Chapter 510: The Challenge

After a brief handover to the other members, Bai Liu calmly logged out of the game.

The other members of the circus were understanding of the outcome and no one blamed Bai Liu.

To be honest, they had no right to blame, and if it came down to it, the few of them who were basically cleared out by Lu Yizhan at the beginning of the game were more to blame, as Bai Liu was the only one who made it to the end.

"Don't get so stressed out." Tang Erda patted Bai Liu's shoulder with a gloomy expression, "Get some rest, we have a tough battle ahead of us."

Bai Liu gave a hint of relief as he logged out of the game and lay on his bed in his rented room, staring at the ceiling with a calm expression, his breathing soft.

He didn't bring his injuries out this time, he was awake from start to finish.

Including the final closing blow.

"Lingling--"

His mobile phone suddenly rang, Bai Liu picked it up without looking at the screen, and when he did there was no sound on the other side, only an unsteady breathing, so Bai Liu didn't speak either.

It was a long time before a bitter laugh came from across the room, "Let's talk?"

"Where do you want to talk?" Bai Liu's tone was smooth, "My place or yours?"

"Come on over." Lu Yizhan rubbed his face, "I'll cook for you to come over, is there anything you want to eat?"

Bai Liu paused for a moment, "Whatever."

"Okay, I'll wait for you at the grocery store, you just got out of the game, don't ride your bike on your way over, take a taxi, I'll reimburse you." Lu Yizhan said.

Then Bai Liu took the most expensive express taxi.

When Bai Liu asked Lu Yizhan to come down and pay him, Lu Yizhan, wearing an apron, wiped his hands while pulling out his mobile phone in shock: "Why did you call over a hundred?!"

The taxi driver replied truthfully, "The boy said he was going to a shopping street in Qiao Mu private high school, so I took a long detour and he went down to buy something and came back for the same price."

Lu Yizhan, who realised he was being retaliated against by Bai Liu by taking a long detour: "......"

Lu Yizhan turned to Bai Liu: "What did you take the long way around to buy?"

"Put it in the trunk." Bai Liu got out of the car, pushed open the trunk, pulled out a huge black plastic bag and dragged it up to the third floor, "You find me a place to put this."

The bag looks square, but the contents are vaguely humanoid, carried by Bai Liu, with an unconscious little bit of his head in that area, looking almost like a body bag.

Lu Yizhan, who was following behind, was increasingly shocked: "What exactly did you buy?"

Bai Liu glanced at him, "The body, do you want to report it now?"

"...... No need." Lu Yizhan weakly withdrew his exploratory gaze as he lowered his head, wiped his hands vigorously on his apron, and suddenly said, "I'm sorry."

Bai Liu's back paused for a moment, and without speaking, he continued on his way.

When he reached Lu Yizhan's door on the third floor, Bai Liu stopped and was about to raise his hand to knock when Lu Yizhan whispered, "You have the key."

"Last time you came, Fang Dian gave it to you."

Bai Liu's hand stops in mid-air just as he raises it to knock on the door. He pauses for a moment, then finds his key and inserts it into the keyhole, turning it with a somewhat rusty motion.

The door is not open.

Lu Yizhan whispered again, "You've turned the other way."

Bai Liu: "......"

Bai Liu gave Lu Yizhan a fleeting glance: "Why don't you drive?"

"No, no, no!" Lu Yizhan smiled carefully, "You haven't come for a long time, it's normal, a few more times and it won't happen."

Bai Liu shifted his eyes back, his gaze lingering for a moment on the door lock and key, before turning twice more in the opposite direction.

The door finally opened.

The dampness of the soup pot pours out and rolls onto the surface, the brightly lit house has two or three water-brush marks on the freshly painted wallpaper, which you can tell at a glance was accidentally painted on by the careless hostess, the TV in the living room is playing some raucous entertainment, the kitchen keeps bubbling with the sound of gurgling, and three or four large dishes have been set on the dining table on one side of the living room, with the heat billowing upwards. White smoke is billowing upwards.

It's a very lively, very smoky house, bustling with activity as if it were a festival.

Bai Liu took one step inside.

"Bang..."

It was the sound of a firework cone going off with a bang and Fang Dian jumped out from behind a shoe cupboard with a big smile and popped up in front of Bai Liu, holding a firework cone in one hand and a cake in the other, shouting

"Happy 25th birthday to Bai Liu!"

Bai Liu's right foot, which had walked in, just stopped where it was.

His eyes slowly shifted from the large table, the overwhelming atmosphere of the living room, to Fang Dian's face with her birthday hat and candles, and finally fell slowly to the birthday cake with the [25] year old candles.

Oh, so it's his birthday.

It had been so long since he had passed that he had forgotten about it.

Bai Liu has celebrated basically all of his birthdays since high school with Fang Dian and Lu Yizhan.

But on Bai Liu's 22nd birthday, something happened to Fang Dian, and after that, Bai Liu never came to Fang Dian's house for his birthday, and he never came back.

No matter how much Lu Yizhan and Fang Dian would invite him, Bai Liu would always turn down the invitation, which gradually turned into a text message of congratulations and a takeaway birthday cake. He would eat the cake like beef noodles for breakfast and then scan the text message, and his birthday would pass like that.

Now he suddenly recalls - oh, so it's my birthday.

It's also true that when Fang Dian had his birthday accident three years ago, it also happened to be the same time that Fever Lamb's lost the challenge against the Deer Hunter, and this year his birthday came after losing the challenge against the Killer Sequence.

In this way, he has one more subtle thing in common with the Mad Lamb tactician - both lost to Lu Yizhan.

"Come in, come in!" Fang Dian saw that Bai Liu didn't respond, so she naturally grabbed Bai Liu's shoulders and shrugged him in, then puffed and stomped her feet twice, looking at Bai Liu with some surprise, "You just came here in a white shirt, aren't you cold?"

"It's already September and October, the weather is getting cooler and it's raining today!" Fang Dian looked disapprovingly at Bai Liu who was dressed very thinly and shook his head, "Is that all you're wearing? Can your little body stand it?"

"I'll go get your clothes!"

As soon as Fang Dian put the cake down, she went inside and started rummaging around for clothes.

Bai Liu and Lu Yizhan sit on the sofa in silence, watching a cartoon on the TV opposite them.

Lu Yizhan took a deep breath as he clutched his apron and opened his mouth first: "...... What do you have to ask?"

"What's your game with Bai six, apart from werewolf?" Bai Liu's tone was light, but the question was to the point, "What's your next plan?"

Lu Yizhan smiled bitterly, "I am prepared to give you the prophet status."

Bai Liu also paused as he turned his head to Lu Yizhan, his eyes narrowed, "You're going to sell your soul to me, won't you die?"

"It would have been." Lu Yizhan sighed as he held out his hand, "First you find the paper money and trade with my soul, after that you will know what is going on."

Bai Liu paused expressionlessly for a moment, then fished a ten-cent coin out of the corner of his wallet and held it up right in front of Lu Yizhan's stunned face, "Ten cents for your soul."

Lu Yizhan's whole body cracked up: "At least one piece! Ten cents is too much!"

"No, forget it." Bai Liu calmly withdrew the coin, "Lu Yizhan, you know what, it's a buyer's market, you're the one who has to sell me your soul, I don't want it."

Lu Yizhan: "......"

Lu Yizhan took a deep breath and held out his hand in humiliation, his eyes shining with tears: "At least 50 cents! Ten cents is too little!"

"I can buy it for the explicit price of fifty cents." Bai Liu clasped his hands to his chest, his tone cold, "But later you'll have to transfer me forty cents, and the real price will still be ten cents, so count me in for helping your soul swipe to raise the fake price."

Lu Yizhan: "......"

I only have one soul note and am not going to open a wholesale shop and don't need to swipe to raise the price for counterfeiting, thanks.

"A penny is a penny." Lu Yizhan simply cried and laughed, "Give it to me."

Bai Liu taps a dime into Lu Yizhan's palm and almost instantly a new soul note appears in his wallet. He holds the newly generated soul note between two fingers and pulls it out, his brow quickly furrowing.

The note is not as new and straight as Bai Liu's other notes, but is a little old and wrinkled, with a hole the size of a baby's fist in the top right-hand corner, with a black ring around it, as if it had been burned by something.

Bai Liu looked up quickly as he looked over Lu Yizhan's right shoulder where he had been struck by the Soul Crusher and his tone sank, "Your soul was damaged after being struck by the gun?"

"Yes, so my soul was incomplete after my last injury." Lu Yizhan spread his hands as he said helplessly, "So even though I sold my soul to you, it was not completely sold to you, in a kind of Schrödinger's sold soul state."

"It's kind of a cheating violation."

Lu Yizhan sighed and laughed softly, "It's a rare occasion when I'm faced with a Bai six that can cheat."

Bai Liu looked steadily at Lu Yizhan and he abruptly asked, "When did you start making this plan to get me a prophet?"

"-it was before the last time you took a bullet for me, wasn't it?"

Bai Liu's tone was calm: "So, at that time, you deliberately stood in my way and got shot, so that you could successfully sell your tattered and broken soul to me afterwards, and give me the prophet status that you couldn't afford, so that I could take the useless, so-called responsibility and right to save the world."

"Is that why you raised me, Lu Yizhan?"

"Either kill me as a criminal or treat me as an heir, as a tool?"

Lu Yizhan raised his head slowly, and instead of evading Bai Liu's questioning, he replied smoothly, "Fifty percent."

Bai Liu instantly understood what Lu Yizhan meant.

-- What Lu Yizhan is saying is that he raised him 50 percent because of what Bai Liu just said.

"Then there's fifty percent." Bai Liu lifted his eyes as he gazed at Lu Yizhan, "What is it?"

Lu Yizhan stares straight into Bai Liu's eyes for a long, long time, closes his eyes and breathes out slowly.

What is it?

This is the guy who stayed up late studying at fifteen because he said so, who didn't lay a finger on his classmates at sixteen because he stopped him, who got up to four hundred grades at seventeen to show them off subtly, and who saved popsicles under Fang Dian's bed to buy them Cutie Dots.

At eighteen he jumped off the Gaucho Lake but controlled himself and didn't get into the game, and at twenty-two broke down outside Fang Dian's surgery, his hands folding his memories.

Twenty-five years old, closing in on him with only one life point in the game.

--because he is a human being and I am a human being and cannot avoid, cannot sever, those emotional ties that arise.

"The other fifty percent ...... is because you are my friend." Lu Yizhan's eyes were extremely complex, his voice trembled a little and he wore a very forced smile on his face, "You may think it's ridiculous, but I do."

"I'm sorry you had to find this on your birthday."

Bai Liu breathes for a moment, he averts his gaze and is quiet for a long moment.

"You gave me fifty percent of the reason, and I received fifty percent of your soul."

"We're even."

Bai Liu put away the half-burned soul note.

Lu Yizhan looked up in shock and before he could say anything, Fang Dian poked her head out of the room and looked curiously at Bai Liu and asked, "Bai Liu, I'm looking for your coat and jacket, how tall are you now?"

Bai Liu: "......177."

"Wow, you've grown a bit then." Fang Dian pondered for a while, "But Mr. Lu's clothes still don't quite work, he's 5'5" and you're a bit far behind."

"Then you can wear mine first, I'm 5'8" and the jacket fits you just right."

Bai Liu: "...... oh."

Fang Dian found a camel-coloured coat and put it on Bai Liu. When she put it on, she couldn't help but complain about Bai Liu: "What's wrong with you? Have you eaten properly?

"No, you have to eat more." With that, Fang Dian pushed Lu Yizhan, who was hesitant, into the kitchen, "Go in and bring out the pig's feet soup to nourish Bai Liu."

After being pressured by Fang Dian with an urgent stare into eating two large pieces of pork feet and a bowl and a half of rice, Bai Liu had to put the bowl down and reiterate, "I'm really full."

"Nonsense." Fang Dian's eyes swept over Bai Liu's waist like an x-ray, judging coldly, "Your stomach isn't even bulging, so you should be able to get some more."

Bai Liu: "......"

It really is time to throw up.

Lu Yizhan, in tears, relieved Bai Liu: "You should let him save some of his stomach for the cake."

After dinner, Fang Dian mysteriously pulled Bai Liu to sit on the sofa: "Sit here, I'll go get your birthday present."

Within minutes, Fang Dian had turned up three large, dusty boxes and a brand new one from somewhere.

As if sensing something, Bai Liu's eyes seemed to stand still, resting on the dusty boxes.

Fang Dian rubbed it in and she opened the first box, "This was your birthday present when you turned twenty-two."

Inside the box is an old console and a bunch of game cards for horror games.

"Lu Yizhan and I went to a flea market to get them." Fang Dian laughs as she pats herself on the back, "They're all out-of-print games, you've never played them!"

"It was a birthday present the year you turned twenty-three."

Inside the box is a set of formal wear that is worth a lot of money at first glance.

Fang Dian opened the box and took it out with a nostalgic look in her eyes, "You're working now, so I thought you'd need it for any formal occasions, so Mr. Lu and I saved up and bought you a set, a few thousand dollars."

"It was a gift for the year you turned twenty-four."

Fang Dian opened the box and Bai Liu's eyes twitched as he looked at its contents.

--The box is densely packed with amulets and prayer charms of various kinds and from different temples.

"These are some that Mr. Lu and I went to the temple to ask for, and some I had my friends and the girls bring back for me from overseas." Fang Dian looked at the amulets with a sigh, "You always had bad luck in those days, and although I don't believe in this either, sometimes you think too much and say what if."

She smiled and looked at Bai Liu: "If there really are immortals in heaven who can bless us Bai Liu, it's okay for Mr. Lu and I to buy a charm and beg them."

Bai Liu was quiet for a long time: "Thank you."

"You don't have to say thank you to us." Fang Dian interrupted Bai Liu's thanks with a wave of her hand, then she sighed melancholy, "I was going to give it to you for your birthday, but you don't want to come and don't see me much anymore, and I don't know what you think, but if I give it to you and you don't want it, it will add to your worries, and maybe you'll have to find a way to return the favour, and then I'll be really I'd be sad."

"After thinking about it, I ended up not giving it out every year."

"Good thing you're finally here this year." Fang Dian smiled again without a trace, "Then it's all together for you in person."

She doesn't say a word about the fact that Bai Liu hasn't come to the house once in the past three years.

"Oh and this." Fang Dian rummaged down again and happily pulled out a set from the bottom of the box and placed it in front of Bai Liu, "This is warm, you can wear it later!"

Even Bai Liu's pupils shook when he saw Fang Dian pulling out the set, and he quickly and calmly refused: "That's not necessary, is it?"

"There's no need for that." Fang Dian held up a full set of red autumn clothes, red autumn trousers and even red underwear, and disliked Bai Liu's face, saying, "You didn't wear these in your birthday, and I think that's why you're unlucky!"

Bai Liu: "......"

I don't think so.

Fang Dian emphasized again, "These fall clothes are open and padded, so get in there and change while it's still your birthday!"

Bai Liu slowly shifts his gaze to Lu Yizhan behind Fang Dian, who shrugs his shoulders in a helpless gesture of helplessness.

Fang Dian coldly interrupted the two men's silent exchange: "Lu Yizhan also wore a red autumn coat and red autumn trousers for the whole year of his birth year, it's useless to beg him."

Bai Liu: "......"

Lu Yizhan: "......"

That's right.