Chapter 295: The Dense Forest Frontier

Alex's screams faded, and one by one the bloodstained soldiers emerged from the tent, shaking the stains from their hands and leaving.

Bai Liu looks down at his watch and waits another fifteen minutes before walking outside Guy's tent and lifting the curtain to enter.

Tang Erda waited outside with a complicated look on her face: "I won't go in, Alex is probably not in a good state of mind."

"...... You call me if you need anything." Tang Erda still couldn't resist calling out to Bai Liu, "Will you continue to use Alex again?"

Bai Liu paused in his movement to open the curtain, smiling as he tilted his head and replied naturally, "Yes, why?"

Tang Erda pursed his lips as he clenched his fists as if to say something, but in the end he didn't, shaking his head, "...... nothing."

Bai Liu, as a player, wants to win and it is only natural for him to use the in-game NPCs to achieve his own goals.

But why does he feel so uneasy ......

Bai Liu patted Tang Erda on the shoulder and gently inquired, "If you are uncomfortable with the way I am using Alex, I can take care of his mood and do it differently."

Tang Erda wanted to say that he didn't mind, but when he met Bai Liu's dark eyes, which didn't even contain a smile, he said, "What way?"

"Quite a good way to use it." Bai Liu smiles lightly, "You'll like it."

--because he used this same approach with Tang Erda.

Bai Liu opened the curtain and walked in.

In the middle of the tent, covered in blood, sat Alex, motionless, his head hanging as if it were about to fall off his neck, his hands on either side of the wheelchair covered in blood, dripping down his fingertips, and at his feet lay Guy's unopened head.

The bed at the far end was a bloody mess, the snow-white sheets stained red, limbs laying in disarray, guts dripping from the abdominal cavity, a pile of people, like lambs that had been chopped up and not yet collected.

In the heat and humidity of the rainy season, Guy was dead for such a short time that flies were already picking at the body.

Bai Liu stood in front of Alex, but Alex continued to keep his head down as if he felt everything, his eyes completely disoriented, as if he could no longer respond to anything outside.

But Bai Liu got Alex's head up with just one sentence.

"You guessed it, didn't you?" Bai Liu said, "I arranged for Guy to die this way."

Alex raised his head slowly, his voice hoarse as a whisper, "...... Why?"

"I'm sure you'd have guessed that, or you wouldn't have come to Red Cross to guard Guy." Bai Liu's eyes dropped and he looked down at Alex as if in pity, "Because Guy wanted to die like this."

"He wanted to apologise to the teammates he killed in such a way that he blew them up piece by piece and so wanted to die like that himself."

Alex's face was streaked with dried tears, and his eyes, long red and astringent from crying, overflowed with tears again.

He looked down and covered his face, choking back a sob: " Guy ......"

After crying for a while, Alex looked up calmly again, his eyes filled with disgust and a kind of awe that could not be hidden: " Guy wanted to die to atone for his sins, you must not want him dead for such a simple reason, right?"

[System Alert: npc Alex's favorability towards player Bai Liu is dropping ......]

As if he hadn't heard the prompting, Bai Liu returned Alex's words calmly: "Yes, I made it all happen for my own purposes."

Alex arched his back and half rose from his wheelchair, hissing angrily, "- you induced Guy's death, you let me see this on purpose, you've been using us from the start!"

"You vile liar and nasty manipulator!" Alex huffed and puffed, his eyes covered in hatred and blood, "- you are far more evil than that non-existent god."

His tears flowed uncontrollably, as if he was murmuring a memory: "...... Guy trusted you so much that you took his bouquet and had your wedding in his presence."

"...... People like you don't deserve any pure feelings in this world."

Alex cursed viciously, "If Spades ever finds out who you really are, he'll leave you!"

Bai Liu's fingers, hanging at his side, closed slightly, though his expression remained calm and even brought out a little placid smile, "That's nothing new to me."

Alex ranted and raved for more than half an hour, repeating the same words over and over again. The well-born medical student seemed to be a bit of a curser, and instead broke down in tears, grabbing Bai Liu by the hem of his shirt and questioning him.

"Why did you let him die, why did he have to die!!!"

"Wasn't even my existence worth putting aside his guilt and hatred and starting over!"

Alex was shaking with tears as he looked at his empty palms to stop the tears: "...... There's nothing left for me, nothing."

Bai Liu turned his eyes to the pile on the bed, "And he left you his own body."

Alex shuddered, unable to control his contorted expression, and looked up at Bai Liu in horror.

But Alex quickly calmed down and pushed his wheelchair back a few steps: "I'm not going to use this on him, Guy will always be Guy, he's a person, even if he dies, I'm not going to turn him into a soulless monster."

Bai Liu laughed softly, "Why not? What's the difference between the Guy who comes back to life and the Guy you love?"

"They're not even the same thing!!!" Like Alex had finally caught on to Bai Liu's madness, he kept raising his voice as if that would suppress the eerie back-breaking feeling of dread, "- corpses with that drug, just corpses, only flesh and veins, only movement, they're nothing. "

"They're just soulless monsters!"

Tang Erda, who was outside the door, frowned and listened to the wall, Alex's emotions so stirring that he wondered if this Bai Liu guy was really using a supposedly gentler approach.

Someone tapped Tang Erda on the shoulder and he looked back, wide-eyed with surprise.

Spades stood in front of Tang Erda without a trace of emotion on his face, he stared straight at the tent for a moment but did not go inside, turned his head and asked Tang Erda: "Is it not possible for a man to love a soulless monster?"

Tang Erda was stunned by this abrupt question.

Bai Liu nodded and gestured for Alex to continue, "So?"

Alex looked at Bai Liu incredulously: "Could you fall in love with a soulless vessel?"

There is a long silence, and the only sound that can be heard is Bai Liu's calm, slow breathing - he seems to be thinking.

Spades stands upright outside the tent, his lips pursed and his fists clenched, looking as if he's about to rush in and demand answers from Bai Liu and then beat Alex up.

Bai Liu finally spoke up, "I don't know."

This surprised even Tang Erda; no Bai Liu he remembered would have given such an ambiguous answer before negotiating and exploiting the object.

Tang Erda relaxed for some reason -

-- Bai Liu didn't do this purely to take advantage of Alex and Guy.

Bai Liu has just answered Alex's question in a serious way and he did not give the answer in a completely profit-oriented way.

He is not the same as Bai six.

Tang Erda breathes a long sigh of relief.

A faint depression surfaced on Spades' expressionless face as he kicked the gun that lay across the tent doorway and asked coldly, "Why didn't he know?"

Tang Erda went to pick up the gun with a head full of questions, "Go in and ask Bai Liu, how do I know why he doesn't know."

Spades, with a grimace, stepped forward and approached the tent, walked back and forth twice, but did not enter, and then stepped back and crouched down next to Tang Erda, poking his fingers in the dirt in two neat rows, wondering what he was thinking.

Tang Erda looked confused: "Why don't you go in?"

Spades crouches on his knees, his feet stomping forward and backward, his body swaying back and forth, like a small child crouching on the ground dazed after being abandoned by his friends.

Tang Erda asked him, and Spades just gave a faint hm and said, "I don't know."

Spades stared straight at the pit in the ground and replied to Tang Erda while poking hard, his tone a little muffled, "...... don't want to see Bai Liu for now, he doesn't even know that."

Tang Erda followed Spades' line of sight and was stunned for a moment, unable to help but sigh in amusement.

The potholes poked by Spades twist and turn to form two words - Bai Liu.

They say they don't want to see it, but they still do.

Alex inside is also puzzled by Bai Liu's answer: "...... doesn't know?"

"I can't say I'm completely unaware of it." Bai Liu's voice was flat, "It's just that it's hard to tell if you're missing the feelings you once held for him in this shell, or if this shell is actively trying to take on that part of you that you have."

"Sometimes I think he's a memento left to me by the gods in mercy."

Bai Liu was quiet for a long time before speaking again, "Sometimes I think he's the monster I love again."

"It's not that he doesn't have a soul, it's just that it's hidden underneath his shell, and I'll have to wait until the day the soul comes out to meet me again."

Alex looked at Bai Liu incredulously, he begrudgingly joked, "...... you say that like, you've been through the same thing as me ......"

Bai Liu looked straight at Alex: "I did experience it."

"So I can tell you that two people who love each other can perhaps be separated by death." Bai Liu's gaze drops to Guy's head at Alex's feet, calm and distant, "but two monsters in love can't."

The curtain of the tent is jerked open and Bai Liu moves his eyes over to see Spades standing in the doorway with the light at his back, his chest heaving slightly as he stares at Bai Liu motionlessly.

Bai Liu acted as if she knew he was out there and was not surprised to see him barge in, asking flatly, "Back? Why didn't I see you before?"

"Well." Spades paused for a moment and explained, "It's not pretty with all the mud on me, so I'll go wash up and come back to you."