Chapter 281: The Borderlands of the Dense Forest

Bai Liu looks at his pop-up system panel, and after a brief drop in Alex's favorability rating, it rises again, and he realizes that things are taken care of on Tang Erda's end.

Now he is in his own converted town hotel dormitory, a small room hard-packed with bunk beds for dozens of recruits - the best room available.

But the good news is that all these people are now out, except for Spades, who is sitting next to Bai Liu, and Guy, who is sitting opposite him.

Guy propped himself up on the bed with an open hand, noticing Bai Liu's glancing eyes, and smiled kindly, "Not used to it, are you? This is the best we can do here."

"But tonight you'll probably have the room to yourselves, and have a pleasant time for two." Guy winked, "These new guys will be partying all night in the town's taverns and brothels."

"After all, they don't know if they're going to come back from the raid alive, and they're going to have to indulge once in a while with the advance pay they've been given."

Bai Liu looks at Guy: "You'll be there, won't you?"

Guy shrugged his shoulders, "Everyone from Assault One will be there, normally Alex doesn't allow me to go to these parties, but this is an exception I think."

He smiled indifferently, "After all, you have to give a severed head before you die."

Bai Liu speculated on Alex's approach: "Alex will come with you, right?"

"Of course!" Guy seemed helplessly constrained, but his smile was full of happiness, "He wouldn't be comfortable with me going alone."

Knowing that Alex, a mainline NPC, would be there, Bai Liu immediately asked, "Can we come with you?"

Guy looked up with a slight surprise and leaned forward to take Bai Liu's hand: "Of course! I thought you wouldn't like this kind of occasion."

Spades, sitting on the sidelines, slowly moves down to Bai Liu's hand holding Guy, pauses for a moment, then looks away, drops his eyes to his toes and grinds them.

Guy, oblivious to Spades' stare, continued excitedly, "I've got a show for Alex tonight, and it would be great if you could come as friends!"

Realising that this could be a hidden plot, Bai Liu smiled and asked, "How can I help you?"

"God, you've hit the nail on the head, Bai Liu!" Guy was distressed and delighted, "I was so worried that no one could help me, it's a big show and I'm doing it without Alex, the guys I know don't keep secrets, I have to do it on my own."

"It would be great if you and Spades would come and help."

Bai Liu smiles and says, "Of course."

Guy stood up with gusto, "I'll get the list now then, there's a lot of stuff to prepare for this show."

By the time Guy leaves, Bai Liu's smile is restrained and Spades sits in silence, still separated by a distance of 50 centimetres, no less.

Since leaving the camp, Bai Liu has kept this distance from Spades and has not said another word to him.

Bai Liu spoke to Alex, spoke to Tang Erda, spoke to Guy a lot and shook hands.

But just don't talk to Spades.

"Are you deliberately not talking to me?" Spades asked, eyes downcast.

He was the only one in the room, and although he did not look at Bai Liu, it was clear that he was talking to Bai Liu.

Bai Liu was quiet for a few seconds, he looked sideways at the door Guy had left open before he left: "Yes."

Spades looked up at him, "Are you angry that I kissed you?"

Bai Liu replied calmly, "No."

Spades is confused: "Then why don't you talk to me?"

Bai Liu turned to Spades and asked calmly in return, "Am I obliged to talk to you?"

Spades paused, then spoke again, "But we are in a special relationship and should talk more."

"That was in front of Guy, it was for the main quest, we're not anything in private." Bai Liu looked up, "I kinda hate you Spades, I've said it three times, most recently forty seven minutes ago, need I repeat it?"

Spades was silent for a moment, the whip held in his left hand dangling over the side of the bed, he shook it, and then said.

"That was forty-seven minutes ago, and I thought you didn't hate me now."

Bai Liu looked away: " Mr Spades, has anything happened in the last forty-seven minutes to make me not hate you?"

Spades looked at him, "I carried your bag."

Bai Liu said coldly, " Tang Erda carried it for me too."

Spades said seriously, "You're happier when I help you carry it."

"I saw you look at me and smile a couple of times."

Bai Liu: "......"

Bai Liu calmly retorted, "I didn't."

Spades repeats more seriously, "You have, you're behind me ......"

"- that's enough, shut up." Bai Liu interrupts Spades, taking a deep breath his face emotionless as he looks away, his fingers gripping the edge of the bed tightening slightly, "That wasn't a smile at you, it was at Tang Erda."

Spades' shaking whip stopped for a moment and he oh-so-slightly stopped talking again.

"We have a special relationship in front of Guy, but not in private, do we?" Spades asked again after a short interval.

Bai Liu's eyes were half closed and he didn't look back.

Guy returned with several large boxes of stuff, a long pole in his crevice and a notepad in his mouth; there was so much stuff that Guy was blocked from entering the door.

Bai Liu stood up to help and Spades also helped with the box.

Guy collapsed backwards onto the bed, panting, "God, this stuff is so much more tiring than war."

"What's all this stuff?" Bai Liu asked.

Guy sat up and smiled mysteriously at Bai Liu, "Something to make that little bastard Alex smile at me all day, although of course, usually Alex always smiles at me too."

"You know, when you like someone, you can't help but smile at them." Guy squinted at Bai Liu, "Like you did with Spades."

Bai Liu's face was strained.

Spades, who was packing his suitcase, slowly straightened up and looked at Bai Liu with a good eye, not saying a word, but Bai Liu could read in the guy's unmoving eyes the imperious [you're just smiling at me].

Bai Liu calmly explains, "No, I was smiling at Tang Erda."

"Oh come on!" Guy waved his hand and lay back down, "You're okay with fooling people, look at Spades with that look and smile, it's exactly the same as when I was just with Alex."

"What a wonderful hot period of love." Guy sighs as he lies in bed.

Spades nods rather approvingly.

Bai Liu gave Spades a slow, deliberate look, and Spades paused in his nodding before saying, quite unrequitedly, "You're just smiling at me."

"You didn't smile at Tang Erda." He added emphatically, "You said it wrong."

Bai Liu smiled nonchalantly as he lifted his eyes, "I was wrong, so what?"

"I'll smile at you this time, I can stop smiling at you next time, I can always smile at Tang Erda, after all ......" Bai Liu smiled very kindly as he leaned close to Spades and whispered in his ear, " Guy I can smile at whoever and for as long as I want without him."

"It's nothing to do with you."

With that, Bai Liu turned to Guy and combed through the list.

Spades's original high spirits slowly fell back as he slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down and sorting through the contents of the box Guy had brought back, as if in deep thought and a little confused as to why he was so depressed and confused.

Guy pulled out the list of items, one by one, and noticing Bai Liu and Spades' little gestures, he elbowed Bai Liu and smiled, "What are you and Spades up to?"

"No fling is as shocking as this show you had with Alex earlier." Bai Liu digressed nonchalantly as he scanned the list of things to prepare and looked up at Guy, "You and he have a great relationship."

Guy rested his jaw, his eyes wistful, a light smile at the corners of his mouth, "It wasn't always good, he and I had our fights."

He recalled quietly for a moment and said abruptly, " Alex had a fiancée back home."

Bai Liu shows his surprise at the right time.

"What's that look?" Guy raised an eyebrow, "I don't do the cutthroat thing, when Alex and I got together he didn't have a fiancée, his parents picked one out for him later and Alex wrote back as soon as he received a picture of his fiancée from them."

"But you know what? I think I might be sick in the head."

Guy smiled lost in thought, "I even tried for a moment at that point to stop Alex from saying no back, but it wasn't fair to the little girl, and Alex felt the same way."

Bai Liu listens quietly.

" Alex was a very good medical student, he made quite a few achievements while he was at university, inventing a potion that could preserve a person's dying body, which could prolong the time before they died and save more people who were going to die - that's why he came to be a clean-up soldier, he wanted to see if he could help to these soldiers."

Guy recalls, "That little girl, Alex's fiancée was a small-town girl who adored him, and even though Alex wrote her and told her he had a lover, she was determined to wait for Alex to come back, saying even if you give up on me, you have to come back in person, alive to give up on me."

"- I don't accept it as disrespectful to write back to my love from a person who is Buming in life and death."

Guy laughs: "That was a very nice little girl who knew I was male but would even provoke me to say hello in her letters, condescendingly asking us to go back alive to give her love a perfect ending."

He dropped his head softly and stroked the wedding dress in his arms that he had taken out of the box.

"Being a cunning man, I didn't tell Alex that I had been selected for the raid, but I wrote to his fiancée, in which I begged and pleaded with her if she would let me marry Alex before she did."

"What a despicable act, it would make anyone sick to hear it." Guy smiled to himself as he looked at the wedding dress, "That little girl didn't write me a word back."

"She just ...... rushed this grown man size wedding dress overnight to the front and sent it to me with the words [God bless you all with eternal happiness] sewn on it."

Guy lifted his reddened eyes and smiled softly and reluctantly, "You know Bai Liu, I'm a very lucky man, I've never met too many bad people, I've been surrounded by people who treat me well, they're so kind, decent and their souls shine through."

"But then I'm so bitter and sad." Guy's tears filled his eyes, "because every single one of them had a bad time because of the war."

"No one can be happy by war, so why does it exist at all?"

Bai Liu looks on calmly at a tearful Guy.

He said, "Because God does not want you to be happy, it has made war."

At night, the town is lit up.

The town was lit up in advance by the coming battle and everyone was drinking like they had already won a battle, with beer bubbles all over the streets.

The men of Raider I had contracted a small tavern, which the veterans had almost emptied of its shelves, and the owner was busily carrying alcohol up from the cellar below, so high that a few more sniffs of the air here would have made him slightly drunk.

Those who still don't drink under these circumstances are a bit conspicuous.

Tang Erda sat next to Alex holding a glass of wine, they were all drinking low proof wines, even Spades had a glass of sparkling wine on the table.

Only Bai Liu is carrying a glass of plain water with ice cubes.

"Are you ...... completely unable to drink?" Tang Erda looked at Bai Liu with slight surprise .

In his mind, it was unbelievable that Bai Liu could not drink because he remembered that Bai six was a drinker ......

Bai Liu looked at him slyly, "Social animals don't have the right to drink, they get headaches that explode the next day when they're working late on the computer, I'm not going to give myself a hard time over nothing."

Tang Erda: "......"

Life really does change you a lot, Bai Liu.

Spades sat by and watched Bai Liu and Tang Erda talk without saying a word. He opened his mouth to say something, but then swallowed it when he thought of Bai Liu's threatening smile and the words [I want to smile at Tang Erda all the time].

He lowered his eyes to look at the vodka in his glass.

Although Spades is not a bad drinker, nor is he the type to go crazy when he drinks, he is a very screwed up person when he is drunk and will go to the bottom of everything, and anyone who talks to him will be pissed off.

Simply put, it can turn into a barrage.

Spades was not prepared to touch alcohol for safety reasons, after all the gods had told him many times that he could easily offend people if he drank.

Although Spades doesn't know what's so terrible about offending people, he's been read to by the gods so much that Spades doesn't go out of his way to drink.

Bai Liu took a sip of ice water and watched with amusement as Tang Erda drank like water, "You're a good drinker."

Tang Erda lifted her glass with a start, "There was a time when ...... drowned my sorrows in wine, and I practiced it when I drank too much."

Bai Liu instantly realised what Tang Erda was talking about and said in an apologetic tone, "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to do with you." Tang Erda shook his head and took another half glass after a moment of silence, but he remained clear-eyed, "Not anymore, drinking less."

Bai Liu smiles: "It's good to be a big drinker, I like the fact that you're a big drinker."

Spades, sitting behind Bai Liu, straightens his back impassively.

Tang Erda helped Bai Liu to keep away many npc's who came to him for a drink by the amount of alcohol he consumed, which is why Bai Liu said this.

But Spades misunderstood the situation as he sat expressionlessly in front of Tang Erda with his whip in his hand, squeezing Bai Liu out of the way and placing a glass of wine in front of Tang Erda: "Drink?"

Tang Erda, who is lost in her memories: "????"

Tang Erda's head was full of questions as she inclined her head to look behind Spades at Bai Liu, but before she could see it, Spades' shoulders shifted and blocked Bai Liu behind him.

Spades said coldly, "Asking you for a drink, what are you looking at Bai Liu for?"

Bai Liu's calm voice came from behind Spades: "Drinking is a mistake, don't drink with him".

Before he could say anything, a couple of drunken men next to him, as if attracted by the tense atmosphere, leaned over to the bar with wide eyes and applauded, "Someone's got a vodka fight!"

"Come, come, come, boss bring out all the vodka in your hotel!"

"A wine fight before the big fight!"

In the ultimate indulgent atmosphere, the bar around Spades and Tang Erda is almost blinking with all sorts of brews, surrounded by a crowd of whistling and screaming people who are just watching the action.

Spades' face was blank as he raised his jaw at Tang Erda, "Drink?"

As a lead attacker, Tang Erda follows Bai Liu's instructions to the letter as he subconsciously looks for him in the crowd that is swarming around him.

Spades stood up and blocked Tang Erda's view as he looked levelly at her, "How long do you want to think about it?"

"He doesn't drink with you." Bai Liu stepped out of the crowd, stepping in front of Tang Erda and looking straight at Spades.

Tang Erda breathes a sigh of relief and raises her hand to signal her surrender.

Huge boos erupted from the side as the onlookers prepared to leave in disappointment.

"Me and you are the pair." Spades was relentless as he reached out and pulled Alex in from the crowd who was about to sneak away and then looked straight at Bai Liu, " Alex is here, you should be on my side, we are in a special relationship now."

Alex, who has been inexplicably dragged into the scene, covers his face and pretends he doesn't exist.

God! I'd rather be on the front line!

Bai Liu sneered, "So what if it's a special relationship, Tang Erda and I are also special, soul mates, you're just a show."

Tang Erda's spine chills with laughter at Bai Liu, and he senses that Bai Liu has been really provoked by Spades.

Tang Erda, who didn't want to get mixed up in the muddy waters, played it cool and retreated stiffly, only to be pulled by Bai Liu by the collar and slapped Tang Erda on the shoulder twice.

Spades' eyes sunken into Tang Erda's shoulder: "A special relationship can only accommodate two people."

" Bai Liu, you're wrong again."

Bai Liu smiled with unprecedented tenderness, "How could I be wrong? I am in a special relationship with him, and it's okay to terminate the special relationship with you, isn't it?"

Spades pursed his lower lip and his dark eyes hinted at some emotion.

Tang Erda: "......"

No, Bai Liu is really pissed off! He can't handle this scenario!

If only Liu Jiayi were here, he wouldn't have understood what Bai Liu and Spades were doing!

Spades seemed to realise that he couldn't talk Bai Liu out of it, so he walked right past him to stare at Tang Erda: "Are you going to drink with me?"

Bai Liu smiled kindly and friendly as he sidled up to Tang Erda: "He's my soul mate, I'm responsible for him, you're going to drink with him, there's no reason why I shouldn't see him."

He reached for the glass of vodka in Spades' hand, tilted it back and drank it down dryly before inverting the glass and setting it down smoothly on the table.

Bai Liu looked up and smiled, "Why don't you and I have a drink?"

Spades stares at Bai Liu for a moment, and after realising that Bai Liu really won't back down and will definitely take the drink for Tang Erda, he falls completely still and stands motionless, his fingers curling slightly in his grip on the whip.

Alex, held in Spades' grip, can't get away: "......"

Dude, don't take it out on my arm, you're squeezing me so hard!

Guy, help-!

While Alex thought Spades would just beat up Tang Erda, the mistress, and Bai Liu, the scumbag, Spades had a drink without hesitation.

Spades mimicked Bai Liu's movements and put down his glass, his eyes looking straight at Bai Liu: "Okay, let's compete, win, we're still special, and you have to admit that you were smiling at me before, not at Tang Erda."

Bai Liu gave an imperceptible lurch, his fingers clasping his glass, a very thin halo of wine rising under his eyelids, his voice a little lighter for some reason: "...... admit it and admit it."