. "Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang are experienced players," he said firmly. "It won't be easy to fool them with this trick. I'm not even an old player, but I could still track the correct cup with memory. If you reduce your health and mental value to the brink of collapse, and they see through it…"
He met Bai Liu's eyes, his voice tight. "You'll die, Bai Liu. You'll really die."
"Mu Ke, the focus of this plan isn't my health. I'm already at only fifty percent." Bai Liu's tone was calm, almost cruel. "The core of the plan is for you to stay safely in the ICU all night and find the life recovery medicine."
"The moment you obtain the life recovery medicine, the task tied to your main identity line will be complete. As for the secondary identity line—the children's task—little Bai Liu (6) has made the fastest progress. You can use money to persuade him to help you. He'll cooperate, and you'll be able to clear the instance. If I die, you'll have to carry the remaining fifty percent of my health through the instance yourself. Do you understand?"
Mu Ke burst into tears and shook his head frantically. "I can't do it! I really can't!"
"If you can't, then we'll die here together, Mu Ke." Bai Liu looked at him directly, a faint, indifferent smile on his face. He wasn't threatening Mu Ke. He was simply stating a fact: if Mu Ke failed, they would most likely both die.
Mu Ke shuddered at that smile. Lowering his head, he bit his lip as if struggling with himself. After a long time, he finally raised his tearful eyes. "I—I'll try my best…"
Bai Liu softened his tone and patted Mu Ke's shoulder. "My death is the worst-case scenario, and we have to prevent it. A simple paper-cup-and-orange trick would indeed be easy for experienced players to see through. Anyone who's played it a dozen times can guess correctly every time. So what I prepared isn't just a simple version of that game."
Mu Ke blinked at him through tears. "It isn't?"
"No. It's a double-layer orange-and-paper-cup game—designed to match this instance's dual identity lines."
"We'll deliberately give them the correct answer in the first round." Bai Liu took out six identical paper cups and arranged them on the table.
He picked up a marker and wrote "Bai Liu" on one cup and "Mu Ke" on another. Calmly, he covered the cup labeled "Bai Liu" with the one labeled "Mu Ke."
Then he wrote "Mu Ke" on a third cup and covered it with a cup labeled "Monster." Finally, he placed a cup labeled "Monster" over one labeled "Bai Liu."
Mu Ke watched, dazed.
"This is the answer to the first round," Bai Liu explained, pointing to the labels. "Three identities: Bai Liu, Mu Ke, and the Monster. If we present it this simply, they won't believe it. They'll doubt my identity. So we prepare a second round of answers."
He lifted the top cups, revealing the labels beneath. "This is the second layer they'll see. Now—"
Without a change in expression, Bai Liu began rotating the cups rapidly. He stopped and tilted his chin at Mu Ke with a faint smile. "Tell me—where's the orange that represents me?"
Confident in his memory, Mu Ke pressed his hand onto the cup labeled "Mu Ke." "This one."
"You're wrong." Bai Liu smiled and lifted the cups. The orange was under the cup labeled "Monster."
Mu Ke stared in shock. "How? I clearly saw you put the orange under the 'Mu Ke' cup in the second layer!"
"People are easily deceived by the information they receive in the moment," Bai Liu replied calmly. "Your memory is correct. But I cheated."
He lowered his gaze slightly, then hooked his finger under the rim of the cup labeled "Bai Liu" and gently separated it. What appeared to be one cup was split into multiple layers.
Mu Ke's eyes widened.
"It's a crude sleight of hand," Bai Liu said lazily. "You remembered correctly—but under the 'Bai Liu' identity cup, I had stacked multiple cups. What you saw was only the second layer. In reality, there were three. So, as the 'orange,' I'm actually hiding under the third identity cup."
He picked up the orange. "In other words, at the end of the game, I'll use additional information to conceal my true identity. That's the third protective layer. It will confuse experienced players like Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang."
"They won't doubt the information they ultimately confirm."
Bai Liu began peeling the orange and handed half to Mu Ke with a smile. "Because that information will come from the other half of the orange, calling them to verify it. Mu Ke, want some?"
Mu Ke shook his head blankly, refusing. His mind was completely overwhelmed by Bai Liu's explanation.
Bai Liu shrugged and took a bite himself.
The next second, his expression twisted. He spat the orange back into the cup labeled "Bai Liu." "…Wow. The oranges in this hospital are ridiculously sour."
The most successful outcome of this identity-exchange plan would be: the monster patient dies as "Bai Liu," Mu Ke remains safely in the ICU overnight as the "monster patient," and Bai Liu—the orange—stays under the watchful eyes of the dangerous father and son as "Mu Ke."
To achieve that, Bai Liu had prepared more than two layers of identity cups for the three "monsters."
In the first round, he deliberately gave Miao Gaojiang a straightforward mapping: the monster killed was "Bai Liu," the one hiding under the bed was the real monster, and the one taken away was "Mu Ke."
But Miao Gaojiang would never trust an answer handed to him so easily. So Bai Liu prepared a second round.
Amid the chaos of that second round, Bai Liu gambled on Miao Gaojiang's psychology. Through deliberate hints—Mu Ke visibly helping Bai Liu, Bai Liu helping the patient—they planted seeds of doubt. Miao Gaojiang would keep mentally relabeling the "identity cups" of the three monsters.
In the end, just like Mu Ke relying on his memory, Miao Gaojiang would rely on his own experience.
He would conclude that the "orange" called Bai Liu was hidden under the "Mu Ke" cup—thereby triggering the third protective layer Bai Liu had prepared: the self-verification phone call from little Mu Ke.
Mu Ke glanced at the time. It was already 9:30 p.m., and the nurses had begun their patrols. He hadn't heard any commotion—no news of a patient's death, no sounds of fighting.
That likely meant Bai Liu's layered protection had worked. Mu Ke lay back on the bed, eyes unfocused from overstimulation, and let out a long breath of relief.
Throughout the plan, his role had been to lure the Miao father and son into the ICU and reduce their health and mental value until his appearance matched the monster patient's. Even after partial alienation, he had to remain lucid enough to cooperate with Bai Liu.
The final and most critical task was to survive the night in the ICU ward of the dead monster and, following Bai Liu's instructions, search the bookcase for the life recovery medicine.
All the most dangerous parts of the plan—Bai Liu had taken them on himself.
Mu Ke closed his eyes. His heartbeat still hadn't fully calmed. Pressing a hand against his chest, he felt his fragile heart pounding wildly—out of fear.
Several times during the execution of the plan, everything had nearly fallen apart.
Miao Feichi hadn't followed the script Mu Ke had imagined. Instead, he relied on his superior attributes and brute strength to attempt to kill all the monsters outright. He had almost succeeded. If Bai Liu hadn't used skills and items to stall him for ten full minutes, Miao Feichi might have achieved a triple kill in the ICU—and Mu Ke would already be dead.
After forcing his breathing to steady, Mu Ke slowly exhaled.
He sat quietly for a while, adapting to his weakened body. Then he gritted his teeth and stood up, beginning to clean the chaotic ward.
There wasn't much time left. He had to complete the task.