Alex's shrill screams gradually faded. One by one, the blood-covered soldiers walked out of the tent, shaking the blood from their hands as they left.
Bai Liu lowered his head and glanced at his watch. After waiting another fifteen minutes, he walked toward Guy's tent, lifted the curtain, and stepped inside.
Tang Erda remained outside, his expression conflicted. "I won't go in. Alex's mental state won't be very stable right now."
"…If anything happens, call me," he added, unable to stop himself. "Will you continue to use Alex?"
Bai Liu paused with the curtain half-lifted. Tilting his head slightly, he smiled and answered naturally, "Yes. Is there a problem?"
Tang Erda pressed his lips together and clenched his fists, as if he wanted to say something. In the end, he only shook his head. "…No."
As a player, Bai Liu wanted to win. Using NPCs to achieve his goals was natural. He had no obligation to consider their feelings.
So why did Tang Erda feel so uneasy?
Bai Liu patted Tang Erda on the shoulder and asked gently, "If the way I use Alex makes you uncomfortable, I can consider his feelings and choose another method."
Tang Erda intended to say he didn't mind. But when he met Bai Liu's dark eyes—eyes that held no trace of a smile—the words that came out were, "What method?"
"It's very effective," Bai Liu replied with a faint smile. "You'll like it."
—After all, he had once used that method on Tang Erda.
Bai Liu lifted the curtain and entered the tent.
Alex sat motionless in the middle of the blood-soaked space. His head hung forward, as though it might fall from his neck at any moment. Blood stained both of his hands, dripping slowly from his fingertips. At his feet lay Guy's severed head, eyes still open.
The hospital bed at the back of the tent was covered in flesh and blood. The once snow-white sheets were soaked red. Limbs were scattered across them, and organs spilled from the opened abdomen. It looked like the remains of a slaughtered animal left uncollected.
In the hot, humid rainy season, flies had already begun gathering around the body.
Bai Liu stopped in front of Alex.
Alex kept his head lowered, his eyes empty and unfocused, as if nothing from the outside world could reach him anymore.
But Bai Liu needed only one sentence to make him look up.
"You guessed it, didn't you?" Bai Liu said calmly. "I arranged for Guy to die like this."
Alex slowly raised his head. His voice was hoarse.
"…Why?"
"I believe you already guessed that, too. Otherwise, you wouldn't have come to the Red Cross to guard him." Bai Liu looked down at Alex, almost as if in pity. "Because this is how Guy wanted to die."
"He wanted to apologize to the teammates he killed. He blew them to pieces—so he chose to die the same way."
Alex's face was streaked with dried tears. Fresh tears welled up again in his swollen, bloodshot eyes.
He covered his face and choked out, "Guy…"
After crying for a while, Alex forced himself to lift his head. When he looked at Bai Liu again, his eyes were filled with disgust—and a fear he could not hide.
"Guy may have wanted to atone. But if you wanted him dead, it wouldn't be for such a simple reason, would it?"
[System prompt: NPC Alex's favorability toward player Bai Liu is decreasing…]
Bai Liu seemed not to hear the notification. He answered calmly, "You're right. I arranged all of this for my own goal."
Alex arched his back and half-rose from his wheelchair, shouting hoarsely, "You manipulated him into dying! You made sure I would witness this! You've been using us from the very beginning!"
"You despicable liar—filthy manipulator!" Alex gasped, his bloodshot eyes brimming with hatred. "You're even more evil than that nonexistent god!"
Tears streamed down his face as memories surfaced. He muttered, almost deliriously, "…Guy trusted you so much. You took his bouquet and held your own wedding under his witness."
"…People like you don't deserve any pure feelings in this world."
Alex's voice turned vicious. "One day, when Spades discovers who you really are, he'll leave you!"
Bai Liu's fingers twitched slightly at his side, but his expression remained composed. He even smiled gently.
"This isn't the first time I've heard that."
Alex continued shouting and hurling insults for more than half an hour, repeating the same accusations over and over. This well-educated medical student was not skilled at cursing. Eventually, he broke down completely, sobbing.
He grabbed the hem of Bai Liu's clothes and cried out, "Why did you let him die? Why did he have to die?!"
"Wasn't I enough for him to let go of his guilt and hatred? Couldn't he have started over—for me?"
Alex trembled violently. He stared at his empty palms and wept helplessly. "There's nothing left… nothing left for me."
Bai Liu shifted his gaze toward the remains on the bed. "He left his body for you."
Alex shuddered. His expression twisted uncontrollably as he looked up at Bai Liu in horror.
But he quickly steadied himself and pushed his wheelchair backward several steps.
"I won't use that medicine on him," Alex said firmly. "Guy is Guy. He's human. Even in death, he's still human. I won't turn him into some soulless monster."
Bai Liu chuckled softly. "Why not? Is there truly any difference between a resurrected Guy and the one you love?"
"They're completely different!" Alex seemed, at last, to grasp the depth of Bai Liu's madness. He kept raising his voice, as if volume could suppress the cold dread creeping up his spine. "A corpse injected with that drug is just a body—moving flesh and blood vessels. Nothing more than a soulless monster!"
Outside the tent, Tang Erda frowned as he listened. Alex's emotions were spiraling so violently that he couldn't tell whether Bai Liu had truly chosen the "gentler" method.
Someone suddenly tapped Tang Erda on the shoulder.
He turned—and froze in shock.
Spades stood behind him, expressionless. He stared at the tent for a long moment but did not enter. Instead, he turned to Tang Erda and asked quietly,
"Is it impossible for a human to fall in love with a soulless monster?"
Tang Erda was caught off guard by the question.
Inside the tent, Bai Liu nodded slightly, signaling for Alex to continue.
Alex stared at him in disbelief. "Could you fall in love with a soulless vessel?"
Silence stretched.
Only Bai Liu's steady, gentle breathing could be heard. He seemed to be thinking.
Outside, Spades stood rigid, lips pressed thin, fists clenched tightly at his sides. He looked as though he might burst into the tent at any second—either to demand Bai Liu's answer or to silence Alex himself.
At last, Bai Liu spoke. "I don't know."
Even Tang Erda was stunned.
No version of Bai Liu he remembered would ever give such an ambiguous answer—especially not in the middle of a negotiation.
Tang Erda didn't know why he suddenly felt relieved—
—Bai Liu had not answered purely to manipulate Alex and Guy.
He had responded seriously to Alex's question. His answer hadn't been calculated solely from a standpoint of profit and gain.
He was different from Bai Liu (6).
Tang Erda let out a long breath.
A faint shadow of gloom crossed Spades' usually expressionless face. He kicked the gun lying across the tent's entrance and asked coldly, "Why doesn't he know?"
Tang Erda bent down to pick up the gun, still confused. "If you want to know, go in and ask Bai Liu. How would I know why he doesn't know?"
Spades responded with a quiet "Oh." He stepped toward the tent, paced back and forth twice with a solemn expression, yet still didn't go inside. Instead, he retreated and squatted down beside Tang Erda.
Lowering his head, he began poking holes in the mud with his finger—one, then another, then lining up the next two carefully in a neat row. Tang Erda had no idea what he was thinking.
"Why don't you go in?" Tang Erda asked, bewildered.
Spades hugged his knees and rocked slightly back and forth, like a child squatting alone after being abandoned by a friend.
When Tang Erda questioned him again, Spades only nodded faintly. "I don't know either."
He stared at the holes in the ground, jabbing at them with increasing force as he answered in a dull tone, "…I don't want to see Bai Liu right now. He doesn't even know that."
Tang Erda followed Spades' gaze to the pattern in the dirt. He paused—then couldn't help letting out an amused sigh.
The crooked holes connected into two words:
Bai Liu.
Even if you say you don't want to see him, you still want to see him.
Inside the tent, Alex was equally confused by Bai Liu's answer.
"…You don't know?"
"It's not that I don't know at all," Bai Liu replied evenly. "It's just difficult to distinguish whether what you miss is the feeling you once had for him when he was alive… or whether this body now carries the part of those feelings you're unwilling to let go of."
"Sometimes, I feel like he's a souvenir left to me by gods who pitied me." Bai Liu fell silent for a long moment before continuing. "And sometimes, I feel that he is the monster I love."
"It's not that he has no soul. It's simply that the soul is hidden within the body. I just have to wait for the day it comes back out to see me again."
Alex stared at Bai Liu in disbelief. He forced out a strained, almost bitter joke.
"…You talk as if you've gone through the same thing."
Bai Liu lifted his eyes and met Alex's gaze directly.
"I have."
"So I can tell you this—two people who love each other may be separated by death." Bai Liu's gaze dropped to Guy's severed head at Alex's feet, calm and distant. "But two monsters who love each other will not."
At that moment, the tent curtain was suddenly pulled open.
Bai Liu shifted his gaze.
Spades stood in the doorway, backlit by the dim light outside. He stared at Bai Liu without moving, his chest rising and falling slightly.
Bai Liu seemed unsurprised, as if he had known Spades was outside all along.
"You're back?" he asked calmly. "I didn't see you earlier."
"Yeah." Spades paused before explaining, "I was covered in mud. It didn't look good. I washed it off before coming to see you."