Chapter 271 |
The colourful rectangular curved parachute swung up and down in the swaying wind, tugging at Bai Liu, who was hanging from the parachute cord below, and throwing him from side to side.
Land was finally close, and below was a base with vaguely flickering lights – the same base from which the body parts were stolen in the game.
Bai Liu had already avoided landing at this base, but a sudden gust of wind pulled him there unreasonably.
–Like a mysterious and inexorable destiny.
Bai Liu glanced around through his goggles, pinpointing an out-of-the-way depot in a part of the base. He reached for the parachute cord, leaned back at the waist and adjusted his landing site.
He calmly adjusted his descent, already thinking of a strategy for when he lands – there was a knife in the package, designed to cut the accidentally tangled parachute cord.
Not long, or very new, but very sharp.
But now, if, as in the game, the body parts were found by the Edmond Observatory and were to be taken by force, Bai Liu felt that the knife would be of some use beyond cutting the parachute cord.
In the context of the game, Bai Liu remembered that the first people to find the body parts and turn them in to the Edmond Observatory were supposedly a group of ordinary Observatory researchers without weapons or attack power.
Although this undermines the legal boundaries that Lu Yizhan has always set for him.
But he can.
The huge base is immersed in the hazy, dim night.
The nights in Antarctica are always long and cold, and few residents have ever gone out into the night, except for cameramen who like to admire the Aurora Borealis.
But the native Antarctic dwellers, who have spent a lonely winter here, were clearly tired of the natural phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis and were now lying quietly under their warm blankets at home, unaware of the colourful parachute that had fallen from the sky.
There were exceptions to this rule, however, as the sheriff on routine patrol, with his lookout lights on, half-awake, saw the parachute landing next to the depot. Instantly awake, he scrambled to inform his superiors at the base, the management of the observatory.
The ground, freshly snowed in, was so white that Bai Liu made heavy footprints on it. He landed in the spacious, open snow next to the warehouse, rolling several times to stop the impact of the landing and the wind.
Bai Liu choked and coughed out the broken snow he had sucked down his throat, and squinted his eyes amid the howling wind at the dim lights of the base in the distance.
That was the only thing he could see clearly about the base.
The blizzard had not yet stopped and visibility was poor, only a vague glimpse of snow piled up in front of a warehouse door not far away. A large drum full of fuel had been blown to the ground at the back door, carrying a skull and crossbones sign next to it – a sign for dangerous chemical products.
This warehouse would most likely contain strong acids and fuel oil.
He can’t stay here, these two items could destroy the body parts.
It seems that whoever is behind this is really scheming and trying to put options in front of Bai Liu, constantly urging him to destroy his weaknesses.
— If you don’t destroy your weakness, you can be controlled. If you don’t want to be controlled, you have to kill the person who wants to control you.
Bai Liu, what will you choose?
God smiled and said, “Bai Liu, whichever way you choose, you will become Bai Liu (6).”
In the knee-deep snow, Bai Liu had little ability to move with the body parts and the pile of stuff, and if his suspicions were right, the investigating scientific team would be coming soon.
Bai Liu only thought for a few moments before taking off his bundle where he stood without hesitation and heading away from the base with the cold body on his back.
Bai Liu found a snow pit and buried the body parts in it.
The snow instantly buried Bai Liu’s footprints at the edge of the snow pit.
After hiding the body parts, Bai Liu breathed heavily, pausing to frown and cover his heart – which had been aching vaguely since he quit Ice Age.
This pain is now becoming more intense.
But this pain was quickly held at bay by Bai Liu, who regained his calm demeanour and walked back to where he had taken off his bundle earlier. He rummaged through it and retrieved the knife that had been used to cut through the parachute cord.
Bai Liu gripped the hilt of his knife without a trace of emotion on his face, the clasp on his wrist bone sliding prominently with the movement, a very shallow heat coming from his breath.
Then he stood up, took the knife and walked towards the warehouse and quietly posted himself behind the door, waiting for the right person to come.
Bai Liu chose the second path.
He was determined to prevent everything by killing these ordinary people who knew nothing with his own hands.
The prophet above the pantheon closed his eyes in resignation.
“He could have stopped them without …… killing them,” said the prophet, his voice hoarse.
The man hiding under the hood smiled as if he knew this would happen.
He retorted softly, “No, as long as Bai Liu doesn’t kill them, and as long as one of them survives and goes back to report this, the body parts will be taken.”
“Even though the group didn’t know what was going on or what this corpse had to offer, they just did what they had to do to report this unknown corpse.”
The man under the hood smiled as if in pity as he leaned forward to look closer at the prophet’s expression.
“But tragedies still happen, because there is no end to the desires of man.”
“As long as it is known that such things exist, there will be people who are desperate enough to give everything to get the corpse and fulfil their desires and wishes, to abuse others to satisfy themselves – people live on social superiority.”
“That’s why Bai Liu’s approach to killing them is so clean.” He appreciated Bai Liu’s approach, “- it’s only by killing the first person to discover the gold mine that people will think it doesn’t exist.”
” Bai Liu can monopolise this gold mine.”
The man said with amusement, ” Bai Liu is really clever, he has already guessed my existence. Although there were still many intermediate paths that could be taken without killing anyone, they were high in latent risk, and there is also a me who can interfere with his plans at will, so in the end – “
“- Bai Liu understood what I wanted to see him become, so he showed it to me.”
The werewolf card on the tabletop had a sinister red glow in its eyes. It lurked and moved towards the card representing the civilians on the tabletop, quietly baring its long teeth – a werewolf’s omen to kill.
“This is the first time the werewolf card has killed a civilian in this world line.”
The prophet returned nonchalantly, “Isn’t that what you want to see?”
The man looked up at the seer with a pleasant expression: ” Bai Liu let me have my wish and by doing so prevent me from manipulating fate.”
He took his hand off the tabletop and with a courteous brush of his hand towards the table, he spoke with a smile, “- if Bai Liu is willing to manipulate the world the way Bai Liu (6) does, then I would indeed be happy to cede control of the world to him.”
The man beneath the hood gracefully retreats from the tabletop and stands looking at the various character cards he has moved around on the table.
“He is my chosen heir to the evil god, and this is what he deserves.”
The man lifted his head, smiled at the seer whose petrification had progressed to his heart, bent slightly and sighed regretfully.
“You’ve lost again, prophet.”
The moment the petrification progressed to the prophet’s neck, it abated downwards again in a bizarre manner, and the man raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, looking down at the table.
The moment the character card representing the werewolf bared its fangs, instead of biting into the civilian, its head turned and bit down hard on the [Idiot card]!
“The Idiot werewolf with full luck points cannot be taken away.” The man sat back down, all expression on his face quickly disappearing, ” Bai Liu What’s up?”
Outside the windy and snowy warehouse.
Du Sanying’s perfect luck score once again came into play as he landed precisely in a spot not far from Bai Liu.
But visibility was so poor in the snow and wind that he searched for a long time but could not find Bai Liu, only his parachute.
What Du Sanying didn’t know was that Bai Liu was already hiding on the other side of the warehouse, waiting for the observation team to come.
Du Sanying’s luck came into play when a group of men with torches approached the warehouse and they first found Du Sanying, half frozen to death.
The moment the group tried to rescue Du Sanying, Bai Liu sprang up from behind him and stuck a short knife to his throat, saying sternly, “Don’t come any closer! I’ll kill anyone who comes near!”
Du Sanying almost went into cardiac arrest due to Bai Liu’s performance as a vivid gangster.
So his true expression of panic instantly moved the scientific team members who had come, and they spoke nervously in English to dissuade him.
Finally, someone suggested that the two men looked Asian. They tried again in clumsy Korean, Japanese and Chinese, and then introduced a researcher of Asian descent who stumbled over to communicate with Bai Liu.
“H-Hello.” The team member looked warily at the knife pressed to Du Sanying’s neck and motioned downwards with both hands, “Can you put the knife down first? What are you doing?”
Bai Liu replied in English, “I’ve been laid off and I want revenge on society, so I’m going to blow up the whole of Antarctica, and I want all you high-end talents buried with me!”
When he finished, he also kicked the fuel drum next to him in a manic manner, with a very hostile expression.
Du Sanying was completely baffled as he asked in a small voice, “…… Bai Liu, what are you doing?”
“Distracting the group.” Bai Liu acted like he was sick in the head, but his voice was calm, “-the one behind the curtain has limited influence on the [real world]. He has no way to impose random events like in the game, he can only use external factors like weather, people, and heretics to control this world that is not fully contaminated.”
“And all of these factors play a limited role in the Antarctic, where the weather is inherently extreme, there are no heretics and very few people.”
“In other words, here in Antarctica is not a good map for him. It is indeed a good place to store body parts – and I believe the man behind the scenes understands that, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it during the transportation of the body parts.”
Bai Liu whispered close to Du Sanying’s ear.
“Your luck is 100 percent. Now I’m holding you hostage, and in order for you to be rescued, either the other five escorts land here or the domestic observatory comes and takes over.”
“…… As soon as someone comes along and moves the body parts near the supervisory range Ice Dome A, things are under control.” Bai Liu’s breath hitched twice from the stabbing pain in his heart, but he quickly squashed it again.
Du Sanying was a bit confused, but vaguely understood what Bai Liu was talking about, so he dutifully played the role of an innocent hostage.
The isolated group of researchers, having seen two Asians killing each other and one Asian about to blow up the base, quickly contacted the domestic observatory after determining the nationality of the two Asians and requesting that someone be sent over to deal with the problem.
–Otherwise, not many people here know Chinese and even communication would be a problem.
What is more urgent than finding out why two unknown men landed here is clearly the situation at hand.
The domestic observatory was rushing over and Du Sanying had just breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a sudden gust of demonic wind on the ground where strong wind was already blowing.
The wind whirled like it was digging into the ground and blew several pale body parts from a distance, spreading them out before the men as if on display.
The body was covered only with a thin winter jacket – Du Sanying recognised it as Bai Liu’s winter jacket.
Everyone’s breath stopped as the men looked at the body parts without turning their eyes, wearing expressions as if they were bewitched, trying to pick them up.
Bai Liu put the knife to Du Sanying’s neck and took a few steps forward, forcing the men back, his voice so cold it was almost frozen: “Get out of here.”
As they moved away from the body parts, the men barely regained a glimmer of consciousness. They backed away in fear and asked in a low voice, “What is this? Whose body parts are these? Have you already killed a man?”
There was no emotion in Bai Liu’s eyes: “Yes, I killed him.”
“I split him up and hid him in the snow, so if you don’t want to die, get out of here. I’m going to blow up the base.”
The group was eventually deterred by the sense of threat posed by death. Bai Liu swayed and slid unsteadily on his feet, clinging to Du Sanying’s back.
Du Sanying rushed to steady him, and dizzying visions began to appear before his eyes – he was too close to the body parts.
“…… go and open the warehouse door, you can do it.” Bai Liu pushed Du Sanying hoarsely, “Let’s go in, there’s a lot of fuel in there. It’s an explosion hazard, they wouldn’t dare come in easily.”
Du Sanying staggered up to the warehouse door and actually found a key on it that hadn’t been pulled off – it was frozen and he had to cover it for a while before he could turn it.
When he opened the warehouse, he turned his head to shout at Bai Liu to come over, but his voice suddenly hit a lump in his throat, becoming smaller.
Du Sanying saw Bai Liu kneeling on the ground, carefully picking up the body parts in the cold-weather suit, patting the snow off them and covering them with his own cold-weather jacket.
Bai Liu wrapped up all the body parts and, clutching them to his belly where it was warmest, staggered to his feet and headed for the warehouse.
The scene was somehow familiar, and Du Sanying felt as if he had been on his knees a long time ago, picking up the body parts of his family and wrapping them in his arms, pretending they were still alive, weeping helplessly.
Once inside the warehouse, Du Sanying immediately locked the door behind him, and Bai Liu sat in the corner with his head hanging, his face pale and his lips dark and bloodless from the cold.
Du Sanying was anxious but afraid to go over – the pile of body parts in Bai Liu’s arms was too heavy for him.
He wandered around the house in a hurry and was lucky enough to find the not-yet-abandoned hot air conditioning switch. Du Sanying turned it on with a sigh of relief and sat slumped against the wall, his hands hanging on two large, red-painted cans of chemicals.
Looking at the markings on it, there was fuel, harmful substances and some corrosive liquids such as strong acids.
Bai Liu sits in a corner away from the jars, the bruises from the cold slowly fading from his face.
Everything seems to be looking up.
But ten minutes later there was the sound of a key turning in the door of the warehouse – the group was coming again.
The group who had seen the corpse had gone amiss as they turned the key outside the door while muttering rapidly and in low tones, “- corpse, corpse-“
Du Sanying jumped up in a hurry and leaned against the warehouse door, only to hear a click as the key outside the door broke halfway in the keyhole.
The warehouse door was completely locked.
But before Du Sanying could breathe a sigh of relief, the men outside did not give up, they shifted positions.
The small, high window at the back of the warehouse was wiped clean, and a constant stream of people peered in with wide, unseeing eyes tilted to one side, staring dead at the body in Bai Liu’s arms in the corner.
They began to smash the window with hammers, trying to climb in through the window, which was less than the size of a cake box.
Du Sanying climbed breathlessly to the small window and sat with his back against it to block it.
Once again his luck played out and the men outside began to fall as they tried to climb up and push him away.
Du Sanying gritted his teeth and strained to hear the sound of the man outside falling into the snow while he folded his hands in a prayer of apology, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-“
After the window climbing activity, the people outside subsided slightly for a short while before the sound of louder snowmobiles pushing snow came through.
Du Sanying rushed to look out of the small window.
Not far from the warehouse, a neatly arranged row of snowmobiles shined with their headlights on, the sleds in front of them pushing out. The tyres ploughed and splashed through the snow like a pack of wild dogs ready to attack, with glowing green eyes and saliva ready to strike at the throat of their prey.
–This bunch of psychos actually tried to push the warehouse directly with a snowmobile!!!
Are they crazy!!! The whole warehouse will explode!!!
Du Sanying was so frightened that he tumbled down from the small window and knelt far in front of Bai Liu, shouting at him: ” Bai Liu! Bai Liu! Wake up!!!”
“The warehouse is going to explode!!!”
Bai Liu’s eyes were slightly closed, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep from exhaustion and did not want to wake up.
Du Sanying was so anxious that he wanted to shake Bai Liu awake, but he couldn’t get near him because of the body parts in his arms.
“Bai Liu, wake up!” Du Sanying shouted in a squeaky voice, “I won’t die if the warehouse explodes, but you will! Get up and run!!!”
Du Sanying was so desperate that he threw things from the warehouse at Bai Liu, trying to wake him up.
But Bai Liu was unresponsive, only tilting his head a little, blood slowly seeping from the corners of his mouth and his breathing fading.
Du Sanying was so dazed that he rushed over to the body parts and threw them away, kneeling down dizzily, slapping Bai Liu’s face and crying out in fear.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t you die!!!”
“Didn’t you say that no matter how close you get to me, you won’t die or be affected by me?!”
“Stay alive!!!”
The lights outside the window flashed by, so bright it made you want to shed a tear, and the roar of snowmobiles rang through the wintry night.
Du Sanying bawled and clutched Bai Liu’s fallen head: “Help! Someone help him!”
The body parts that Du Sanying had thrown aside with such haste assembled themselves as if they were self-aware, turning into a perfect statue covered in cracks on the ground. Then, the blood flowed through the veins of the statue as they connected to each other.
At last, the statue stood up. Except for its eyes closed and its cracked body, it was like a real human being.
Du Sanying dully stopped crying.
The statue stepped forward and took Bai Liu from Du Sanying’s arms and thanked him with his eyes closed and head bowed: “Thank you for taking care of Bai Liu.”
The voice was a little broken, like the statue was at the moment, but the sincerity of it could still be heard.
Du Sanying couldn’t help but shake his head in alarm and take several steps back before he carefully returned, “No, you’re welcome.”
After a while, Du Sanying couldn’t resist and asked in a low voice, “Are you, like, alive?”
The statue shook its head, “I am a monster.”
Du Sanying stole a glance at Bai Liu, who was lying on the monster’s shoulder: “Bai Liu and you, what’s your relationship?”
The statue was quiet for a moment: “He is someone very important to me.”
Du Sanying let out an oh, his mood somehow relaxing, “You can save him, can’t you?”
“I am there to save him.” The statue lowered his head, and he seemed to want to open his eyes to look at the man in his arms, but suddenly remembered that there were other people there, and said, “Can you please turn your head? You cannot see my eyes, but I would like to see Bai Liu.”
Du Sanying inexplicably had the feeling that he was glowing, and with a couple of oohs and aahs, he honestly covered his ears and turned away.
Xie Ta lowered his head, his silvery blue eyes opened and he gazed wholeheartedly at Bai Liu in his arms, wiping the blood stain from the corner of his mouth with his thumb and smiling very lightly.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Xie Ta bowed his head and placed a kiss on Bai Liu’s forehead with great reverence.
“It’s almost over, so forgive me for not daring to meet you in this state, it just doesn’t look good.”
The roar outside the warehouse grew louder and Du Sanying tried to turn around somewhat uneasily, only to turn around and see Xie Ta placing Bai Liu in his arms.
” Bai Liu was injured in the game, please continue to look after him.”
Du Sanying took it in a panic, then asked, “What are you going to do with those people out there?”
“It’s not their fault.” Xie Ta stood in front of the warehouse door that was knocked constantly, his voice and expression as flat as snow, “-it was the fault of the new evil god who used me to lure them to their doom.”
“It was my fault that the old evil god fell.”
“I shouldn’t exist.” Xie Ta says, “Bai Liu will be controlled by him because of me.”
Xie Ta’s hands came up and the fuel poured down the sides. A spark fell from Xie Ta’s pale fingertips and the fire burst into flames along Bai Liu’s winter jacket on his body. Strong acid fell from the side of the window and joined the fire.
Rushing smoke billowed from the warehouse.
An ethereal, unreal voice came out of the fire: “After I am burned, all traces of my existence will be erased, including Bai Liu’s memories, the data from the game, the things I gave to Bai Liu.”
Du Sanying was stunned: “How did this happen ……”
The reverse cross and fish scale hanging from Bai Liu’s neck shattered into powder and the fish bone whip in the system panel dulled and disappeared.
An ear-splitting announcement spanned all areas of the game, and players looked up at the huge aerial announcement that
[System Notification: Data in all areas of god-level wandering NPC has begun to be cleared….]
[System Notification: Data cleanup is complete, God-level NPC bug is fully erased. From now on, please feel free to play the game, no more God-level NPCs roaming around the major game scenes].
The fire was still burning, and the voice inside faded away, as if in a dream.
” Du Sanying, you should understand better than anyone that sometimes not remembering anything is not a bad thing.”
Bai Liu, leaning on Du Sanying’s arm, opened his eyes weakly, his dark eyes reflecting the light of the leaping fire. A tear slid down the corner of his eye to his jaw and dripped to the ground.
“I hate you, Xie Ta .” Bai Liu said to himself, “I hate you.”
From the fire came a very soft voice: “I love you.”
The sparks jumped, then died out as ashes and the remaining smoke cleared away, leaving nothing behind.
Not even the ashes were left behind, disappearing cleanly.
The roar outside the window went on for a while, and then came the sound of people talking in confusion about why they were here, and then they all drove off in their snowmobiles.
Du Sanying also remained confused for a moment, not seeming to react to why he was in this warehouse, and why there was a pile of burn marks in front of him.
Bai Liu, who was leaning on his shoulder, collapsed onto the cold ground, clenching his heart in excruciating pain and vomiting a mouthful of blood. Blood began to pour from his ears, eyes and nose in a frenzy that could not be stopped.
Bai Liu was choking and coughing convulsively, blood clots flying everywhere, and Du Sanying was so frightened that his adrenaline exploded and he grabbed Bai Liu and rushed outside the warehouse, shouting, “Anyone!
“Come to the rescue!!! Someone’s vomiting blood!!!”
Bai Liu’s eyes closed wearily and the last thing he saw were the black marks on the ground from the burning.
Du Sanying, his hands covered in blood, sat stunned outside the ward.
The unconscious Bai Liu was rushed to the nearest hospital, where he was taken to the ICU.
But the doctors came and went with tense expressions, indicating that Bai Liu’s condition was not good.
Du Sanying was so distraught that he had to stop a doctor and ask in broken English, “How is Bai Liu doing in there?”
The doctor said, “It’s okay, out of danger.”
Du Sanying breathes a long sigh of relief.
“It’s a miracle he survived.” The doctor, who looked tired but also somewhat excited, explained to Du Sanying, “This patient, Bai Liu, has traces of his heart having been cut and then dug out, and the connection is still fresh.”
“He should be recuperating from such a serious operation, but his parachuting and strenuous running caused these otherwise incompatible high-precision vascular anastomoses to split and he developed severe internal bleeding.”
The doctor stressed, “Almost no one survives such a bizarre operation. I don’t know who it was that kept Bai Liu’s blood loss very limited for a period of time and kept him going until now.”
“He should be all right now.” The doctor got up, “But he’s not awake yet, so let him rest for a while.”
Dazed and confused, Du Sanying got up and thanked the doctor, then borrowed a satellite phone to call home – Tang Erda had given him his number before he left.
He had lost a bit of memory of what exactly he was doing over here, except that it was on a very important mission – it seemed to be transporting a high-risk heretic.
The satellite phone was quickly picked up and Tang Erda quickly asked, “What’s the status of you and Bai Liu? Where are the five team members?”
“I’m fine, and the five escorts should be fine too.” Du Sanying stammered and looked towards the ward at the end of the corridor, where Bai Liu was staying.
“But Bai Liu …… is now in the hospital and he is still in a coma.”
” Bai Liu in a hospital?!”
As soon as he heard that Bai Liu had been injured, Mu Sicheng started to grab the phone, furious, “Shit, what’s wrong? Why is Bai Liu in the hospital?”
The call then went to Muke, whose voice was tense: “Did you encounter something during the transport?”
Lastly, Liu Jiayi, who was quick on the uptake: “The five escorts and you are fine, so it’s not something that happened in transit. Was it a problem with the item being transported or was it game related?”
“Both, I guess.” Du Sanying sighs, “The transport items were burned, and Bai Liu’s injuries seem to have been carried over from the game and have little to do with the transport process.”
Mu Sicheng’s voice was suspicious: “Brought out of the game?”
“Bringing an injury out of the game, it’s only if the player feels that the injury is something he actually suffered physically himself. Bai Liu didn’t even drop below 60 mental points in the last game, so how can that illusion arise?”
Du Sanying’s voice was a little confused, he didn’t know much about this: “I don’t know.”
Liu Jiayi pressed, ” What is Bai Liu’s injury?”
Du Sanying recalls: “Heart.”
“The doctor said someone had cut open his heart.”
EN1:only one more extra kofi chapter left 🏄♂️
This is an extra kofi chapter due to super kind donation by Tenkyu !! Thank youu!! ❤ヾ(≧▽≦*)o !!
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<time datetime="2023-10-25T21:02:04+04:00">October 25, 2023</time>
Noooooooooo
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