Chapter 82.1: Love Welfare Institute
Liu Huai perceived Liu Jiayi’s uneasiness and forcibly controlled his tone. He hugged Liu Jiayi and patted her back while composing himself. “No, Jiayi didn’t do anything wrong. It is just a game.”
“Yes, it is just a game.” Liu Huai closed his eyes as if he was hypnotizing himself or hypnotizing Liu Jiayi. Once he opened his eyes again, his tone was quite calm. “I will take you to play a game, Jiajia.”
Liu Jiayi was held in Liu Huai’s arms and grabbed the corner of Liu Huai’s clothes, quietly asking, “What game, Brother?”
Liu Huai opened his mouth. He thought of Bai Liu who wanted to control Liu Jiayi’s soul and Miao Feichi who liked to eat the flesh of children. In the end, he held Liu Jiayi tightly and smiled helplessly. “It is a game where everyone except for us are bad guys. Jiajia, you must follow me closely, okay?”
“Okay.” Liu Jiayi nodded obediently. “I won’t run around.”
The audience in the multiplayer zone whispered to each other. This was the first time they saw a player who entered the game skip the single player game in the newcomers area and be dragged directly into the multiplayer game zone.
However, the core of this game was human desire. If the little girl’s desire to see her brother was extremely strong then the system did indeed have the ability to directly drag her into the game of her brother, Liu Huai.
This little girl’s small TV should obviously be in the newcomers zone but a multiplayer game should logically be logged into in the multiplayer zone. There was no precedent for multi-zone logins so the system might’ve considered it and directly turned off the little girl’s small TV.
It was just that it wasn’t good to start off in a level 2 game, even if the little girl was protected by Liu Huai. After all, Liu Huai would find it hard to protect himself in the level 2 game. This game had the league players Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang. The two players had heard about Bai Liu’s skill and were wary of it. It wouldn’t be so easy for them to be controlled by Bai Liu.
Therefore, it was likely that there would be no other powerful player in this game that Bai Liu could control and use to block the knife. The room for Bai Liu to play was very small. Some audience members who had a certain degree of goodwill toward Bai Liu sighed. “I can only hope that Mu Sicheng will cooperate well with him this time so there is a glimmer of life.”
There was a sneer from another view. “Mu Sicheng’s support is against the sky but Bai Liu’s output is like mud against the wall. The Scavenger Zombies’ output is Miao Feichi and he has an S-grade panel. How could you compare a primary school student with a graduate student?”
Soon, there were viewers who browsed all the small TVs and asked in a puzzled manner, “No, there is no Mu Sicheng among the five open small TVs?”
“Bai Liu is in the game alone?!”
After confirming that there was indeed no Mu Sicheng in the game, everyone was sluggish regardless of whether they were Bai Liu’s fans who were worried about him, the people eating melons or Bai Liu’s black fans.
A few seconds passed before this group of onlookers called out in unison, “Fuck!!!”
Bai Liu logged into a backlit room on the second floor of the welfare home. Bai Liu directly broke open the look and went outside to find a map. Soon, Bai Liu was punished for not following the game process. He walked around the second floor and it actually formed a circle. Bai Liu ended up back at the room where he started. There was no doubt that he hit a ghost wall or the game was forcing him to finish this story plot before leaving the floor.
Bai Liu walked into the room had he just appeared in. There was a small bench in the dark and cold room. In the evening light, the chairs cast long shadows on the ground. There were small benches stacked haphazardly on both sides of the room. This looked like a classroom during the holidays with the desks, chairs and benches put away. This made the bench placed in the middle of the room stand out even more.
There was an old-fashioned radio on the podium facing the classroom. It looked like a version from 10 years ago. The radio had a tape in it that was spinning on its own. There were ‘zizizi’ sounds and it wasn’t very smooth. The voice of a little girl singing a nursery rhyme came out of the radio:
“Born on a Monday,
Christened on a Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
This is the end of Bai Liu—”
Bai Liu raised his eyebrow. This wasn’t the first time he had heard this. This was a nursery rhyme from the famous dark nursery rhyme of ‘Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes’. It was called Solomon Grundy and told the tragic story of a person’s life. The final line of the nursery rhyme was ‘This is the end of Solomon Grundy’ but it seemed the name had become his.
He didn’t know how many times he heard the nursery rhyme that repeatedly played when a figure gradually appeared in the shadow reflected by the sunlight. It looked like a person was sitting on a chair but Bai Liu examined it from all directions. There was no one there, just an empty chair with nothing on it.
Suddenly, the shadow got up from the chair and rushed to Bai Liu’s side. Bai Liu didn’t avoid it. He felt that this should be an opening animation introducing the game content like the last game. He watched the fast approaching shadow melt into his own shadow.
Bai Liu’s shadow extended under the sun’s rays, moving through the crack in the door to the outside of the door. Then it stopped outside the door. At this time, the nursery rhyme stopped abruptly and there was a knock on the door.
“Hello, are you an investor in this welfare home?” A boy knocked on the door politely and asked with a hint of the rasp of a teenager who hadn’t finished changing his voice. “I’m the child who is here to report in today.”
Bai Liu was keenly aware that the person outside the door was hiding coldness and impatience under the politeness. Bai Liu knew this voice or rather, he couldn’t not know it. He was familiar with it, familiar beyond words. This was why he could detect all the emotions behind the seemingly placid tone. After all, 10 years ago, Bai Liu was accompanied by this voice.
Bai Liu stepped on the deformed shadow and slowly opened the door.
“Hello, I am the new sponsored child.” Outside the door was a young boy who only went up to Bai Liu’s chest. The dark eyes were looking him over with scrutiny that wasn’t hidden very well. Finally, the teenager held out his hand politely. “Hello investor, my name is Bai Liu (6). I am a new child who was told to come to this private welfare home.”
‘Let me see. I’m in this state…’ Bai Liu stroked his chin and scanned the overly calm young boy. ‘I should be 14 years old.’
[System tip: Player Bai Liu has successfully met and talked with his secondary identity line, triggering the child identity plot line. Player Bai Liu has entered the two-line operation mode.]
[System tip: In Love Welfare Institute, the player has two different identity lines. One is the adult you and the other is the young you. The adult you is the main identity line while the young you is the secondary identity line. You are different halves of the same person. The secondary identity line is a child NPC generated by the game. The memories and setting have been corrected according to the game background. It is a character that completely conforms to the game background. Your younger self has a similar personality and roughly similar memory to your young self in reality. Please explore and communicate with yourself for the specific situation.]
[Name of Bai Liu’s secondary identity line: Bai Liu (6)]
[Age: 14]
[Identity: A child without parents who was sponsored by an investor to enter the Love Welfare Institute.]
[Features: Enjoys 50% of the player’s health. Is also the player’s pure and innocent half of the body. There are no future related memories and skills. He will enter the dangerous welfare institute. Please make sure to protect him from the monsters!]
[Main task: Escape from the welfare home (unfinished)]
……
[Player Bai Liu’s main identity line: Player Bai Liu.]
[Player name: Bai Liu]
[Age: 24]
[Identity: Investor of the children’s welfare institute who is terminally ill.]
[Features: Enjoys 50% of the player’s health. Due to the terminal illness, the health value will fall over time. Invested in the child Bai Liu (6).]
[Main task: Find a way to continue living and survive (unfinished)]
Bai Liu raised his eyebrow slightly when he saw the system interface that popped up. His identity was an investor and the child in front of him was Bai Liu (6)—Bai Liu slowly looked over.
The 14 year old Bai Liu (6) didn’t seem to like being watched too much. He moved slightly to avoid Bai Liu’s gaze. Bai Liu withdrew his gaze while thinking that it was really troublesome. He hated himself most at this age. He was stinky and difficult to handle.
Proofreader: Purichan