Wang Shun moved his chair back a little, putting some distance between his heart and the tip of the cane before speaking cautiously: “...I saw a fragmented, scattered poem that had been pieced together.”

“A scattered poem?” Charles’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly. “That does not seem like the usual prophetic style of the concise [Inverted God’s Judge]. So? What kind of poem was it?”

Wang Shun took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and said:

“The Evil God boasted that someone would drift within its shadow,

The person in the shadow was fourteen years old,

So the Evil God bestowed upon this person a spine, a heart, and a divine emblem,

Boasting that this person would be its only believer,

The person in the shadow was twenty-four years old,

Then the Evil God fell upon the snowy plains, and the believer’s ghost drifted in the deep sea,

The spine, heart, and divine emblem were all shattered,

The Evil God was replaced,

The person in the shadow was thirty years old,

He wandered, and wandered, until a Joker squatted before him, giggling as he asked the shadow-man: Where is your home?

The shadow-man said: When three-quarters of the sun has disappeared, an old friend will come seeking my cold and frozen self,

The Joker said: If you are already frozen stiff, I will crush your soul and let you fall into the snow along with the God,

The person in the shadow was forty-one years old,

The God died while he remained, eternal through evil.”

After he finished, Wang Shun swallowed hard and looked nervously at Charles. “You can use the scales to test me. I am not making this up. There may be parts I don’t remember clearly, but this is indeed what I saw from the [Inverted God’s Judge].”

“I don’t doubt that.” Charles withdrew his cane and shot Wang Shun a glance. “What I doubt is whether the person mentioned in this prophecy is Bai Liu. A vague poem like this can be interpreted from many angles. I could just as easily say this poem refers to someone else.”

“Do you have any other evidence proving that this prophecy refers to Bai Liu?”

Wang Shun remained silent for a long time before helplessly letting out a long breath. “...No.”

“So, in fact, you yourself are not even certain that this prophecy is about Bai Liu, correct?” Charles sat lightly on the edge of the office desk and casually crossed his legs. “In other words, you were only lying to me in order to persuade me to invest in Bai Liu?”

Wang Shun opened his mouth, then finally admitted, “Yes.”

“Lying to a gambler who is ten times better at lying than you is not a very wise move, Mr. Know-It-All.” Charles used his cane to lift Wang Shun’s lowered head, revealing a very satisfied smile. “But I like the lie you just told. It sounds like something that could completely deceive a crowd of ignorant, impulsive gamblers into betting on Bai Liu. It is a lie with considerable gambling value.”

Wang Shun looked at Charles in shock.

“I have invested in Bai Liu.” Charles unhurriedly retracted his gentleman’s cane and pulled it downward, transforming it into a lush bouquet of roses, which he handed to the dazed Wang Shun.

Wang Shun accepted it in complete confusion. “Then, President Charles, what do we do now?”

Charles jumped down from the desk. “Now?”

He straightened his lapels and laughed radiantly. “Naturally, we dress up and welcome our dark horse gentleman, who is currently running toward the finish line through the rose fields.”

As he spoke, Charles turned to look at Wang Shun, who was still sitting in the chair, and shook his head with some dissatisfaction. He pulled out the cane-turned-bouquet again and stroked downward along it; the roughly 1.2-meter cane instantly transformed into a thirty-centimeter wooden stick—it looked somewhat like a magic wand.

“As the future promotional spokesperson and oracle-spreader for Bai Liu’s team, you look a bit too plain, Mr. Know-It-All.” Charles looked disdainfully at Wang Shun’s plaid shirt and jeans—standard programmer attire.

“This kind of outfit can hardly convince anyone that you come from a championship team.”

Wang Shun still had not reacted. “—What promotional spokesperson and oracle-spreader?”

“To put it simply, you are a tool for tricking others into betting and voting for Bai Liu’s team,” Charles explained politely. Then, with a wave of the wand, all of Wang Shun’s clothes disappeared.

Charles scanned Wang Shun from head to toe as the latter subconsciously covered his lower body, then arched an eyebrow and whistled. “Not a bad figure.”

“—Why can you change my appearance settings at will?!” Wang Shun was completely stunned, not even daring to move the hands covering his vital areas.

Charles waved again, and Wang Shun spun in place. From head to toe, he was transformed—an exquisite polka-dot bow tie, a brownish-gray three-piece suit with a vest and suspenders, hair slicked back with pomade, and brown leather shoes that revealed exactly five centimeters of white cotton socks.

“I will give you this set as a reference—my taste is rather retro. I hope you like it.” Charles tucked away the wooden wand and gestured for the dizzy Wang Shun to follow. “Now, let us go build momentum for our new team.”

Wang Shun scrambled to catch up. He did not know how Charles had chosen the clothes, but the suit fit him perfectly. This made Wang Shun, who was used to loose clothing, feel somewhat restricted. He asked as he hurried after him, “How are we going to build momentum? Bai Liu seems to have been trapped in a dimensional space by the King’s Guild using [Shield]. He’ll fall into [No-Man’s Land] and won’t be able to get out!”

“If he falls into No-Man’s Land, it will be very difficult for Bai Liu to enter the competition—he won’t be able to get votes from ordinary viewers, which means he won’t even be able to register.”

“Is it your guild’s [Shield]?” Charles pondered for a second or two. “Then Bai Liu is most likely destined to fall into No-Man’s Land.”

Wang Shun’s face instantly fell. “President Charles, even you have no way?”

“But I do not think falling into No-Man’s Land is necessarily a bad thing.” A meaningful smile appeared on Charles’s face. “I recall that Bai Liu seems to have just won himself a small guild, with no more than five hundred members.”

“A championship team with only that many guild members—that is not quite right.” Charles casually stroked the ruby atop his gentleman’s cane with his index finger. “Mr. Know-It-All, perhaps I understand the history of the ten great guilds’ establishment here more clearly than you do. Falling into No-Man’s Land may very well be the turning point for establishing a major guild. Do you remember Heaven’s Hand, the Beggar Association?”

“—That association full of beggars was founded by players who escaped from No-Man’s Land,” Charles said.

Reminded by Charles, Wang Shun seemed to think of something. He suddenly looked at Charles in horror. “President, you couldn’t be thinking—but that would cost far too much money! At least tens of millions of points!”

“I do not lack money. I am the wealthiest player in this game.” Charles looked up at Wang Shun, the smile on his face deepening. “What I enjoy is the thrill of a high-stakes gamble—and what gamble is more interesting than the system’s once-a-year League?”

“Furthermore, I will not allow the guild of the dark horse I have bet on to be as shabby as Heaven’s Hand. It is merely tens of millions of points. As an early investment in a dark horse, it is not much,” Charles said lightly.

Tens of millions of points...

Dizzy and lightheaded, Wang Shun followed behind Charles.

—

Inside the game.

The refugees followed behind Bai Liu toward the interior of the Rose Factory.

They were blocked at the door of the room that looked exactly like the one for Heretic 0001. This was also the passage into the Rose Factory’s internal processing point.

In truth, with Tang Erda’s combat power, he could have forced his way through. But considering that Tawil’s heart was suspended there and connected to the pipes on the wall, a direct forced entry might tear Tawil’s heart apart. Thus, Tang Erda stopped at the door and did not continue clearing the way inward.

However, the key to this door was on the factory workers hiding inside. If they did not force their way in, there was no way to open it.

Tang Erda looked at Bai Liu. “How do we get in?”

“It’s very simple—remember that test?” Bai Liu held up a bottle of perfume raw liquid, smiling as he let it drip down along the crack of the door. “—Let the heart open the door for me.”

During the test, Tawil’s heart had reacted extremely violently to the perfume raw liquid Bai Liu poured in—just one drop had shaken open the floating glass case. And now, with Bai Liu pouring an entire bottle down—

—In less than a second, the entire room began to roar and sway.

Accompanied by the clicking and tearing sounds of mechanical pipes breaking, the panicked running and shouting of the factory workers inside also drifted faintly out through the crack of the door:

“The heart is beating too fast!!”

“Open the sluice and release the water!!”

“It’s too late—the glass case has completely exploded!!”

“Crash—”

After the crisp sound of shattering glass, amid the chaotic and noisy commotion, Bai Liu closed his eyes, held his breath, and pressed himself against the cold iron door—

—He heard the violent pounding of a heart.

Thump-thump—thump-thump-thump—thump-thump-thump-thump!

Just like Bai Liu’s own heartbeat at that moment.

The pale pink rose raw liquid seeped out from the crack of the door. The door seemed to be crushed by the excessive liquid and gas gushing out; it began to bulge and deform outward. The lock rings jolted and warped until finally, unable to withstand the pressure, they came crashing down along with the door.

The raw liquid and fragrance surged out like a tsunami.

Standing closest to the door, Bai Liu was drenched from head to toe by the blood-like raw liquid. He lifted his wet eyelashes and looked into the room.

The leaked and broken cooling-pipe liquid splattered everywhere like blood. Glass shards on the floor were soaked in the pink swirling gas and semi-transparent liquid. Near the power switch, sizzling purple-blue currents could even be seen crawling along the pipes, crackling.

In the midst of the chaos, that heart hung in the center of the room like a long-awaited, ripe, bright-red fruit, emitting rhythmic thump-thump-thump-thump sounds—reminding the person who had once said he would take it away that if he did not take it now, it would beat until it exploded.

And so Bai Liu stepped forward. He looked up and plucked this fruit—the wet heart pulsed in his palm, as though it might try to escape at any moment. Bai Liu lowered his eyes to observe the heart; a drop of raw liquid slid from his eyelashes and fell onto it.

Because of that drop of liquid, the heart abruptly beat twice faster.

Bai Liu tightened his palm around the heart and smiled.

—So this was how it felt to hold Xie Ta’s heart in his hand.

Very—very wonderful.

—

What kind of sight is it to place a heart back into a person’s chest?

Whether in reality or in the game, Tang Erda had never seen such a bizarre, such an inconceivable scene.

Not to mention that the person performing this task was Bai Liu, who had been wearing a peculiar smile that made Tang Erda want to pull out his gun and arrest him on the spot.

—It was as if he had personally dug this heart out himself.

The ribs retracted. The heart was protectively covered by the lung lobes. The pectoral muscles grew and closed along their attachment points. Finally, the skin covered everything flawlessly—smooth, white, and healthy. A body lay before Bai Liu as if nothing had ever happened, its chest rising and falling slightly.

Its eyelashes trembled faintly.

“We’re going out.” After Bai Liu had assembled Tawil, Liu Jiayi took several precautionary steps back. “It’s about to wake up. Its influence on us will become even stronger.”

The group retreated from the room in the same disciplined manner in which they had entered, even thoughtfully closing the door behind them, leaving the space to Bai Liu and the soon-to-awaken Tawil.

Bai Liu hooked his legs and leaned against the frame left behind after the glass case shattered. Rarely, he opened the system panel and paid for the mute service for his small television. Then he turned his head and stared straight at Tawil’s face, speaking as if to himself:

“I know you’re awake, Xie Ta.”

Tawil’s eyelashes trembled twice more, but they still did not open.

Bai Liu braced his hands on either side of Tawil. He simply lowered his body closer to Tawil, his gaze still fixed unblinkingly on Tawil’s face. The two grew closer and closer, until their noses were almost touching.

“You’re really going to keep pretending like this?” Bai Liu placed one hand behind Tawil’s neck and lifted it slightly, looking down at Tawil’s dull, pale lips—it was a posture poised for a kiss.

“If you keep pretending, I’m going to do something even more excessive to you,” Bai Liu said in a low voice.

One second before the kiss was about to land, Tawil finally raised a hand to cover Bai Liu’s approaching lips. He lifted his eyes very slightly, and those silver-blue eyes so familiar to Bai Liu appeared before him once again. With an extremely faint expression, he asked Bai Liu in return, “Didn’t you already demand that I do this when we first reunited?”

“Is this really something very excessive?” Tawil sat up straight, moving closer to Bai Liu.

Bai Liu instantly pulled back from Tawil. He turned his face away and took two deep breaths before turning back and questioning Tawil with forced composure: “You really do remember me. Then what were you pretending for when we first met?”

The thought that he had demanded Xie Ta kiss him the moment they met—

Bai Liu calmly pinched his own palm, maintaining his unmoved, shameless facade.

Was there anything in this world more awkward than not remembering your best friend, then pressing him for a kiss the moment you met, as if you were drunk?

Yes.

It was the fact that you had just finished assembling him while he was completely naked.

Bai Liu tried his best to keep his gaze on Tawil’s face.

Tawil looked up at him, seemingly not feeling that he had done anything wrong. “You no longer remembered me, so I politely introduced myself so that we could get to know each other again.”

“Then what were you doing just now, pretending not to be awake?” Bai Liu pretended to casually take off his protective suit and cover Tawil’s lower body with it. Only then did his tone return to normal as he calmly pressed, “What are you feeling guilty about?”

Tawil was silent for a long while before answering seriously, “Although I’m not sure why, I felt that you were angry.”

Bai Liu crossed his arms with a fake smile and glanced sideways at Tawil. “Really? Why don’t I feel that way?”

Tawil: “...”

“I’m sorry.” Tawil apologized quickly.

Bai Liu was just about to say, I’m really not angry, you don’t need to apologize, when Tawil leaned forward and embraced him, whispering very, very softly beside his ear: “Perhaps you really are very angry right now. Although this may be a little inappropriate, I am truly very happy.”

“You finally remembered me,” Tawil said. “I thought you had deliberately forgotten me because you were afraid.”

Bai Liu’s shoulders could not help relaxing. In a low voice, he lazily asked back, “So what exactly about you is worth me being afraid of?”

“Everything—the fact that I cannot die, my decaying right hand and tail, being bound in a church as a blood-sucking prayer symbol, my dismembered body, and my heart that will not stop beating even after leaving my body.”

Tawil’s voice had a clear, ice-like quality, but in Bai Liu’s ears, it seemed to have melted, becoming as soft as water.

“I am glad that even when you didn’t remember me, you were not afraid of me.”

“I missed you very much.”

Tawil buried his head deep into Bai Liu’s shoulder, holding him very tightly, his tone devout. “Seeing you the first moment I wake up every time makes even the deep sleep less frightening.”

Bai Liu’s pupils contracted slightly when Tawil said, [I missed you very much].

His palms opened, and he slowly placed them on Tawil’s shoulders, lightly returning the embrace.

Bai Liu was not very used to such intimate actions, but Xie Ta was an exception. They had slept together for a long time, familiar enough that there was no need to distinguish one from the other. Two monsters who did not fit the human definition relied on this slight emotional connection between them to survive in this world while disguised as humans.

But it had been far, far too long since the last time they could clearly recognize who the other was. For Bai Liu, it was ten years of losing all his memories; for Tawil, it was an unknown number of cycles of unstoppable torment.

After leaving each other, they had been unalterably turned into strangers by these intervening [long spans of time]. They could no longer find that sense of familiarity from back then.

These long spans of time were too lethal, even more terrifying than distance, time, or life and death—terrifying to the point that every reunion between them afterward was even stranger than their first meeting.

One side did not remember, while the other indulged that lack of memory, allowing them to remain strangers. If those memories of Xie Ta “dying” were terrifying to Bai Liu, then Tawil was willing to be the only one who remembered forever.

Even if they had to start over every time they met, he would not mind.

But the moment Bai Liu saw Xie Ta’s silver-blue eyes, the past was like a bird returning to its cage. It landed on the shoulder of the old friend Tawil whom Bai Liu had finally pieced back together, singing softly. That familiar body temperature, which Bai Liu knew better than anyone, leaned against his chest.

This monster whom Bai Liu had lost for far too long—back then, when he had lain in the blood-water baptism tank, his eyes had been lonely and curled inward. But in the next moment, Bai Liu had appeared before him. Xie Ta had silently watched the suddenly appearing Bai Liu without moving, his silver-blue eyes sprinkled with dazzling moonlight.

That gaze had been extremely light, extremely ethereal, and extremely beautiful—utterly incredible, like one deity watching the descent of another.

—And just now, Tawil had looked at him with that exact same gaze.

Bai Liu’s lips moved, his voice so soft it was almost a breath:

“I... missed you very much too.”

Bai Liu closed his eyes, allowing himself to sink into the rose fragrance on this guy that was about to make him faint. Self-destructively, he grasped the other’s hand, yet there was a clear laugh in his voice:

“From the moment I remembered you, I started missing you.”

—

Author’s Note:

The first line of the prophecy is adapted from a line in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets; the original line is “Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade.” Please, everyone, do not spam these words elsewhere! I did not write them!! If they are credited incorrectly, it will be embarrassing for all of us! Thank you, thank you!

Interested readers can look up the original poem. It is truly very beautiful.