The Lost Land of Gold

Sticky red blood dripped and fell from the tips of the pitch-black monkey paws, Mu Sicheng lifted his head, his expression had never been so calm, "I don't know where you fellows come from, making so many strange assumptions about me."

"But I'm not stealing to please myself."

Mu Sicheng closes his monkey's paws, his knuckles curling inward with great force, the butterfly cocoon urns uneasily in his palm, and then it is crushed, shattered into a piece of wind that dissipates from his fingertips, his eyes haloed with an exuberant emotion-

--killing intent.

"It's just a game, and human behavior loses its own meaning."

"I stole it to atone for my sins."

"-like, you kill to protect."

Mu Sicheng clenched his fist into a claw and came straight at Armand, straight at his heart, Armand's pupils tightened, he drew his longbow and gritted his teeth on the string.

"Go to hell, Mu Sicheng!!!"

"Die, Armand!!!"

The smoke cleared, and among the bloodstained wooden longbows and the cocoon silk scattered on the ground were two men who had lost all their vitality.

Mu Sicheng's monkey paw clawed Armand's throat, Armand's bow pierced Mu Sicheng's heart, and they fell in a pool of blood, choking and coughing as they moved towards each other, unwillingly trying to attack again, but ultimately just falling to the ground, dead in their hands, gripping the weapons in their hands.

Until the last moment, he didn't give up on protecting his tactician.

--The most important person in your life.

[System alert: Player Mu Sicheng's life value is zeroed out, exiting the game.]

[System alert: Player Armand's life value is zero, exit the game.]

Ornamental Pool.

"Georgia's the only one left in Golden Dawn." Phoebe dragged her face with one hand and tsked regretfully, "The jig is up."

"How unproductive, obviously a veteran tactician, but actually lost to a newcomer battle team."

Heart squints, "If you have time to connote me here, why don't you go check out the other matches, the Slayer Sequence match is starting, right?"

"Yes, to the invisibility cloak." Phoebe patted her knees and sat up, she glanced at Heart, "I'm going to head over and check it out, you want to come along and watch? You've watched every Slayer Sequence match before."

Heart brought his gaze back to the big screen and stilled, "...... I'll pass."

Viewing Pool One.

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu's eyes were hollow, cold sweat was pouring out, and their souls ascended to the heavens: "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! The Adversary and Liao Ke are not here. "

"It's almost time for us to play! What are we going to do? How are we going to play without a tactician?"

"Oh." Spades suddenly looks up, he turns his head, looking towards Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu, his tone indifferent, "The Adversary approached me earlier, and said that he wanted me to play a solo match, and you guys to play a duo match, play a fast match, and get double points, and the Adversary said that we are now competent enough to kill the match early when we go up against the Invisible Cloak. "

"He said there was an 80 percent chance the other team would forfeit the regatta because they didn't want to play extended overtime, and we won."

"If unfortunately the other guy didn't abstain, then he should have been back by that time as well and told us not to worry."

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu look at Spades slyly, "Spades."

Spades nods, "It's me."

"You dog lizard!" Bai Yi was furious and punched Spades with his fists, "The Reverse God told you about the tactics, you should have told us earlier! Wasn't it fun for you to doze off by yourself and watch Bai Jiamu and I get so scared that we almost cried out! Ah!"

"You are so nasty! Who the hell did you learn to be bad from! You're still playing with your teammates' feelings!"

Game.

Tang Er and Bai Liu stopped their domination of Georgia only when the Armand exit system beep sounded.

Tang Er hit a long breath, he was shocked out of a cold sweat - just now that ten minutes, Georgia really do not want to die to the outside of the palace, he and Bai Liu two people teamed up to protect, but almost did not prevent.

If it weren't for the fact that Bai Liu's weapon is a whip that excels at multiple defenses and has such strong mechanic decisions, Georgia might actually be able to run away from them, which would be a problem.

"Well, you're the only one left on the team now, Georgia's captain." Bai Liu smiled as he sat down on the bench and held out his hand to Georgia across the room, "Now that the game is won or lost and we are no longer in any kind of hostile relationship, perhaps we can sit down and talk in a friendly manner?"

Tang Er hit subtle look at Georgia, who was tied solidly to the bench by his whip, across from Bai Liu: "......"

That's not exactly a friendly attitude by any stretch of the imagination, is it?

Frustrated, Georgia turned her head indifferently, "You can kill me to win the tournament, there's nothing to talk about between us."

"How can you say there's nothing to talk about if you haven't." Bai Liu used three fingers to conjure up a small hourglass from his glove as if by magic - it was the one Tang Er had just searched from Georgia, and as you could tell from Georgia's now disheveled clothing, the search had been disastrous.

Bai Liu smiled kindly, "What if I were to say that I really do have a way to fill the sand funnel of time?"

"As you well know, there's no point in lying to you anymore at a time like this when you've already taken the victory, so I really do have an idea."

Georgia's expression shifted slightly, but she pursed her lips and didn't speak.

Bai Liu turned to Tang Er Ta, who nodded, "I used a prop to turn on sound shielding, so for ten minutes, the audience couldn't hear your conversation."

"So we can talk safely." Bai Liu smiled, "First of all, Captain Georgia, what I'm going to say to you is that you know your nationals-"

"--all alive?"

Tang Er struck a chord, Georgia paused, "I know they are not dead, just turned into golden statues, waiting for the moment of awakening."

"No, no, no." Bai Liu shook his head, "They're alive."

"Alive ......?" Georgia mentally realized something slowly, but he quickly self-denied the answer, "...... No way, the Heresy Disposal Bureau called in special equipment to scan them, they're really just golden sculptures with no human physiological activity."

"Yes, physically, all of their organs have completely hardened, indeed they are already gold." Bai Liu looked up, "But on a psychological level, they are still human."

"Because they have souls, they can feel."

Georgia's expression was completely frozen.

Outside the game, on the surface of the Guro Sea, the Heresy Handling Bureau's third bureau subisland.

Lu Yizhan and Liao Ke had their hands and necks ringed with surveillance rings, and then followed the newly-assigned third-bureau crew onto the boat, traveling all the way toward the floating island in calm and treacherous seas.

"Old Lu." Liao Ke and Lu Yizhan were huddled at the stern of the ship, and he spoke with concern, "You said Heretic 0073 wasn't a heretic, what the hell is going on?"

"The people inside were just turned into gold, but all of them are actually still alive." Lu Yizhan took a deep breath, then said, "If I let [Mu Sicheng] open the shield I set up ten years ago, and seawater rushes into the Gurolun country, then all of those Guroluns who are still alive will be drowned."

"Still alive?!" Liao Ke was amazed, "You couldn't have taken this kingdom in without checking it at all, they're still alive, why didn't you notice?"

"Because these sculptures from the examination results, no matter from the weight, density, electromagnetic wave detection, really completely gold." Lu Yizhan closed his eyes, he clutched the guardrail, "...... And I was also seduced by Bai Liu under Georgia's narration."

"You remember when I said that Georgia played a game with Bai Liu, saying that if he won, he could abort the deal, and if he lost, he'd have to pay for the suffering of all the nationals."

"Georgia, understanding by normal logic, took it for granted that it was she who would pay for all the pain, and Bai Liu played a word game with him, saying in the original words - [Whether it is the pain of that pointing stone from a thousand years ago, or the pain of this pointing stone now, at that time, the price of all the pain is paid by you together.]"

Lu Yizhan's tone sank: "Bai Liu was talking about results, and Georgia thought it was process, and he was lied to by Bai Liu."

"Georgia thought that the deal stood, then it meant that the nationals would not deliver the pain, that the nationals were frozen in time, that they would not be in pain, that they would not be hard, that they would just wait for the moment when Georgia completed the deal to wake up, and then they could go on with their lives as normal."

"But if, according to Bai Liu's consequentialism, Georgia now does not pay for a thousand years of suffering, then naturally the deal is off, and he can rightly charge these nationals for their suffering. "

"...... It was an oversight on my part not to have anticipated that Bai Liu would actually be able to charge people for pain by having them survive in the form of golden sculptures."

"Don't be too hard on yourself." Seeing Lu Yizhan's shoulders tense up, Liao Ke let out a long sigh, wanting to say a few words of advice, but in the end did not say anything.

At that time, Lu Yizhan also had to deal with Bai Liu's side of the matter, and also to maneuver with Bai Liu, one person into eighteen pieces are not enough to use.

The more everyone tries to save, the easier it is to save no one at all, Lu team.

"Bai Liu lied to you." Bai Liu's tone was calm, "Your nationals may have turned to gold, but they are all still alive."

So when you turn gold, you don't lose any life or spirit value - because that's just another survival gesture, not some heresy.

"Don't you think it's strange, Georgia?"

"Ten years have passed since this place sank to the bottom of the sea, and ten years have passed since that explosion, so it should be dead and silent, but here the sky still drops a steady stream of gold dust, as if there's still something alive that's sprinkling the ground with a steady stream of gold dust from the sky."

"Have you ever wondered where all this gold dust comes from?"

Georgia lifted his head, his eyes were hollow, and he asked softly and murmured rhetorically, "Where ...... did all this gold dust come from?"

Bai Liu flicks two fingers and clips out a piece of paper-a message Mu Ke sent him before he left-and repeats the words on it softly, "Palace, gold dust, tears."

"This is what my team member left me before he left with what he thought was key decrypted information."

"My guess would be that he started goldizing in the middle of your interrogation of him, and he left tears in his eyes during your interrogation, and then he realized that those tears turned into gold dust, and I saw that with your team member Kris - when she turned into a gold heretic, I shot her in order to get her out of the game and shot her."

"She wept sadly, and her tears turned to gold dust."

"Georgia." Bai Liu spoke that answer calmly, "This roiling gold dust is the final solution to the Funnel of Time that you've been searching for."

"These are the tears that fell when these nationals were trapped here for ten years and did not move, waiting day and night for you to return."

Georgia Behind her, a drop of gold slowly fell from the eyes of the golden statue of the king sitting on the bench leaning on the tabletop, dispersing into the air as gold dust, turning into a trajectory that slowly dispersed through the long-silent kingdom.

"They're waiting for me to come back ......" Georgia asked rhetorically, out of nowhere, "I trapped them here for ten years, unmovable and unspoken, and it was my single-mindedness that tormented them to this point."

"How could they wait for such a treasonous big Wang Zi?"

"People shed tears because they have feelings." Bai Liu raises his eyes, "They stay under this sea like statues for ten years, waiting until the ground is full of gold dust, their hearts are like yellow stones, and there are no more sands swirling in the air, but the moment you step into this place, the gold dust in the sky begins to flutter again, falling on you in droves."

"They have feelings for you, Georgia."

"You're the only person in the world who would turn himself as hard and indestructible as a statue to protect them, and stubbornly guard them for ten years on the beach, and who else could they wait for but you?"

Georgia slowly drops her eyes to the hourglass in Bai Liu's palm, lost in her memories.

In the springtime of Gurolum, the naive children and townspeople would grind the gold extracted from the first mining carts into gold dust and sprinkle it into the sky and onto the bodies of those they wished to bless.

In those days, when young Georgia would go down for a walk, his hair and shoulders would be covered with a thick layer of gold dust, sometimes even more than his father's, who would mutter and complain that Georgia was too popular with the nation.

The men laughed and laughed and yelled in a teasing manner, letting the gold dust fall all over the hem of his coat and long hair:

"Georgia!"

"Georgia!"

Georgia looks back at them and thinks to herself - if only this scene, under his protection, could last forever.

Ten years later, his body once again covered in gold dust, Georgia turned to the window platform, where the nationals who had showered him with gold dust on the stage had long since ceased to exist, and had been transformed into golden statues outside the mines with banners they held to drive him out, while the king, whom he would have laughed and complained about for being too popular, was at the moment standing beside his chair, sorrowfully contemplating how he could hide the point of gold from him, and bury the point of gold in the ground.

He had, after all, failed to protect it all.

Georgia closed her eyes.

A tear falls and lands in the hourglass on Bai Liu's hand, the sands in the hourglass begin to flow and the thick gold dust billowing throughout the kingdom transforms into a visible golden track wrapping and dragging the hourglass on Bai Liu's hand up and filling it inward.

Amidst the flow of golden sands, Georgia opened his eyes silently, his golden sculpting having filled his heart, so that even his voice became soft and gentle, "...... Is it only at this moment that my deal with God has finally begun to be honored?"

"It should be." Bai Liu looked at the hourglass in his hand that was about to start reversing and smiled, "It's better to make a deal with God than with me."

"Heir to the gods?" Georgia raised her eyes and asked softly in return, her eyes all ungently resistant, "...... As the Great Wang Zi of Gurolum, I am grateful that you told me all this and suspended the deal, but I will not make any more deals with you at the expense of the nation's suffering. "

"No." Bai Liu laughs softly, "I don't want your nationals or your pain."

Georgia asked, "What do you want?"

Bai Liu looked at him, "Your soul."

The moment Bai Liu's words fell, the hourglass suspended in Bai Liu's palm filled up and reversed.

[System Alert: Player Bai Liu has collected all the tears of the hourglass, the hourglass is full, time is about to start reversing back to ten years ago, please prepare to travel through time!

The golden sands in the hourglass wrapped in the gold dust that the tears had turned into began to flow in reverse, and everything around them began to reverse as gold dust flew into the sky all over the place, and the gold leaf began to fall off the statue of the king seated at the long table, revealing the man inside.

Tang Er hit violently reached out his hand to try to catch Bai Liu, whose eyes suddenly dissipated, but the moment he reached out his hand, he only caught a handful of golden sand.

Georgia, too, turned to sands and disappeared into the copy.

[System alert: "The Lost Kingdom of Gold" game passes, player Tang Er hit quit the game, player Bai Liu, Georgia triggered the plot, enter the DLC - "Ten Years Ago in the Kingdom of Gold"]

Tang Er fights and opens his eyes again and is already in the viewing pool, which Mu Ke instantly surrounds.

"What's going on?" Mu Ke inquired with forced calmness, "The big screen has gone black, which means there game is over, and I saw you guys pass, so why are you the only one logged out?"

"Where's Bai Liu?"

"Bai Liu was left in the game." Tang Er hit a deep breath, "He triggered the branch line."

Across the viewing pool, Armand stares deathly at the big screen as it goes out, and he jerks to his feet, clenching his fists in resignation - where's Georgia?

Why hasn't his older brother logged out?

"Armand!" the team member next to him panicked as he looked at Armand's bony hands and shoulders, and tried to pull Armand back, but Armand was so covered in injuries that he had nowhere to go but to yell, "You're still strapped in! Where are you going!"

"The game is over, the captain will be fine! You're hurt so badly, don't wander off!"

The thought of Georgia staying with that Bai Liu guy is simply too much for Armand to keep his cool, and he braces himself strongly to stand up and head for the big screen, despite his half-tied, exposed shoulders.

"Hello." Armand barely maintains his politeness as he talks to the employee at the big screen, "The game is over, but our team's tactician is still in there, can you keep the small TV on so we can see what's going on in there?"

"I'll pay for that part."

"Or can we open the portal again so we can log on to ......"

Before Armand's words could trail off, an arrogant, threatening voice came from the side:

"Hey! Our president is still in there! Open up and let me in to bring him out!"

Armand seemed to stop with a feeling, Mu Sicheng seemed to hear the sound coming from this side and stopped, both of them turned their heads at the same time and looked at each other across the big screen.

Mu Sicheng, blood still dripping from the large hole in his right shoulder, grabbed his employee by the collar with his left hand in a viciously threatening manner, and saw Armand snort and tsk in his nose for a split second of displeasure.

Half of Armand's face was a bloody mess, and he coldly swept Mu Sicheng a glance with his afterimage, as if the man didn't exist, and turned his head to continue his conversation with his staff.

The two voices overlapped again:

"Is there any way I can get in?"

Mu Sicheng instantly exploded and rolled up his sleeves to fight Armand: "What are you going to do in there? Are you going to fight Bai Liu?"

"Come on, let's fight again right here! You're a little white boy who's my underdog!" -

"You are no match for me." Armand looked at his expression calm, one that looked like he was speaking calmly, but with a backhand he summoned his longbow, "I advise you not to go back in there, if I can kill you a second time, I can kill you a third time."

"Huh?!" Mu Sicheng fumed, "I'll show you who really killed who!"

Crews from both sides arrived and were very helpless.

"Armand, calm down, we are not allowed to log back into the game ...... or fight in the viewing pool."

Wang Shun pulled Mu Sicheng, who was about to rush up, and persuaded him with two big heads and no tears, "God Mu, don't make trouble, our team will be penalized with a yellow card!"

"But Bai Liu hasn't come out ...... yet" Mu Sicheng clenched his fists, his voice lowered a bit, "...... If I clear the Main Attack a little faster, then ......"

"I'm still too slow."

"Georgia's still in there." Armand's lips pursed, tears shook in the pupils of his eyes, "I can't leave him in there alone."

"He never leaves me alone."

The players on both sides were silent for a moment.

"Armand," the crew sighed as they handed Armand the bandages, "You've done a great job, we're the ones who haven't done a good job, trust the captain, he's a very strong and awesome man."

"Georgia will make sure to finish this game of the Golden Land properly and come out to see you."

"He won't leave you alone."

Wang Shun helplessly and amusingly picked up Mu Sicheng, who was about to lose his footing, "If you're considered slow and slow, then what am I?"

"You did well enough, you should have looked around before, before when you logged out of the game with Armand, the entire viewing pool was filled with spectators cheering for your great performance."

"You proved that Bai Liu made the right choice."

"Chairman he will be able to wrap it up properly." Wang Shun picked up Mu Sicheng, who had his head bowed and his jaw dropping drop by drop of blood to the ground, or whatever it was, and patted his head with a smirk in his voice, "And then come out to see you and praise you for a job well done."

The feeling of wanting to protect something and someone is probably common to people who have something they want to protect.

Why do people shed tears?

Is it because of the pain?

Armand covered his face with a bandage and clenched his fists very hard to hold back, but his shoulders still shook with hoarse sobs.

Is it because you resent your own incompetence?

Mu Sicheng screwed up his whole face with all his features distorted, but still couldn't manage to control the water that fell out of his eyes, he gritted his teeth in death and wiped it with his monkey paw in a wretched manner, and didn't want to face himself like this.

Is it because of weakness or loss?

Sitting in the audience, Heart raises his eyes lightly, he is surrounded by the gradually dispersing audience, who have all gone to catch the next round of the competition, while Heart sits quietly alone, like a moviegoer waiting for a non-existent colorful egg.

"Can you give me an answer?" Bai Liu, standing at the gates of Gurolum, smiled and held out his hand, in his palm was the hourglass that could reverse time if filled with tears, while he smiled and asked Bai Liu, who suddenly appeared in front of him, "Why do people shed tears?"

"The reason why people shed tears." Bai Liu raised his eyes as he looked across the room, "It's because of feelings."