Chapter 538: The Witch Trials

Phoebe's prophecy came true when the Little Witch defected two months before the tournament and the whole King's Guild was in chaos, Phoebe was in a state of unprecedented depression and she was so mad that she almost killed Bai Liu, but Hearts stopped her.

"Can't we at least give it a chance, so we can see what kind of person she chooses?" Hearts said this to Phoebe, "I'm not going to let you get involved in this until you've calmed down."

"For you to deal with?" Phoebe raised an eyebrow, "A coward only misses opportunities over and over again."

"If you had chosen the best option from the start, the witch would not have defected at all, you left her open - at first I asked you to kill Liu Huai, you wouldn't do it, then I asked you to pretend to be Liu Huai, you wouldn't either, and now there is someone willing to kill and replace Liu Huai at the same time, the witch's defection is a natural one."

Hearts pauses: "True, but the gap is perhaps also freedom of choice, isn't it?"

"It was her own choice."

Phoebe paused and added with a sneer, "I watched the replay, and it was more Liu Huai's choice than the little witch's, wasn't it?"

"It's her choice, too." Hearts said, "I can bring her back, but only if you stay out of it."

Phoebe replied, "You better be able to."

Hearts met the player who also used the bone whip, Bai Liu, who was flying around the small TV screen with a very casual, loose smile on his face, spreading his arms wide and laughing in the wind created by Qi Yifang.

The wind ruffled Bai Liu's shaggy hair as he smiled and held out his hand to Liu Jiayi and said, "Yes."

"Whatever you want to do, whatever you choose, is fine."

[Yes.]

[Whatever you want to do, you can.]

Hearts' fingers curled slightly at the familiarity that followed him, and he remained still in front of Bai Liu's small television for so long that the attendant next to him cautiously reminded him, "The Queen?"

"Sorry, just got lost in thought." Hearts lowered his eyelashes and raised his hand in order as he turned his head without looking at Bai Liu's small television, his tone indifferent, "Round him up."

...... Could it be him?

Or was it another trick he deliberately set up to play his game - just like Spades, after he had calmly and clearly followed his choice of death, and then released such a player more similar to him to continue to entice him to live and suffer endlessly in this game.

All thoughts were only fleeting, and Hearts soon returned to his old languid self, ordering a methodical and vicious round-up of Bai Liu - even if it was really him, there had to be a price to pay for taking away his only heir, who had been so carefully groomed.

...... If it was really him, he could have easily survived these tactics of his, right ......

"So that's why you let him take the little witch?" Phoebe looked coldly at Hearts, "And let me take over?"

"Do you think this Bai Liu guy is similar to the customer you've been waiting for?"

Hearts gave Phoebe a quick glance, " Charles intervened to bail him out."

"And you let him go?" Phoebe sneered, "You can use that as an excuse to put off the rest of the guild, but you can't fool me, if you really wanted to round him up, then even if Charles had intervened, he would be dead by now."

"The bone whip, the soul, the love of trade, the tone of voice, the way you act, even the way you treat the little witch, all remind you of yourself back then, don't they? Bai Liu is a lot like that customer, isn't he? And because of that resemblance, you've gone soft on this man called Bai Liu."

Hearts is silent.

" Hearts." Phoebe said coldly, "You'll regret letting Bai Liu go today."

Soon the day of regret came.

Hearts' pupils trembled lightly as he looked at Bai Liu in his school uniform in the first group battle of the challenge - the uniform he knew, he had worn it, and he remembered that it was the first thing he had worn in his adult life that wasn't from the island, the first man he had imitated - -was the outfit and the request that the guest brought.

[The pupils of that child's eyes are black].

[Don't look at me like that, he looks at me cold, he hates me, he doesn't look at me with such like eyes].

[He refused to kill me.]

[Speaking of which, he's about the same age as you, also eighteen this year].

Hearts had never seen the customer look at his finished imitation with such emotion in his eyes - even the first time he imitated the silver-blue boy, the customer's eyes were still calm and wistful, without much emotion, but that time, after he had done his full imitation as requested, the customer's eyes He was expecting "him", or to be more precise, the customer was expecting the boy he was imitating.

The guest, wearing a mask, smiled and said to the boy he played, "I look forward to you, to the day when you grow up and have the desire to come to me."

"I can't wait to meet you."

He asked his guest, "Who is this?

The guest smiled and said, "This is the man who will kill me in the future."

"Or to describe it a little more accurately, it's a me with a soul."

Trembling and confused, he inquired softly, "What does it mean, a you with a soul?"

"I am a god without a soul, and this human being you are playing, he is a derivative of me, to be more precise, he has the same appearance, the same personality traits, the same desires, he is identical to me in everything except that he is not a god, a mortal version of me, so to speak."

"By definition, he was derived from me and should not have had anything different in him from me, but it is very strange that he in this world, apart from his appearance being the same as mine, has personality traits and desires that are completely different from mine, as well as the most important point-"

The guest slowly sat up straighter, his tone rising slightly: "- I am soulless, but he is."

"A [me] with a soul, I am strong enough to imagine that he is powerful, and if there is some kind of being in this world that can kill me, it is bound to be him."

"Why do you look so angry when you hear that I am to be killed by him?" The guest looked at Hearts with a smile, his head tilted to one side, resting on the back of his hand, his tone slightly diffident, with a kind of ambiguity, "If you like me so much, you might like him better than me."

"Because I don't understand [love], but he can."

"I wouldn't like him!" Hearts showed an expression as if he had been humiliated as he retorted angrily, "I wouldn't like someone who was going to kill you! My liking is not something that can be so easily transferred!"

"Oh? Is that so?" The guest's tone dazzled and his lips curled in a smirk, "And you've only met me twice, so why do you like me?"

"Just because I was in the right place at the right time, with the right powers just in time to help you get your wish, you like me, don't you?"

"Is it me you like, or is it this person who has appeared just at the right time? Would you like this person if it wasn't me and it was someone else?"

Hearts was still, and he looked up incredulously, eyes wide and breathless, but unable to answer a single word.

He stood up, lowered his eyes and straightened his black leather gloves, pulling them upwards a little.

"As I understand it, human liking is also a superficial and utilitarian thing that can be easily created and transferred."

The guest said with a smile, "If you really want to prove to me that you won't like him and express your loyalty to my liking-"

"-then kill him and prove it to me."

The moment the words were spoken, Hearts felt the guest give Hearts a very light pat on the head and he looked away from Hearts with a smile in his eyes as if he was looking at Hearts and the person Hearts was playing, "If you really like me that much."

The pupils of Hearts' eyes trembled slightly.

--This was the first time this guest had touched him.

"What a rare visitor." Charles folded his arms in front of himself as he looked at Hearts, who had pushed open his office door, and said with a grin, "What could possibly be going on that would make the high and mighty Queen knock on my dirty gambler's door after watching the challenge and not even having a rivalry meeting?"

Hearts walked up to Charles and looked at him with a misplaced look in his eyes, "I want to know what's behind Bai Liu."

"Behind the scenes information?" Charles spread his hands as he smiled politely inquiringly, "The Queen and I have been working together for a long time, of course I am willing to sell you a lot of information, after all I even did things like create a fake identity within the Gamblers Guild to invest in Spades for you last year."

"That's not you helping me." Hearts retorted impassively, "It was you who agreed to work with me because you yourself needed an extreme gambler to boost Spades' status and build up his popularity."

Last year Hearts was trying to get in touch with Spades, which is why he was dropping points to work with Charles - he was trying to ask Spades where he got the bone whip from, normally a novice would have a personal connection with the gambler who backed him the most, but Spades was a player who was out of the ordinary. After all the points Hearts had dropped, the man didn't even give a second glance to the punters at the top of the leaderboard, nor did he have any desire to lynch.

It was only after Hearts had fought him in the ring and killed him in a bloody fight that they got a reply from Spades about the origin of the bone whip - [I don't know].

"Spades last year, Bai Liu this year." Charles teased. Charles teased, "Queen, you have a great eye, you pick my dark horses with precision every time, last year you were willing to work with me because you wanted access to Spades, is that the same reason this year?"

"I don't like Bai Liu." Hearts retorted in an indifferent tone, "I just want news of him."

Charles shrugged, "Well, it's basic ethics for me not to question my clients, but I sell my news here by the bar, what news do you want? Career? Background? Marriage? A relationship? Or something to do with the league?"

"For the sake of our cooperation for so long, I'll give you a friendly price of 10,000 points for one."

Hearts looked up: "I want all the information you know about Bai Liu, no matter how much you know."