Chapter 408: Pre-season

Killer Sequence Warehouse.

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu poked at Spades, who had fallen to the ground on his front, with a long sigh, looking at the ice shards staining his fingers, and said quietly, "...if this Spades guy wasn't normal, I now suspect he'd be dead stiff. "

Bai Jiamu gave him a bemused look, "Can you say something nice?"

"That's the best thing I can think of." Bai Yi held her face in her hands, her eyes downcast, "I really don't like to see dead people."

"My wife was the same way when she died, one minute she was fine, the next she was on the floor motionless."

"It's such an instantaneous thing when people are gone."

Bai Jiamu gave a pause: "Don't think about it."

"If I could bear to think about it, I wouldn't be in this game now." Bai Yi tilted her head a little, her eyes lost in thought as she murmured, "At that time, I kept thinking about what I would do after she died, but I couldn't figure it out, so I just crouched by her cemetery every day, until the old man guarding the grave drove me away."

Bai Jiamu was quiet for a while and asked, "Why didn't you go home at that time?"

"Don't want to go home." Bai Yi bowed her head, "...... think a place without her is not home, it's just a house."

"When Spades took us to win the tournament last year, each of us on the team got a wish and two of us made it, and I wanted to wish for her to come back, but Spades stopped me from doing it."

"Well." Bai Jiamu lowered his eyes, "I was stopped too, not allowed."

Bai Yi chuckled indistinctly, "...... This guy's instincts are amazingly sharp sometimes."

"Those two guys who made a wish disappeared from the world for good not long after, and I've spent a lot of time trying to find them, in reality, in the game, and no one seems to remember that they existed, or were on last year's championship team."

"Then I went to check it out separately." Bai Jiamu says, "Didn't find out anything, but was able to make a general deduction -"

"- All the people on the championship teams who had made a wish over the years have vanished into thin air together, and erased any information they had left, whether in game or in reality, and I can't even find a single tape they had left from when they played."

"It feels like ...... never existed."

Bai Yi sighed again, "Although I probably guessed that this bullshit wish was no good, it was still pretty sad to verify it, and the god who made us wish for something said that if you don't want to make it now, you can go ahead and store it."

"The Deer Hunters, Golden Dawn, and the King's Crown, all championship-winning guilds, did the same thing, I think, sensing the risk of wishing and storing the wishes first."

"I don't know if wishing is good or bad, training so hard every day and now having to experience the death of my teammates, sometimes I wonder-" Bai Yi turned his head to Bai Jiamu and asked very softly, "Xiaojia. Why do you think we continue?"

"I'd really like to ask the Grand Guild presidents who got their wishes what their reasons are for sticking around?"

Bai Jiamu tilted his head slightly, not meeting Bai Yi's lax eyes, and asked calmly in return, "Didn't you ask the Reverse God? He was once considered half president of the Deer Hunters and had wishes in his hands."

Bai Yi's eyes snapped back together and he fell silent for a long time before saying, "The reason given by the Reverse God is too strange."

Bai Jiamu glanced at him and asked, "What's the reason?"

"The only reason the Reverse God wants to keep getting wishes is-" Bai Yi looked up slowly, "-to stop someone else from getting a wish from God's hands to get the wish."

A hospital ward.

Bai Liu lies on the bed with his eyes closed and breathing steadily, his complexion almost as white as the sheets, his hand on the quilt turned upwards, a pulse pressure restraint tied around one wrist and the back of the other hand on an IV.

The collar of the shirt he was wearing was slightly open, and the connector that was attached to the ECG extended all the way out of the shirt to the ECG machine next to him, the waveform on the small screen of the ECG machine ebbed and flowed gently.

"It's been two days, why haven't you woken up yet ......" Mu Sicheng said wanly, lying next to Bai Liu's bed, "Didn't the doctor say it was nothing... ..."

"Blood tests, brain CT, MRI, everything we can do." Muke's hands are clenched in fists against his knees, his back straight as he sits on the bench, his lips pursed, his eyes fixed on Bai Liu in the hospital bed, "Apart from some minor external injuries, there's not much to go on at the moment."

Mu Sicheng was suddenly furious as he gave Muke a sidelong glance with his teeth bared: "How can it be a minor injury after all that torture?

Tang Erda, who is leaning against the wall opposite the bed with her head down, speaks up abruptly: "Bai six torments people to the limit of their pain and mental capacity."

"It's just pain, not fatal, not even too many wounds, and even if captured, it's hard to determine, except that people usually go crazy with torture."

As soon as that name came out, the whole ward was silent, and no one spoke up again.

Tang Erda looked at everyone's sombre expressions, he opened his mouth and changed the subject slightly stiffly, " Liu Jiayi, did you negotiate with Bai Liu earlier to make a game for Russell Cemetery to win?"

"Hmm." Liu Jiayi sat on the bench, her head bowed to not quite see her expression, "I don't know what Bai Liu and Charles discussed, but they came back and told me about it, about making a game for Russell Cemetery to win."

"I didn't agree at first, it's too messy, something like playing a fake tournament can only be done by a fantastic guild like the Gamblers Club, a fledgling guild like us doing something like this is bound to see a serious drop in popularity."

"But Bai Liu eventually convinced me."

Liu Jiayi took a look through her visual goggles at Bai Liu, who was lying in a hospital bed, and took a deep breath to focus before continuing, "Firstly, there is the issue of popularity, in all respects we need to get all of them immunity before the challenge, but in practical terms this is unlikely."

"Our last game was against Russell Cemetery and the low popularity and cover-up tactics of our opponents made it a game that, no matter how good it was, was unlikely to draw us high, and in terms of maximum profitability, we didn't get much for winning the game, just a five per cent draw on Russell Cemetery's small pool. "

"The most valuable thing in the whole game was, instead, our own betting pool."

"Going into the challenge, both sides' pools would be emptied and recounted, and the best way for Bai Liu to get our own pool was to make his own game to secretly play his opponent to win, but this was actually easy to detect, and to facilitate subsequent dumping, Bai Liu thought of pulling Charles down."

Muke's brow wrinkled at the sound of this, "But Charles, can you see our guild's pool?"

"Of course not, Charles' own gamblers' club has a pool hundreds of times bigger than ours and our guild is nowhere near him in terms of points alone." Liu Jiayi replied calmly, "But this Charles guy is not like Bai Liu."

"It's not the money he likes, it's the gamble itself, he enjoys the thrill of flipping dozens of times and winning big with little, otherwise the man wouldn't be dropping so many points every year to discover dark horses from newcomers, instead of nurturing his own guild."

"From that point of view, Russell Cemetery's win over us fit the guy's gambling aesthetic perfectly, so once Bai Liu set the hook, he happily bit."

" Bai Liu was prepared to open the game with a big match advantage, press the Russell Cemetery guys to the limit, make the difference between the two pools to give Charles a satisfying pre-season gambling game, and at the same time see if a deal could be struck with the Russell Cemetery guys, a three birds with one stone plan."

Liu Jiayi withdrew her gaze from Bai Liu's face and took a deep breath: "Although from the final result, it was pretty much what Bai Liu expected, ......"

The process is just too far off.

Mu Sicheng realised what was going on and muttered and complained, "Shit! No way! Is that why you said so little on the field this time? You and Bai Liu knew we'd lose?"

"You don't even consult with us in advance when you make such a big deal?" Mu Sicheng questioned with a stern look in his eyes, "That's really not taking us into consideration!"

Liu Jiayi rolled her eyes, "Is this game going to be well acted? If one of you three adult males was a little better at acting, Bai Liu wouldn't have to come to me, an eight-year-old girl, to help him with his game."

The three badly acted adult males fell silent in unison.

"Knock, knock."

There was the sound of a careful knock on the door of the ward.

Tang Erda subconsciously glances at Bai Liu in the hospital bed and touches her back to draw her gun, only to realize that this is reality, not a game, and no one will hurt Bai Liu.

Liu Jiayi notices Tang Erda's movement as she draws her gun and also pauses for a moment.

...... Even Tang Erda is allergic to this point.

After witnessing Bai Liu being tormented by Bai six, it seems that everyone needs some time to recover.

Tang Erda put her hand down and said in a quiet voice, "Come in."

The door was slowly pushed open and Yuan Guang stood awkwardly outside with a large heavy fruit basket in both hands, bowing slightly: "Excuse me, I'm here to visit Bai Liu."

The expressions on everyone's faces faded for a moment when they saw Yuan Guang, and even Tang Erda, a man who was always so easy-going, just stared at Yuan Guang, not meaning to invite him in.

Yuan Guang, who was being watched by four death glares, was inwardly: QAQ.

I want to get down on my knees and say I'm sorry a million times!

It was Muke who finally spoke first: "Thanks for the visit, come in first."

Yuan Guang nodded with a tense back and said thank you, stepping in as if on thin ice, gently placing the fruit basket next to the bed, then looking at Bai Liu on the bed with a slightly worried look: "Still not awake? What did the doctor say?"

"Didn't you just come here yesterday and ask?" Mu Sicheng snorted without looking at him, "What the doctor said yesterday is what the doctor said today, you can't remember after one day?"

"If you come to be a good person in front of others, can you at least make a full show of it?"

Yuan Guang's face became more and more embarrassed as he clenched his fist and coughed, Muke interrupted Mu Sicheng with a light voice: "The doctor said that today's situation is similar to the previous one, nothing serious, except that if he doesn't wake up and can't eat properly, he will have to consider a gastric tube for nutritional intake."

"I'm still asking the doctor if there's anything else I can do at the moment, considering how uncomfortable it can be to have a stomach tube inserted."

Yuan Guang fell silent, he opened his mouth to say something, but felt that anything he said would pale in comparison.

He is now aware of everything that Bai Liu is up to.

This young man, three years younger than him, is a man who works in the internet like him, was laid off not long ago, lives in an old rental house in a remote area, only about forty square feet, and grew up in an orphanage.

His favourite food is cheap hotpot at less than 50% off, and the mobile phone he uses is an old model bought by a friend three years ago when he graduated from university. Two years ago, a speedster bumped into Bai Liu and shattered the screen of his mobile phone, but Bai Liu has not replaced it yet.

When one person is much, much better off than another, that person may only be helping another out of a kind of condescending sympathy, a kind of social oppression, a kind of balance of resources, a kind of natural human law.

Those who are helped may not be very grateful either; after all, those who help me have not tasted a millionth part of what I have suffered.

But when one person is having a much worse time than the other, that person goes to help the other ......

What is it about?

Yuan Guang took a deep breath as he remembered his own blank mind when he saw Bai Liu on the ground, his face so white that there was no trace of blood, disappearing little by little in Tang Erda's arms.

He called out Bai Liu's name, tears falling unconsciously, a thousand questions on his lips, but in the end he just cried and said.

"Don't you die!"

There is really enough to be ashamed of.

" Mr Charles came to see me." Yuan Guang sat on the bench, his head bowed and his hands very tight against his knees, "He said Bai Liu bet on us and won his own pool, and since the initial betting money ratio was him 3 Bai Liu 7, the pool allocation was also 70 percent for Bai Liu."

"He told me that Bai Liu wanted to make a deal with me for the 70 per cent of the points to buy my Russell Cemetery."

Yuan Guang took a deep breath and let it out again slowly, "I came here today to tell Bai Liu that I am not for sale."

Mu Sicheng's expression sank in a second and he opened his mouth to curse, "You fucking ......"

Yuan Guang continued with the rest of the story, "I talked to the others at Russell Cemetery and told them about what happened in the tournament and decided that it would be enough to take only 20% of the points to deal with our real life situation, we don't want the rest, we will work hard to pay Bai Liu back later, we will count it as a loan from him. We'll work hard and pay Bai Liu back later, we'll count it as a loan from him."

"We don't want to be bought, we want to voluntarily merge into the Wandering Circus."

Mu Sicheng's scolding words snapped around his mouth, "- and quite sensible."

Before leaving, Yuan Guang said a polite goodbye to the others and then took a deep look at Bai Liu in his hospital bed and said earnestly, "Good things come to those who are good."

" Bai Liu must be waking up soon."

It was only after Yuan Guang had left that Mu Sicheng grunted and said, "That's a human thing to say."

Muke's face lightened up a little from his previous indifference and he looked over at Tang Erda: "How are things going on his side of the property?"

"Su Yang and I said it had been properly resolved." Tang Erda nodded, "Immediately after I came out I told him to go to every cemetery and look for the secondary contract certificates, they have all been destroyed so far, the piece of land under the building is currently being tested but the heresy values have gone down quite a bit and the patients in the hospital who were drained are slowly getting better."

"If nothing else, this copy of Five Buildings shouldn't land in reality."

"It's just that it's hard to solve the problem of the rotten building, the Heretic Processing Bureau can only grant a portion of the funds to these people." Tang Erda frowned, "Actually Bai Liu giving 70% of the gambling pool credits should have been calculated just enough to solve their problem without the Heretic Processing Bureau stepping in."

"But by the looks of it, Yuan Guang, they shouldn't be taking the other 50 per cent."

Muke's eyes were steady as he looked at Bai Liu in his hospital bed: "The funds approved by the Bureau of Heresy, plus the 20% of the pool points Bai Liu gave them, will be enough."

Tang Erda was stunned: "What's enough?"

Muke smiles and looks at Tang Erda: "The rest of the money chain is enough for my side to eat."

Tang Erda frowned, "That's not a small amount of money that your father could let you use?"

"But we're not a small guild anymore either." Muke's eyes were stoic as he looked over at Bai Liu in his hospital bed, "Simply put, we are already a hugely profitable public company in terms of the points flowing from our gambling pool into cash flow, and from the perspective of running a company, both in terms of numbers and size, we are in need of a base point in reality."

"I'm perfectly capable of producing a report to my father based on the profitability of our guild and convincing him to put up a sum of money to invest in our company."

"And I also think it's time that our president moved out of that little rental house of his."

Muke says calmly.

Mu Sicheng, next to him, was shocked by this statement and looked eerily at Muke, who was sitting next to him.

...... bought an entire plot of land just to get Bai Liu to move out...is this the world of the rich?

"Your father, won't you look deeper into what this company of yours really is?" Tang Erda's brow furrowed, "We don't have anything in reality."

Muke looks over, a smile on his face with an inexplicable diffidence: "He got to where he is because he doesn't look deep into anything, Captain Tang."

"Sometimes it's the fuzzy areas that are the windfall for profit, he just needs to trust that I won't harm him."

Tang Erda: "......"

Mu Sicheng: "......"

Liu Jiayi: "......"

It always seems like ...... Muke has changed somewhere and it gives you a chill at the back.

"Knock, knock, knock--"

There was another knock on the door of the ward, and this time the person outside the door pushed his way in without waiting for the person inside to say [come in].

Fang Dian came in with a stainless steel lunchbox, smiling, "Good afternoon, I took a break to bring Bai Liu his lunch!"

Muke immediately stood up and offered Fang Dian a seat, but Fang Dian raised her hand and pushed Muke back, saying, "I don't have time to sit, you can sit, I have to rush back to work later."

She glanced at Bai Liu lying in the hospital bed and placed the lunch box on the bedside table, slightly surprised: "Didn't the doctor say he was fine? Why isn't he awake yet?"

"Oh, come on." Fang Dian spread her hands, "Looks like I'm giving this meal away for nothing again today, so you guys can open it and eat it later."

The group glanced wistfully at the lunchbox that had been placed on Bai Liu's bedside table and gave a wavering hint of a tone.

Fang Dian came yesterday and the day before to deliver meals, the menus were.

Spicy stir-fried watermelon rind (with a slight bitterness - Tang Erda's words).

Steamed mango and tomato rice (steamed too badly, tomatoes not peeled, looks a bit ...... - Liu Jiayi's words)

The skin was so chewy that Mu Sicheng finished a bowl of rice with a mouthful of pork skin and still hadn't chewed it).

......

If they weren't sure that Fang Dian wasn't harbouring evil intentions towards Bai Liu, they would sometimes suspect that Fang Dian wasn't bringing Bai Liu food, she was trying to send him away.

Fang Dian sat at the head of Bai Liu's bed for a while after putting down the lunch box, and naturally started talking to Bai Liu who had not yet woken up: " Mr. Lu has been away on a business trip for the past few days and has not come to see you, I can't reach him on the phone, I don't know what he is up to ...... "

"But he's always so busy that he can't get in touch most of the time, so don't blame him for not coming to see you, your illness was too sudden."

"...... The last time you were sick until you were hospitalized was back in high school, just Mr. Lu and I two people took turns taking time off to watch over you, stayed in the hospital for a week, spent three or four hundred dollars after reimbursement, we didn't even eat meat that month."

Fang Dian looked at Bai Liu, whose face was pale and whose eyelids were closed, and suddenly smiled: "Now there are so many people guarding you, so many people competing to be willing to spend money on you, and just now I saw two fruit baskets by your bed, I don't know who carried them for you, I might be sick too, and I'm actually quite happy to see you sick. "

"Wake up now, or you won't see them anxious for you."

"It makes me happy for you to see that look on their faces."

"So many people like you now, Bai Liu."

After chatting with the unconscious Bai Liu for a while, Fang Dian waved her hand and left the ward to go to work, smiling at the others and giving them a thumbs up, "I saw that you all ate your meals clean the other day. I've made a little more today!"

Once Fang Dian had left, all eyes looked heavily at the huge four-layer stainless steel lunchbox Fang Dian had left on the bedside table and swallowed in unison with a dry throat.

...... This is at least half as much as yesterday ......

It was a long time before Mu Sicheng rolled up his sleeves with a fierce look in his eyes: "I'll be the first to test the poison today!"