Chapter 410: Preseason

A community psychologist counseling private practice.

Liao Ke smiles as he sends off the last patient for counseling, closes the door, takes off his lab coat and hangs it behind the door, the smile on his face slowly fading as he turns his head toward the back of the clinic, then pulls back a blue sanitary curtain.

Behind the curtain was a cubicle with a narrow space.

In the narrow cubicle there is an old push-bed that is no more than 80 centimeters wide, with rust growing on all four wheels, and miscellaneous objects piled up next to the bed, hiding the face of the person lying on the bed from view.

The man was so quiet, his breathing so faint that it was not quite audible, that he had been lying undetected behind the curtain.

Liao Ke closed the curtain, he looked at Lu Yizhan lying unconscious on the bed, and sighed a long, long sigh.

Lu Yizhan's face is half-buried in the pillow, the exposed half of his face is so weak that he can't see any blood color, his mouth skin is dry and black, his eyes are so emaciated that they are sunken, his body can't stop trembling, and the quilt covering his shoulders is turned over by Liao Ke, and he finds that there are still traces of blood seeping out.

Liao Ke undid Lu Yizhan's clothes in silence and found that the bandage on his shoulder, which he had changed at noon, was already wet with blood, his face was red and hot to the touch, his eyelashes and forehead were covered with sweat, and he was breathing rapidly, so it was obvious that he was burning badly.

The frame bed was too narrow, Lu Yizhan's left hand was hanging out, Liao Ke put Lu Yizhan's left hand back on the bed, then changed the anti-inflammatory drip that was being given to Lu Yizhan, put an ice pack on Lu Yizhan's forehead, and then moved a bench and sat down on the opposite side of the bed, with her hands on her knees. Liao Ke couldn't help but let out a sigh.

You can't go to the hospital, you can't go home, you can't let anyone know that you're injured, you can only hide your head in this small clinic of his to recuperate from your injuries, Lu Yizhan, you're really the most miserable captain of a detachment I've ever seen.

Liao Ke moved Lu Yizhan's shoulder to change his bandage while muttering to herself, "Fang Dian wasn't this miserable when she was the head of a detachment directly against Bai Liu."

"It's still your own problem, isn't it Lu Yizhan ......"

Liao Ke looked at Lu Yizhan, who was still frowning in his coma, and sighed, "Why do you have to try to save everyone."

"You're just one man, and it would be nice to save most of them, but even the heretics, the monsters, even the gods-even that Bai Liu you had to try to see if you could go and get him back."

Liao Ke tossed the bloodstained bandage into the medical waste bin, turned her head and found a piece of gauze to wipe the sweat from Lu Yizhan's face, then turned off the clinic's lights and stood guard over Lu Yizhan, who hadn't woken up yet, in the obscurity of the night, her eyes lost in thought as she stared at an unidentifiable bit of the air and murmured:

"There's no way a human being can do that much, Lu Yizhan."

"If you can't stop Bai Liu from winning the league this time, even if you don't die now, you'll die a horrible death in the future."

"Lu Yizhan, do you know what you're doing?"

Lu Yizhan lay on the frame bed, motionless and asleep, and did not answer him.

Deer Hunter's Guild Conference Room.

It is customary after the game to play back the footage from the time of the game to analyze the results, but that's done now.

But now that the meeting is over in the conference room, only Cen Buming, who is sitting at the end of the room, is left.

The lights in the conference room were not turned on, it was pitch black inside, only the screen at the front was glowing with a faint light, Cen Buming's eyes were dark and uncertain as he watched over and over again the clip of him killed by the god of inversion on the screen, his hand was propped up on the back of the chair, and his left hand unconsciously twirled the ring on his right hand.

Elder brother, what exactly did you defect from the Heresy Authority for?

The eight [Judges] led out by Fang Dian's captain were already seven failures, and over the course of more than six hundred timeline reincarnations, these seven Judges had been seduced, deceived, and tormented by Bai Liu, over and over and over and over again, and the Evil God had enjoyed their pain in a playful way until it was a pain that they couldn't load any longer.

The seven [Judges] finally lost the game, they surrendered, sold their souls to Bai Liu with tears in their eyes, and with tears in their eyes in agony became the seven stone statues Bai Liu used to decorate his temple.

Senior, you're the last [Judge].

Are you going to go down the same old path as the first seven Inquisitors, kneeling at the feet of some world-line derivative of an evil god, selling your soul to the other side, and then becoming one of Bai Liu's uninteresting ornaments?

I don't believe you've come this far, Sifu, you're the only [Judge] who has survived more than six hundred games of Bai Liu.

So, Senior--

Cen Buming tapped on the system panel, the screen changed to a snowflake screen with [Wandering Circus vs. Russell Cemetery] video written in the lower right corner, he looked at the snowflake screen, and when the snowflake screen came to an end and the screen popped up with the system prompt [Russell Cemetery Won the Match], Cen Buming squinted a little bit --

--Are you so close to that Bai Liu to set him up to lose?

Laleye Shrine.

Amidst the sound of the infinite dark-colored waves, the stone-speckled seer sat on a stone bench with his eyes closed and his head hanging down, sitting across from him was the evil god in a hood, idly teasing with his fingertips the low-pecking card-faced seabird that had landed on the stone table.

The cards on the table were blown grinning and swaying, but it was as if they were held in place by a magical force and didn't fly about.

There was nothing left of the cards on the prophet's side, while on the evil god's side there was a thick stack of cards, like a never-ending stack, and the top card depicted a magnificent vintage opera house sitting on the sea, similar to the Temple of Laleye.

"All it takes is one league win for Bai Liu and our game is over, Prophet." The Evil God sighed as if in regret, "It's a shame you no longer have the cards in your hand to stop him from continuing to win."

The evil god looked up at the sleeping prophet with a smirk, "Except for yourself."

"But there's just no telling how much your already crippled prophet card will do to block Bai Liu's doomed victory."

With the Seer's head still bowed, the Evil God gently raised the beak of the seabird, which flapped its wings in time with his gesture and briefly soared into the air, landing with both feet in a grip on the Seer's already petrified right shoulder shoulder.

After being petrified, the originally sturdy right shoulder, as if it had been hit by a bullet shot from somewhere after being gripped by the seabird for a moment, scattered from the center in spider cracks, and the part of the shoulder where the stone sculpture had scattered matched the part of the Inverse God's soul that had burned and disappeared after being hit by the Soul Shattering Shot not even remotely close to being a part of his soul.

The seabird threw back its head and hissed, flapping its wings from the shattered shoulder and flying away, disappearing into the dark clouds.

The Evil God stretched out his long, slender forefinger and placed it against the forehead of the stone statue across from him, who maintained his human form only on his shoulder, and whispered with downcast eyes:

"The game is not over between us, wake up from your dreams, prophet."

A drop of water dripped from the end of the hair at the nape of the prophet's neck.

The sea breeze blew strongly from behind his head, blowing the drops that were about to fall on the tabletop far away, and the seabirds hissed from amongst the clouds, spreading their wings as if they could break what was left of the sunlight that was allowed to shine on the temple of Laleye.

The prophet's eyelids saved slightly.

It was as if he had been blown along with the drop into the clouds far, far away, into the sea far, far away, sailing endlessly far away in the winds and waves across six hundred darkened timelines, finally arriving at his destination - the place where it all began.

--The world line that started it all.

"Lu Yizhan!" someone was waving at him from a distance, the other blocking at his mouth into a trumpet shape to amplify his voice, "The registration point for the Heresy Handling Bureau's Detachment One training is here! You're going the opposite way!"

He stopped his weaving and turned back as the landscape made up of time lurched around him and then began to flow wildly in reverse.

The reverse flow of time pulls everything into colorful abstract lines, and Lu Yizhan runs through the tunnels formed by these lines until everything instantly falls into place beside him and returns to its original form.

He stopped in his tracks.

Lu Yizhan turned his head, he became almost seventeen or eighteen years old, scratching his head in bewilderment, "Did I go backwards?"

The man said helplessly, "Of course it's the other way around, that's the second team enrollment over there and the first team is over here."

Lu Yizhan looked curiously back at the enrollment desk that was lining up on the second team's side of the line, and he saw a cool-browed, but youthful-looking boy with his back straightened up, raising his head to report to the enrollment desk with a maturity that didn't match his appearance, "Cen Buming, seventeen years old."

"My ambition is for Team Two, and when I enter it I will assist you in killing all the heretics who are a scourge to the party."

Lu Yizhan withdrew his sight, and the person next to him whispered in his ear, "The second team is a field team, high-risk, and the people who aspire to the second team have a very heavy killing aura, and are usually children who have been severely persecuted by the heretics, whose families have been broken up with only themselves left, and who have been adopted by the Heresy Handling Bureau and placed in a training camp to grow up."

"This Cen Buming reckons the same thing."

"I still prefer the first team, Lu Yizhan your ambition is the first team too right?" The man looked at Lu Yizhan and nodded approvingly, "You have good ambitions, the first team is not that dangerous."

Lu Yizhan thought for a moment and asked, "Aren't Teams 1 and 2 both field teams, and aren't they both dangerous?"

"It's not the same, okay!" The man flailed his arms and legs like he was talking about something exciting, "The captain of team one is super strong! She doesn't take us out on missions that are at all as dangerous as they are on Team Two! She has a super strong squad of seven, the highest-end fighting force in the entire Heresy Disposal Bureau-"

"-called the [Ortho Cross Judgment Army]."

The man held his heart with a dreamy face, "If only I could join the Army of the Cross Judges someday."

Lu Yizhan laughed a little as he patted the man on the shoulder, "As long as we work hard we can!"

The man instantly fell down in frustration, "How can that be, ordinary players like us are lucky to squeeze into the first team and follow the Cross Judgment Army on missions."

"Do you want to get into the first team so badly?" Lu Yizhan scratched his head as he smiled indifferently, "I don't really have any obsessions, I can go anywhere."

The man glanced at the other detachment's registration desk and said very quietly, "Lu Yizhan, it's better for you to get into the first team if you can, I heard them say that the other teams don't have a very good culture, unlike the captains of the first team who would protect the newcomers, they would bully the newcomers."

"Go first team pen test!"

Lu Yizhan nodded, but turned his head and forgot about it; he didn't take it to heart.

Until after lunch, he was blocked by a group of people in the alleyway behind the cafeteria, a group of people with obvious depression between their brows, not wanting to make trouble Lu Yizhan simply scanned the faces of these people, and instantly remembered the identity of these people.

They were among a group of people who were scrubbed from the written test this morning.

The first team didn't want trainers with bad records on their files; these trainers obviously should have more or less more fighting and brawling demerits on their files, and were upset after being brushed off, so they went after Lu Yizhan, the guy who had passed the written exam with a high score, to get into trouble.

"Can ah." A man dangled his pockets and had a scornful look at Lu Yizhan from top to bottom, "Can't see it Lu Yizhan, you're still a schoolteacher."

Lu Yizhan instantly throws his hands up in surrender; he doesn't like to get into trouble, so he smiles and says, "Just lucky."

"If you guys just hate me being in the first team, I can change my ambition this afternoon and go to the second team as well."

The group of people were stunned, the original imposing gaze gave a start, as if they didn't expect Lu Yizhan to concede so quickly, but they were not willing to go away like that, and picked another prick: "How do I know you'll change?"

"How about this, the captain of the first team interviews you in person this afternoon, she doesn't like it when her team members smoke, and most likely won't let you pass if she smells smoke on you."

The group pulled a crumpled cigarette from their pockets and handed it to Lu Yizhan, smiling evilly, "Smoke it and we'll let you go."

Lu Yizhan, who never smoked, shifted his eyes downward, weighed smoking the cigarette against spending another fifteen minutes with the group, and accepted the cigarette with alacrity, leaning forward naturally toward the man who had handed him the cigarette, signaling his intention to fire at Fang Dian.

The other party also subconsciously on the fire to Lu Yizhan, and so on the point after the realization of the wrong, annoyed just want to scold, just to find Lu Yizhan the boy choked up violently, a meal, haha laughed up.

Lu Yizhan while smoking, while being choked to tears, he never smoked, did not expect the smell of smoke so choking.

I should have known not to pick smoking.

Amidst the jeers, Lu Yizhan couldn't go on with his third puff, but the people next to him wouldn't let him off the hook and were still forcing him to smoke.

"Hey, what are you guys doing over there?" A slightly lethargic female voice came from the mouth of the alley.

There was a lurch in the group's movements, and Lu Yizhan, cigarette still dangling from the corner of his mouth, squinted at the woman standing against the light at the mouth of the alley.

This woman carried a heavy sword taller and stronger than her stature, her shoulders and hips leaning loosely to one side, wearing a high ponytail, just where she stood there was a strong sense of oppression, Lu Yizhan stood in the mouth of the alleyway, could smell the blood coming from her.

One man trembled and shuddered as he called out, "Squares! Yes!"

The sound was like a prelude to the shaking of a group of people, which one after another began to start shaking, and the woman lazily responded, "Good for you all, too," and walked in dragging her heavy sword with her.

When the strong light faded from her face and her appearance could be seen clearly, this party was already very close to Lu Yizhan, she had no make-up and was draped in a uniform jacket of the Heretic Authority, her facial features and appearance were very outstanding, but more than her appearance, she was more appealing, or rather, her intuitive feeling was the strange temperament of her body that seemed as if she was ready to pull out her sword and cut people at any time, mixed with laziness and beauty.

Her gaze swept over the corners of Lu Yizhan's choked, reddened eyes, and the cigarette at her mouth that she had only taken two puffs from, and her afterglow swept over the shivering trainees, "Your files, I will consider sending to the third detachment."

--The third detachment was the one with the worst conditions of the several detachments.

Most of the trainees didn't dare to utter a single breath, and there were some bold and unconvinced people who raised their hands and asked, "Fang team, we're just teaching him to smoke, and we haven't broken any team rules, so why should we have our files sent to the third detachment!"

Fang Dian laughed a little and leaned sideways against the wall and elbowed Lu Yizhan : "Is it true what they say about teaching you to smoke?"

Lu Yizhan met the men's vicious, threatening gaze, and adhering to the principle that more is better than less, he paused for a moment and confessed, "Yes."

"But it looks to me like you didn't learn to smoke much." Fang Dian sidled her head and her eyes fell on the cigarette by Lu Yizhan's mouth, she did a move that everyone looked dumbfounded at, she laughed, "Looks like they didn't teach you well enough, I'll teach you myself."

Fang Dian gently pulled out the cigarette from Lu Yizhan's lips with two fingers, placed it on his lips in front of everyone's dumbfounded eyes, took a drag, and slowly exhaled again.

Lu Yizhan's pupils tightened to a point, and his eyes fell firmly on the mouthpiece of the cigarette pursed by Fang Dian.

"If you want to teach by smoking, do the demonstration yourself first." Dian Fang held up her cigarette, raised her eyes and said faintly, "Whoever wants to learn in the future, come to me in person, I won't bother you to teach."

"That's kind of my captain's duty."

"If I still see anyone who privately and forcibly teaches someone to learn how to smoke ......" Fang Dian's eyes swept, "I don't mind personally helping him to quit smoking."

The group was dumbfounded for a moment, then after answering yes, they ran like street rats.

Fang Dian didn't even care about Lu Yizhan who didn't say a word behind him after teaching him a lesson, and casually shoved the cigarette back into the hand of Lu Yizhan who had stiffened to the point of immobility, and as if he hadn't even noticed that it was an ambiguous move, he dragged his heavy sword and casually waved his hand at Lu Yizhan behind him, and walked out of the alley.

Lu Yizhan suddenly shouted, "Squad!"

Dian Fang hmmm'd back, "Anything else?"

Lu Yizhan's face was red, he clutched the extinguished cigarette in his hand, took a deep breath to straighten his back, and tried to narrate clearly, "My name is Lu Yizhan, I am eighteen years old."

"- From the beginning of my time as a trainee, the ambition has been the first team, I was first in the written test this morning, and I've always looked up to the squad."

Fang Dian smiled a little, "That's quite good, quite excellent."

"Detachment One welcomes you."