Chapter 74: Real World

Bai Liu put down his pen after saying his three guesses, and the pen rolled twice on the desktop to Mu Sicheng's hand, who had no expression on his face.

Bai Liu's attitude was still flat, as if he didn't feel that he had said anything extraordinary, and finally Bai Liu looked at the numb-faced Mu Sicheng and added sincerely, "Of course, this is only my personal opinion, and it may not be the case."

A long silence fell over the narrow rented room, only the wind occasionally crossed Bai Liu's fingertips, blowing the paper on which he had written down the reality of the world.

It's the height of summer, and the sun is pouring in through the window behind Bai Liu. It's already midday, and you can hear the noisy chirping of cicadas splashing about, and outside the window you can hear the noisy honking of cars.

But these visual and auditory experiences, which seem to give a sense of the earth, become black and white in Mu Sicheng's world in an instant, and like Bai Liu, who sits in front of his desk and watches him with a quiet concentration against the light, they continue to recede in the multidimensional lines of curled data, disappearing in the cracks of his eyes as he closes them.

The moment Bai Liu put down his pen, Mu Sicheng felt his ears ringing for a few seconds, as if for a moment he was not even breathing.

Reality is a game?

The one promised land he tried so desperately to keep out of his vile desire to exist turned out to be nothing more than a game.

Mu Sicheng leaned back in his chair, disheveled, the back of one of his hands resting on his eyes, the other drooping, and he remained in this position for a long time without saying a word.

Bai Liu didn't bother him.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Mu Sicheng spoke with a hard snort in his voice, ''Bai Liu, I'm wondering if you're trying to coax me into joining the league with you by making up such a horrible thing to fool me? It's a fake, right? It's not true, right?"

"The vast majority of real things in this world are horrific, where else would we get the material to make games from?" Bai Liu got up and folded the paper with these words on it and put it into a book, turning his head back to Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu slyly.

Bai Liu shrugs, "But it doesn't look like you're quite ready to accept it, so emotionally it seems to me like I should give you a buffer that you can escape from and accept, so I'd say there's a chance that's not the case in this case, after all, it does seem possible that it could be both the first and the second scenario as well."

Mu Sicheng: "......"

Fuck you, but what's the difference between that and just telling me it's the third one!

Mu Sicheng sat paralyzed in his chair for a long, long time before he looked at Bai Liu in a bit of a daze and asked, "Bai Liu, if the reality we are in is nothing more than a game, then where is the real reality? Is there a real reality? What is it that has real meaning to us? Why don't you feel fearful because of this game-like reality?"

Bai Liu was not dumbfounded by Mu Sicheng's barrage of questions, and he pondered for a moment.

"I've been asking myself questions like what reality really is, and what makes the most sense to me, since I was a teenager." Bai Liu spreads his hands, "But most of my peers couldn't understand me, except for one of my closest friends, and I've since realized that they probably wouldn't have pondered that question for the rest of their lives, and could have survived quite well in this delusional reality."

"Whether reality is a game or real, believe me, for the vast majority of people, it doesn't really have any effect on them, and to interpret it in an objective idealist viewpoint, where a person's objective perception of the being and the world constitutes a logical chain of values for the person, then as long as [I] am real, and the things that [I] seek are real, that world for [me] is real."

Bai Liu said calmly, "It doesn't matter if this world is a game or something else to me."

"As long as human currency exists, my desire for money will never be extinguished, and that's what makes me real and relevant."

"If you can't find your meaning for a while, do you want to try using mine? "Bai Liu picked up the key hanging on the back of the door and looked back at the baffled Mu Sicheng, "Try chasing after a visible currency, like try five hundred million points for the winner of a game competition?"

"At that time, you might be able to buy the reality you want with money." Bai Liu pushed the door open, "With five hundred million points, I think you can buy a planet to use to create the kind of [real world] you want."

Mu Sicheng was silent for a moment with a twisted expression.

"Bai Liu, your eloquence really worked in a pyramid scheme, didn't you?"

Once again, he was persuaded by the strange logic of this psychopath!

"So your answer is?" Bai Liu asks with a raised eyebrow, "Join the league?"

Mu Sicheng gritted his teeth, "I'm in!" Then he quickly inquired, "But you have to get five players together at least, right? How else can we participate?"

"You don't have to worry about this, I'll fix it, just wait for my notice." Bai Liu turned to Mu Sicheng and asked, "I'm going out to eat to find my friends for hot pot, are you coming along?"

Mu Sicheng: "......"

What time is it? Why are you in the mood for hot pot?

Perhaps Mu Sicheng's overly grim expression revealed his questioning, Bai Liu pulled out two discount coupons from his pocket and waved them around, explaining briefly, "Because I have two discount coupons for hot pot restaurants that will expire if I don't eat them today."

Mu Sicheng: "......"

Mu Sicheng can't compare with Bai Liu, a person whose psychological quality is so strong that he is perverted, this college student whose worldview has been shocked by Bai Liu is obviously still a bit confused, after refusing Bai Liu's invitation to eat hot pot with him, Mu Sicheng exchanged his contact information and school address with Bai Liu, and went back to the dormitory alone to think about his life.

Bai Liu went out with two hotpot discount coupons in his pocket, looking cheerful, not at all like he had just come out of a game of life and death escape, or like he had just revealed the truth about the magical world in front of Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng exclaimed, incredulously and breathlessly, "You look like you're actually in a good mood?"

"Right." Bai Liu acknowledged with a nod, his eyes curving in a smile, "It's kind of my off time now, so of course I'm in a good mood."

Mu Sicheng: "......"

He's remembering Bai Liu's horror game theory of going to work.

FUCK! This guy is really feeling like he's off duty!

This pugnacious mental strength - what kind of environment could this guy have raised a monster in?

But Bai Liu said goodbye to the trance-like Mu Sicheng and went to find Lu Yizhan.

Because Bai Liu woke up and realized that Lu Yizhan had called him twice, but since he was in the game and didn't answer, Bai Liu sent a text message to Lu Yizhan asking him what was wrong, and Lu Yizhan said to talk in person.

Speaking of face-to-face chat, Bai Liu thought of the next two months he is likely to be lost, if he just disappeared without saying a word, Lu Yizhan the police can not find him will definitely report, Bai Liu feel the need to face to face and Lu Yizhan to report, so in the text message Lu Yizhan about the hot pot restaurant, ready to talk to Lu Yizhan face-to-face. So he texted Lu Yizhan to the hot pot restaurant, ready to talk to Lu Yizhan face to face.

Bai Liu arrived at the hot pot restaurant relatively early, there were not many people in the store, he ordered a pot base and some dishes, and after confirming with the owner that the coupon could still be used, he waited honestly.

Before the boss went down to the store's TV to Bai Liu opened the TV at noon time is broadcasting a news program, Bai Liu look, I saw the TV screen Li Gou eyes coded photos.

The suited male host of the TV crossed his arms over the table in a serious manner and narrated the report in a very formal broadcasting accent:

"Welcome to the Noon News program, recently, the major suspect in the case of the shredded body of a senior girl, Li Mou, the key evidence of the crime has finally been found ...... Li Mou's crime, if true, can be sentenced up to the death penalty, but before the trial came down yesterday, Li Mou, who was in prison, was suddenly killed by a similarly committed Murder crime of cellmate Wang Mou hacked into pieces ......"

The male host lowers his head and flips through the script on his desk and continues to look up for the broadcast:

"Recently, the city of a private donation of early childhood orphanage suddenly broke out in a small-scale food poisoning incident, the orphanage a large number of children emergency admissions, the police intervened in the investigation found that the orphanage because of poor operation, on the verge of closure, and therefore bought a lot of cheap ingredients, many of these ingredients rot and spoilage, resulting in the children eating diarrhea and vomiting, severe dehydration shock ...... In this regard, we call on all sectors of the community to donate money to the orphanage ......"

Bai Liu was enjoying himself, when Lu Yizhan came in with a tired face.

Bai Liu One look at his standard social animal face tells me that this man has been staying up quite a bit lately.

Lu Yizhan sat down and poured himself two mouthfuls of tea, then looked at Bai Liu and began to complain bitterly, "I'm lost! You don't know how busy I've been lately! I've been so busy! I don't even have time to have a cup of tea in the morning!"

"It hasn't been a couple days since I last had dinner with you, has it?" Bai Liu's eyebrows rose, "Is getting ready for marriage that scary?"

Lu Yizhan waved his hand wearily, he looked up and saw the news on the TV, his face changed, looking for the waiter's voice lowered: "It's not just about the wedding, waiter, can you change the private room for us?"

There aren't too many people there yet, so the waiter quickly switched Bai Liu and Lu Yizhan to a smaller private room.

Lu Yizhan's face was very solemn as soon as he entered the room, and he took a cigarette out to smoke.

Bai Liu has not seen Lu Yizhan smoking for a long time, this person in the girlfriend after the control into a twenty-four filial piety boyfriend, smoking playing games playing cards these bad habits all quit, out to drink a bottle of coke are sneaky, because of his girlfriend, no, now to say that the fiancée.

Lu Yizhan's fiancée is convinced that Coke is a spermicide and forbids Lu Yizhan to drink any carbonated beverages.

Bai Liu said that it was fortunate that Lu Yizhan's fiancee didn't know that beer was a carbonated beverage, or else Lu Yizhan would have been deprived of his only pleasure in life, drinking and eating barbecue.

Bai Liu smiled calmly and asked Lu Yizhan, who was smoking with a bitter look on his face, "Shouldn't I be worried right now and ask what's wrong Lu Yizhan, why are you smoking? Didn't you swear that you would never touch soft drugs like cigarettes again except when the world collapses? What, your world collapsed in just a few days after I left, did it?"

"Cough cough cough!" Lu Yizhan was teased by Bai Liu choked a mouthful of smoke, he did not hold back a little laugh, Lu Yizhan is very standard and very pleasing to the elderly like the kind of very square atmosphere of the young people look, smile a little naive and handsome, "Bai Liu, you ask a question just ask! You have to mention my black history!"

"Speak." Bai Liu poured Lu Yizhan a cup of tea and pushed it over, "I'm off duty now, so I can waste a little of my precious time listening to the life troubles that made your world fall apart."

"Marriage is indeed a lot of annoying things." Lu Yizhan was silent for a few seconds as he took the cup of tea Bai Liu handed him, "But it's not marriage that bothers me the most, you saw that news about the toddler orphanage on TV just now, right?"

Bai Liu nods, "See, what's wrong?"

"A colleague of mine is dealing with this matter, he said it doesn't look like unusual food poisoning, many children are now in emergency rescue, no concrete results have been investigated yet." Lu Yizhan wrinkled his brows, "But mushroom poisoning, the orphanage you and I have both stayed in, Mirror City isn't exactly a mushroom producing area, mushroom prices are on the high side, the orphanage here rarely picks up mushrooms, a relatively expensive and accident-prone veggie dish, and it's a privately-donated orphanage on the verge of closing down... ..."

"All in all I don't think something is right about this, but the current solution is still leaning towards saving this orphanage, the safety of the children left inside the orphanage is actually not well guaranteed before it's been investigated ......"

"It sounds like it's quite complicated." Bai Liu asked back calmly, "But what's it got to do with you Lu Yizhan, even though you're a police officer, this isn't your job, is it?"

Lu Yizhan was silent for a moment and said, "I volunteered to go and participate in the investigation team."

Bai Liu glanced at Lu Yizhan without saying a word.

"You also know that I'm getting married soon, and Sister Dot (Lu Yizhan's fiancée) is not in good health ...... The doctor said that it's very likely that she won't be able to get pregnant, and we discussed whether to adopt a child before we got pregnant ...... " Lu Yizhan's fingers clasped the cup, he smiled bitterly, "Bai Liu, I know you must think I'm too impulsive, my current financial situation is not very good ......"

Lu Yizhan inhales, "But after I discussed with Dot, I am ready to go to this orphanage to adopt a child, after all, one less child in that kind of unstable situation are good, after all, I am also from the orphanage, it is considered to give back to society."

"So what is the purpose of you telling me something that you know I should be less likely to approve of what you're doing?" Bai Liu inquired in a very quiet tone, "What do you want me to do for you?"

Lu Yizhan lowered his head and fiddled with the cigarette on his fingertips without saying a word.

The waiter came and served a fiery red pot that gurgled and bubbled between the two silent men.

Then Lu Yizhan spoke as if to himself, "Bai Liu, I actually hate to get you involved in this kind of thing, but your brain is just too good when it comes to this kind of thing."

"If something involves a lot of criminal interest, you can almost immediately guess what the other side is going to do next; you're a genius at this."

Bai Liu expressionlessly took a sip of tea, "I'll take that as a compliment, and it's not the first time you've been nosy enough to find me, so let's get something straight."

"Can you help me look at this time?" Lu Yizhan looked up to Bai Liu, "My colleague's side of the investigation ideas are stuck, before about this kind of thing to find you you give me all the right ideas to break the situation, so ......"

Lu station seems to have a few difficult to speak open mouth, "I know I am meddling, but I know, there is no way to watch regardless, are some children ......"

Bai Liu raised his hand and opened a pair of disposable chopsticks with a snap, interrupting Lu Yizhan's unfinished sentence: "I can take a look for you, but I won't do it for nothing, and the usual rule applies - this meal is on you. I can help you look at it, but I won't do it for free.

Lu Yizhan nods, already familiar with Bai Liu's demand for payment.

"And I only have one day to help you meddle. "Bai Liu says, "I'm going on a trip tomorrow and won't be back for two months."

Lu Yizhan was shocked: "Two months? That long? What exactly do you do in this job? If it's the kind of acting job you mentioned last time, it doesn't have to take two months, right?"

Bai Liu paused for a moment, considering the game's shielding mechanism, he changed his words, "This time I'm going to bring a monkey and a little young master some people to team up and play the game on the stage to perform for the audience to see, it will be performed for two months."

"......" Lu Yizhan's expression is very complicated, "Is this job really legal for you?"

Bai Liu said, "Legal."

"And monkeys, and young masters, and playing games for the audience, and legal, and performing for two months ...... " Lu Yizhan pondered for a moment, slapped his thighs in sudden realization, and looked at Bai Liu to make a decisive judgment, and "You guys are a circus performance team right? In two months you guys are going on tour right?"

"......" Bai Liu was silent for a few seconds, "Yes."

------

Bai Liu went home and looked at some of the materials and information Lu Yizhan had given him about the private orphanage.

Most of the children's welfare institutions in their world are government-run, public institutions, and Bai Liu and Lu Yizhan are both from such public institutions.

Lu Yizhan has been educated to be a good-hearted and grateful young man, and has been determined since childhood to become a police officer to serve the society.

And Bai Liu this freak, all the way into the eye of the money never come out, if not Lu Yizhan has been vigilant and taut pulling Bai Liu to let him walk on the road of law-abiding, Bai Liu this psychopath can be for money to do what thing is really hard to say.

However, the children's home in question is not a public one, but a private children's home established ten years ago with donations from a large group of corporate philanthropists.

Many entrepreneurs were said to be terminally ill, and in accordance with the traditional practice of doing good deeds when one is about to die, these people donated a large sum of money to build this private orphanage, saying that they wanted to do something good and virtuous before they died, which won a lot of praise at the time, and Lu Yizhan also praised this behavior all the time.

Coincidentally, not long after the construction of the children's home, the entrepreneurs' illnesses got better as if [no good deed goes unpunished].

But [people will die and their actions are also good], people will not die naturally do not want to spend a lot of money to do good deeds to seek good karma, and then these entrepreneurs on the orphanage gradually not so much on the heart, so the private orphanage in ten years slowly fell into disrepair.

After reading the information given by Lu Yizhan, Bai Liu understood why he felt something was wrong.

The poorly run private children's home had already been the scene of all sorts of accidents, most of which had been poisonings from various mushrooms, only this was the biggest.

Lu Yizhan said that these food poisoning accidents piled up together, at first glance do not look like an accident, but after the investigation, indeed did not find any traces of the crime, either intentional poisoning, or simply accidental poisoning of food, and this incident is the same.

It was as if some higher being had erased all clues beyond "accidental food poisoning".

Lu Yizhan even wondered if there was something wrong with their inner circle, if there were any traces of the crime that had been deliberately erased.

Bai Liu From the point of view of an inhuman game designer, this is simply a naturally good material to use for designing a horror game - an endangered children's orphanage, and a bizarre accident of food poisoning, and in the tragic death of a child because of the poisoning.

More than Lu Yizhan's suspicion that someone inside had erased the traces of the crime, Bai Liu suspected that it was not a person who had erased the traces, and if his previous suspicion was correct--

--He felt that this children's home was most likely a [copy of a horror game] that was being dropped into the [real world].

------

Early the next morning, in the wee hours of the morning, Bai Liu was woken up by Lu Yizhan's life-threatening call, and as soon as he picked up the phone, Lu Yizhan's tone on the other side of the line was unprecedentedly serious: "Bai Liu, come to the First People's Hospital in the city of mirrors, the child who was sent to the hospital last night-- -"

"A lot of dead, huh?" Bai Liu calmly stated the following.

Across the table, Lu Yizhan breathed in and out, then exhaled slowly as he spoke, "Did you find out anything?"

"Not yet." Bai Liu said very frankly, "But I see from the information you gave me that if someone deliberately poisoned the mushrooms, the other party repeated it so many times, the purpose should be to kill people, and this time the situation is so serious, so I think the mushrooms consumed by these children sent to the hospital should be a lethal amount."

"...... Yes, many of them died from resuscitation." Lu Yizhan's voice was hard and dry, "but one child is still alive."

"There's a living child?" Bai Liu clearly sensed something was wrong.

If it was the case that this children's home was a [copy of a horror game] that [the system] was dropping into the real world, it was only right that the group of children that was the background of the game would most likely be wiped out in its entirety, just like the passengers of that carriage in "The Last Train of the Explosion".

Bai Liu softly inquired, "Can I come over?"

Lu Yizhan : "Yes, come over here."

When Bai Liu got dressed and went over there, the hospital entrance was filled with reporters from various news media.

Bai Liu was picked up by Lu Yizhan from the elevator in the operating room, and as he passed through the operating room, he could see tiny bodies with white cloths over their heads in the corridor; because there were so many of them, some of them hadn't had time to be transported yet, and they were piled up all over the corridor of the operating room in a twisted pile, transforming the operating room into a small morgue.

Every now and then a numb-faced nurse would come up and push the bodies of these dead children down, and occasionally, when they hit the wall, a small, bruised hand, covered with all sorts of corpse stains, would wiggle out from underneath the white cloth.

These necrotic spots and some hematomas bulged on the surface of the child's body as if they were a pattern of mushrooms all over the backs of the corpse's small hands, as if a mushroom would break out of the corpse's skin the next second.

A disgusting odor of fermenting mushrooms filled the entire operating room, as if these mushrooms, which had been mistakenly eaten by children, had been fermenting overnight using these fresh, recently dead corpses as a medium for the strong odor of decay and full of vitality of the fungus category.

Bai Liu withdrew his measuring gaze without moving, he looked sideways at Lu Yizhan and waited until he had passed the operating room before he spoke softly and asked, "Are you sure that these children died only last night? The level of decomposition on these bodies isn't quite right."

"Yes." Lu Yizhan rubbed the center of his forehead, "The necrotic spots appeared intensively too early, and the timing of the necrotic stiffness is also incorrect."

Bai Liu squinted at Lu Yizhan: "How is it wrong?"

Lu Yizhan stopped when he heard Bai Liu s sentence, he leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, taking several big puffs, the whole corner of the stairs was filled with smoke, which indicated that Lu Yizhan was in an extremely bad mood.

"The necrotic spots all emerged from the children's bodies within minutes of confirmed death, appearing and spreading quickly, which is usually the case when death is more than 24 hours old." Lu Yizhan disliked his brow with the thumb of the hand he was lighting the cigarette with, trying to dislike the tightly furrowed brow, but it didn't seem to have much of an effect, "The necrophilia ...... as well, the body hardened rapidly after death, and was in the stage of softening and decaying by early this morning, which is generally the case when death is more than 24 hours before it occurs."

"It's almost like ...... " Lu Yizhan said after a pause, "this group of poisoned children died before they got to the hospital."

They were talking and walking at the same time, and had already reached the stairs of the ward on the floor of the children's emergency, and could see from the half-open door of the exit of the emergency passage the bodies of the children on the beds in the corridors of the hospital ward that were covered with hoods, as well as the nurses who were putting the corpses into the body bags.

The faces of those children's corpses were not the greenish-white of the dead, but also colorful raised spots.

Bai Liu knows that some mushroom poisoning can cause allergy-like dermatophytosis, but the spots on these children's faces are so dense that they look like a color-blind test, and they also bulge out on the surface of the skin, which Bai Liu, not being dense, finds mildly uncomfortable to look at.

It feels like mushrooms growing underneath the human face that haven't sprouted yet.