Bai Liu was in a daze for a second or two after Xiao Mu Ke hung up the phone.

It seems like these kids don’t like him very much... It seems like he has never been liked by kids since he was a child.

Suddenly, outside the door, there was the sound of nurses' hurried footsteps of high heels tapping on the ground. These nurses were walking towards the elevator, and it was obvious that something had happened and they needed to gather together.

Bai Liu's eyes darkened slightly: "A patient has woken up."

"It can't be such a coincidence..." Mu Ke's face froze, and he tilted his head to look at Bai Liu, "Could it be that Miao Feichi and the others have woken up?"

7:30 in the morning, second floor, intensive care unit.

Miao Gao's body was covered in red and black burns. He coughed as the nurse helped him up. He turned to look at Miao Feichi who was still unconscious on the other bed and gritted his teeth secretly - even if he blocked most of the attacks for Miao Feichi, his fragile son's health would definitely be higher than his.

And his health loss is not low.

Miao Gao moved his body with difficulty and leaned on the pillow. He looked at his health value panel with gloomy eyes:

[System prompt: Player Miaogao zombie's health value is 23]

Bai Liu's attack directly took away more than half of his health. Even in the league competition, Miao Gao relied on his high defense attribute and rarely suffered such heavy damage at once.

He bit the physical recovery agent and mental bleaching agent and drank them in big gulps with a splitting headache, the expression on his face was gloomy - his health points were only 23 points, and Miao Feichi's health points would only be lower than his.

This finally made Miao Gaojiang's expression turn cold.

Bai Liu is a madman. He is just trying to gain their blood without caring about his life. He will take every drop of blood he can.

It is obvious that Bai Liu has given up the path of investors to pass the level and put all his chips on the child. Now, a head-on confrontation to kill Bai Liu and his men is meaningless except for continuing to consume his blood. The most urgent task is to get enough blood to pass the level and kill Bai Liu and his children.

After sorting out his thoughts, Miao Gaojiang used his points to buy some protective straps to bandage his own wounds which were still bleeding. He then got up to bandage Miao Feichi's and then gently woke Miao Feichi up. Miao Feichi woke up with a grin on his face. He was dizzy for a moment and held onto the fence before being helped up by the nurse and Miao Gaojiang.

When Miao Feichi was unconscious, his father stuffed him with a tube of mental bleach and a tube of physical recovery agent. After waking up, the large amount of liquid intake made Miao Feichi hold the edge of the bed and vomit a few times before he came back to consciousness while wiping his mouth.

"Fei Chi, how much is your life worth?" Miao Gaozhuang frowned and asked as soon as he saw Miao Fei Chi wake up.

Miao Feichi opened his attribute panel and couldn't help but yelled, his face darkening: "Damn, there's only eleven left."

"...It's a bit too low." Miao Gaojiang's eyebrows were almost twisted into a knot. "I originally thought that if your health points were high enough, you could kill Bai Liu and then go to the Children's Welfare Institute. But if you lose two points of health points in the battle, your health points will drop to 10, which is already the health points of [Death Prediction]."

[Death Premonition] is a term used by spectators in the league, also known as the [Death Threshold]. It means that in a league match, when the health of one player drops below a certain value, the system will send a [Death Threshold] notification to that player, telling you that your health is now in danger. This is basically the kind of health that can be taken away in one wave in a team fight or siege.

Players whose health value drops below this threshold will be targeted and quickly taken off the field, so falling to this health value can be considered as the audience predicting their death, so the [Death Threshold] notification sent by the system is also called [Death Prediction].

Miao Feizhi's [Death Threshold] is generally 9, while Miao Gaozhuang's is generally 1, because his defense is higher and he is not so easily taken away in one wave.

Miao Feichi touched the bloody wound on his face and gasped. He was in pain and angry: "Fuck the death prediction. Bai Liu is just a non-league F-panel player. My death threshold is usually for high-level players in the league. How can he bring it up with me..."

"He hasn't even entered the league yet, and his panel is only F-level, but he can still push your lifeline to near the threshold with one attack, and at the same time push my life value down to half." Miao Gaojiang calmly interrupted Miao Feichi's endless insults, "Don't you think he's more terrifying?"

Miao Fei was stunned with a gnashing expression.

Miao Gaojiang took a deep breath and said, "We have chosen the wrong person to sacrifice for the promotion. You can check the system panel. We have to give up using Bai Liu as a sacrifice and pass the game quickly, otherwise we will both fail in this game."

Miao Fei frowned and opened the system panel. He saw a bright red system notification on his system panel:

[System warm reminder: Tomorrow is Thursday, which is a serious illness day. Investors who have not obtained the Blood Ganoderma to cure their terminal illnesses in time will be given a (severe illness) buff after 0:00. Severe illness (buff) will cause the player's health bar to drop slowly. Please speed up the clearance.]

Miao Gaojiang looked solemn. "This [Serious Illness] is a [debuff] that will forcibly weaken our health. According to the song, we will [die of illness] on [Friday]. This means that this [debuff] is likely to eat up all our health on Friday. At this time, health is very precious to us, but for Bai Liu and his group who have given up the investor clearance route, health is nothing to them and can be wasted at will."

Miao Gao's body leaned forward, he half squatted and stared at Miao Feichi who was still in a daze: "Because they don't expect to pass the level by going the investor route, do you understand, Feichi? All of them, including Liu Huai, chose to sacrifice themselves to protect the child."

"And we chose ourselves, and it made no sense for us to kill them, because their hopes and desires were in another self."

His eyes gradually became dark and gloomy. "Killing these kids and sucking their blood to survive is what we have to do first in order to pass the level. Do you understand, Feichi? Stop being mean to Bai Liu and do the business first."

Miao Feichi gritted his teeth unwillingly, and finally nodded.

Miao Gaojiang breathed a sigh of relief. Miao Feichi was an impulsive and irritable person, but fortunately he listened to him very much when it came to matters concerning the survival of both father and son. Perhaps this was also the reason why he couldn't help but spoil Miao Feichi all the time and even helped him do evil things - he was indeed a good boy who listened to his father very much.

I just don't really listen to my mom.

But he really listened to his father - when he saw his father suffering more and more because of his seriously ill mother, when his father wanted to kill the woman who was a burden to the whole family, when his father wanted to end this life and find another better woman but was afraid of being discovered by his mother and would resist and scream that he could not get this woman's inheritance and house, Xiao Miao Fei Chi stepped forward to be his father's hero and ended this tormenting life for his father.

"We have to survive this time too, do you understand, Fei Chi?" Miao Gaojiang said softly while stroking Miao Fei Chi's face which was leaning against his waist and abdomen. The mental value dropped below 20 and then was forced to recover, making Miao Gaojiang's condition slightly abnormal - this was the sequelae of the sudden drop in mental value.

Miao Gao's breathing seemed to be self-regulating. He inhaled and exhaled deeply. Under his seemingly calm surface, he hid fear, cruelty, and madness. His words were distorted and neurotic: "We can even defeat something like your mother. There is nothing we can't defeat."

Miao Fei's teeth were tangled in bandages, and he looked up at Miao Gaojiang with a pale face. His weakness made him look much more docile.

For a moment, TV snowflakes flashed before Miao Gao's eyes. Miao Feichi's face, who was sitting on the hospital bed, began to flash in black and white, overlapping with the face of another lifeless woman who died with her eyes open.

The woman stared blankly at the glass of cold water on the counter in front of the window with her eyes wide open, refusing to close. She lay on the bed with her mouth twisted wide open, her lower jaw stretched all the way to her chest, revealing her pitch-black throat - there was no tongue inside.

The tongue was cut off by Miao Fei and eaten.

It was eaten by this good son who listened to his father.

Little Miao Feichi stood beside his mother's bed, leaning forward stealthily and watching with a greedy look the tip of his mother's tongue reaching into the cup when she drank the boiled water, gently making delicious ripples in the cup, and the little boy's eyes moved along with the ripples in the cup and he swallowed his saliva, and this look gradually overlapped with that of Miao Feichi who was now on the hospital bed.

Miao Gaojiang's heart skipped a beat, and he pushed away Miao Feichi who was leaning on him. Miao Feichi felt a pain from being pushed, and looked at him in confusion and impatience: "Dad, what are you doing?!"

Miao Gaojiang forced a smile and said, "No, nothing. I'm just not in a good mental state."

Miao Gaojiang turned around and raised his head to drink a bottle of mental bleach in one gulp. His mental value was extremely unstable due to the sequelae, jumping up and down.

Now Miao Gaojiang is very clear that he is suffering from the sequelae of his mental value dropping below 20, but he does not want to admit it, nor does he dare to admit it - he is beginning to have trouble distinguishing the boundary between reality and illusion, and subconscious fear is corroding his brain, which is the prelude to going crazy.

I have to leave this game as soon as possible. Miao Gao gritted his teeth, cold sweat oozing from his forehead. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his face and forced himself to calm down.

Miao Gaojiang turned and looked at the nurse: "When are we going to go to the welfare home to adopt a child today?"

The nurse said with some embarrassment: "Because the explosion at the private hospital injured many investors, the matchmaking with the welfare home was originally cancelled today."

Miao Gaojiang's face darkened: "But we will be [seriously ill] tomorrow, can you make a match just for us?"

"...It's possible, but if it's just the two of you, the orphanage won't open its doors to prevent children from escaping. If you really want to go, you can only go through the tunnel on the hospital side that leads directly to the orphanage church." The nurse explained, her eyes evasive.

"Before, children who were baptized in the church would be sent directly to the hospital through this tunnel. But recently, there are more and more seriously ill investors, so there is a selection process called "matching". However, since you have already matched your children, you can go directly to the hospital through this tunnel to claim them."

Miao Gao breathed a sigh of relief: "Where is the entrance to this tunnel?"

The nurse was strangely silent for two seconds: "Just below the emergency passage."

————————

"Bai Liu, how can you be sure that the tunnel exit is directly below the emergency passage?" Mu Ke asked in confusion and fear. He swallowed, glanced at the time on the wall clock in the ward, and said carefully, "It's past eight in the morning now. Those deformed child monsters in the emergency passage will not completely disappear until after nine o'clock. They should still be wandering around the emergency exit. Are we just going to go through like this?"

Mu Ke's eyes reluctantly passed from Liu Huai's broken arms to Bai Liu's bloodstained cuffs. Although he didn't want to admit it, he still spoke honestly: "I don't have any fighting ability, and your condition is not good. If we go there like this, it will be easy to die in a head-on conflict with those child monsters. And if your guess is wrong, the tunnel exit is not under the safe passage, and we will be killed if we go there."

Mu Ke's eyes and tone became serious when he said this. He sat on the bed with his legs crossed, holding the corners of his clothes tightly with both hands, leaning forward and staring at Bai Liu: "Xiao Bai Liu is dead. You can't just bet on Bai Liu now. We can't make any risky decisions, because if the decision is wrong, you will definitely be the first one to die among us. Your health is only 0.5."

"I can't be 100% sure." Bai Liu's expression was still calm, "but I'm about 90% sure it's that place."

Bai Liu glanced at Mu Ke and said, "I have two reasons for this conclusion. First, if there is such a tunnel between the private hospital and the welfare home, then the function of the tunnel is probably to transport children. Little Mu Ke also told us that the ones going back and forth in this tunnel are child monsters whose blood has been drawn. And the place with the most child monsters in the hospital is the safety passage."

He stretched out his second finger calmly: "Second, Mu Ke, do you still remember the welfare home we visited in real life?"

Mu Ke was stunned and nodded.

Bai Liu continued, "Didn't the teacher tell us that the orphanage was later reduced in size? After returning home, I checked the original architectural map of the orphanage and compared it with the current architectural map in three dimensions. This orphanage also had a church before, but later the orphanage was reduced in size, and the church was separated from the orphanage and turned into a hospital. Can you guess where the emergency exit on the first floor of the converted hospital is built?"

Mu Ke held his breath and looked at Bai Liu. Bai Liu gave the answer very calmly: "The location of the statue in the original church built in the welfare home is exactly the same as the entrance and exit of this tunnel in the game."

"Can't we go after nine?" Mu Ke frowned, "It will be much safer for you after nine."

"That's it for me." Bai Liu stood up, picked up the long bone whip, shook his wrist and swung it, doing a simple warm-up before the battle.

Bai Liu's face was pale, and he glanced at Mu Ke who was still kneeling on the ground without any fluctuations in his eyes. "But for the other you, it's not like that. Miao Gao and Miao Feichi should have woken up. They shouldn't come to chase us, because we, the group of [Investors] who are not prepared to clear the level, will only waste their blood. Killing us is not worthwhile at all. If I were Miao Gao, I would immediately go to the welfare home to draw blood from the children."

"And Xiao Mu Ke just called to tell us that the gate of the orphanage was not open, which means that Miao Gaojiang and his friends were unlikely to go in through the front door. The nurses in this hospital must have known about the tunnel for transporting children. If the nurses told Miao Gaojiang and his friends about this tunnel, then Miao Gaojiang and his friends were very likely to go to the orphanage through the tunnel."

Bai Liu's eyes continued to droop down, landing on Mu Ke's clenched hands: "That is to say, if we don't go there quickly, little Mu Ke will be ambushed, and you will be in the same danger as me. You should know this, right?"

Mu Ke pursed his lips, lowered his head and retorted softly: "That doesn't matter, I think I should first ensure your health. You only have 0.5 health points, and I still have 6 health points."

"Look me in the eye and talk, Mu Ke." Bai Liu's expression was almost indifferent. "Your hands are shaking. Are you afraid? Then stop talking nonsense. Let's get up and go. Let's go first. We are indeed at a disadvantage now--"

Bai Liu lowered his head and poked Mu Ke's forehead with the handle of the whip. Mu Ke stared at Bai Liu in a daze, and Bai Liu said to him calmly: "——But Mu Ke, this does not mean that we will definitely lose, especially when losing will cost me a lot. I will definitely win this game by any means necessary."