Bai Liu didn't stay long at the welfare home. He would soon be entering the game with Mu Ke, so he only made a brief sweep of the premises before preparing to leave. Before going, however, he needed to speak with Lu Yizhan.
He asked Mu Ke to head home first and wait for him. The young master looked back reluctantly as he left, asking when Bai Liu would return. Bai Liu simply handed him his house key and told him to wait there. The gesture earned him a slightly strange look from Mu Ke's father.
The moment Bai Liu stepped outside, he saw Lu Yizhan leaning against the entrance of the welfare home, waiting.
When he spotted Bai Liu, Lu Yizhan couldn't resist teasing him. "Where's the young master? He drove a ten-million-yuan luxury car just to follow you around and kept glaring at me. Since when did you become this charming?"
Bai Liu's expression didn't change. "What's the use of being charming? I turned him down for you and told him to go back first."
Lu Yizhan burst out laughing, but soon sobered. "You looked around inside. What did you find?"
Bai Liu answered unhurriedly. "Besides the poisoned children, there are missing children as well. I already know about the poisoning. As for the disappearances… this isn't the first incident at this welfare home, is it?"
Lu Yizhan looked surprised. "How did you know?"
"The attitude," Bai Liu said calmly. "The teacher gave me the wrong feeling. Normally, people avoid places where disappearances have occurred. But she was afraid and still walked us through the playground."
"That kind of 'afraid but accustomed to it' attitude only forms after repeated incidents."
"Yes." Lu Yizhan pulled out the cigarette he had put away earlier and lit it irritably. "The dean told us it's been happening every year for the past ten years."
"With so many annual disappearances, there should be records. Why haven't you heard about it before?" Bai Liu asked.
"They weren't classified as missing. The children were recorded as runaways. Even when reported, the cases were treated as such." Lu Yizhan bit down lightly on the cigarette, his eyes dim. "Probably just a passing mention in the files. You wouldn't notice unless you were looking closely."
Children disappearing from a private welfare home was hardly a priority. There were no parents or relatives to demand answers. Intermittent reports like these were quietly shelved, reduced to a few lines in an archive. The children themselves vanished into the sea of people.
"I had already looked into this welfare home before," Lu Yizhan continued, exhaling smoke. "Several entrepreneurs who invested here all recovered from serious illnesses afterward. That caught my attention. But private welfare homes aren't as strictly regulated as public ones. They're more self-managed. There's no guarantee the records we obtained are complete."
"For example, if a child went missing and the dean didn't report it for years, we might never know."
He fell silent for a moment. "I suspect those entrepreneurs are involved somehow. But their reputations are too solid now, and it's been years. We have no evidence. There's no way to pursue it."
Bai Liu replied indifferently, "Even if they did something to some of the children each year and used disappearances to quietly erase them, you wouldn't know where to begin investigating."
"Yes." Lu Yizhan took a deep drag and coughed. "But those are human lives, Bai Liu."
His eyes were slightly red as he stared at him. "I can't accept it. Their deaths have all been labeled accidents. Even if they truly were accidents, every other possibility must be ruled out. I'm willing to do that—but—"
"You have no proof," Bai Liu finished calmly. "You can't rule anything out. And it isn't even within your official scope of work. You coming here is already overstepping."
Lu Yizhan fell quiet. Yet moments later, he resumed discussing the disappearances as if nothing had happened.
He had a peculiar resilience. Bai Liu would abandon anything he knew was impossible, but Lu Yizhan would still try—so long as there was even a sliver of hope. Even if it meant wasting his time. And more often than not, he would drag Bai Liu along with him.
Lu Yizhan showed Bai Liu the photos he had taken of the missing children—group photos from June 1st of each year.
When the first image appeared, Lu Yizhan went strangely silent.
Among the missing children was Bai Liu.
"You think he looks like fourteen-year-old me, don't you?" Bai Liu tapped the face of Bai Liu (6) on the screen and commented evenly. "I think so too."
"You're not alike at all," Lu Yizhan said quietly. For once, he stubbornly contradicted him. "He's dead. You're alive."
-----------------
"Have you ever encountered something like this, Mu Sicheng?" Bai Liu asked as he walked home. "In the future, I die in a game instance set ten years in the past. But ten years later, I'm still alive."
On the other end of the phone, Mu Sicheng sounded startled. "Isn't that the grandfather paradox? Bai Liu, your luck is ridiculous. I've never even heard of a situation like that happening in the game."
The grandfather paradox proposed that if someone traveled back in time and killed their grandfather, they would no longer exist—so how could they have traveled back in the first place?
Bai Liu's situation was similar. If he entered a future game and died in an instant set ten years ago, how was he still alive now?
"Parallel universe theory?" Mu Sicheng ventured. "That's the most common explanation. Suppose the space-time you're in is A. The instance loaded in A might actually belong to Bai Liu from space-time B, who failed to clear it."
"Then you'd better not enter this welfare home instance," Mu Sicheng added seriously. "As long as you don't go in, you won't die and create another timeline."
"I don't think it's parallel universes," Bai Liu replied calmly. "Our reality is the official version of the game. What we see is the finalized result after the game world's open beta. All algorithms have already run their course. There shouldn't be branching timelines."
"The reality we're in is the final outcome of all possibilities. It can't be a parallel world."
"That's true," Mu Sicheng agreed—then suddenly froze. "Wait. If the result is unique, doesn't that mean you will die in the instance set ten years ago?!"
"Yet I'm alive now," Bai Liu said rationally. "Which proves I didn't die there. Otherwise, the propositions 'I'm alive' and 'I'm dead' would form a contradiction within a single, non-branching timeline."
"Then… what's going on?"
Bai Liu didn't answer. He had already reached his door and was unlocking it, phone wedged between his shoulder and ear.
"When are you entering the game?" he asked instead.
"Why?" Mu Sicheng groaned. "Damn it, I've had insomnia ever since agreeing to compete with you. I can grind through twenty-six games in two months if I have to—but shouldn't you at least arrange teammates for me?"
"That's exactly what I wanted to discuss," Bai Liu replied briskly. "I want you to bring two newcomers: Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu. They tied for first in the last batch. Both have personal skills, and their panel ratings are C+. Take them through a level-one instance to train them. Teach them the basics. Don't protect them too much."
After returning from the hotpot the previous night, Bai Liu had spoken with Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu. He had honestly told them about the league's risks.
They hadn't hesitated.
Hand in hand, they agreed through tears. They only asked him two questions.
The first: "If we win, we can resurrect Guoguo, right?"
"Theoretically, yes," Bai Liu answered. "You could also accumulate points slowly through normal games. The league is riskier but faster. Think about it carefully and tell me tomorrow."
Xiang Chunhua glanced at Liu Fu nervously, fingers twisting her apron. On the television behind her, the news replayed the sentencing of Li Gou, the suspect in the dismemberment case of a high school girl. The announcer's voice echoed through the room, stating he had been sentenced to death.
She looked at Bai Liu earnestly.
"What kind of competition is it? Can we help you?"
Bai Liu paused. "Yes. But the mortality rate is high. You should think carefully—"
"We'll go," Xiang Chunhua interrupted with a smile, wiping her tears. "No need to think about it. We believe in you, Bai Liu. And besides, where else can we earn points? It's just playing games, right? I was on my school's women's volleyball team, wasn't I, Liu Fu?"