Chapter 214: The Rose Factory

Wang Shun moved his chair back a little, putting his heart at arm's length from the tip of his civilising staff, before speaking carefully: "...... I see a pieced-together, fragmented psalm."

"Scattered psalms?" Charles raised his eyebrows in an unnoticeable way, "That's not like the prophetic style of the concise [Judge Against God], so what is it? What kind of a poem is it?"

Wang Shun took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and said.

"The evil god boasts that there will be people drifting in his shadow,

The Man in the Shadows is fourteen years old,

Then the evil god gave him the spine, the heart, and the emblem of the gods.

It boasts that this person will be its only believer,

The man in the shadow is twenty-four years old,

Then the evil gods fell on the snowy plains, and the souls of the faithful drifted into the deep.

The spine, the heart and the divine emblem are all broken,

The changing of the evil gods.

The man in the shadow is thirty years old.

He wanders, he wanders, and the clown crouches before him and asks the shadowed man, with a smile, where he has returned,

The man in the shadow says that when the sun is three quarters gone, someone from the past will come looking for me, cold and stiff.

If you are already stiff and dead, says the Joker, I will crush your soul and let you fall in the snow with the gods.

The man in the shadow is forty-one years old.

God dies and he lives, for evil lives forever."

After saying this, Wang Shun swallowed hard and looked at Charles with nervous eyes: "You can test me with the scales, I'm not talking nonsense, some of the Earth Fang Ke energy I don't remember very well, but this is indeed what I saw at the [Inquisitor of the Reverse God]."

"I don't doubt that." Charles retracted his civilising staff and swept Wang Shun, "I rather suspect that this prophecy you speak of speaks of Bai Liu, such vague poetry can be interpreted from all angles, and I could say that this poem speaks of someone else."

"You say this prophecy speaks of Bai Liu, is there any other evidence?"

Wang Shun was quiet for a long time and exhaled a long breath helplessly, "...... is no more."

"So you can't actually figure out if this prophecy is about Bai Liu, can you?" Charles sat down gingerly at his desk and crossed his legs idly, "So you just lied to me in order to convince me to invest in Bai Liu?"

Wang Shun opened his mouth and admitted, "Yes."

"It's not a very wise thing to lie in front of me to a gambler who is ten times better at it than you are, Mr. Pepsi." Charles picked up Wang Shun's bowed head with his civilising cane and gave a very satisfied smile, "But I did like the lie you just told - it sounded like it would have fooled a whole lot of ignorant and impulsive gamblers into placing a bet on Bai Liu, a rather gambler-worthy lie."

Wang Shun looked at Charles in dismay.

" Bai Liu I'm invested." Charles nonchalantly retrieved his civilising staff and pulled it down into a lush bouquet of roses and handed it to a still dazed Wang Shun.

Wang Shun took over with a confused look, "So, President Charles, what are we going to do now?"

Charles jumped off the table, "Now?"

He straightened his lapel and smiled brightly, "In full regalia of course for our black Mr. Ma who is running to the finish line in a field of roses."

With that Charles turned to look at Wang Shun sitting in his chair, shook his head less than satisfied, and pulled the civilising staff, which had just turned into a rose, from his chest again and ran it downwards, the civilising staff, which was about a metre long, instantly turned into a wooden stick only thirty centimetres in size - it looked a bit like a magic wand.

"You look a little too plain for a future publicity spokesman and oracle disperser for the Bai Liu Warriors, Mr. Pepsi." Charles nudged his wand in disgust at the plaid shirt and jeans Wang Shun was wearing - typical programmer attire.

"It's hard can be hard to convince people with a costume like that - you come from a championship team."

Wang Shun has not yet responded, "-what propaganda spokesman and oracle disperser?"

"Simply put, it's a tool person who tricks people into placing bets and votes for the Bai Liu Warriors." Charles explains courteously, then with a wave of his wand, Wang Shun's entire body disappears.

Charles glanced from top to bottom at Wang Shun, who was consciously covering her bottom half, and whistled with a raised eyebrow, "Nice body."

"--why are you able to change my appearance settings at will--?!" Wang Shun was dumbfounded, and he was still afraid to remove the hand covering the key area.

With another wave from Charles, Wang Shun spun in place and changed his outfit from top to bottom - a delicate little polka dot bow tie, a three-piece suit with a waistcoat and taupe suit with strappy trousers, hair that had been moussed back throughout, and brown leather shoes that showed exactly five centimetres of cotton white socks.

"This set is for your reference - my tastes are more retro, I hope you like it." Charles put away his wooden staff and gestured for a spinning Wang Shun to follow him, "Now go and build up the momentum for our new battle group."

Wang Shun scrambled to keep up - Charles had somehow picked out the clothes for him, just by looking at the size of the suit, which made it a bit difficult for Wang Shun, who was used to loose clothes, to move around, and asked as he chased after him, "How do you build momentum? Bai Liu seems to have been stuck in dimensional space by the King's Guild sending out a [shield] and will fall into [no man's land] and won't be able to get out!"

"If it falls into [No Man's Land], it will be very difficult for Bai Liu to enter - he has no way to get the general audience vote, then he can't even sign up."

"Your guild's [shield]?" Charles pondered slightly for a second or two, "Then Bai Liu will probably have a hard time escaping falling into [No Man's Land]."

Wang Shun's face fell instantly: " President Charles, even you can't do anything?"

"But I don't think falling into [No Man's Land] is a bad thing." A meaningful smile appeared on Charles' face, "I seem to recall that Bai Liu has just won himself a small guild, numbering no more than five hundred."

"That's not very impressive for a championship team with a guild size of only that." Charles absently stroked the ruby at the top of his civilised staff with his index finger, "Mr. Pepsi, perhaps I know more about the history of the establishment of the top ten guilds here than you do - falling into [No Man's Land] may have been an opportunity to form a Grand Guild, remember the Masons of Paradise? "

"-that association of all beggars, built on players who escaped from No Man's Land." Charles said.

When Wang Shun was reminded of this by Charles, he looked at him as if he had thought of something, and looked at Charles with a horrified expression, "You don't think you want to - but that's too much money! At least tens of millions of points!"

"I'm not short of money, I'm the richest player in this game." Charles looked up at Wang Shun with a deepening smile on his face, "It's the thrill of gambling that I enjoy - and what better way to gamble than in the system's once-a-year league?"

"Besides, I'm not going to allow the guild I'm betting on the dark horse to be as poor as the Paradise Masons - a few tens of millions of points is not much of an investment as an upfront bet on the horse." Charles said glibly.

It's only a few tens of millions of points ...... Wang Shun dizzily followed Charles' lead.

--------

In-game.

The stragglers followed Bai Liu towards the interior of the Rose Factory.

They were stuck in the doorway of the room that looked like Heretic 0001, which was also the access point to the processing site inside the Rose Factory.

It was not impossible for Tang Erda to make a violent breakthrough, but considering that Tavel's heart was hanging from a pipe attached to the wall, there was a high risk of tearing it apart, so Tang Erda stopped at the doorway and did not continue to sweep in.

But the key to the door is in the possession of the factory worker who is hiding inside, and there is no way to open it without forcing his way through.

Tang Erda looks to Bai Liu: "How do I get in?"

"It's simple - remember that test?" Bai Liu held up a bottle of the original perfume and smiled as it dripped down the door, "- let the heart open the door for me."

In the test, Tavel's heart reacted so violently to Bai Liu's pouring of the original perfume that just one drop shook the suspended glass cabinet, and now Bai Liu is pouring the whole bottle down like this-

--The whole room began to roar and sway in less than a second.

The sound of a mechanical pipe breaking and tearing was accompanied by the panicked running and shouting of the factory workers inside, which seemed to come out through the door.

"The heart is beating too fast!!!"

"Open the floodgates-!!!"

"It's too late - the whole glass cabinet blew up!!!"

"Wow..."

After the sound of shattering glass, Bai Liu closed his eyes and held his breath against the cold steel door amidst the hustle and bustle of movement -

--He heard the violent beating of a heart.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-!

The same heartbeat as Bai Liu's now.

The light pink rose liquid seeped through the door, and the door seemed to be poured out by the excess liquid and gas that poured out and began to bulge and distort outwards, the locking ring clasp shaking and tugging out of shape, finally unable to withstand it and collapsing face down with a loud bang.

A tsunami of raw liquids and aromas swept out of the room.

Bai Liu, standing closest to the door, was drenched from head to toe in blood-like raw liquid, and he lifted his wet lashes to look into the room.

Leaking and crumbling cooling pipes spewed blood in all directions, glass shards on the floor were soaked in the pink-tinged gas and translucent liquid, and a nuisance purple-blue current could even be seen crackling along the pipes next to the electric switch.

In the chaos, the heart hangs in the middle of the room like a long-awaited, ripe, bright red fruit, emitting a "thump, thump, thump, thump" reminder - a reminder to the person who said he would take it away that if he didn't, it would beat until it exploded. It's time.

Bai Liu stepped forward, tilted his head and plucked the fruit - the wet, moist heart pulsed in his hand as if it was about to escape.

The heart beats twice as fast and abruptly because of this drop of the original liquid.

Bai Liu tightens his palms and clutches this heart, smiling.

--So this is what it feels like to hold Xie Ta's heart in your hands.

Very - very wonderful.

---------

What is it like to put a heart back into a person's chest cavity?

Tang Erda has never seen such a bizarre and unbelievable scenario, either in reality or in the game.

Not to mention the peculiar smile on the face of Bai Liu, the hero of this affair, that makes Tang Erda want to pull out her gun and arrest him right away.

-- as if the heart had been dug out by his own hands.

The ribs are invaginated, the heart is protectively concealed by the lobes of the lungs, the pectoralis major muscle grows closed along the point of attachment, and finally the skin is perfectly covered - smooth, white, healthy, as if nothing had ever happened to a body lying before Bai Liu, the chest cavity rising and falling slightly.

Its eyelashes tremble slightly.

"Let's get out." After Bai Liu assembles Tavel, Liu Jiayi takes several precautionary steps back, "It's going to wake up and it's going to affect us more."

The group exited the room again as they had come, trained to do so, and thoughtfully closed the door behind them, leaving space for Bai Liu and the soon-to-be awakened Tavel.

Bai Liu leaned back on the broken frame of the glass cabinet and opened the system panel in a rare moment, after paying for the mute service on his small TV, he turned his head to look Tavel straight in the face and started by talking to himself.

"I know you're awake, Xie Ta ."

Tavel's eyelashes fluttered twice more, but still did not open.

With his arms braced on either side of Tavel, Bai Liu simply crouched down closer to Tavel, his eyes still not far from Tavel's face, and the two got closer and closer to the point where they were almost nose-to-nose.

"You can even pretend like that, can't you?" Bai Liu placed one hand on the back of Tavel's neck, lifting it slightly while dropping his eyes to Tavel's lustreless, pale lips - a gesture to kiss them.

"Pretend again and I'll have to do something even worse to you." Bai Liu whispered.

The second before he was about to kiss, Tavel finally raised his hand to cover Bai Liu's approaching lips and he raised his eyes very shallowly, the familiar silvery blue eyes of Bai Liu reappearing before him, and he asked Bai Liu back with a very light expression, "Didn't you ask me to do this to you when we first reunited? "

"Is this thing too much?" Tavel sat up straight and moved closer to Bai Liu.

Bai Liu instantly distanced himself from Tavel and turned his face to the side, taking two deep breaths before turning back to question Tavel with a sense of calm: "You do remember me, so what did you pretend to be when you first met me?"

At the thought of him asking Xie Ta to kiss him as soon as they met - Bai Liu calmly pinched his palm, maintaining an unmoved shell of shamelessness.

Is there anything more awkward in this world than not remembering your best friend and then squeezing them to smooch you like you're drunk when you meet them?

There, that is, you have just put together a fully naked him.

Bai Liu tries his best to keep his eyes on Tavel's face.

Tavel looked up at him as if he didn't think he'd done anything wrong, "You didn't remember me, so I politely introduced myself and we got reacquainted."

"Then why did you pretend you weren't awake?" Bai Liu pretended to inadvertently remove his protective suit to cover the lower half of Tavel's body before his tone returned to normal and he calmly pressed, "What are you so vain about?"

Tavel replied seriously, after a long silence, "I'm not sure why, but I sense that you're angry."

Bai Liu clasped his hands to his chest with a smirk and gave Tavel a sidelong glance, "Did you? I don't think so."

Tavel: "......"

"I'm sorry." Tavel apologised quickly.

Bai Liu was just about to say I'm really not angry, you don't have to apologise, when Tavel leaned forward, embraced him and said very, very softly against his ear, "Maybe you're really angry now, it's slightly out of place, but I'm really very happy,"

"You've finally remembered me." Tavel said, "I thought you had forgotten me on purpose because you were afraid."

Bai Liu's shoulders couldn't help but slacken as he asked in a lazy whisper, "So what exactly do you have to fear from me?"

"Everything - I couldn't die, my rotting right hand and tail, bound in a church as a blood-sucking prayer symbol, my dismembered body and my disembodied heart that kept beating even after I left it." Tavel's voice had an icy, clear quality, but it fell on Bai Liu's ears as if it melted and became as soft as water, "I'm glad you're not afraid of me, even if you don't remember me."

"I've missed you."

Tavel buried his head very deeply into Bai Liu's shoulder, and he hugged him hard, his tone reverent: "Every time I wake up, you're the first person I see, and slumber isn't even scary anymore."

Bai Liu's pupils contracted slightly when Tavel said [I miss you].

His palms opened and he slowly placed his hands on Tavel's shoulders, hugging him back very gently.

Bai Liu is not used to such intimate gestures, but Xie Ta is an exception. They have slept together for a long time, so familiar that they are indistinguishable from each other, two monsters who do not fit the definition of human beings surviving in this world disguised as human beings by that little emotional connection they have with each other.

But it's been too long since they last knew each other clearly, ten years since Bai Liu lost all his memories, and an untold number of cycles of unstoppable torture for Tavel.

After leaving each other, they were irrevocably alienated by these [long] distances apart, and they never recovered the familiarity they felt then.

These [long ages] are so deadly, even more terrible than distance, time, life and death, so terrible that from then on, each time they meet again they are even stranger than the first time they met.

One party doesn't remember, one party condones the other's lack of memory, leaving each other strangers - if the memories of Xie Ta's "death" are horrific for Bai Liu, Tavel would like to be the only one to remember forever.

Even if he had to start all over again every time they reunited, he didn't feel anything.

But the moment Bai Liu saw Xie Ta's silvery-blue eyes, the past was like a bird returning to its cage, landing on Tavel's shoulder and cooing, the old friend Bai Liu had finally pieced back together resting on his heart with that cold, all-too-familiar warmth of Bai Liu's body.

The next moment Bai Liu appeared before him, Xie Ta gazed at him in motionless silence, the sudden appearance of Bai Liu, his silver-blue eyes spilling moonlight.

The look was extremely light and airy, extremely beautiful and incredible, like a god seeing another god descend.

--And that was the look Tavel gave him just now.

Bai Liu's lips parted and his voice was so soft it was almost breathy.

"I ...... miss you too."

Bai Liu closed his eyes as he let himself drown in the rose scent of this guy that was about to dazzle him, and took the other man's hand in his own, but with a distinct smile in his voice.

"I've been thinking about you since the moment I thought of you."