Chapter 149: The Dangerous Heresy Treatment Authority

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"That Bai six guy, he's been getting weirder and weirder lately ......" the kids whispered fearfully as they bumped heads together.

After the director said that Xie Ta had run away and left the orphanage, they transferred the fear that was empty from Xie Ta to Bai Liu.

The other children in the orphanage look with fear and curiosity at Bai Liu, who is sitting at the end of the long table, far away from everyone else, eating his meal in silence - the same place where Xie Ta was eating before.

"The new one, your name is Lu Yizhan, right?" A child scowled at another good-looking, older-looking child, who pointed to Bai Liu, "The one sitting at the end, Bai six, you remember to stay away from him."

The young Lu Yizhan looked back with a puzzled expression: "Why? Did he do something?"

"Because he's a monster!" The child who spoke gestured with his teeth and claws and made a very strange ow ow ow sound, "He ate his only friend, and of course his friend is a monster too, a bleeding pinhole freak, and if you're friends with him, he'll eat you too!"

The child threatened Lu Yizhan with great fuss.

Lu Yizhan frowned again at Bai Liu at the end of the long table - a child who, on the surface, appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary, even a little too thin.

Bai Liu looks like he's never had enough to eat, the flesh on his cheeks is sunken in, he looks genuinely hungry and eats quickly.

But - Lu Yizhan's gaze falls on Bai Liu's plate, which has a staple bread left untouched, and it doesn't look like he's going to touch it either.

After Bai Liu had eaten quietly and quickly, he looked up and exchanged a quiet glance with Lu Yizhan, who was looking at him with a rather deep look.

Lu Yizhan took the lead in averting his eyes from each other.

Bai Liu jumped off the table with a blank face, his head bowed as he made a detour from the back of the church to the lake with a bite of bread he hadn't touched.

Lu Yizhan paused for a moment as he followed Bai Liu to the church, and then stopped in his tracks.

Bai Liu ran out of sight almost instantly.

What exactly is this person at ...... doing?

Evening.

Lu Yizhan, a new arrival at the orphanage, was given the bed that Xie Ta had previously slept in. As soon as he was ready to sleep, Lu Yizhan turned his head and saw Bai Liu standing at the foot of his bed with a blank face, holding a futon.

Lu Yizhan seemed to be in the middle of a thought and was startled by the sudden appearance of Bai Liu, sitting up in a panic, covering his chest with the blanket and looking at Bai Liu warily: " Bai six what are you doing?

The other children in the bedroom were startled by the sudden appearance of Bai Liu and ran away screaming: "Bai six is coming to eat us! He's coming to eat us!"

Lu Yizhan was barely able to maintain his composure. He looked at Bai Liu, who was standing motionless at the foot of his bed with a pile of bedding, and tried to figure out what Bai Liu meant. ... want to change beds with me?"

Bai Liu looks quietly at Lu Yizhan, who seems to be in a somewhat poor state of mind, his eyes are scattered and there is a heavy greenish blackness under his eyes, and when he hears Lu Yizhan ask him, Bai six nods slowly.

Lu Yizhan was relieved - it really was a bed change.

Lu Yizhan didn't care where a bed belonged, he gave Bai Liu his bed and after a pause, reminded Bai Liu to change back in the morning - because the teachers here recognise people by their beds, and it's fine for children to change beds secretly on their own, but it's never a good idea to follow the rules if they are found out.

After discussing with Bai six the time to change back in the morning, Lu Yizhan picked up his bedding and went to sleep in Bai Liu's bed.

Before leaving his bed, Lu Yizhan looked back at Bai Liu, who had made his bed without saying a word, and closed his eyes quietly on the bed with a strangely shaped, long, thin, faceless doll in his arms.

Bai Liu doesn't look like a child who would sleep with a doll at his age, but he clearly cherishes it, not only giving up most of his bed to sleep with it, but also covering it with the quilt, leaving half of himself exposed.

The night was obviously a little chilly, but Bai Liu acted as if he didn't feel hungry and he didn't seem to feel the cold either, cuddling up to his doll before he fell asleep.

But it was a doll that, judged by ordinary eyes, did not need to be so cherished and protected at all - many patches, roughly made, with lines coming out of the edges, and no face, like a half-finished product.

Bai Liu sleeps curled up in a tiny ball next to the doll's hand, the doll's body curled around Bai Liu's in a curled embrace, and the two are pressed tightly together as if - as if cuddled in a very narrow, oval-shaped bathtub.

It's a ...... very peculiar sleeping position.

This peculiar position of sleeping with the rag doll makes Lu Yizhan look at it more than once. He stands quietly by Bai Liu's bed for a moment, then withdraws his eyes and walks towards Bai Liu's bed.

This Bai six is a strange child.

But it seems, not as bad as the other kids say, and quite reasonable.

Bai Liu is vaguely aware that Lu Yizhan, the newcomer, is increasingly and covertly observing himself, the monster child that others say not to touch.

On Lu Yizhan's seventh day, Bai Liu almost fainted at the dinner table. Lu Yizhan was the first to notice that something was wrong and gave him a candy and forced him to eat half of his meal - Bai Liu was clearly suffering from low blood sugar.

The man didn't eat properly at all, had lots of food left over to sneak away again every day, didn't know what he'd been doing, and was coming back in worse and worse spirits every time he came back at night.

Lu Yizhan began to share his food with Bai Liu, intentionally or unintentionally.

But most of the time, Bai Liu coldly refuses, saying, "I don't need it.

At the same time, a strange and eerie atmosphere began to permeate the orphanage, with more and more children escaping, some literally and some "forced" to do so. not as glamorous and safe as it seemed.

As more and more children disappeared, Lu Yizhan began to make contact with Bai Liu after he noticed that Bai Liu's body also began to smell like blood had been drawn.

Before he left, Lu Yizhan grabbed Bai Liu's arm and whispered in his ear what he had found out, reminding him that the orphanage was not safe and asking him if he wanted to run away with him.

"I know a public orphanage that is safer than here, we can go there." Lu Yizhan says softly, "It's close to the police station and someone will protect us. "

Bai Liu replied indifferently, "No, I'm not going."

"Why? " Lu Yizhan looked a little anxious, "Something's really wrong here!"

Bai Liu looked at him with downcast eyes, no focus at all in his pupils, his tone was sluggish: "I'm waiting for someone to wake up, and when he does, I'll take him with me. "

Perhaps it was curiosity or perhaps Bai Liu's increasing weakness that gave Lu Yizhan a break from stalking. After another baptism, Lu Yizhan finally caught a break and followed Bai Liu into the back of the church where Bai Liu would sneak off to every day.

The back of the church has always been a restricted area within the orphanage, the director strictly forbade any of their children to go there, saying that it was not safe, that it was undeveloped jungle bush and a small lake that had not yet been built and renovated, and that children could easily drown or get stuck in mud puddles if they went there, so the church was locked up tight during the week to prevent these children from going there.

But Bai Liu seems to have found an isolated path that leads to the back of the church.

Lu Yizhan followed Bai Liu as he watched him move expertly and gingerly through a broken window behind the side door of the church, then across the church and out the back door, without hesitation, into the lush grass behind the church that could have swallowed Bai Liu in an instant.

Bai Liu skilfully navigates around foot-cutting bushes and rocky obstacles, and eventually he comes to a halt beside a small lake, or pond, full of floating weeds.

Lu Yizhan hides behind the grass in confusion - what is Bai six doing in this pond? To swim?

Normally, Bai Liu would have been able to spot Lu Yizhan following him, but his chronic hunger had left him in a state of serious decline and his concentration was so consumed that he didn't notice that someone else was following him not far away.

Bai Liu turns his back to Lu Yizhan and undresses unprotected, revealing a ribbed, stark white back. He bends down and places the bread in his arms on clean clothing before turning and diving into the pond.

Lu Yizhan hides in the grass, his eyes staring intently.

He had a feeling that soon he would find out exactly what Bai Liu was doing these days.

But Lu Yizhan waited and waited for several minutes, but Bai Liu did not float up. Lu Yizhan realized that something was wrong, so he did not even bother to take off his clothes and dove into the lake, searching the murky bottom for Bai Liu. He finally saw a Bai Liu with his feet engulfed in mud and his hands suspended in the water, clearly showing signs of drowning.

Lu Yizhan held his breath and swam over quickly, grabbed Bai Liu's shoulder and lifted him up.

Bai Liu seemed to be dragging something, but his strength was too low and it was only with the help of Lu Yizhan that Bai Liu managed to drag it out. Eventually Lu Yizhan, holding one in his hand, pulled both Bai Liu and the object he was trying to drag out out of the water.

Lu Yizhan is lying on the edge of the lake, breathing heavily.

Bai Liu's body spasmed physically as he dry-heaved a few mouthfuls of lake water and took a few moments to slow down before getting up from the ground on his side.

Bai Liu almost drowned at the bottom of the lake just now, because of his low blood sugar and weakness, Bai Liu is currently struggling to do this kind of physical activity.

"What were you thinking?!" Lu Yizhan scolded Bai Liu while gasping for breath, "You can't drag yourself out at once, don't you know how to come up to catch your breath and drag yourself down again? Do you have to drown yourself under the water?"

With that, Lu Yizhan turned his head to look at the object that he and Bai Liu had dragged out - which made Lu Yizhan subconsciously stand up, his face turning hard.

Lying next to Bai Liu is a body with a bare face and ropes tied around the ankles to prevent it from sinking.

"You hid the body in this lake? Lu Yizhan was really going crazy, "You've got a lot of nerve, it's true that no one will find it here, what kind of body is this? What are you doing dragging him out every day?"

Bai Liu kneels silently next to Xie Ta, who, as if he had not heard Lu Yizhan's words, breaks the bread he has left untouched on his shirt, as if feeding it to the fish, and crumbles it into Xie Ta's cold lips with his fingers.

His actions told Lu Yizhan what he had come for - he had come to feed the underwater corpse.

Lu Yizhan is plunged into an eerie silence as he watches Bai Liu calmly finish feeding the bread.

Bai Liu patted the crumbs from his hands before he looked up at Lu Yizhan and spoke lightly to explain, "He's a monster, but not a corpse, he's not dead, he'll come back to life, so I can't let him starve."

"You know what Bai six ?" Lu Yizhan's face and tone of voice were beyond complicated, "You're more like a monster now."

With that, Lu Yizhan's eyes fell on Xie Ta's corpse, whose right hand had begun to decompose, so one can only imagine how long Bai Liu had been 'feeding' it.

"Whether he's a corpse or a monster, you'll have to let him go." Lu Yizhan felt his brain about to explode as he knelt down, holding Bai Liu's shoulders flat and trying to explain the current state of affairs in a way Bai Liu could understand, "You can avenge him when you grow up, you can find out who killed him, but right now, you can't bury yourself under the water with him. "

"He's not breathing, he has no heartbeat, and he doesn't know when he'll wake up." Lu Yizhan sighed, " Bai six, you can't sleep with him."

Xie Ta was still lying quietly on the ground, the needle holes on the back of his hand had not yet healed, but in a trance, Bai Liu seemed to see Xie Ta open his eyes and say, "Leave here Bai six, we will meet again one day.

We will be reunited in the endless, horror games and stories we have seen, played and shared.

So now, let me go, and let yourself go, for there is goodbye before there is reunion, Bai six.

Bai Liu murmured, "You swear we'll meet again?"

Xie Ta smiled lightly as he took Bai Liu's hand in his right, which was already rotting white, "I swear."

Lu Yizhan turned his head suspiciously as he looked a little hairily at the motionless body of Xie Ta: " Bai six, who are you talking to?"

Bai Liu slowly released his grip on Xie Ta's hand, his eyes drooping, the water dripping from his body to the soles of his feet, then Bai Liu took a knife from his pocket and separated the rope tied around Xie Ta's ankles.

Xie Ta's hair wavers and sinks under the water.

Lu Yizhan was relieved to see Bai Liu's eyes blink twice, as if two drops of water had fallen from his eyelashes.

Then Bai Liu took a deep breath and plunged back into the pond.

"Bai six!" Lu Yizhan shouted in shock, and he jumped after him.

Bai Liu strokes his limbs as he reaches for Xie Ta, who is submerged under the water.

He watched as the mud and sand quickly drowned Xie Ta's face like an irresistible night.

The black mud crawls like a vine up the bridge of Xie Ta's nose, Xie Ta's lips, then Xie Ta's chest, her arms, and finally only a hand so white that it is shockingly loose and exposed to the dirt.

Bai Liu fought to grab the hand.

The hand was cold and warm to the touch, and he felt Xie Ta's hand grip him for a moment before releasing and eventually disappearing completely to the bottom of the lake.

Bai Liu put his hand in the mud and sand and tried doggedly to dig through it to see the eyes again, but Lu Yizhan grabbed him by the shoulders and began to pull him upwards through clenched teeth.

Bai Liu's lungs are running out of oxygen and the air is disappearing under the water as fast as it was taken out of his mouth and nose.

Picture books that were broken and then put back together, doll sets full of patches, appointments that were not kept, faces that were forever hidden by hair.

Xie Ta left him with something that was always broken and incomplete.

These imperfections are like a reminder to Bai Liu that Xie Ta is not real.

Is this person really coming back?

Does this person really exist?

Did this person ...... really show up?

Or was it just an illusion that he, Bai six, a child judged by all to be mentally ill, had conjured up to fill his loneliness and was willing to hold his hand?

There is no God in this world, so why is there a monster who will always be waiting in church to read books with him, to play scary games with him that no one likes, to make him dolls, to hug him?

[Bai six, why are you willing to believe in the existence of monsters, but not in the existence of God?

[Because it's not like God has been good to me].

Bai Liu opened his eyes and looked down into the pitch black water, his mouth opened unconsciously and bubbles poured out of him.

He said, " Xie Ta, I have to go, goodbye."

Bai Liu felt that Xie Ta hadn't said a formal goodbye to him before he left, and without goodbyes there would be no reunions, which is what Xie Ta had just said, so Bai Liu jumped down, he wanted to say a serious goodbye to him.

The water rushing into Bai Liu's mouth and nose made him start to choke, snowy foam rising from the sides of his mouth.

Bai Liu slowly drops his eyelids, his limbs lose strength and spread backwards, suspended in the water like dead floating weeds.

He fell into a daze of white light.

In the white haze, Bai Liu saw countless flashes of memory of someone sitting quietly and upright in the first row of the church at the end of the brilliant white light, dressed in the tattered doll clothes of the Long and Thin Ghost, holding a scattered and pieced together picture book of the Long and Thin Ghost's Murder, turning page by page and reading very slowly.

The man seemed to have seen Bai Liu sitting diagonally behind him and he held up his book as if to ask Bai Liu, who was sitting next to him, if he wanted to read it with him.

But in fact Bai Liu was ready to say yes to the man's request to read a book together before the man turned his head.

Because Bai Liu loved the book, although it looked a bit tattered, but Bai Liu didn't care, he had sat behind the man and peeked at it page by page with him for a long, long time.

But the moment the man turned his head, the white light disappeared.

Lu Yizhan's worried face appeared in front of him as he patted Bai Liu's face and called his name: "Hey! Hey! Bai six!"

Bai Liu choked and coughed up so much water that he woke up in a daze, lying on his back on the ground, his eyes slack, his chest heaving noisily, while a waterlogged Lu Yizhan stood by, his hands propped up on his knees and panting exhaustedly.

"Bai six, we're going to have to change your name to get out of here." Lu Yizhan said. Lu Yizhan said, "To prevent the teachers at this institution from finding you again, you made too much of a fuss and if other institutions recognise you, it will be more difficult to accept you if the teachers at this institution get in the way."

Bai Liu was quiet for two seconds and said, "I don't accept too many name changes."

Lu Yizhan was stunned: "Why?"

Bai Liu rolled onto his side, his eyes listless and dazed as he looked into the waterhole, his voice hoarse: "...... I don't know, I always feel like maybe someone ...... will come looking for me under my original name. "