Chapter 282: Dense Forest Borderland

The moment Spades answered the bell, the roar in the tavern was roof-raising.

"Hey, you guys take it easy, they're new!" Alex helplessly tried to stop, "Don't dunk them on purpose!"

A good, half-drunk soldier next to him gave Alex an OK sign, while playfully pushing Alex away, and turned to Bai Liu to explain the rules of sparring, "Since Alex said so, how about the simplest way to spar?"

Tang Er tugged on Bai Liu's elbow, shaking his head with a frown, signaling him not to drink.

He could sense that Bai Liu wasn't much of a drinker, and the man had just gotten a little up in his face once that high-proof vodka went down.

Spades' eyes swept over Tang Er's elbow holding Bai Liu, and he paused, then turned his head to the brigadier who was explaining the rules, "What's the most complicated way to spar like?"

"Wow! You're a good soldier with guts!" The soldier clapped his hands excitedly, then turned back to Spades and called out to Alex, "Alex, I'm letting them go for your sake!"

Alex rubbed his temples with a headache, and after realizing that he couldn't persuade Spades, he turned to Bai Liu: "Don't answer them, you won't be able to walk back tonight if you drink too much. ......"

G.I. Joe tsked regretfully, "Alex , you're such a party pooper."

Spades leveled Bai Liu: "Drink?"

Bai Liu tilts his head slightly and smiles, "I'll see you through."

"OK, look over here, the most complicated way to put together a drink is this." This GI snapped his fingers and got everyone's attention.

He kept casually pouring the contents of the bottle into a small metal bucket of mixer ice on the bar until it overflowed.

The G.I. proudly carried the small iron keg and shook it, "--My work of glory, the Kiss of War, the last man to drink it was said to have seen death."

Two men nearby handed Bai Liu and Spades two conical goblets, fifteen centimeters in height and with a capacity of about four hundred milliliters, and smiled as they gestured for them to hold them over their heads.

Spades takes it and puts it on his head without hesitation, then stares at Bai Liu, who hesitates slightly as he takes the cup, but under Spades' gaze, Bai Liu quickly puts it on his head as well and calmly looks back over his shoulder.

The G.I. couldn't help but chuckle at the comical sight of these two men, who both seemed to have exceptional sizes and looks, topping off their glasses of wine.

As he laughed, he said, "The rules of sparring go like this, you have to keep scooping wine from this little bucket onto your own overhead glass, being careful not to spill it outside, and if you do you have to drink all of this wine you've scooped."

"Then after you have filled the glass over your own head, and have not yet spilled a drop, the other man must drink from your head, and at the same time in the process neither the glass over his own head nor the one over yours must fall, and if it does, he is responsible for drinking twice as much as is in the glass."

"Until the point where neither party can stabilize the glass on their head at all, the sparring is over, and the party with the most broken glasses is the loser."

G.I. Joe opened his hand, "Got it?"

Bai Liu and Spades both nodded a bit, their eyes going to the wine glasses on top of each other's heads.

The GI whistled and dropped two of the small cups used to ladle the wine into the keg, "Game on!"

Bai Liu reached out and held the glass between two fingers, flipping his hand over and steadily pouring a glass right over his head.

But to everyone's surprise, Spades didn't care about the small glass, he just held the sides of the keg with both hands and poured the wine over his head, looking straight at Bai Liu.

The keg is held extremely steady, and the overflow pulls into a clear line of water that slides down into the glass above Spades' head, quickly passing the halfway mark of the capacity line.

Tang Er hit: "!!!"

Alex : "!!!"

The gathered GIs were dumbfounded.

Can you still play like that?

Bai Liu doesn't hesitate as he reaches for the keg over Spades' head, interfering with his pour.

But Spades is a full head taller than him, and raises the keg on his head as Bai Liu leans over, making it impossible for Bai Liu to reach out even if he's close to him.

After realizing that Spades was purposely using his height to overpower him, Bai Liu narrowed his eyes and rolled over to brace himself on the bar with one hand, not spilling a drop from the glass above his head.

Then when everyone thought that he was going to grab the barrel by the height advantage, Bai Liu coldly stretched out his leg and swept it across the room, directly about to kick away the wine cup above his head.

Spades leans back to avoid it, but Bai Liu hooks his ankle and kicks the barrel he's holding up.

Liquor was scattered everywhere as the barrel flipped through the air.

Everyone's eyes followed the barrels like sunflowers.

Spades drew down the whip at his back with his right hand and circled the lower end of the keg, yanking it back with a slight flick of his wrist as it went through the air as if in slow motion replay, collecting all the liquor that had just overflowed back again without a single drop.

The GI's looked dumbfounded - what was this operation again?

Magical oriental kung fu?

Seeing that the keg was about to go back into Spades' open left hand that was ready to catch it, Bai Liu's eyes darkened as he drew his gun from his back waist and raised his hand to aim at the back of Spades' head without pausing.

"!!!" Tang Er hit violently touched the skill gun at his waist - sure enough, it was gone.

Alex, blank expression.

The GI's mouths were open, already looking frozen, too late to react.

Bai Liu presses down on his index finger and squeezes the trigger. Spades sidesteps back and flips his hand to open Bai Liu's gun aimed at him.

The muzzle of the gun spun and the bullet shot through the air, hitting the keg impartially, the bottom of the keg leaking a hole and then falling into Spades' left hand, the liquor flowing through Spades' fingers in a steady stream.

"The barrel leaked in your hands." Bai Liu retracted his gun, his eyes vaguely bright, his breathing slightly rapid from the movement, "I won."

Spades gazed at Bai Liu calmly : "You were trying to target the barrels from the start."

--Targeting him was just a front, just a distraction.

Bai Liu shrugged and smiled, "It was just a sparring session, I'm not bored enough to shoot you over something like that."

Next to Tang Er hit: "......"

Alex: "......"

Onlooker G.I. Joe: "......"

And you know it's just a sparring session!!!!

Spades, if it wasn't for your quick reflexes, you'd have shot me in the head!

Bai Liu looks up at Spades: "You lost."

Spades gave a faint hmmm, "I lost, so I drink."

He stepped forward and stood in front of Bai Liu, pressed his hands on Bai Liu's shoulders, and said naturally, "Bow your head for a moment."

Bai Liu was quiet for a moment, his head still nodding forward.

Spades doesn't even have to stand on tiptoe to reach the glass of wine on top of Bai Liu's head with his lips, and Bai Liu is right up against Spades' chest and the knot of his throat, and they're so close that it makes Bai Liu's breaths, which had been calming down, become rapid again.

--This pose, it's almost as if he's actively bowing his head and letting Spades kiss him on the forehead ......

Bai Liu raised his eyes slightly, he saw the way the knot in Spades' throat slid up and down as he gulped down the liquor from his head, and could feel the clear sound of Spades' heartbeat.

For some reason, the man's heartbeat was also a little eerily fast.

Spades drank his own and Bai Liu's wine, wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and said indifferently, "More."

Bai Liu lost in the second round.

Spades takes a suicide attack, not caring about the glass on his head, and starts off by taking the glass off Bai Liu's head, causing the glass on his own head to slip off.

Both men drank two large glasses of vodka.

Spades was nice enough to sit down and let Bai Liu drink from his head, but Bai Liu, for some reason, preferred to hold the glass in his teeth and tilt his head away from his face rather than drink from Spades' head.

The third round was a tie between the two, and the spare kegs were screwed up by the pissed off bartender who scolded them and fined the two men three large shots of vodka.

......

Tang Er fights from the tightness of the beginning, to the helplessness at the back, to the hopelessness of sitting on the sidelines and watching the fun with Alex at the back.

"I thought something would go wrong." Tang Er sighed fearfully, "I'm glad it's okay."

Alex shook his head and laughed, "I thought Bai Liu was really mad at Spades, but I didn't realize that it was just a hot love affair."

"Guy and I would have been like that before, and it would have been nice to make a hearty mess."

Alex smiled and looked at Bai Liu who was drinking low over the head of the seated Spades, sighing and envious: "--That's nice, only when you think the other person will love you no matter what, you dare to hold each other at gunpoint and then hug each other intimately like this after the game, right? "

Bai Liu drops his eyes to look at the glass over Spades' head as he struggles to keep his limbs and head steady, lowering his head to drink from the top of Spades' head at a slow and even pace.

But Bai Liu, who has already lost count of the number of drinks he has consumed, may not realize the difference between the stability he sees in his eyes and the stability that exists in the world itself, which, to the rest of the world, appears to be a tilting of the head as the glass slides down on top of his head.

Spades subconsciously reaches out and catches the glass sliding down over Bai Liu's head, he looks up ready to tell the man you've lost another game when he sees Bai Liu, eyes lost in thought, as if he doesn't even realize he's dropped his glass, still looking down near him.

Bai Liu's lips pressed against Spades', and the wine glass on top of Spades' head slid to the ground.

Neither of the two almost-drunken men reacted, and just stayed that way, motionless and close, their eyes not closed.

Some people on the sidelines took in the scene as an ugly sight for these two drunks, laughing and whistling madly.

Bai Liu blinked slowly, realizing that instead of holding Spades' shoulders, his hands had somehow become cupped around his face.

He pulled away, opened his mouth as if to say something, and what finally came out was, "I wasn't trying to kiss you."

"Oh." Spades tilts his head as he watches Bai Liu intently, "You're turning red again, Bai Liu."

Bai Liu wants to say it's because he's drunk, but admitting to being drunk in a game of Scrabble is inexplicably offensive to him, so he says, "-I just turn red sometimes."

Spades looks at Bai Liu: "When?"

"Is it kissing me, being near me, or when I tell people I have a special relationship with you?"

He was simply listing the situations in which Bai Liu turned red, but after he finished, Spades said with hindsight, "Bai Liu, you only turn red when you're with me."

"Why?" Spades calmly approached Bai Liu, his breath was hot and slightly tipsy as he doggedly pressed, "--is it because we have a special relationship?"

"No." Bai Liu paused as he said calmly, "It's because I hate you."

"I turn red when I'm near someone I hate."

Spades reacted for a moment, "You only turn red when you're near me."

"Am I the only one you hate?"

Spades relentlessly pursued the question.

The Adversary told him that the emotions one likes and hates are limited and complex.

People generally hate and like many people at the same time, but these emotions are usually short-lived, and when a person hates or likes only one person for a long time, that person will run out of "emotional stock" of likes and dislikes.

This is the time when like becomes love and hate becomes hate.

The Reverse God said that both love and hate are the most extreme and insane desires of man, difficult to change and deeply rooted.

Spades doesn't understand why Bai Liu hates him, but he feels that at least, Bai Liu won't be the only one who hates him.

So Bai Liu's "dislike" of him can be changed.

Bai Liu's eyes drooped, hiding all the emotion in them, and he stroked Spades' eyes, speaking very, very softly, the wine dulling his voice a little:

"Yes, of all people, I only hate you."

But of all the monsters, I love only you.