Chapter 246: The Ice Age

Real World 8pm, Heresy Authority.

The uniformed team members methodically loaded each 40cm*40cm box onto the transport truck, while Su Yang stood by with his gun at attention, not daring to be distracted.

They're putting these Extraordinary Red Heretics on a plane tonight and transporting them to Zone 3 to be closely guarded.

It was a routine and dangerous transport, but the presence of a particular heretic made it a particularly thrilling one.

Su Yang moves his eyes to the end of the transport queue.

The boxes, which were of a darker shade of metal than the others and looked significantly heavier, were carefully carried by several members of the team, who were bent over by the pressure on their hands.

Su Yang stepped forward to help give a hand and asked, "Sure this batch of body parts we dug out of the land outside the Rose Factory are all together?"

The team member had time to catch his breath and replied, "Team Su, we've done the count, we're all here."

Su Yang nodded, not taking it lightly, and advised, "This batch of corpses is not the same level of danger as the other heretics and cannot be put on the same vehicle or plane.

The team members carefully put the boxes onto the transfer truck, turned their heads and leaned against the side of the truck to catch their breath, and looked at Su Yang who was at the end of Team Xiang Wu again: "...... Team Su is so careful this time, they even applied for a special transfer line for this batch of corpses."

The team member next to him, who was also taking a break, said, "You don't know how powerful this batch of corpse heretics are, the team members who went to the factory that day to dig up the corpse blocks all came back crazy and are still undergoing mental descending training, I don't know if they can recover from it."

The player rubbed his hands together in staggering disbelief, "Is ...... so terrible?"

The team member next to him rolled his eyes, "Why else do you think Team Su is splitting this corpse up specifically? If this thing has some kind of bonus effect on the other heretics, boom, a plane full of people will be destroyed!"

"But it's just not safe to escort this heretic's plane if it's released alone, is it?" The team member asked worriedly.

"Of course it's not safe, but at least we don't have to have so many escorts, and how often is it safe in our line of work?" The team member next to him shook his head mockingly.

"Originally it was said that Captain Su was going to escort him himself, but with Team Tang gone, there couldn't be no one in charge of the three detachments and the bureau forced him to hold him."

When the subject of "Team Tang is gone" came up, both players were uncharacteristically quiet.

...... When Tang Erda was still around, such dangerous things were not their turn.

Tang Erda will take care of everything before danger strikes, taking all the risks alone, and although the Heretic's Bureau is a precarious place, with Tang Erda they can always hide from the storm under this protective umbrella.

But this umbrella has finally left.

The team member reluctantly changed the subject, "...... Team Su separately requested a transfer vehicle and transfer plane for this heretic I can understand, but also made a separate route?"

It's not that the Heretic Authority has never escorted an extraordinarily dangerous heretic before, such as Bai Liu, but it has only done so on its own, and this is indeed the first time that a separate route has been planned.

"And it's not on a normal route, I've just had a look and the landing point is on the Antarctic side, right? Isn't this ......" the team member tried to find a suitable description, "...... too big a deal? Why are we shipping this heretic to the South Pole?"

After this team member next to them looked around to make sure no one was looking at them, he approached this team member and lowered his voice and said, " The Team Su application said that they could not put this heresy in Zone 3 for safekeeping or near a zone with a resident population, something would go wrong, this heresy had too much influence and people could easily die."

"Finally the Bureau reported Team Su's application and it was delayed until yesterday before it came down for approval, saying that the polar research station was contacted and it was finally decided to make an ice core of this heresy and sink it under the ice cap in Antarctica to house it, and that people from Zone 3 were sent over to the holding site to guard the holding site for 365 days without interruption."

This member of the team exclaimed, "This is really ......365 manned for 365 days, and this is the first heretic to have this row."

"Who said it was the first one?" The next player deflated, "Have you forgotten Bai Liu? Our Team Tang captain doesn't even do that anymore, it's all about guarding."

The team member had a hard time hearing that Team Tang was gone and forced the conversation back around, "Eh, the Antarctic is so big, does it say where to seal the heretic?"

The team member next to me wrinkled his brow and recalled for a long time, "...... I didn't hear it either, it said it was like, what with the Ice Dome A area, the highest point on the Antarctic ice cap, high enough and thick enough to hold down this heresy ......"

11.30 pm, out to sea port.

The heretics carrying another batch of heretics went straight to the airport, while the heretics transfer vehicle with the body parts arrived at the port of departure and was divided up and loaded onto a small cargo ship.

The freighter was to be transferred first to another port, where a special plane was waiting to escort the heretics to the South Pole.

There were five escorts in total - the minimum number Su Yang had weighed up.

Watching the boxes being parceled and consigned to the freighter, the gangway being stowed on the vessel, the sturdy little freighter being towed into the water by a tug and gradually sailing away from the harbour under the cover of night, the five escorts standing on the hatch cover saluted Su Yang standing on the shore and waved away.

Su Yang watched in awe as the five players left her sight, waving her hand, the unease in her heart growing thicker as the watery mist increased.

The moment the boat disappeared from his view, Su Yang was so flustered he could hardly breathe.

It was as if he saw before his eyes the snow-covered bodies of the five members of his team just now.

In the aftermath of the Rose perfume and the exhumation of the bodies at the factory, Su Yang herself showed signs of a certain mental descent and would occasionally see hallucinations.

It is because Su Yang has been through this himself that he understands better than anyone the dangers of the body parts.

The moment he saw the body parts for the first time, Su Yang, a man who had always been a firm and peaceful person, had an unprecedented level of inner turmoil, and if he hadn't held on to his sanity and collected the body parts, the other members of the team digging them up might have fought over them.

--These corpses can catalyse a spiritual downgrade, or to describe the process as a spiritual downgrade would be an understatement; to be more precise, these corpses can catalyse an infinite amplification of one's negative desires to the point of destroying the bottom line of humanity.

Having realised this, Su Yang forcefully demanded that the conservative location of the corpse be changed - the thing must not be placed in a crowded garrison, something terrible, even more terrible than rose perfume, must happen.

In the end, it was decided to place the body at the bottom of Ice Dome A - the coldest part of the Antarctic, known as the inaccessible pole, 4,083 metres above sea level and never before visited by human beings.

--It was the safest place Su Yang could think of.

But he also knows that ......

Su Yang's light-coloured eyes reflected the swaying waves of the sea, heavy emotions squeezed his chest, piling up layer by layer from the lapping harbour to his heart as he closed his eyes, feeling a long-awaited pang of powerlessness.

...... He knows beyond doubt that there is no promised land in this world where one can escape one's desires.

He just hoped that no more innocent people would die in the process.

But how is that possible?

Human desire, whether good or bad, is such a hurtful thing when taken to its extremes.

After Tang Erda left, Su Yang understood a little what Bai Liu had said to him in the interrogation room that day.

The clean, fresh-looking young man looked up, gazed at him with black eyes that seemed to hold everything in the universe, and said softly, "Team Su, the desire to be too close and protective can kill you.

Su Yang gripped the solid octopus-shaped team crest on his right chest and, with what appeared to be a sigh, turned away in the icy night air.

The small cargo ship behind them sounded the clear whistle of departure and headed off into the deeper, darker night.

--------

Game pool.

Bai Liu and his team squatted the Spades team a few times and finally figured out a little bit of the team's routine - usually they would go to a certain subgroup regularly.

Occasionally, however, Spades will break away from the group and go off on his own to work on one of the ice fields - like Bai Liu did last time he entered the game pool.

He seemed to harbour a particular affection for this copy of the ice field, as if one were attached to one's dwelling and bed, returning to this copy with a biological rhythm of resting.

--It's as if the Spades have made this copy of the ice field their home.

Bai Liu's target is this copy of the ice field.

He was not so insolent as to think that the Wandering Circus could single-handedly take on the entire Killer Sequence battle group to begin with.

But with no lives at stake, Bai Liu felt they could have tried to team up and solo a star player.

This is something that has more advantages than disadvantages.

You can get information about the star player, polish your team and, if you get lucky and actually win against a star player, you can make enough buzz off it.

Shameless, but useful.

Bai Liu decided to test the waters with Spades first, out of some peculiar sense of inquisitiveness. He kept a firm eye on the players coming and going from the pool, and couldn't help but tickle the corners of his mouth when he saw someone appear quietly who had scared off a circle of players around him.

Spades walks over to the game pool holding the whip that organises the regulation bundle.

After the players around them realised it was him, they held their breath and backed away, not even daring to enter the game for fear of unfortunately picking the same game as this god of evil.

But Spades doesn't seem to be paying much attention to his surroundings. After a few moments of quiet observation of the rapidly rotating posters in the pool, he simply selects one and dives in.

At that very moment, Bai Liu wasted no time in hooking the whip around Spades' waist, pulling a long line of players behind him into the game.

Spades gave him a faint glance back, a glance as cold as water under ice and quickly swallowed up by the pool of play.

By the time the game pool subsided, the circle of players next to them were too stunned by the scene that had just dragged their families to their deaths to go up to the front of the game pool for a long time.

It took a long time before someone asked arduously, "What the hell is ...... doing here?"

--------

Snow and ice cover the sky and the wind howls.

Bai Liu chokes and coughs as he comes to his senses, subconsciously curling up from the excessively cold temperature and freezing to the point where his epidermis is numb to the point of unconsciousness in a matter of minutes.

It was not until a voice came from behind her that Bai Liu realised she was not on the ground but in someone's arms.

"You shouldn't have come into this game with me." Spades wrapped his arms around Bai Liu, who had fallen on top of him, and the shiver of Bai Liu's skin under his hand made him conclude flatly, "You're scared of the cold."

Bai Liu just turned around.

Spades is so close to him that Bai Liu can turn his head and touch the tip of the man's nose.

This caused Bai Liu's breath to halt for a moment before he subconsciously pulled away.

Spades doesn't see any problem with this close proximity, he stands up naturally and picks up Bai Liu who has fallen on top of him, he expertly pulls his jumper off the wall and zips it up and hands Bai Liu one.

Once fully armed, Spades opened the door and walked out.

Bai Liu took the punching bag with narrowed eyes, "Aren't you going to ask why I came in with you?"

He had a number of reasons to deal with the other side, such as rubbing the first star player's nose in the heat or something.

Spades pushed open the door and turned back in the powerful wind and snow that was coming at him. The wind blew his hair wildly from his forehead, but underneath his hair his eyes were as pure black and emotionless as Bai Liu's.

"Didn't you come in here with me to play games with me and win over me?"

Bai Liu.

Spades pulled down his goggles and stepped out of the room, his voice strangely audible in the blizzard.

"Don't lie to me or yourself for any other reason, if you want to play a game with me, then play it well and then do your best to win me, Bai Liu."