Chapter 149: Dangerous Heresy Bureau (Day +93w)

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"Lately that Bai Liu guy, is getting more and more strange ......," the kids whispered fearfully as their heads clinked together.

After the director said Sheta ran away and left the orphanage, they transferred the fear they had vacated from Sheta to Bai Liu.

The other children in the orphanage look with fear and curiosity at Bai Liu, who sits at the end of the long table, far away from the others, eating in silence - the same place where Sheta ate before.

"Newcomer, your name is Lu Yizhan, right?" A kid scowled at another decent-looking, older-looking kid, who pointed at Bai Liu, "That kid sitting at the end of the row, Bai Liu, you remember to stay away from him."

The young Lu Yizhan looked back with a puzzled expression, "Why? Did he do something?"

"Because he's a monster!"

The child threatened Lu Yizhan in a fervent manner.

Lu Yizhan frowned and looked again at Bai Liu at the end of the long table -- Bai Liu was, on the surface, an uncharacteristically, if not excessively, skinny kid.

Bai Liu looks like he's never had enough to eat, the flesh on his cheeks is sunken in, he looks really hungry and he eats fast.

BUT - Lu Yizhan's eyes fall on Bai Liu's dinner plate, which still has an untouched loaf of staple bread on it, and it doesn't look like he's going to move it either.

After Bai Liu finished eating quietly and quickly, he looked up and met Lu Yizhan, who was looking at him with a deep look in his eyes.

Lu Yizhan was the first to move away from the stare-off.

Bai Liu jumped down from the table with a grimace on his face, his head down as he took a bite of bread he hadn't touched and made a detour from the back of the church to the neighborhood of the lake.

Lu Yizhan's expression paused for a moment, and he followed Bai Liu to the church, where he stopped dead in his tracks.

Bai Liu ran away almost instantly.

...... What the hell is this guy doing?

Night.

Lu Yizhan, a new child at the orphanage, was assigned the bed that Sheta had slept in before. When he was ready to go to sleep, as soon as he lay down, Lu Yizhan turned his head to see Bai Liu standing at the head of his bed, holding a futon without any expression on his face.

Lu Yizhan seemed to be in the middle of thinking, and was startled by the sudden appearance of Bai Liu, she sat up in panic, covered her chest with the blanket, and looked at Bai Liu vigilantly: "Bai Liu, what are you doing?!"

The other children in the sleeping room were startled by the sudden appearance of Bai Liu, and fled everywhere screaming, "Bai Liu is coming to eat us! He's going to eat us!"

Lu Yizhan was still able to maintain his composure, he looked at Bai Liu, who was holding a large pile of bedding and standing motionlessly at the head of his bed, and guessed what Bai Liu meant, Lu Yizhan pointed to his own bed, and then pointed to the bedding in Bai Liu's hand, and tentatively asked: "Are you... . want to change beds with me?"

Bai Liu looked at Lu Yizhan quietly, he seemed to be in poor spirits, his eyes were scattered, and there was a heavy blue-black color under his eyes, when he heard Lu Yizhan ask him, Bai Liu nodded slowly.

Lu Yizhan breathed a sigh of relief-it was really here to change the bed.

Lu Yizhan doesn't care about the ownership of a bed; he gives Bai Liu his own bed, and after a pause reminds him to change it back in the morning-because the teachers here recognize people by their beds, and it's okay for kids to secretly change beds on their own, but it's never a good thing to be disciplined about it if they're caught.

After agreeing with Bai Liu on a time to switch back in the morning, Lu Yizhan picked up his own bedding and went to sleep in Bai Liu's bed.

Before leaving his bed, Lu Yizhan glanced back at Bai Liu, who, without a word, made his bed and closed his eyes quietly on it, holding a long, thin, strangely shaped, faceless doll.

Bai Liu doesn't look like a child who would sleep with a doll at such an old age, but he clearly treasures the doll, not only giving up most of his bed for the doll to sleep on, but also putting the blanket over the doll's body, leaving half of his own body exposed.

The night was obviously a little chilly, but Bai Liu acted as if he couldn't feel hungry, and he didn't seem to feel the cold, and it didn't take long for him to fall asleep while cuddling his doll.

But it was a doll that, judged by the eyes of the unusual, didn't need to be cherished and protected so much at all - lots of patches, rough workmanship, and bubbling threads around the edges, and no face, just like a half-finished product.

Bai Liu sleeps curled up in a tiny ball at the hand of this doll, whose body is arranged by Bai Liu in a curly embrace, and the two are pressed together so tightly that it's as if - it's as if they were sleeping together in a very narrow, oval-shaped bathtub.

It is a ...... very peculiar sleeping position.

This peculiarly glued-to-doll sleeping position caused Lu Yizhan to take a second look, and he stood quietly by Bai Liu's bed for a moment before withdrawing his gaze and heading for Bai Liu's bed.

This Bai Liu is such a strange kid.

But it seems, it's not as bad as the other kids say, and it's kinda reasonable.

Bai Liu is vaguely aware that Lu Yizhan, the newcomer, is more and more secretly observing himself, the monster child that others say not to touch.

On Lu Yizhan's seventh day, Bai Liu almost fainted at the dinner table, and it was Lu Yizhan who realized he was in trouble, gave him a candy, and forced him to eat half of his own meal - Bai Liu was clearly suffering from low blood sugar.

The man didn't eat properly at all, leaving a lot of food left over every day to sneak away again, and I don't know what he went to do, and every time he came back at night his mental state was getting worse and worse.

Lu Yizhan began to share his food with Bai Liu, consciously or unconsciously.

But most of the time, Bai Liu would say no with a cold face, I don't need it.

At the same time, an eerie atmosphere began to permeate the orphanage, with more and more children escaping, some of them really escaped, some of them were "forced" to escape, and Lu Yizhan sensed that something was wrong - the orphanage was not as glamorous and safe as it seemed. Lu Yizhan senses that something is wrong - the orphanage is not as bright and safe as it seems.

As more and more children disappeared, Lu Yizhan finally began to make contact with Bai Liu, after realizing that he too began to smell like blood that had been drawn from him.

At bedtime, when Bai Liu came over to change Lu Yizhan's bed again, before he left, Lu Yizhan immovably grabbed Bai Liu's arm and whispered to him about his discovery, reminding him that the orphanage was unsafe and asking him if he wanted to run away with him.

"I know a public orphanage that is safer than here, we can go there." Lu Yizhan said softly, "It's close to the police station, and someone will protect us. "

Bai Liu replied indifferently, "No go."

"Why? " Lu Yizhan looked a bit anxious, "Something is really wrong here!"

Bai Liu looked at him with downcast eyes, no focus at all in her pupils, her tone sluggish: "I'm waiting for someone to wake up, and when he does, I'll take him with me. "

Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps it was Bai Liu's growing weakness that gave Lu Yizhan a break in his stalking, after another baptism, Lu Yizhan finally caught the opportunity, he followed Bai Liu into the back of the church, where Bai Liu would sneak off to every day he went down.

The back of the church had always been a restricted area within the orphanage, the director strictly forbidding any of their children to go over there, saying that it was unsafe, that it was undeveloped jungle bushes and small lakes that hadn't yet been built and remodeled, and that the children were prone to drowning or sinking into mud pits when they went over there, and so the church was locked up tight on weekdays to prevent these children from going over there.

But Bai Liu seems to have found an isolated trail that leads to the back of the church.

Lu Yizhan followed Bai Liu as he watched him maneuver skillfully and gently through a broken window behind the side door of the church, then cross the church and exit through the back door, walking without hesitation into the thick grass behind the church, which could have engulfed Bai Liu in an instant.

Bai Liu skillfully maneuvered around foot-cutting bushes and rocky obstacles, and eventually he came to a stop beside a small lake, or pond, filled with floating weeds.

Lu Yizhan hid behind the grass with a puzzled mind--What is Bai Liu doing in this pond? Swimming?

If it was a normal day, Bai Liu would have been able to notice Lu Yizhan following behind him, but the prolonged starvation had caused a serious decline in his condition and drained his concentration, so he didn't realize that there was someone else not far away who had followed him over.

Bai Liu turns his back to Lu Yizhan and strips off his shirt defenselessly, revealing a ribbed, blindingly white back, as he bends down to place the bread in his arms on the clean clothing, then turns and dives into the pool of water.

Lu Yizhan hid in the bushes, his eyes watching intently.

He had a feeling that soon he would figure out what the hell Bai Liu was doing these days.

But Lu Yizhan waited and waited, waited for almost several minutes, Bai Liu did not float up, Lu Yizhan realized that something was wrong, he did not even have time to take off his clothes, he plunged into the lake, and searched for Bai Liu at the bottom of the murky lake, and finally he saw Bai Liu whose feet were swallowed up by the mud and sand, and whose hands were suspended in the water, obviously showing signs of drowning. Bai Liu, with his hands suspended in the water, clearly showing signs of drowning.

Lu Yizhan held his breath and swam over, grabbing Bai Liu's shoulders and lifting him up.

Bai Liu seems to be dragging something, but his strength is too small, and only with Lu Yizhan's help does Bai Liu manage to pull it out, and eventually Lu Yizhan carries one in his hand and rips both Bai Liu and the thing he's trying to pull out out of the water.

Lu Yizhan is lying on his back on the edge of the lake, breathing heavily.

Bai Liu's body was in physical spasms, and he dry-heaved a few mouthfuls of lake water and took a few moments to slow down before he side-stepped off the ground.

Just now Bai Liu almost drowned at the bottom of the lake, because of low blood sugar and weakness, this kind of intense physical activity is already very difficult for Bai Liu to do at present.

"What are you thinking?!" Lu Yizhan didn't have the good sense to scold Bai Liu while gasping for air, "You couldn't drag it out all at once, don't you know to come up to catch your breath and then go back down to drag it out? Do you have to drown yourself under the water?"

After saying that, Lu Yizhan turned his head to look at the thing that he and Bai Liu had dragged out - which made Lu Yizhan subconsciously stand up, his face turning ugly.

Lying next to Bai Liu is a body with a clean face and ropes tied around its ankles to prevent it from sinking.

"You hid the body in this lake?!" Lu Yizhan is really going crazy, "You are bold enough, it's true that no one will find it here, what kind of corpse is this! What are you doing dragging him out every day?!"

Bai Liu kneels beside Sheta in silence, and as if he hadn't heard Lu Yizhan's words, he breaks the untouched bread he's put on his shirt, as if he were feeding it to a fish, crushing it and rubbing it with his fingertips into Sheta's cold lips.

His actions tell Lu Yizhan what he's come over for - he's come over to feed this underwater corpse.

Lu Yizhan fell into an eerie silence, his eyes glazing over as he watched Bai Liu calmly finish feeding the bread.

Bai Liu patted the bread crumbs on his hand, he then raised his eyes to Lu Yizhan and faintly opened his mouth to explain, "He's a monster, but not a corpse, he's not dead, he'll come back to life, so I can't let him starve."

"You know Bai Liu?" Lu Yizhan's face and tone were complicated beyond words, "You're more of a monster now."

Lu Yizhan's eyes fell on Sheta's body, whose right hand had already begun to rot, so one could only imagine how long Bai Liu had been "feeding" it.

"Whether he's a corpse or a monster, you have to let him go." Lu Yizhan felt like his brain was about to explode as he crouched down, holding Bai Liu's shoulders and looking at him levelly, trying to explain the current state of affairs in a way that Bai Liu could understand, "You can avenge him when you grow up, you can find out the culprits who killed him, but for now, you can't bury yourself under the water with him. "

"He's not breathing, he doesn't have a heartbeat, and he doesn't know when he'll wake up." Lu Yizhan sighs, "Bai Liu, you can't sleep with him."

Sheta was still lying quietly on the ground, those needle holes on the back of his hand had not yet healed, but in a trance, Bai Liu seemed to see Sheta open her eyes and say to him, leave this place Bai Liu, we will meet again someday.

We'll be reunited in the endless, horror games and stories we've seen, played, and shared.

So now, let me go and let yourself go. There's goodbye before there's reunion, Bai Liu.

Bai Liu muttered, "You swear we'll be reunited?"

Sheta smiled very lightly as he took Bai Liu's hand in his right hand, which had rotted away to white bone, "I swear."

Lu Yizhan turned his head in confusion as he looked a little furtively at the motionless Sheta body, "Bai Liu, who are you talking to?"

Bai Liu slowly releases his grip on Sheta's hand, his eyes drooping, water dripping from his body onto the soles of his feet, then Bai Liu pulls a knife from his pocket and isolates the rope binding Sheta's ankles, Bai Liu picks up Sheta's body with great effort and difficulty and walks step by step towards the pool of water before calmly lowering Sheta into the water.

Sheta's hair fluttered and sank under the water.

Bai Liu nice eyes looking, Lu Yizhan just breathed a sigh of relief, then saw Bai Liu eyes blinking twice, eyelashes seem to be dropped two drops of water.

Then Bai Liu took a deep breath and plunged into the pond again.

"Bai Liu!" Lu Yizhan shouted in shock, and he jumped right after him.

Bai Liu paddles his limbs as he reaches for the submerged Sheta.

He watched as the mud and sand flooded Sheta's face as quickly as if she couldn't resist the coming darkness.

The black mud crawled like vines up the bridge of Sheta's nose, Sheta's lips, then Sheta's chest, her arms, and finally just one shockingly white hand loosely exposed to the dirt.

Bai Liu struggled to grab the hand.

The hand was cool and warm to the touch, and he felt Sheta's one grip him tightly for a moment before releasing it and eventually disappearing completely to the bottom of the lake.

Bai Liu stuck his hand in the sand, and tried doggedly to dig through it to look into those eyes again, but Lu Yizhan grabbed him by the shoulder, gritted his teeth, and began to pull him upward.

Bai Liu's lungs are already running out of oxygen, the air is disappearing under the water as fast as it is being sucked out, Bai Liu's mouth and nose are constantly bubbling up, but it seems that he does not feel suffocated, he just opens his pupil-dilated eyes and mechanically plows through the mud and sand under the water, searching for the one who has been swallowed up by the darkness of his life completely.

Picture books that are broken and then put back together, doll sets full of patches, promises not kept, faces forever covered by hair.

What Sheta left him would always be broken, incomplete.

These imperfections are like a reminder to Bai Liu that Sheta is not real.

Is this man really coming back?

Does this man really exist?

Did this guy ...... really show up?

Or was it just him, Bai Liu, an illusion conjured up by a child, judged by all to be mentally ill, to fill his loneliness and to deceive himself, willing to hold his hand?

There is no God in this world, so why would there be a monster who will always be waiting in church to read books with him, to play scary games with him that no one likes, to make him dolls, to hug him?

[Bai Liu, why are you willing to believe in the existence of monsters, but not in the existence of God?]

[Because it's not like God has ever been nice to me.]

Bai Liu stares down into the darkness of the water with his eyes open, his mouth unconsciously open, bubbles gushing out of his mouth.

He said, "Sheta, I'm leaving, bye."

Bai Liu feels as if Sheta hasn't said a formal goodbye to him before she left, and without a goodbye there's no reunion, which is what Sheta just said, so Bai Liu jumps down, he wants to say a serious goodbye to him.

The water pouring into Bai Liu's mouth and nose made him start to choke, snowy bubbles rising from the corners of his mouth.

Bai Liu slowly drooped his eyelids, his limbs lost their strength and spread backward, suspended in the water like dead floating weeds.

He fell into a daze of white light.

In the white halo, Bai Liu saw countless memory fragments flash back, and at the end of the brilliant white light was someone sitting quietly and upright in the first row of the church, wearing a worn-out doll's costume of a long, skinny ghost, holding a picture book of the "Long, Skinny Ghosts and Murderers," which had been pieced together in bits and pieces, and reading it page by page, turning it over very slowly.

The man seemed to have seen Bai Liu sitting diagonally behind him, and he raised his book as if to ask Bai Liu sitting next to him if he wanted to read together.

But actually Bai Liu was ready to grant the man's request to read a book together before the man turned his head.

Because Bai Liu loved that book, even though it looked a bit tattered, but Bai Liu didn't care, he had been sitting behind that man, accompanying him, peeking at page after page for a long, long time.

But the moment the man turned his head, the white light disappeared.

Lu Yizhan's worried face appeared in front of him, and he slapped Bai Liu's face while calling his name: "Hey! Hey! Bai Liu!"

Bai Liu choked and coughed up a lot of water, and he woke up in a daze, lying on his back on the ground, his eyes slack, his chest rising and falling noisily, while Lu Yizhan, who was covered in water, stood beside him, his hands propped up on his knees, panting with exhaustion.

"Bai Liu, if we want to leave here, we need to change your name." Lu Yizhan said, "To prevent the teachers of this orphanage from finding you again, that thing you did before was too big, if the other orphanages recognize you, it will be more difficult to take you in with the teachers of this orphanage getting in the way."

Bai Liu was quiet for two seconds and said, "I don't accept changing too many names."

Lu Yizhan was stunned, "Why?"

Bai Liu rolled over on his side, his eyes were lifeless and trance-like as he looked into the waterhole, his voice hoarse, "...... I don't know, I always feel like maybe someone ...... will come looking for me under my original name. "