Chapter 74

Bai Liu put down the pen after finishing his three guesses. The pen rolled twice on the table, and rolled to Mu Sicheng's expressionless face.

Bai Liu's attitude was still flat, and he didn't seem to feel that he had said anything serious. Finally, Bai Liu looked at the numb Mu Sicheng and added sincerely: "Of course, this is just my personal opinion, and it may not be the same. Such."

The narrow rental house fell into a long silence, only the wind occasionally brushed through Bai Liu's fingertips, blowing the paper on which he wrote the real world.

It is midsummer now, and the sun shines in from the window behind Bailiu. It is already noon, and the noisy chirping of cicadas can be heard wantonly, and the noisy horns of cars can be heard outside the window.

But these visual and auditory experiences that seem to endow the world with smoke and fire become black and white in Mu Sicheng's world in an instant, just like Bai Liu, who is sitting in front of the desk and looking at him quietly and intently against the light, is curling digital multi-dimensional lines Ri kept backing away, disappearing into the gap between his closed eyes.

The moment Bai Liu put down his pen, Mu Sicheng felt his ears ringing for a few seconds, as if his breathing was fake for a split second.

Reality is a game?

A promised land free from his vile desires, which he tried his best to keep, turned out to be nothing more than a game.

Mu Sicheng collapsed and then leaned back on the chair, with the back of one hand resting on his eyes, and the other hand hanging down, he kept this posture silent for a long time.

Bai Liu didn't bother him.

After an unknown amount of time, Mu Sicheng sneered in a difficult voice and said, "Bai Liu, I was wondering if you made up such a horrible thing to fool me in order to coax me to join you in the league? Is this fake? ? Not really, right?"

"Most of the real things in this world are scary, otherwise where do we get the materials for making games from?" Bai Liu got up and folded the paper with these words written on it and put it in a book, then turned to look at Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu quietly.

Bai Liu shrugged: "But it seems that you are not willing to accept it, so emotionally, I think I should give you a buffer space to escape and accept, so I said that this matter may not be like this, after all, it may be true. The first and the second case."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

Damn it, but what is the difference between you and telling me directly that it is the third situation!

Mu Sicheng sat slumped on the chair for a long time before looking at Bai Liu in a daze and asking, "Bai Liu, if the reality we are in is just a game, then where is the real reality? Is there a real reality? What is real to us? Why aren't you terrified by this game-like reality?"

Bai Liu was not confused by Mu Sicheng's barrage of questions, he thought for a moment.

"Since I was a teenager, I have been asking myself what is reality and what is most meaningful to me." Bai Liu spread his hands, "But except for one of my best friends, most of my peers are I couldn’t understand me, and I found out later that they may not think about this issue for the rest of their lives, and they can survive well in this illusory reality.”

"Whether the reality is a game or real, believe me, for the vast majority of people, it doesn't actually have any impact on them. To interpret it from an objective idealist point of view, people's objective cognition of the ontology and the world constitutes The value logic chain of people, as long as [I] is real, and the things [I] pursue are real, that world is real for [I].”

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

"As long as human currency exists, my desire for money will never go out. This is my truth and meaning."

"If you can't find your own meaning for the time being, would you like to try using mine?" Bai Liu picked up the key hanging behind the door, and looked back at Mu Sicheng who was stunned, "Try to find the visible currency , such as the 500 million points of the game competition champion to try?"

"At that time, you might be able to use money to buy the reality you want." Bai Liu pushed open the door, "With 500 million points, I think you can buy an earth to create the [real world] you want. 】Yes."

Mu Sicheng was silent for a while with a distorted expression.

"Bai Liu, your eloquence is really a pyramid scheme?"

He was once again convinced by the weird logic of this psychopath!

"So your answer is?" Bai Liu raised his eyebrows and asked, "Do you want to participate in the league?"

Mu Sicheng gritted his teeth: "I will participate!" Then he quickly asked, "But you have to deal with at least five players? Otherwise, how can we participate?"

"You don't have to worry about this, I will take care of it, just wait for my notification." Bai Liu turned and asked Mu Sicheng, "I'm going out to eat hot pot with my friends, do you want to come with me?"

Mu Sicheng: "..."

What time is it, why are you still in the mood to eat hot pot? !

It may be that Mu Sicheng's overly ferocious expression revealed his questioning, Bai Liu took out two discount coupons from his pocket, shook them, and briefly explained: "Because I have two discount coupons for hot pot restaurants, if I don't eat today, I will eat them." It's about to expire."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

Mu Sicheng can't compare with Bai Liu, who is so psychologically strong and perverted. This college student whose world view has been shocked by Bai Liu is obviously still a little bit overwhelmed. After rejecting Bai Liu's invitation to eat hot pot together, Mu Sicheng and Bai Liu exchanged contact. The way and school address, I went back to the dormitory alone to think about life.

Bai Liu went out with two hot pot discount coupons in his arms, with a happy expression, not at all like someone who just came out of a life-and-death game, or someone who just revealed the truth of the magical world in front of Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng sighed incredulously and speechlessly: "You seem to be in a good mood?"

"Yes." Bai Liu nodded and admitted, he bent his eyes and smiled, "Now it's my off-duty time, of course I'm in a good mood."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

He remembered Bai Liu's horror game theory again.

Hold! ! This guy really felt like he was off work! !

This sturdy psychological quality - what kind of environment can this guy be a monster? !

But after Bai Liu bid farewell to Mu Sicheng, who was in a trance, he went to find Lu Yizhan.

Because Bai Liu woke up and found that Lu Yizhan had called him twice, but because he didn't answer them in the game, Bai Liu sent a text message to Lu Yizhan asking him what's wrong, and Lu Yizhan said to talk face to face.

Speaking of talking face-to-face, Bai Liu thought that he might lose contact in the next two months. If he disappeared so silently, the policeman at Lu Yi Station would definitely report the case if he couldn't find him. It was necessary to report to Lu Yizhan in person, so he invited Lu Yizhan to the hot pot restaurant in a text message, and was going to chat with Lu Yizhan face to face.

It was still early when Bai Liu arrived at the hot pot restaurant, and there was no one there, so he ordered a pot base and some dishes, and after confirming with the boss that the coupons could still be used, he waited obediently.

Before the boss went down, he turned on the TV in the store for Bai Liu. A news program was being broadcast on the TV at noon. When Bai Liu saw it, he saw a photo of Li Gou's eyes marked on the TV screen.

On TV, the male host in a suit and leather shoes folded his hands in front of the table in a serious manner, and reported in a very orthodox voice:

"Welcome everyone to watch the "Noon News" column. Recently, the key criminal evidence of Li Mou, the major criminal suspect in the dismembered body case of a senior high school girl, has finally been found... If Li Mou's crime is true, he can be sentenced to death at most, but before the trial , Yesterday, Li was in prison, and suddenly he was hacked into pieces by a fellow prisoner, Wang, who also committed the crime of murder..."

The male host lowered his head and flipped through the manuscript on the desktop, then continued to raise his head to broadcast:

"Recently, a small-scale mass food poisoning incident suddenly broke out in a privately funded children's welfare home in our city. A large number of children in the welfare home were admitted to the hospital urgently. The ingredients, many of these ingredients are rotten and deteriorated, causing diarrhea and vomiting in children after eating, and dehydration shock in severe cases... For this, we appeal to caring people from all walks of life to donate money to the orphanage..."

Bai Liuzheng watched with relish, and Lu Yizhan came with a tired face.

When Bai Liu saw his standard social animal face, he knew that this person had been staying up a lot lately.

Lu Yizhan sat down and drank himself two sips of tea. Looking at Bai Liu, he began to complain endlessly, "I'm lost! You don't know how busy I am these days! I'm so busy! I don't even have time to drink tea all morning. !"

"It's been a few days since I had dinner with you last time, right?" Bai Liu raised her eyebrows, "Is it so scary to be getting married?"

Lu Yizhan waved his hand wearily. He looked up and saw the news on TV. His expression changed, and he called for the waiter to lower his voice: "It's not just about the marriage, waiter, can you change the private room for us?"

There are not many people now, so the waiter readily changed Bailiu and Lu Yizhan to a small private room.

As soon as Lu Yizhan entered the private room, his expression was serious, and he took out a cigarette to smoke.

It's been a long time since Bai Liu saw Lu Yizhan smoking. After he got his girlfriend, he was treated as a twenty-four filial boyfriend. He quit all bad habits such as smoking, playing games and playing cards. No, now we're talking about the fiancée.

Lu Yizhan's fiancée is convinced that cola kills the sperm and hurts the body, and Lu Yizhan is strictly forbidden to drink any carbonated drinks.

In this regard, Bai Liu said that fortunately, Lu Yizhan's fiancee didn't know that beer is also a kind of carbonated drink, otherwise Lu Yizhan would be deprived of the only joy of life, drinking and eating barbecue.

Bai Liu smiled calmly and asked Lu Yizhan, who smoked with a face full of bitterness and hatred: "Should I be worried and ask now, what happened to Lu Yizhan, why are you smoking? Didn't you swear back then that nothing would happen unless the world collapsed?" Wouldn't you touch soft drugs like cigarettes? Why, your world collapsed within a few days of my departure, didn't you?"

"Cough, cough, cough!" Lu Yizhan choked on his cigarette after being teased by Bai Liu, he couldn't help laughing, Lu Yizhan is a very standard young man with a square appearance that pleases the elderly, his smile is a bit naive Shuai, "Bai Liu, you can ask any questions! You must mention my history of the second black in middle school!"

"Let's talk." Bai Liu poured a cup of tea for Lu Yizhan and pushed it over, "I'm off work now, I can waste some of my precious time listening to the troubles in life that make your world collapse."

"Marriage is indeed a lot of trouble." Mu Sicheng took the teacup Bai Liu handed him and was silent for a few seconds, "But the thing that bothers me the most is not getting married, did you see the news about the orphanage on TV just now? "

Bai Liu nodded: "I see, what's the matter?"

"A colleague of mine is dealing with this matter. He said that it doesn't look like ordinary food poisoning. Many children are in emergency rescue now, and no specific results have been investigated yet." Lu Yizhan frowned, "But mushroom poisoning You and I have both stayed in the welfare home. Jingcheng is not a place where mushrooms are produced. The price of mushrooms is high. The welfare homes here rarely buy mushrooms, which are relatively expensive and prone to accidents. A privately endowed orphanage on the verge of bankruptcy..."

"All in all, I think this is not right, but the current solution still tends to preserve the orphanage. Before the investigation is clear, the safety of the children staying in the orphanage is actually not well guaranteed... "

"It sounds complicated." Bai Liu asked calmly, "But what does it have to do with you? Lu Yizhan, although you are a policeman, this is not your job, right?"

Lu Yizhan was silent for a while, and said, "I took the initiative to join the investigation team."

Bai Liu glanced at Lu Yizhan, but said nothing.

"You also know that I'm getting married soon, sister Dian (Lu Yizhan's fiancée) is not in good health...the doctor said she might not be able to conceive, we discussed whether to adopt a child before getting pregnant..." Lu Yizhan He clasped the cup tightly with his fingers, and he smiled wryly, "Bai Liu, I know you will think that I am too impulsive, and my current financial situation is not very good..."

Lu Yizhan inhaled: "But after discussing with Sister Dian, I plan to go to this orphanage to adopt a child. After all, it is good to have one less child in such an unstable situation. After all, I also came out of the orphanage. Give back to the community."

"So you tell me one thing, you know that I probably don't agree with what you do, what's the purpose?" Bai Liu asked calmly, "What do you want me to do for you?"

Lu Yizhan lowered his head and fiddled with the cigarette on his fingertips, but said nothing.

The waiter came and took a mouthful of hot red pot, which was bubbling between the two silent people.

Then Lu Yizhan spoke to himself: "Bai Liu, I really don't want to involve you in this kind of thing, but your brain is really easy to use in this kind of thing."

"If a matter involves a lot of criminal interests, you can almost immediately guess what the other party will do next. You are a genius in this regard."

Bai Liu took a sip of tea expressionlessly: "I'll just take it as your compliment, and it's not the first time you've come to me for meddling in other things, just tell me what you need."

"Can you help me look at what happened this time?" Lu Yizhan looked up at Bai Liu, "My colleague's investigation ideas are stuck, and I asked you about this kind of thing before, and you gave me the right idea to break the situation. so……"

Lu Zhan seemed a bit embarrassed to say: "I know I'm meddling in my own business, but once I know it, I can't just ignore it, they're just kids..."

Bai Liu raised his hand and opened a pair of disposable chopsticks with a bang, interrupting what Lu Yizhan hadn't finished saying: "I can help you take a look, but I don't do it for nothing, the old rules—this meal is yours. .”

Lu Yi nodded, and was already familiar with Bai Liu's request for compensation.

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

Lu Yizhan was shocked: "Two months? So long? What exactly do you do with this job? If it's the kind of performance job you mentioned last time, it won't take as long as two months, right?"

Bai Liu paused for a moment, and considering the shielding mechanism of the game, he put it another way: "This time I will bring a monkey and a young master to form a team and play games on the stage for the audience to watch. months."

"..." Lu Yizhan's expression was very complicated, "Is your job really legal?"

Bai Liu said, "It's legal."

"It's a monkey and a young master, and it's still legal to play games for the audience, and there are still two months to perform..." Lu Yizhan thought for a while, then suddenly realized that he patted his thigh, and watched Bai Liu make a firm judgment, " You are a circus performance team, right? You are going on tour in two months, right?"

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

—————

After returning home, Bai Liu took a look at some relevant materials and information about this private orphanage that Lu Yizhan gave him.

Most of the children's welfare homes in the world they live in are public children's welfare homes established and run by the government. Both Bailiu and Lu Yizhan came out of this kind of public welfare homes.

On the contrary, Lu Yizhan was educated to be a kind-hearted young man who is full of gratitude to the society. He has determined to serve the society as a policeman since he was a child.

As for Bai Liu, a freak, he never got out of money's eyes all the way. If Lu Yizhan hadn't been vigilant and tense to pull Bai Liu on the road of abiding by the law, what would Bai Liu, a psychopath, do for money? It's really hard to say.

But the children's welfare home that happened this time was not a public one, but a private children's welfare home that was donated by a large number of corporate philanthropists ten years ago.

Many entrepreneurs here are said to be terminally ill. According to the traditional practice of [a person who is about to die is also good], these people donated a large sum of money to build this private orphanage, saying that they would do it before they died. Doing a good deed to accumulate virtue won a lot of praise at that time, and Lu Yizhan also praised this behavior all the time.

Coincidentally, shortly after the construction of this children's welfare home, the illnesses of these entrepreneurs got better, as if "what goes around is what goes around" and got better.

But [people who are about to die do good deeds], people who are not about to die naturally don’t want to spend a lot of money to do good deeds for good rewards. After that, these entrepreneurs gradually became less interested in this orphanage, so The private orphanage slowly lost ground over a decade.

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

There have been various accidents in this poorly managed private children's welfare home, most of which were poisoned by various mushrooms, but this time it was the biggest.

Lu Yizhan said that these food poisoning accidents piled up together, and they didn't look like accidents at first glance, but after investigation, they did not find any clues to the crime, either intentional poisoning, or simple food poisoning accidents, and this time Events are the same.

It was as if some higher-level existence had erased all clues other than "accidental food poisoning".

Lu Yizhan even wondered if there was something wrong with their internal staff, and some traces of the crime were deliberately erased.

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

Compared to Lu Yizhan's suspicion that someone inside had erased the traces of the crime, Bai Liu doubted that it was not a person who erased the traces. If his previous guess was correct——

——He thinks that this children's orphanage is likely to be a [horror game copy] being released into the [real world].

—————

Early the next morning, in the early hours of the morning, Bai Liu was woken up by Lu Yizhan's life-threatening series of calls. As soon as he answered the phone, Lu Yizhan's tone on the opposite side was unprecedentedly serious: "Bai Liu, why don't you come to Mirror City? The First People's Hospital, the child who was sent to the hospital last night—"

"A lot of people died, right?" Bai Liu calmly said the following.

Lu Yizhan on the opposite side took a breath, and then exhaled slowly. He said, "Did you find anything?"

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

"...Yes, many of them died after rescue failed." Lu Yizhan's voice was rough and hoarse, "But one child is still alive."

"There is still a living child?" Bai Liu obviously sensed something was wrong.

If this children's welfare home is a [horror game copy] that the [system] is releasing into the real world, there is a high probability that the group of children used as the background of the game will be wiped out, just like the passengers in the carriage in "The Last Train Exploding" Same.

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

Lu Yizhan: "Yes, come here."

When Bai Liu got dressed and went, the outside of the hospital was crowded with reporters from various news media.

Bai Liu was picked up by Lu Yi Station from the elevator in the operating room. When he passed by the operating room, he could see small corpses with heads covered in white cloth placed in the corridor. Because there were too many, some corpses Before they could be transported away, they piled crookedly all over the corridor of the operating room, turning the operating room into a small mortuary.

From time to time, numb-faced nurses would come up and push the corpses of these dead children down. Occasionally, when they hit the wall, a small bruised and purple hand covered with various corpse spots would swing out from under the white cloth.

These plaques and some hematomas bulge on the surface of the child's corpse, like mushroom patterns all over the back of the corpse's small hands. It seems that a mushroom will burst out of the corpse's skin in the next second.

A disgusting smell of mushroom fermentation filled the entire operating room, as if the mushrooms eaten by children had been fermented overnight with these freshly dead corpses as the culture medium. The rot was full of the vitality of fungi.

Bai Liu calmly withdrew his sizing gaze, turned his head to look at Lu Yizhan, and asked softly after waiting for the operating room: "Are you sure these children died last night? These corpses are not too rotten. Right."

"Yes." Lu Yizhan rubbed his forehead, "It's too early for the corpse spots to appear densely, and the timing of the rigor is not right."

Bai Liu squinted at Lu Yizhan: "What's wrong?"

When Lu Yizhan heard Bai Liu's words, he stopped. He leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, and took several puffs. The entire corner of the stairs was filled with smoke, which showed that Lu Yizhan was in an extremely bad mood.

"Corpse spots emerged from the child's body a few minutes after the death was confirmed, and appeared and spread very quickly. This usually occurs after more than 24 hours of death." Lu Yizhan lit a cigarette with his hand. His thumb rubbed against the center of his brow, and he wanted to get rid of the frown, but it didn't seem to have any effect, "Corpse... also, the corpse hardens rapidly after death, and it has entered the softening and rotting stage in the early hours of this morning. , which generally occurs when the death exceeds 24 hours."

"It's almost like..." Lu Yizhan paused and said, "This group of poisoned children died before entering the hospital."

They were talking and walking at this time, and they had already reached the stairs of the ward on the children's emergency floor. From the half-open door of the exit of the emergency exit, they could see the corpses of the children covered in hoods on the beds in the corridor of the hospital ward, and A nurse packing a body into a body bag.

The faces of those children's corpses were not the bluish white of the dead, but also colorful protruding spots.

Bai Liu knows that some mushroom poisoning will cause this kind of skin ringworm similar to allergies, but the spots on the faces of these children are so dense that it is like a color blindness test, and they will bulge on the surface of the skin. A slight discomfort.

It feels like there are mushrooms growing under the face that haven't sprouted yet.