Chapter 216: The Rose Factory

Someone was forcing Bai Liu to do to Tavel what the investors, the factory manager, had done to him, and then forcing him to be the person he was supposed to be.

Bai Liu didn't even want to do it, but he didn't have no choice, he just needed to take a gamble.

But this approach Tavel would certainly not allow.

Bai Liu quickly bowed his head the moment he thought of this solution.

Tavel knew him too well, Bai Liu could hardly hide his thoughts in front of this guy, could only narrow his brow and pretend to be thinking, then give the answer: "...... antidote it, I have no other choice, I have already made a deal with others. "

"Then only my blood will be needed." Tavel held out his hand and a thorny, tiny, blood-linged vine threaded its way through the green veins beneath his pale wrist, the bright red blood instantly tilting down around the sides of his wrist.

The vines greedily encircled the path where the blood had flowed and began to grow with abandon, spreading inward in bundles over Tavel's arm, sharp black thorns piercing the porcelain white skin and soon more blood was pouring out of the hole-like wound.

Tavel's face paled rapidly as the vines wrapped around him, and his breathing rhythm began to slow from the loss of blood, which dripped from his fingertips as he held Bai Liu.

"I ...... need a container for the blood." Tavel said haltingly, his eyelids half closed, "like a baptismal font."

Bai Liu's eyes glance around the room and settle on a glass display case with an opening across the top.

Tavel consciously slid into the replacement glass cabinet the factory workers had prepared for his heart - which had just been pulled out when Bai Liu and the others burst in, still intact, unbroken, and about as long as Tavel was tall enough for him to lie in.

The blood that seeped out silently soon soaked the backs of Tavel's hands on either side of the glass case.

--The scene is exactly the same as when Xie Ta was lying in the baptismal font in church.

Bai Liu subconsciously turned his face away and stood up to turn his back on the scene.

His breathing accelerated involuntarily, his hands kept releasing and gathering, and he kept getting closer to Tavel, the aroma of which caused his mental energy to drop slowly to the point where he was now at the threshold of hallucination.

Many mixed voices began to appear in his head.

[- He's in pain! Can't you see he's in pain! Are you a monster! Have you no feelings! Stop it!

[Do you know how much pain he's in! Why are you torturing him! Can someone like you have someone who matters most!

[Are you incapable of empathising with people?

[He really is a monster, isn't he?

[Bai Liu, your mental state is not right, go see a psychiatrist ......]

[...... severe traumatic stress syndrome, subconsciously repeating the stereotypical actions of the moment when encountering a traumatic scene ......]

[Bai six why are you afraid of the water, you're not afraid of the water at all, you're afraid of seeing the body in the water, do you remember who he is?!

[Really Xie Ta has died for you!

[...... Some people with PTSD who are not experiencing the hurt themselves, but are more empathic, will keep imagining the scene and simulate themselves suffering the hurt in the person's place to alleviate the guilt ......]

[If only I were the one being tortured, the one hurting, the one dying ...... If only I could replace Su Yang ......]

Everything started to go haywire in Bai Liu's head.

Looking through the narrow slit behind the curtain, Xie Ta, constantly submerged in the baptismal pool, drops of blood from the hair that hangs down the sides of his face.

From beginning to end, Bai Liu's original childhood fantasies were always Xie Ta - being called a monster by children, being rejected and badly punished by teachers, being baptized and locked up alone in church, being drowned over and over again in the baptismal font, not being able to escape from that orphanage, all of them were Xie Ta. Xie Ta.

Not Bai six, not Bai Liu, but Xie Ta.

And in Bai Liu's old, lost memories, why is the person who experienced this replaced with himself?

Bai Liu's breath caught and a tingling sensation began to appear on his skin as if some vine had burrowed through it.

He covered his neck, the veins of his neck a kind of vine piercing sharp pain that made him frown - but there was actually nothing there.

Tavel's neck was pierced by a finger-thick vine, and his breathing faded, his long hair suspended in the blood, tangled with the vine.

Bai Liu began to feel unsteady on his feet, as if every bone in his body was sprouting spikes, and every time he breathed he felt a sharp pain as his muscles contracted and were cut open, making him unsteady in his movements and almost dizzy on his knees.

But in fact there is nothing in Bai Liu's body, it is just an illusion, a real and excessive illusion.

These illusions created by Bai Liu's subconscious mind are causing him and Tavel to experience the same thing.

Tavel's voice came from behind him, "Are you leaving?"

"What are you going to do?"

Tavel's calming voice calms Bai Liu.

Bai Liu held onto a rickety cooling pipe and took two deep breaths, allowing his muddled brain to maintain a basic level of thought, before replying to Tavel: "Go tell the people outside that I found [the antidote]."

"Lying." Tavel said, "Bai Liu, you never dare to look me in the face when you lie."

His tone was as gentle as when he first saw Bai Liu in church: "Would you like to tell me what you're leaving me to do?"

-- [Would you like to read a book with me?

Like a malfunctioning robot, Bai Liu's body was manipulated by some consciousness he didn't know existed, and he turned around in a jerky manner to see Tavel sitting up in the pool of blood.

--covered in thorns, but still focused, not looking at him with eyes, covered in pin-hole wounds, with that very light smile on his face.

Bai Liu's pupils constricted slightly before spreading again.

...... The body of Xie Ta, covered in pinholes next to the pond, and an exhausted Bai Liu kneeling next to him, not having performed CPR for who knows how long.

Bai six's eyes went limp with disorientation, then he leaned in close to the body, clenched his hand into a fist against Xie Ta's heartless chest and gently opened and closed it, murmuring softly, mimicking the sound of a heartbeat.

"Bang bang - bang bang - bang bang -"

"Doesn't it make your heart beat faster? Why is it not even skipping a beat now ......"

"Dance for me ......"

The words of the lame psychiatrist who had seen Bai Liu several times because it was free rang in his ears intermittently.

[...... By your friend's words, you are severely ptsd, sort of a visual scar type, and need to self-regulate ......]

[But your personality is so extreme that if you were to encounter a similar scenario next time, the reaction would be overwhelming - you would do everything in your power to prevent it from happening again in front of you, even substituting yourself for the other person possibly ......]

"What are you going to do, Bai Liu ?" Tavel lifted his silvery blue eyes to look at him.

Bai Liu's fingers, dangling at his side, twitched and summoned a deck of cards - the playing cards of Hearts A.

He opened his mouth and finally spoke, "I'm going to look for a mirror."

[Liu Jiayi, can this Hearts A do a complete transformation of a person into another person? Including blood and stuff?

[Why are you asking this? If you can find the presence of the one who is another person altogether in your heart and get close to the other person, a skill card like blood composition for this basic transformation is doable.]

[What about some of the characteristics? Like the rate of blood regeneration and tolerance to death?

[== What the hell is this? Who are you going to turn into? Who has the most important person in their heart looking like this? Blood regeneration, death tolerance, sounds...]

[- It's like a monster.]

"What's the point of looking for a mirror?" Tavel asked.

"Let me see myself." Bai Liu says.

[Yes, who has the most important person in their heart to be such a monster~]

[Wow, Bai Liu you have such a disgusting look on your face, you just laughed so strangely!

"Why do you want to see yourself?" Tavel asked.

Bai Liu dropped his neck and looked down calmly at himself in the reflection of the puddles on the ground, still dazzled by the ripples of those roses like the surface of a former summer puddle, reflected in his pupils, his face devoid of emotion.

There was a long, long silence while the heart in the centre of the Hearts A playing card he held in his hand spun rapidly.

The person in Tao's heart soon changed from Su Yang to another person.

Bai Liu's hair lengthens, his limbs become as powerful and perfect as if sculpted, his body is covered with pinholes, his neck is pierced with thorns, his body is bathed in blood, his long silver-blue eyelashes fall, light pink rose liquid mixed with blood drips from his jaws, his eyelashes, his curly hair curls at the back of his waist.

"Because this time ...... I want to be the monster being tortured." Bai Liu said.