The dean brought Bai Liu to the ninth floor.
There were noticeably fewer patients here than on the lower floors, and none of them appeared critically ill. In fact, Bai Liu felt that their condition was roughly the same as his own. The most obvious similarity was their height—they were all about the same.
From his observations, the sicker the patients in this hospital were, the more slender their bodies became.
In other words, the closer they resembled the "Slender Man."
Little Bai Liu (6)'s description of him had been surprisingly accurate. The child's ability to instinctively identify horror elements made Bai Liu realize that perhaps, even at fourteen, he had already been subconsciously aware of such things.
There were twenty-one wards on this floor.
The dean assigned Bai Liu to Room 906, on the left side of the corridor. She informed him that she would return to collect the remaining investors.
After she left, Bai Liu surveyed the ward carefully. Something about this private hospital felt deeply unsettling.
The décor was refined and expensive, yet the lighting was extremely poor. Every room was dim—even during the daytime, the lights had to be switched on. And even then, the brightness was so low that it was difficult to see clearly.
High-powered humidifiers operated constantly throughout the building, spraying fine mist into the air. The entire hospital was damp, as if it were perpetually stuck in a southern rainy season. A haze of moisture lingered everywhere.
Avoiding light. Increasing humidity.
No normal hospital would be built like this. It was almost as if they were deliberately creating conditions to prevent the patients from dying.
The poor lighting and heavy mist severely limited visibility. Without the dean guiding him earlier, Bai Liu would have struggled to navigate the passages. The moisture made both floors and walls slippery.
In his current form, tall and with elongated limbs, it would be easy for him to lose balance. If a chase were to occur here, he would have to run very carefully. The thought gave him a faint sense of unease.
Inside Room 906, Bai Liu found three humidifiers and a single dim lamp. But the strangest feature was the hospital bed.
Earlier, he had judged this place to be a well-equipped, high-end private hospital. Even the bathroom faucets were shaped like golden lion heads.
Yet when he lifted the white bedsheet, he raised an eyebrow. Underneath was a stack of straw. It was a straw mattress.
Bai Liu had slept on this type of bed in a poorly funded welfare home during his childhood. It was relatively comfortable but inconvenient to maintain. Its only real advantage was that it was cheap.
Straw had to remain dry to be usable. Once damp, it rotted easily and caused rashes and red blotches on the skin. In humid environments, it could even grow mushrooms.
And indeed, after pulling back the sheets, Bai Liu saw clusters of gray mushrooms growing densely from the corner of the bed, creeping toward the wooden bookcase beside it.
A straw mattress is placed in a room with three humidifiers. This bed was essentially a fungal petri dish. The straw would rot quickly. Insects, maggots, and mushrooms would inevitably breed within it, crawling over whoever slept there.
In short, during the rainy season of his childhood, Bai Liu would rather sleep on the bare ground than on a damp straw bed.
[System tip: Player Bai Liu (Investor Identity), please complete the main task: find the prescription to restore your life and alleviate your terminal illness symptoms.]
Medicine to restore his life… Where would he find such a cure?
If this were a typical private hospital with doctors, Bai Liu would have headed straight to the doctor's office to search for prescriptions or treatment plans.
But there were no doctors here. Only nurses push stainless steel carts along the corridors.
When he had passed the nurse station earlier, he had noticed there were no medicine vials, no pills, not even syringes or IV drips. The waist-high carts resembled cafeteria food trolleys from his company. They were likely used to deliver meals.
In a hospital with no doctors, no medicine, and nothing but patients—
How was he supposed to find life-restoring treatment for a terminal illness?
Wait. There was nothing here but patients.
Bai Liu's eyes narrowed slightly. He turned toward the bookcase behind the ward door.
Earlier, he had only glanced at it briefly. It was filled with old books—so many that he hadn't even considered them potential clues. They were disorganized, ranging from novels to geographical atlases.
If Bai Liu were designing the game, he wouldn't hide a single critical clue inside a two-meter-tall bookcase packed with irrelevant information. That would be tedious and uninspired.
Unless—
What if the bookshelf didn't contain just one clue? What if it contained everything a player needed—except for one missing piece?
[System tip: Congratulations! You have triggered the side task: Search the medical books (Life Recovery Medicine).]
As expected.
Bai Liu began sorting the books into rough categories. He set aside items clearly unrelated to the instance—such as pornographic magazines. The remaining volumes were primarily medical texts and journals.
He stacked them heavily on the floor. Judging by their weight, the pile was likely dozens of kilograms.
There were Chinese and Western medical textbooks, internal and surgical manuals, English-language research papers, and medical journals. The sheer volume was overwhelming.
Bai Liu doubted that someone without medical knowledge could realistically identify the correct life-restoring prescription among them.
Then something struck him. These medical books were clearly intended for readers with professional knowledge.
Yet there were no doctors in this hospital. Which meant—
The books weren't meant for doctors. They were meant for the patients. This wasn't a hospital without doctors. The patients were the doctors.
These investors—terminally ill and wealthy—were diagnosing and treating themselves.
But why?
If they had money, why not hire professionals? Were doctors incapable of curing their condition?
And if doctors couldn't cure them, then what value did these books hold?
Bai Liu thought it through carefully.
All the investors here were suffering from terminal illnesses. That meant someone must have already begun treatment—someone had found and used the life recovery medicine.
Newly admitted patients like Bai Liu simply didn't receive it for free.
They had to find it themselves within this mountain of information.
Unfortunately, Bai Liu had never been a particularly disciplined student. He had little patience for studying subjects that didn't interest him. When faced with homework he didn't understand, he often shamelessly copied from others.
Most frequently, he copied from Lu Yizhan, the top student with the highest accuracy rate.
In this game…
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes.
The key question was: Whose homework should he copy?
Among all the patients in this hospital, who would be able to sift through this pile of medical books quickly and correctly to obtain the critical clue?
_________________________________________________
Mu Ke had also been brought to this private hospital and triggered the same task: search the bookcase for the life recovery medicine.
He now sat on his bed, staring at the towering stack of medical texts.
He hadn't seriously read a textbook since graduation. Worse, the lighting in his room was so dim that he could barely see someone standing one meter away—let alone read fine print.
He considered purchasing a desk lamp from the system store.
But the system issued a warning: the ward required low-light conditions. High-brightness lighting was prohibited. Was he sure he still wanted to buy related items?
In other words, the item could be purchased—
But it couldn't be used inside the ward.
Mu Ke frowned. Perhaps he could take the books outside to read them.
At the very least, the corridor lighting was slightly better than the suffocating darkness of his room.
The moment he walked out of the ward with a book, he was startled as soon as he opened the door. An expressionless nurse was patrolling the corridor, pushing a stainless steel cart. The instant she saw Mu Ke step out with the book, she issued a warning: he wasn't allowed to wander around with items from the ward. Moreover, patients were forbidden from walking freely on their first day of admission and were required to remain inside their rooms.
It seemed he couldn't take the book out after all.
Mu Ke frowned and returned to his room. He had no choice but to continue reading under this dim light.
After a while, a sense of powerlessness crept over him. His reading speed was usually considered very fast, but in such poor lighting, his efficiency plummeted. The information felt disorganized and directionless. It was nearly impossible to extract an effective treatment plan—or, as the system put it, the life recovery medicine—from the text.
Mu Ke realized it would be difficult to find the correct answer by reading through the books alone, yet he couldn't think of any alternative for the moment. The game's hints were far too explicit. It was clearly directing the players to search through the pile of books in the bookcase for the answer—and that just so happened to be Mu Ke's strength.
Still, anxiety gnawed at him as he stared at the book in his hands and let out a sigh. It had been a long time since he'd experienced the frustration of failing to find an answer in a book. Mu Ke had been a top student since childhood and had skipped several grades after entering high school. After entering the game, his intelligence stat stood at a relatively high 85 points.
His reading speed and memory comprehension were exceptional. If only he had a sufficiently bright environment, he was confident he could comb through this stack of books within three days and uncover the answer. He was desperate to obtain the life recovery medicine for Bai Liu, but the oppressive dimness around him only made him more irritable.
It took him an entire hour to finish a single book.
This wasn't his true level at all.
Just as Mu Ke was racking his brain for a solution, his system panel trembled. An additional item had appeared in his inventory. He hadn't purchased anything himself. Clearly, Bai Liu had bought it.
Bai Liu could manipulate his panel to purchase items—this was one of their methods of communication. Now that they were confined to separate wards, using item purchases to exchange information was extremely discreet. It allowed them to avoid the eyes and ears of others.
Mu Ke opened the system panel and checked the item in his warehouse. The audience could view the system store, but the warehouse interface remained invisible. To protect players' property, the warehouse was shielded from view. Even the spectators watching from the small televisions couldn't detect the private exchanges between Mu Ke and Bai Liu.
It was, in every sense, highly secretive.
The only way their communication could be exposed was if Mu Ke were killed. The items they used would then drop in front of his killer, potentially alerting that player to something unusual. For instance, if Bai Liu and Mu Ke had used a memo pad or a voice recorder to exchange messages, those items would fall to the ground upon Mu Ke's death.
If he were killed suddenly during their exchange—or before he had time to erase any traces—the dropped item might expose Bai Liu.
Of course, they could encrypt their messages with a password to prevent simple deciphering. But how could they guarantee that the password wouldn't be cracked easily—or that Mu Ke could quickly understand it under pressure?
Bai Liu disliked any situation in which he might be exposed to an opponent. So he chose an unconventional communication tool.
He bought Mu Ke a black keyboard.
It was a familiar tool for both of them. Compared to notebooks, paper, or tape recorders—items that would leave obvious traces of communication—a keyboard was far subtler. They could remove specific keycaps to convey a message, then replace them afterward. Compared to other tools, it left virtually no trace.
The "password" embedded in the keyboard was something only the two of them would immediately understand. Even if Mu Ke were killed and the keyboard dropped, the enemy would be unlikely to suspect it was a communication device, let alone decipher the information it contained.
Of course, there was another reason for Bai Liu's choice. When browsing the system store, he noticed that the keyboard cost fewer than 10 points. It seemed practical enough, so he bought it.
Mu Ke froze when he saw it.
The [Ctrl] and [C] keycaps had been removed.
A common shortcut: copy.
Copy what?
What did they need to copy right now? Wasn't the most urgent task to find the life recovery medicine?
Wait.
Understanding dawned on him. Bai Liu wanted to copy the life recovery medicine.
Did that mean it could be copied? From where? There were so many wards—was Bai Liu aware that one of them contained the life recovery medicine?
Mu Ke stared at the keyboard, deep in thought. Then, hesitantly, he removed the [?] and [Num Lock] keycaps and placed them into his warehouse. He waited nervously for Bai Liu's response, worried that his meaning might not be understood.
"Num Lock" locked the keypad numbers—but taken literally, it could also mean "lock number." Combined with the [?] keycap, Mu Ke's intended message was clear: Bai Liu, which number should we lock onto?
The wards were identified by numbers. Bai Liu needed to tell him which number to focus on so he would know which ward Bai Liu intended to target.
Soon, the keyboard in his warehouse disappeared—then reappeared a short while later. When it returned, the [Ctrl] and [C] keycaps had been restored.
But three new keycaps were missing.
"1, 7, 0."
Mu Ke was instantly perplexed.
For a room number, 0 couldn't appear at the front. That meant the first digit could only be 1 or 7. There were only three possible combinations: 701, 710, and 107.
The seventh floor housed operating rooms, not wards. 107 was even more absurd—it was a "blank" ward. There was no Room 107 in this building. It had likely been vacated and repurposed as a storage room or warehouse, yet the number label remained. There were rooms 106 and 108—but no 107.
A flicker of frustration crossed Mu Ke's face. He couldn't grasp Bai Liu's intention. He scanned the three digits again, mentally running through all six permutations. Then, slowly, he sat up straight.
This private hospital didn't assign ward numbers with English letters, but there was one special ward without a number at all—the ICU. The ICU on the first floor wasn't labeled with a room number. Since every other space on the first floor was a ward, this ICU likely corresponded to the "107" that didn't officially exist.
Bai Liu hadn't referred to it directly as the ICU because there was more than one ICU in the hospital. Simply saying "ICU" could cause confusion. Mu Ke had asked for a number, so Bai Liu chose a more precise method to indicate the ward.
It simply never occurred to him that the person on the other end might struggle to connect "107" with the ICU on the first floor.
Fortunately, Mu Ke possessed excellent memory and analytical skills. He successfully deciphered Bai Liu's meaning.
Bai Liu wanted to copy the treatment method of a critically ill patient.
"Fuck." Mu Ke couldn't help cursing under his breath.
The patient inside the ICU was the hospital's original investor—a man over two meters tall who looked more like a ghost than a human. He was highly likely to be a monster in this instance.
Moreover, the nurses had stated that ICU patients never left their ward throughout the day. How were they supposed to get inside and copy the life recovery medicine? And they weren't even certain the medicine was there.
Yet Bai Liu was quite confident that the ICU contained the life recovery medicine mentioned by the system.
If the patients here were considered "doctors," then compared to the novice doctors who had just arrived, the older and more severely ill ones—those who had "studied" longer—were far more likely to possess effective treatment methods.
In short, Bai Liu believed that most of the patients in the ICU ward possessed the life recovery medicine.
Whether he could obtain it was another matter entirely.
The ICU patients hardly looked human and never left their ward. Bai Liu had no opportunity to enter, nor did he know whether the patients—or monsters—would immediately attack if he did. After all, he wouldn't be entering with good intentions. He would be rummaging through their belongings.
The risk was extremely high. But so were the potential rewards.
If he succeeded, Bai Liu would become the first player to obtain the life recovery medicine. That alone would grant him a tremendous advantage—one he could even leverage in trades with other players.
Still, two obvious obstacles stood in his way.
The first: how to break in?
Nurses patrolled the hospital corridors constantly. Any patient who violated hospital regulations would be swiftly corrected. Forcing his way into the ICU was out of the question. If he wanted to infiltrate it, he had to avoid the nurses' patrols.
The problem was that the nurses possessed sharp reconnaissance abilities and astonishing speed. At the very least, Bai Liu couldn't outrun them—not when they could sprint across the slick floors in thin high heels.
The second: how to search the ward once inside?
There was clearly something wrong with the ICU patients. They were most likely monsters. Rushing in and searching their belongings right in front of them would be nearly impossible.
Before Bai Liu could devise a concrete plan, night fell.
At 9:00 p.m., the nurses announced a curfew. All patients were forbidden from leaving their wards.
The only sounds in the corridor were the nurses pushing their carts back and forth. They patrolled continuously. If they noticed even a sliver of dim light leaking from beneath a ward door, they would knock and order the patient to turn off the lights and rest.
They were just like the dormitory matrons at Bai Liu's high school. Except these nurses were far less friendly.
Bai Liu cracked his door open to take a look. The nurses strode down the corridor in high heels, their faces blurred by the mist from the humidifiers. In the dim haze, they reminded him of the creatures from Silent Hill.
Their eyesight was astonishingly sharp.
Though Bai Liu had opened the door only a sliver, he soon noticed a pair of fluorescent green eyes—glowing like a cat's in the dark—fixing on him from afar. The nurse immediately turned her cart and rushed toward him, her heels striking the floor rapidly.
Bai Liu reacted just as quickly, slamming the door shut and locking it.
Moments later, the squeaking cart stopped outside his room. A heavy knock sounded.
"Patient in Room 906," the nurse said in a low voice, "did you just open your door? Haven't you read the hospital's rules and regulations? It is strictly forbidden to leave after 9:00 p.m. You may only open your ward door after 9:00 a.m."
She continued knocking as her stern voice echoed down the corridor.
Bai Liu had no intention of opening the door.
After a moment, her tone shifted—stretching, growing strange.
"If you open the door during this time period and something enters your ward, the hospital will not be responsible for your personal safety."
Then she pushed her cart away. Bai Liu frowned. Something would be roaming the corridors at night. And this time period…
From 9:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m., patients were forbidden to open their doors. It was similar to prohibiting them from leaving—but this time frame coincided exactly with the child's call schedule: 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., and 9:00 p.m. to midnight.
The time when the child went out to call the investor was precisely when the investor was unable to leave his ward.
The nurse had mentioned "something" entering rooms. If that "something" was a monster, then the time it emerged aligned perfectly with the child's calling hours. It seemed that little Bai Liu (6) was taking enormous risks to make those calls.
At 9:30 p.m., just when Bai Liu thought he wouldn't receive a call tonight, his walkie-talkie crackled to life.
He picked it up.
The old device emitted heavy static. Through it, he could hear frantic, ragged breathing—the sound of someone sprinting at full speed. It was as if the person was running with the walkie-talkie clutched in their hand, gasping for air.
Bai Liu remained silent. Gradually, the breathing steadied. Then a voice spoke. "Wait… something is chasing me."
The instant little Bai Liu (6) uttered those words, Bai Liu's system interface popped up.
[System Notification: Congratulations to player Bai Liu's secondary identity line for triggering the Monster Book.]
[Love Welfare Institute Monster Book updated—Deformed Child (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Deformed Child]
[Features: Increased movement speed (350–600)]
[Weaknesses: ??? (Unexplored)]
[Attack Mode: Enjoys playing with the player's secondary identity line. When it "plays" with the secondary identity line, that identity disappears from the welfare home.]
Five minutes later, Bai Liu heard the sound of fabric scraping against the ground. Little Bai Liu (6) seemed to have hidden somewhere. He lowered his voice. "Okay… it hasn't caught up for now. You can talk."
His voice rose and fell unevenly, but there was no obvious fear in it. Despite being chased, he remained unnervingly calm.
"What's chasing you?" Bai Liu asked.
"A child." His breathing was still uneven. "He squats on the ground and runs on all fours like a monkey. He's very thin and keeps drooling while smiling. He looks strange—like he was born with a congenital defect."
As he described it, Bai Liu immediately understood.
During his time at the welfare home, he had seen children with Down syndrome. Their features were distinctive—flat nasal bridges, elongated mouths, full cheeks, short necks, and wide-set eyes. Some children cruelly nicknamed them "frogs" because of their appearance.
A frog-like child crawling on all fours, drooling and grinning, chasing little Bai Liu (6) through the night…
Fortunately, Bai Liu (6)'s obsession with money drove him to keep the call going. A normal child would have burst into tears long ago. Who would continue running while staying on the line?
"So, did you lose it?" Bai Liu asked.
"No." The moment he answered, Bai Liu heard it.
A small child's voice. The scrape of fabric against gravel. The rapid movement of someone crawling on all fours—it was fast, producing a faint hissing sound, like a snake slithering across stone. The creature chasing little Bai Liu (6) was incredibly quick.
After that, Bai Liu (6) fell silent. Only his rapid breathing and pounding footsteps filled the static. Behind him came laughter—a high, childish giggle—accompanied by the growing friction of cloth against the ground.
The sound was getting closer. The scraping grew heavier, as though the contact between fabric and earth had increased. The child chasing him must have lowered its body even further. It would catch up soon.
Bai Liu waited quietly, careful not to distract little Bai Liu (6), who was still being chased. Another five minutes passed before the breathless boy spoke again. "It's fine."
"Did you shake him off?" Bai Liu asked.
"No. He's chasing other people now." Little Bai Liu (6)'s tone carried no sympathy. "Some other children came out to make calls. They were chased as soon as they stepped outside. Now they're running and crying, so he stopped chasing me."
Bai Liu understood immediately. There was likely only one Deformed Child roaming outside the welfare home. Its aggro had shifted to someone else, which made Bai Liu (6) relatively safe—for the moment.
"What's happening over there?" Bai Liu asked. "What happened after the dean brought you in?"
"Everything was normal after we were taken inside," Bai Liu (6) replied in an orderly manner. "The welfare home assigned us rooms. I was placed in a room with three other newcomer boys. The blind little girl lives in a different building across from us. We're all staying on the first floor." Even while short of breath, his explanation was clear and structured. He summarized the general situation first before moving on to the details Bai Liu would care about.
Bai Liu (6) hadn't caught his breath yet. "Our phones were confiscated. The teacher said this type of communication device is prohibited. Later, he claimed we'd be given an adjustment period. We're allowed to keep them for one week, but there's a fixed calling schedule—the same one you mentioned. We also can't make calls inside the room because it would disturb others."
He continued, "The teachers and caregivers warned me not to follow the sound of the flute at night. They said whoever plays it abducts children. As a result, at 9:30 p.m., I heard someone playing a messy nursery rhyme on a flute."
"I didn't want to go out," he added calmly. "But the timing was too precise. It was right after 9:00, and you told me you'd pay me for every minute of call time. So I came out."
Don't follow the sound of the flute. Bai Liu remembered that in the real-world welfare home, there had also been rumors of four children who went out after hearing flute music—then vanished.
He thought of a fairy tale.
"Don't follow the flute; the flutist abducts children. What does that remind you of?" Bai Liu asked.
There was a brief silence. "Since you brought it up, you're probably thinking of the same thing I am," little Bai Liu (6) replied. "The story is called The Pied Piper of Hamelin."
"That's right," Bai Liu said. "It's an English children's poem."
The story of the Pied Piper told of a plague-stricken town overrun by rats. The townspeople tried everything to drive them away, but nothing worked. Then a piper in colorful clothes appeared and promised to rid the town of rats in exchange for payment.
The townspeople agreed. The piper played his flute, and rats poured out from every corner of the town, following him in a trance. He led them to a river deep enough to reach his waist. The rats walked into the water behind him and drowned.
The plague ended. The townspeople rejoiced, but they regretted it and were unwilling to pay the piper. So the piper played his flute again. This time, it was the children of the town who followed him. Laughing and lining up just like the rats, they trailed behind him no matter how desperately their parents cried out. The piper led them away, and they were never seen again.
Some versions claimed he drowned them in revenge. Others said that the piper turned the children into rats and took them to make trouble in the next town so he could continue to receive payment.
"Did you see who was playing the flute?" Bai Liu asked.
"I didn't," Bai Liu (6) replied after thinking for a moment. "The sound came from all directions. It felt like more than one person was playing. But the player wasn't very skilled. There were several wrong notes, and the same few nursery rhymes were repeated for half an hour. It felt like a beginner."
"Did any other children come out after hearing it?" Bai Liu asked.
"No." This time, the answer came quickly. "Except for the newcomer rooms, where there are no teachers assigned yet, all other rooms have teachers or caregivers present. Only we could come out to make calls."
From the other end came a shrill child's cry, followed by eerie laughter—the Deformed Child chasing someone else. "Oh, right," Bai Liu (6) added. "The one being chased is Miao Feichi. He's another investor's child."
"Little Miao Feichi?" Bai Liu's tone turned interested. "Why did he come out to call? Oh, right, he has a rather unpleasant hobby. You should stay away from him."
"What hobby?" Bai Liu (6) asked.
"He likes to eat human flesh."
There was silence on the other end. Then Bai Liu (6) spoke calmly, rational as ever. "That explains why he came out at night. When he saw the child crawling on the ground, he probably took the initiative to go outside. I assumed he was making a phone call, but after what you said, he likely used that as an excuse to hunt."
And apparently, he had met a formidable opponent.
"I have a bit of a grudge against his investor," Bai Liu said lightly. "You'd better avoid getting involved with him."
"Do you need me to do anything?" little Bai Liu (6) asked flatly. "For example, kick him so he falls and gets caught and killed? I'll do it as long as you pay." He spoke of such things with unsettling indifference, as though discussing homework rather than someone's life.
"There's no need for now," Bai Liu replied, stroking his chin with a faint chuckle. "Just protect yourself. You're more important to me than he is." He paused, amused. "I don't remember being this bold at fourteen."
"Perhaps," little Bai Liu (6) said coolly, "at my age, you hadn't yet met an investor who looked suspicious at first glance but offered you a sky-high price just to chat."
Bai Liu fell silent.
He couldn't help recalling his fourteen-year-old self. If he hadn't met Lu Yizhan—who had firmly guided him toward becoming a decent person—and instead encountered someone willing to pay him to do bad things…
He might have done them.
"You don't need to care about Miao Feichi," Bai Liu said, shifting the topic. "But if something happens to two other children, help them if you can. One is called Mu Ke. The other is the blind little girl. I'll pay you for assisting them."
Little Bai Liu (6)'s tone turned oddly probing. "You want to save that boy and girl, too? What's your relationship with them that you'd pay me to protect them? They looked quite nice…"
"What are you thinking?" Bai Liu immediately caught the implication and felt a rare flicker of exasperation. His younger self's estimation of his adult morality was alarmingly low. "The girl is someone a friend of mine wants to adopt. I'm not as depraved as you seem to think. I'm not interested in children."
Then, remembering his own fixation on money, he added pragmatically, "But your own safety comes first. You're the most important to me. Remember that."
There was a brief silence.
Instead of responding directly, little Bai Liu (6) said, "The call lasted 17 minutes and 3 seconds. I'll round it down to 17 minutes. At one hundred yuan per minute, that's 1,700 yuan. Please settle the payment."
He paused. "And you're not a good person at all, so don't say things like that to me," he added in a perfectly flat tone. "It's strangely disgusting to hear, Mr. Investor."
Then he hung up.
Bai Liu stared at the silent walkie-talkie. "…."
A minute later, it rang again.
The same polite, emotionless voice came through. "By the way, Mr. Investor. I fell three times tonight. Please reimburse my medical expenses. I'll have the dean send you the bill. Good night."
The line went dead again. Bai Liu slowly put the walkie-talkie away and muttered in disbelief, "Was I really that annoying when I was fourteen?"