Chapter 77: Children's Welfare Institute

While Bai Liu was contemplating with his doll, the teacher had already gone to call the remaining five children over.

The five children left in the orphanage stood in a row with a numb expression, not even one of them dared to look up at Mu Ke, their eyes seemed to have grown on their toes, some of them were limping, some of them had crooked backs, and all of them were handicapped in one way or another, like a group of cubs that had not yet come out of the lair, five of them were sticking together with a push and shove.

They are like cheap goods to be scrutinized by others, humble and retiring, knowing that they are not worth much.

Bai Liu frowned as soon as he got close to the children, who smelled of mushrooms even heavier than the ones he'd smelled from the corpses at the hospital.

Mu Ke just couldn't stand it and waved his hand over his nose, "Do you guys eat mushrooms all the time here? Why does it smell like mushrooms?"

The teacher hugged the five kids a little awkwardly, "Not really much to eat,"

Bai Liu's eyes swept over the teacher and the five children, "Did you eat a lot of mushrooms that day?"

The teacher froze, "We ate it with all five of these kids, and, well, it was quite a lot."

"And were any of the children who were poisoned eating less? For example, those who only had a sip of mushroom soup?" Bai Liu inquired.

The teacher thought about it for a while, and then replied to Bai Liu affirmatively: "Yes, because the flavor of the mushrooms, some children like it and some don't, and some of them ate only a little bit, but they were still poisoned."

Bai Liu withdrew his eyes, there are those who eat a lot who are not poisoned, and those who eat a little who are poisoned, it seems that poisoning has nothing to do with the dosage.

But why mushrooms? ...... Why is it mushrooms every time something happens at this orphanage?

And what exactly are the conditions under which this weird mushroom poisons people?

Lu Yizhan said that the children who survived at the Children's Welfare Institution had no obvious abnormalities in their blood draws or results, and that, like Liu Jiayi, they were only mildly anemic.

The five surviving children and Liu Jiayi, who survived in the hospital, have only one thing in common on the surface - they all have congenital genetic defects, Liu Jiayi is blind, and the five children have various disabilities.

Bai Liu was deep in thought.

The teacher continued to show Bai Liu the inside of the orphanage and they came to a room full of pictures, trophies, and drawings of the children.

The teacher sidled up to Bai Liu and introduced them, "This is the exhibition hall of our orphanage."

This is a long time no one has come to the exhibition hall, many trophies and certificates on display on the cabinets are dusty, it can be seen that this is a year the development of the children's welfare institution is quite good, the walls are still hung with a lot of children's paintings and some awards, every year's June 1 performance group photo is also hung on the wall, the color of the photo from the distortion to become clear, the last picture of the more than 40 children with good smiles, but only five children survived. In the last photo, there are more than forty children with good and soft smiles, but only five of them survived, and these five children are following the teacher with numb expressions.

This sense that most of the things being exhibited are from the dead gives this exhibition room a lingering sense of somberness.

After Bai Liu took a general glance at the whole picture, he seemed to realize something and looked at the teacher: "Can I take down the photos and some paintings?"

Originally, these things were not to be touched lightly, but now that the children's home had become such a place, there wasn't so much to talk about, and the teacher nodded in agreement.

Mu Ke watched curiously as Bai Liu brought down some children's drawings hanging on the wall and laid them on the floor for observation, and he went over to him and asked him in a low voice, "Bai Liu, have you found anything?"

"Uh-huh." Bai Liu responded softly, not giving Mu Ke the eye, fiddling with the children's drawings in her hands.

Mu Ke's eyes follow Bai Liu's hands, and the children's drawings are quite good, so I can feel that they are drawn by children with some drawing skills.

The drawings ranged from character sketches to still lifes, from colored pencils and crayons to simple black-and-white sketches, and the styles of drawing varied greatly, with most of the drawings being very colorful and saturated to the point of discomforting the eyeballs, and the drawings seeming to be illogical.

A little girl who looks too skinny to sit in a hospital bed with a white cloth over her eyes, a beautiful little silver-blue scaled fish in a jar, and a wooden broken mirror sitting on a burnt and melted toy train.

The paintings look like everything this orphanage has.

Mu Ke stared for a while and realized something, he spoke with a bit of surprise, "All of these, were they all drawn by one person? The signatures are all W."

Although the styles of these paintings taken down by Bai Liu vary greatly, the [W] in each painting's signature is written in that very peculiar floral style of scrolling on both sides, and each painting remains consistent.

Bai Liu finally relented and gave Mu Ke a look, his voice low and soft, as if he were whispering, "This is my signature."

Mu Ke was shocked, "Yours? Why is your drop here?!"

Bai Liu didn't explain much, and although Mu Ke wanted to know, but seeing that Bai Liu wasn't going to say anything, he snapped and shut up.

The initials white [W] are the usual signature of Bai Liu's paintings.

Bai Liu could tell at a glance that these things were his paintings, and although they were green and boyish compared to his current painting technique, they were indeed his paintings.

The little girl with the cloth over her eyes is obviously Liu Jiayi, the gown is the same style as the one he saw in the hospital this morning, the beautiful silver-blue fish in the jar should refer to the first game King Seiren, and the broken mirror on the melting toy train is Bai Liu's second game Explosive Last Train.

But these paintings are all dated ten years ago, and the Bai Liu of ten years ago was not even in this private orphanage, and the Bai Liu of ten years ago could never have known this information.

There's only one possibility then, that Bai Liu after ten years has somehow gone back ten years and then painted over these children's drawings and left them in this private children's home.

This kind of unimaginable thing that ordinary people encountered must have panicked, but this only made Bai Liu further determine that this children's home must be some [real world] [official game copy].

The only plausible explanation for these timeline mismatches is the official plot progression time for this copy of the game, which I'm afraid is not now, but ten years ago, judging by the fallout of these paintings he left behind.

Bai Liu's fingertips skimmed over the inscription of these paintings, his gaze sinking slightly.

It is very likely that he will enter this game in the future and leave some kind of trace inside this ten year old [copy of the Children's Welfare Institution game], and with the loading of this [official version of the game copy] into the [real world], it loads the orphanage where Bai Liu used to leave traces in the game into the present timeline.

This is not good.

The traces of the player remain forever in a particular copy of the game, something that usually happens when a pass is failed, and just as Zhang Gui's death was previously alienated into a charred corpse monster that remained forever in this copy of Exploding Last Train, these marks left by death and failure become part of the game and are enshrined in reality along with the copy.

But this doomed death did not frighten Bai Liu, who thought calmly.

There were two other areas of doubt for Bai Liu at the moment, and his eyes slowly fell on the face of a boy in the corner of the first group photo of children in 200X.

This boy's face has no emotion at all, when he squints at people there is a kind of [you stupid mortals] sense of beating, there is a kind of out of place sense of isolation, it is fourteen years old him, Bai Liu also looked at those sharp brush strokes and exaggerated coloring of the paintings.

This feeling of taking pictures, and this style of drawing, is indeed the look he liked to use when he was fourteen, the usual pose when taking pictures.

Bai Liu did not use this kind of colorful painting style for a long time, because it was too flamboyant, he was criticized for spiritual pollution after being stuck by his boss a few times, and the market acceptance was not high, Bai Liu gave up this style decisively, and later never painted again.

These paintings and the [Bai Liu] who took pictures on them were indeed the usual style of the fourteen year old him, and strangely enough, the information that was revealed on them was indeed another information that only the twenty-four year old Bai Liu would have known, and now the problem was - if it was the twenty-four year old him who was in this game, then Bai Liu was pretty sure he wouldn't be drawing like this.

And if the game is set up so that Bai Liu rewinds all aspects of his memory and body to ten years ago, then it's not like he could know information that he only knows now.

This is a Bai Liu who has the memories of a twenty-four year old but the style and personality of a fourteen year old. Logically Bai Liu finds it unlikely because memory is an important factor in determining a person's style and personality, and by having the memories of the latter ten years he would never be the same as he was ten years ago.

Fourteen and twenty-four year old Bai Liu exist in the game copy of [Children's Welfare Institution Ten Years Ago] in a cut-throat manner, which is the first point of Bai Liu's doubt.

The second point of doubt is-- Bai Liu looked at the character sketch, it is a black and white character sketch, a girl holding a doll sitting on the hospital bed, curled up and hugging her knees, her eyes covered with white cloth, it is a finely drawn character sketch.

But Bai Liu clearly remembers that at the age of fourteen, he hated sketching, because he liked to color things very heavy, sketching this relatively strong documentary style of things at that time Bai Liu was very rejected, very few sketches, to draw the general is to draw a still life to practice, basically do not draw the figure.

Why did fourteen-year-old Bai Liu draw a sketch of Liu Jiayi, whom he hated, when Liu Jiayi was not even born yet and should not have any marks?

Is it possible that Liu Jiayi will also enter this copy?

But even if Liu Jiayi had entered the game, she was a newcomer, and normally her first copy would have been a single-player game, and this copy was clearly a multiplayer copy, unless Liu Jiayi had quickly cleared her first game and then followed it up with the multiplayer game Bai Liu was in, she would have appeared in the painting.

But Liu Huai, a veteran player with some experience, should not allow his sister to be so adventurous.

So why is this little friend here?

Bai Liu thoughtfully scanned the entire painting, finally resting his eyes on the doll Liu Jiayi was holding in his hand in the middle of the painting--

--The doll on the painting, white shirt and black pants, held in the hands of the little girl, her face turned back towards the outside smiling, at first glance there seems to be nothing wrong, but Bai Liu stared a little longer and realized that there was something wrong.

The doll's head was turned back too much, not like it was turned back, like its head was twisted a hundred and eighty degrees.

Bai Liu looked at the picture and fiddled with the coin he had hanging over his heart, his eyes slightly glazed over.