Chapter 270: Reality

Bai Liu walks up and down the deck of the plane towards the cockpit, Du Sanying at his side, objects flying from both sides of the plane automatically avoiding them.

In front of the cockpit door, Bai Liu knocked on the door, the people inside pushed the door open with great effort, they looked at the two extra people on the plane with dismay, and almost instantly drew a gun from the side of the plane and aimed it at Bai Liu's head, speaking harshly:

"Who are you guys? How did you guys hide in an airplane and follow us here?!"

Bai Liu wore a thick down hat, covered with an oxygen mask, covering most of his face, this team member did not recognize that this is the Bai Liu who caused the Heretic Treatment Bureau to be in a state of turmoil.

"I was sent here by Tang Er, the former Captain of the Third Detachment of the Heresy Disposal Bureau, to deal with the current situation." Bai Liu exhaled a breath of white air and raised his eyes to look directly at this team member, "He saw this coming."

This team member withdrew his gun numbly, "You're the living heretic that Team Tang is following Bai Liu? Did Team Tang put you up to this?"

Bai Liu nodded.

The team member gritted his teeth, turned around and let Bai Liu into the cockpit, "Come in and talk."

The captain sat in the pilot's seat with bloodshot eyes, his hands rapidly maneuvering the dashboard that kept ticking with alarms, and asked coldly, without turning his head, "- what do you have in mind?"

"As you all know I'm a living heretic, so I won't be alienated by the corpse pieces." Bai Liu spoke calmly, "You guys open the cargo bay door for me so I can remove the body parts and carry them on my person, and parachute in for a solo landing."

The captain's eyeballs rolled for a moment, and he finally swept Bai Liu with his afterimage, "--You're asking me to put a high-risk heretic like a body mass, in the custody of a high-risk heretic like you?"

His attitude was aggressive, even with a hint of ruthlessness, "-What if you run off with the corpse, or try to use it for something else?"

"Any leak of this heresy can kill thousands of people, do you know how precious human life is?"

"You have no idea, in your eyes human life is a superficial thing, not as valuable as money." The captain rolled his eyes back, expressionless, "But not in my eyes, and I can't afford to take responsibility for so many lives in the Antarctic."

"It's not as if you don't have a previous record like that on you, and the Third Detachment hasn't settled the score with you on the Rose Factory."

"I won't let you take the body parts."

The co-pilot member of the crew somewhat resisted admonition, "Captain, that's one way to go!"

Another member of the crew followed suit, anxious, "Captain! Do you have to let yourself die in four pieces?!"

The captain snapped, interrupting them, "Okay, wait a minute, get these two a good parachute and communications equipment, drop them off and just tell them to roll back on their own, don't bother with any more words!"

"My mind is made up!"

Bai Liu calmly exhaled a breath of white air, "The lives of the people you're trying to save are lives, the lives of these crew members, your own lives aren't lives, are they?"

"Who gave you the right to trade your own life, the lives of these team members, for the lives of what you think are ordinary people?"

"Shut up!!!" The captain clenched his back teeth and tightened his cheeks, his eyes red and filled with a light layer of tears, "Get off the plane!!!"

Bai Liu continued faintly, "They are human, but you are not?"

"Or do you think that you and these crew members are inherently inferior and should be prioritized for sacrifice in the event of anything, dying so that others can live - aren't you afraid to die anymore?"

The crew and the co-pilot were bemused and silent.

Bai Liu drops his eyes, "But I am not a human being, I am a living heretic, a monster who has made mistakes and has no moral compass or human emotions - and you were just right, Captain, human life does have no value in my eyes as money."

"So there's no need to deal with me too much as a human being in your eyes."

"In a critical situation like this, you are using my life to save the greater good, whether out of emotion or out of ethics, it is logical to the human worldview."

Bai Liu's voice was light and steady, "I'm the one who should be sacrificed, not you."

"As for your claim that I would utilize the corpse, there's no denying that I have a tendency to utilize everything, but you're taking a high-risk heretic on a plane, so you must have some means of controlling a high-risk heretic like me, right?"

Even the third detachment member, who had always hated Bai Liu, couldn't bear to shake his head at this time, and he decisively refused, "But that one is used to remotely monitor the corpses for mental contamination and to prevent riots, by pounding regulatory metal mechanical clasps into the bones of each body part ...... "

Bai Liu interrupted him and replied gently, "Just use this."

The team member's head snapped up as he retorted incredulously, "But you're a living person! Because it's for a corpse, we didn't bring anesthesia facilities, there are thirty loops in total, and you'll die of pain if you punch it in hard!"

"But that's what the corpse used too, right?" Bai Liu looked up at the team member, a very light smile on his face, "It and I have always been the same kind of monster, or rather, heretic."

"Isn't it normal to use the same thing for control?"

The captain snapped, "-even if you're a fucking heretic, I wouldn't approve of using this on a living person, Bai Liu, get your ass off the plane-"

"Captain." Bai Liu interrupted calmly, "There's no two ways about it in this case, between me hurting this one, and five of you dying at once, you have to choose one."

The captain's back teeth sockets ground one at a time, and he was green and black under his eyes, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, and that muscle on his cheekbone shook straight from the clenching of his back teeth.

Bai Liu suddenly stepped forward and half-bowed, his tone sincere: "Captain, you have someone you want to save, and I have a monster I want to save."

"And I hope you will understand and fulfill my dream."

The captain stood up from the pilot's seat, relinquished his own pilot's seat to the member of the team who was standing guard next to him, turned to look at Bai Liu, who was still maintaining his bowing stance, and let out a long, deep breath, his fingers weakly opening and closing for a split second from the prolonged maneuvering.

His gaze moved slowly from the haggard faces of the two crew members still manning the dashboard, to the white haze of clouds outside the window, and he let it go for a brief moment.

Then he closed his eyes and his voice was hoarse:

"...... You come over here, just get on four rings, wrists and ankles, control the limbs."

Bai Liu got up and thanked him sincerely, "Thank you."

The captain waved his hand wearily, "...... pain if you can't help it."

Bai Liu was taken to the infirmary, and Du Sanying stood outside in anxiety, expecting to hear some kind of scream, or at least a little moan - the buckling without anesthesia was painful to hear.

But eventually all that came out of the infirmary was a click like a stapler stapling a book, which came four times, and then Bai Liu's subdued thank you, "All right? Thank you, Captain."

Du Sanying was about to push the door open, but he stopped-he heard the sound of someone kneeling inside, knees hitting the cold floor with a thud.

"You are a heretic, a monster with no fear, Heretic Authority, we, the Third Detachment, will definitely monitor you for the rest of your life, and won't give you any chance to do evil and harm people." The captain gritted his teeth in hatred.

Bai Liu gave a steady hmmm, "I know, it's your position, I understand."

The captain was breathing so hard he seemed to be crying, his voice choked with an uncontrollable sob, and then there were two heavy, hard, kowtowing noises, "But this time, I take back all the personal comments I made about you before."

"Thank you for saving the rest of the team, and thank you for saving me."

The two men emerge from the infirmary, Bai Liu gently rubbing his wrist, a yellow mark of sterilized iodine residue on the back, some odd deformity where the bone protrudes - this would be where the ring clasp punched in.

The captain, his face still streaked with roughly wiped tears, nodded to Bai Liu, "I'll open the cargo door for you, go ahead."

Bai Liu led Du Sanying, who had not yet regained his senses, all the way to the bottom cargo hold.

Once inside the cargo hold, one could see the metal crates storing the body parts at a glance, they were neatly spaced about two to three meters apart, arranged in a ring, with a lot of foam and air cushions stuffed between them to separate them, but some of the air cushions had already been poked and prodded over the bumps, and were spreading out on the floor in an absent-minded manner.

Bai Liu told Du Sanying to stand at the door of the cargo hold, not to approach, and preferably not to look, to avoid being mentally contaminated, as he went in alone to dispose of the body parts in the box.

Du Sanying stayed honestly at the door of the cargo bay, his back straight as a sentry.

In fact, he wouldn't have turned around to look at the contents of the boxes without Bai Liu saying so - those boxes inexplicably gave him a very unlucky premonition and gave him a bit of a creepy feeling.

Less than ten minutes later, Bai Liu came out, wrapped in cloth and a winter coat, and intentionally separated himself from Du Sanying.

Bai Liu : "Go contact the captain and tell him to prepare for full abandonment of the plane and try to find a place to land where you can parachute."

-According to the path of the game Ice Age, the odds are that the plane will not be saved, most likely it will crash, run as early as you can.

With the exception of the captain and co-pilot, who were still in the cockpit, the remaining three members of the team were already waiting at the hatch of the airplane.

They were sent here to instruct Bai Liu how to skydive, and one of them would jump down to give Bai Liu an aerial demonstration.

To avoid being spiritually contaminated, they stood far away from Bai Liu, and spoke only in shouts in the gusty wind:

"If landing on the sea, the parachute's supporting package has a kayak, we have enchanted it with heretical modifications, it's lightweight, can withstand very low temperatures, and can be used as a temporary landing site in the sea after instantaneous expansion, the kayak doesn't have a high load-bearing capacity, so don't put anything too heavy on top of it."

"Take care that neither you, nor the corpse ever fall into the water!"

"The water here is too cold to be life-threatening if you fall into the water, and the body parts are polluting the waters and alienating the creatures here."

"If you land on land, there is a tent and some dry food in the package that will last you about a week, find a safe place to take you in the meantime, you have a lockpick from our Heresy Disposal Bureau with a locator system on you, and we'll search for you with all our might for a week."

The three team members yelled until their voices were hoarse, and pointed at Du Sanying at the top of their lungs, "And Bai Liu, what's this guy you brought up here for?"

"Are you going to take him with you on this jump? This man is a heretic like you, won't he be disturbed by the body parts?"

Bai Liu looked towards Du Sanying, who was shivering from the cold wind, and turned his head, "I brought him because I've always had bad luck, and everything I do is always unexpected."

"But this time I didn't want there to be an accident, so I took him with me to avoid any subsequent mishaps."

The team wondered, "What contingency?"

Bai Liu raised his eyes, "-- like, for example, the body parts falling into someone else's hands."

Three minutes later.

The side and rear doors of the airplane finally opened at the captain's direction.

Cold wind whistling, all the members of the parachute parcel on their backs, prepared oxygen and breathing masks and cold props, on standby.

The lurching of the plane was getting more and more violent, to the point where it was almost out of control, and Du Sanying, standing in the wind, was almost blown off his feet and had to hold on to the handles to stabilize his body, as he was putting on his own and trying to put on his packages.

While dressing, the team instructs Du Sanying on how to follow the jump.

"Normally a tandem jump would be you and him strapped together, but you and Bai Liu are both new to tandem jumping, it's very unsafe, and he's already got a body strapped to him, so you'll just have to jump with him and try to land in the same spot as him."

"But the weather on this side of the Antarctic is not suitable for skydiving in every way - the only successful jumps I know of on this side so far have been spot jumps, not high altitude jumps."

"Because the view below the high altitude jump is all white and the wind is unpredictable, it's hard to locate and find the landing spot, so it's not forced, and it's okay for you guys to find each other after you land on the ground."

"I was going to double jump with you to be safer." This team member let out a long sigh, "But you didn't want to."

Du Sanying, who was clumsily adjusting the straps on his chest, gave a slight, unnoticeable lurch as he looked up and forced a smile, "I'll be fine on my own, I'm lucky."

--But not the people who took me.

The only person who can survive around him is Bai Liu at the moment.

The team member squared their shoulders and thanked them, "But whether you are human, or a living heretic like Bai Liu, please be safe."

"Thanks for saving us."

Said team member was ready to reach down and help Du Sanying adjust her mixed up bra straps.

Du Sanying answered in a small voice, sidestepping this team member's movements to help him adjust, his head lowered almost to the point of his heart, "...... I'll just do it on my own, why don't you stand a little farther away from me."

This crew member jumped first as a demonstration, exited the cabin, glided, opened his arms, and disappeared into the dense cloud haze in moments.

"This visibility." A team member frowned, "It's too difficult to follow a jump, better get someone to follow you."

"No need." Du Sanying pinched the parachute bag's bolts and whispered, "...... It's okay, I'm lucky, I'll be able to keep up with Bai Liu."

Parachute start.

Bai Liu leapt down through the hatch, through thick clouds and icy fog, the cold air slicing through his heart and lungs like a million freshly sharpened one-sided razor blades, freezing his limbs and paralyzing him to the point that even the wounds from punching down the ring buckles didn't hurt as much.

He felt like a camera dropping down from a high place, the clouds, the fog, the sea seemed to be constantly switching between high frames, filling Bai Liu's field of vision with a sense of dynamism.

Beautiful and ethereal, as if the money-filled cg opening of a big, expensive game.

It brings a kind of trance-like unreal coldness, just like the frost on Bai Liu's face at the moment.

Under Bai Liu's feet is a 14 million dollar ice cap, in the sky is an airplane that is about to crash and its tail is starting to burn, and wrapped around his heart is the only friend he has ever had and the love of his life who is now broken into pieces.

And what will it be in his future?

The future didn't tell him the answer, so Bai Liu gave himself one.

Every child in that narrow orphanage longs day and night to be taken away by a strange man and woman - just as they long to have loving parents, caring friends, siblings to grow up with.

They longed for a family they could only see in fairy tale books.

But Bai Liu was never part of the process of being screened and taken away.

So Sheta asked him, "Don't you want a daddy?

Bai Liu says: [Don't want to.]

Sheta asked, "Where's mom?

Bai Liu says: [Don't want to.]

Sheta says, [Sister, sister, brother, brother, do you have what you want?

Bai Liu said: [What's the point of having them?

Sheta, as if confused: [This seems to be a necessary component of the family's needs.]

Bai Liu asked rhetorically: [Is there any use for a family?]

Sheta thinks for a moment and shakes her head honestly: [A family seems to be a venue that two people form after they decide to be together, bound by laws, morals, and some emotion called love, to be with each other forever].

[Everyone seems to yearn for family.]

Sheta asked Bai Liu: [If you had a family without these necessary components, is there anything you would like to put into the family?

Bai Liu didn't answer at the time because he felt he would never need something like [family].

It's too boring for two people to be tied together forever.

But the two monsters ...... seem to be okay.

Now Bai Liu and Sheta have met all the requirements to start a family, so ...... if Bai Liu has [a family], then Sheta is his only family.

He hopes that if there is a future, there is Sheta in the future, Sheta if she wants to love him forever and be Bai Liu s family ...... would be great.

Just fine.

A senseless gust of wind blew violently the moment Bai Liu opened his parachute.