"Is this why you, a group of police officers, put these handcuffs on me, a good citizen who has always obeyed the law, and brought me here at nine o'clock in the evening?" Bai Liu raised the heavy silver handcuffs on his hand and shook them, then changed the subject casually, "This surveillance video is not conclusive evidence at all."
"Sir, aren't you being too arbitrary to arrest people like this?"
Su Yang coughed a little awkwardly.
That's true. He only prepared this video to deceive Bai Liu. It is not core evidence that can be used to arrest people.
"I'm just an unemployed worker living in a low-rent apartment." Bai Liu said calmly, "If I could get that cure-all thing you mentioned, why not feed these kids for free? You've investigated me, so you should know that I'm short of money, right?"
Bai Liu's financial situation was indeed not very good. If he got hold of that blood ganoderma, it would not make sense for him to feed it directly to the child and do a good deed without leaving his name - after all, any normal person would know how much money he could make with this thing if he thought about it, and few people could resist such temptation, not to mention that Bai Liu had been off the job for almost a month.
"An ordinary off-duty worker? Why would Miao, who killed his son and then committed suicide not long ago, shout your name in fear before slitting his throat?" Su Yang quickly regained his composure and pressed the remote control.
A new small video appeared on the screen.
On the screen was Miao Gaojiang's tired, crazed, and insane face, with sunken eyeballs and high cheekbones. He was pointing a knife at his throat, with bloodstains all over his feet. Not far away lay Miao Feichi's corpse, with his eyes open after being executed.
Someone said, "Miao Gaojiang! Calm down! Put the knife down!"
"Suicide won't solve any problems! Control yourself first. If you have any unsolvable problems, you can talk to the police!"
Miao Gao shook his head in extreme fear, his arms and legs trembling, and he roared hoarsely and sharply: "I'm dead! I was killed by Bai Liu!!"
"This is not suicide, this is murder by him!" Miao Gaojiang seemed to be very resistant to the knife in his hand. His forehead was tense, as if he was constantly moving away from the knife in his hand. However, his hand seemed to have self-conscious control and fiercely stabbed into the large blood vessel in his neck. He collapsed and screamed, "This is murder by him!!"
"Bai Liu! Bai Liu! Bai Liu and that statue are my murderers!!"
Blood spurted out of the artery and sprayed onto the ceiling. Miao Gao closed his eyes stiffly, holding the knife stuck in his neck, and fell into a pool of blood.
The video freezes on the scene where Miao Gao lies stiffly on the ground. Su Yang turns to look at Bai Liu: "Do you have anything to say?"
"I don't have anything to say." Bai Liu remained calm, with a hint of genuine confusion in his eyes. "Police comrade, I don't know this person at all. Is this the man mentioned in the news? Didn't he commit suicide? You even filmed the entire process of his suicide. What does this have to do with me?"
"He shouted your name before he died." Su Yang looked directly at Bai Liu and emphasized, "He said that he killed you, and you killed him. This is most likely the death message Comrade Miao left for us."
"So the death of Comrade Miao turned into a murder?" Bai Liu looked at Su Yang with a half-smile. "Captain Su, you force me like this. I am very fragile mentally. If I can't bear the pressure you put on me and commit suicide, I can also shout your name when I commit suicide. By the same token, Captain Su, you are also a murderer who killed me, right?"
Su Yang let out a breath slowly and did not respond to Bai Liu's words. If he had responded, he would have followed the rhythm of the man's conversation.
Bai Liu was more stubborn and less adaptable to such clichés than he had imagined, but judging by his resume, he really was just an ordinary person.
"Of course that's not what I meant, but you are indeed very suspicious, Comrade Bai Liu." Su Yang rounded the subject.
"You police officers always rely on evidence, right?" Bai Liu glanced at Su Yang slowly, "Besides the fact that I look suspicious, is there any evidence that instructs me to kill Miao?"
Bai Liu read the word "see" again.
Su Yang fell silent again.
Bai Liu and Miao Gaojiang had no communication with each other. They had never met each other and had no overlap in life experiences. They were completely unrelated people. This made it even more bizarre that Miao Gaojiang madly called Bai Liu's name before he died. Because of this, the case was transferred to the Dangerous Heresy Bureau.
But apart from Miao Gaojiang's incoherent shout, there is indeed no evidence in this case.
Bai Liu asked calmly, "So there is indeed no evidence, Captain Su. Then I don't quite understand why you can use such a tough method to bring me here for interrogation when there is absolutely no evidence. This does not conform to my legal knowledge."
Su Yang and Bai Liu looked at each other for a while with tired eyes, as if they were still sleepy. Finally, as if his conscience came to his senses, he sighed helplessly. Su Yang took out a new small bottle from his chest pocket and placed it on the table in front of Bai Liu.
There was a pink gas rolling and floating inside the small bottle, like a universe made up of broken stars, shimmering and circling inside the small bottle, which looked very beautiful.
Bai Liu's eyes moved slightly - this was very similar to the pink smoke that he saw Tavel shatter into in his dream.
"This is a very popular gas perfume on the Internet recently, called Dried Rose Gas." Su Yang stared at the pink bottle full of girlish and dreamy aura. "It contains a substance that can invigorate people. It is said that as long as you spray it on your body, you can maintain a high-functioning state of work for a whole day. Therefore, this perfume is used as an air freshener in many companies. Therefore, it has another alias, called [Gas Coffee] and [Love Work]."
"But recently we found that after companies that use this perfume on a large scale stopped using or changed the perfume, their employees showed certain symptoms of madness." Su Yang was silent for a while, and then said, "But the strange thing is that this perfume cannot be tested with any known instruments to find any harmful ingredients. It is completely in line with the standards for perfume manufacturing and sales. We found something wrong, so we took over the case and transferred some of the employees here for treatment and research."
"...after repeated testing, it was found that the symptoms of these employees were very similar to withdrawal symptoms."
Bai Liu's eyes fell on the small bottle, and he understood what Su Yang meant.
"We defined this perfume as a new type of gaseous opium and prepared to force these employees to quit using it." Su Yang took a deep breath, "But something went wrong during the withdrawal process."
Su Yang held the remote control and turned it a few times, and brought up a video.
The video shows a middle-aged man with bulging eyes who is constantly attacking and howling. His face is the same pink as the gas in the small bottle, and veins are bulging on his forehead. He keeps beating himself and the wall. Someone comes in and ties him to a chair, but he quickly tears him apart.
Soon, amid the man's miserable screams, strange changes occurred. A withering rose clearly appeared in the man's pupils, and then his flesh and blood began to dry up and turn black, and then fell off his body piece by piece like withered rose petals. In the end, only a pile of incredibly clean white skeletons was left sitting on the chair, and then scattered.
There is noisy background noise in the video:
"...CEDT-0756 Contaminated subjects attempted abstinence for 6 days, 17 hours, 56 minutes, failed..."
End of video.
Su Yang didn't look at the screen. His voice was a little dry when he spoke again: "...We tried many methods, and then found that there was no other way to keep these employees alive except to let them continue to use this perfume called Rose Stem Leaf Gas..."
"No, they will wither."
Su Yang said that it was quiet here for a while.
"But the production and sales chain of this thing must not exist. But by the time we discovered it, it was already too late..." Su Yang smiled bitterly and picked up the rose-colored bottle. "Do you know how many units of this thing are sold online in a month? Hundreds of thousands, and it doubles every month. So many people are using this thing. If we suspend its use..."
"So what?" Bai Liu asked unmoved, "Captain Su, this thing you're talking about has nothing to do with me, right? Even if you arrest me, I can't solve it."
Su Yang looked straight at Bai Liu: "No, you have a way to solve it."
He stood up with his hands on the table, leaned forward and looked directly into Bai Liu's eyes: "Our captain said that you are a monster that can solve all the evil in this world. As long as we catch you, these crazy things will stop pouring into our world."
Hearing this, Bai Liu raised the end of his eyebrows in slight surprise.
————————
A tall, drunk man in uniform was carried by several team members to the small room where Bai Liu was imprisoned. The team members fanned their noses at the drunken man who collapsed into a mess and said, "Captain Tang, how much did you drink?!"
"I don't know. He had been lying at the gate of the base for who knows how long before he was found by a patrolman." The member who was supporting the man smiled bitterly, "Where are the Su team members? Are they still studying the newly captured humanoid heretic? Hey, looking at Captain Tang's behavior now, I don't know whether the person he ordered us to capture is an ordinary person or a real heretic..."
"We still have to trust Captain Tang. After all, he has a special ability to foresee the future, so he has such a high emergency authority. And he was right to mobilize us to arrest people before. This time should be the same... right?"
Several team members looked at Captain Tang, whose hair had not been taken care of for who knows how long. The drunken Captain Tang smacked his lips and touched his thigh.
The team members were a little hesitant again. "Although... Captain Tang has been drinking a little too much recently, didn't Captain Tang say that the more he drinks, the more he gets drunk and loses his mind, and the more heretics he can see in the future?"
"You believe this? It's just an excuse for him to drink." Su Yang pushed open the door and walked out of the small room. He casually answered the team member's question, "Before Tang Erda, when he didn't drink a drop of alcohol, he could accurately predict the time and place of those evil things to appear. But now that he drinks, his ability is getting worse and worse. His recent actions have all failed. Maybe the alcohol went into his head."
Looking at Tang Erda lying motionless on the ground and still snoring softly, the veins on Su Yang's forehead twitched slightly twice: "Go to CEDT-0076 Eternal Ice Room to get some ice water to wake him up."
The man lying flat on the ground coughed and sat up after being splashed with ice water. His hair was a bit messy, hanging curly on both sides of his ears, and his chin was covered with stubble that had not been trimmed for who knows how long. He wiped the ice water on his jaw with his thumb while lazily and slowly bent one leg and stood up shakily.
The man's uniform was worn crookedly, with only a few buttons on the collar fastened properly. The badge on his right chest was pushed down to his chin, and it read: [Captain of the Third Brigade of the Dangerous Heresy Handling Department - Tang Erda].
"Huh - burp!" The man let out a burp with the smell of strong liquor, and pushed the wet hair that was covering his eyes back to his head, revealing a pair of extremely sharp, narrow, dark blue eyes like a wolf.
Although he was shrouded in the smell of alcohol, Tang Er's eyes did not show any sign of drunkenness. However, this only lasted for a moment, and soon he leaned against the wall in a daze, shaking his head: "Why does the wall of this bar look so much like the wall of the base..."
Su Yang helplessly rubbed his forehead and said, "After three minutes, wake him up and send him to the small room. Let him deal with the humanoid heretic Bai Liu who he must capture."
Three minutes later, Bai Liu raised his eyebrows and looked at the man sitting in front of his door, who was soaking wet. He lowered his gaze to the name tag of the person opposite him: "Are you the Captain Tang that Su Yang said must arrest me?"
"I don't know why you think that catching me can solve these... weird little problems you are facing." Bai Liu's eyes swept across the rose-colored bottle on the table, and then raised his eyes to look at Tang Erda across from him, "I'm just an ordinary citizen who has been laid off."
"Tsk, ordinary citizens? Haha." Tang Er took out a pack of cigarettes in a plastic bag from his pocket. He lit them up slowly, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The scarlet smoke dots danced on his index finger and were reflected in Tang Er's wolf-like eyes.
He stared at Bai Liu for a while without moving his eyes, and suddenly raised the corners of his mouth to reveal a very vicious smile: "Bai Liu, what are you pretending to be with me?"
"Do you know how many times I have brought you here?" Tang Er struggled to stand up, put out the cigarette butt on Bai Liu's handcuffs, spit out a mouthful of smoke mockingly at Bai Liu's face, and stretched out his hand to touch Bai Liu's face, "It's been dozens of times, you're a thousand-year-old fox, what kind of game are you playing with me?"
Bai Liu leaned back slightly to avoid Tang Erda's approach: "But this is the first time we meet, Captain Tang, did you recognize the wrong person?"
Tang Erda fell back again, sitting on the chair with his legs spread wide. He squinted at Bai Liu with drunken eyes, and suddenly sneered with great disdain: "First meeting? This is not the first time you and I have met. I have met you many times."
"A follower of the legendary evil god, a loyal lackey of Tawil, the most hated wanted criminal by all dangerous heresy bureaus around the world, a port for evil things, a gambler who uses evil things to ruthlessly devour money, let me think of another title for you, this powerful villain—"
"Oh, right—" Tang Erda slowly turned his stiff neck, and finally fixed his eyes on Bai Liu's face, "The captain of the famous Yugo Sentai Wandering Circus, Bai Liu, the White King."
"I don't remember meeting you, Captain Tang, and I don't understand what you are talking about." Bai Liu lied without changing his expression.
Tang Erda stood up suddenly and held Bai Liu's shoulders. He was like a wolf that suddenly attacked with fangs bared. He fiercely opened his tiger's mouth and grabbed Bai Liu's neck. With his index finger, he slowly hooked out a chain from Bai Liu's collarbone. There was an inverted cross and a grayish fish scale hanging on it.
Bai Liu did not hide them. It would be weird to talk with so many things in his mouth. Besides the coins, the things hanging around his neck looked like ordinary ornaments and they were also props. Losing them would not prevent them from entering the game.
But coins don’t work. If you lose them, you can’t enter the game.
"You are wearing this reverse cross of the evil god around your neck. What do you mean by saying that you don't know who the only believer of the evil god is?" Tang Er weighed the cross in his hand and raised Bai Liu's head with a smile. "Aren't you afraid of making the evil god sad? Bai Liu, I warn you again, you'd better hide your tail before talking to me. Let me guess where you hid your game manager?"
He exerted force with his hands suddenly, and removed his jaw amidst a severe pain that made Bai Liu squint. Tang Erda put the plastic bag he used to hold cigarettes on his hands with a bit of disgust, and roughly inserted two fingers under Bai Liu's tongue. This action made Bai Liu frown, and then Tang Erda paused.
"No?" Tang Er frowned. This strange captain, who had always shown a thorough understanding of Bai Liu, showed an unexpected look of surprise when facing Bai Liu for the first time.
"After I caught you in other timelines, you hid them under your tongue. How could it be gone?" Tang Er clicked his tongue and took his hand out of Bai Liu's mouth. He shook his hand with a very disgusting look on his face. "You didn't swallow it, did you? You wouldn't do something that doesn't fit your villain's aesthetics in other timelines."
Tang Erda threw the plastic bag aside and deliberately put Bai Liu's jaw back with great force - there was a crisp sound, which sounded very painful.
But Bai Liu did not show a cowardly look due to the pain as Tang Erda wished. Bai Liu just moved his jaw to adjust, then raised his head and asked Tang Erda calmly: "Other timelines? Your personal skill is time travel? You have caught me in other timelines many times?"
"My personal skill is not time travel. Time travel is the ability of a high-risk containment here, or in other words, it is a god-level item ability in the game." Tang Erda lazily spread his arms and legs and slumped on the chair. He put his feet on the table and rested his head on the back of the chair. He turned his head to the side and did not look at Bai Liu. "I won a league in a certain timeline and got a wish. Then the game rewarded me with this item according to my wish."
Tang Erda bit the unlit cigarette with his teeth, his eyes slightly tipsy: "This prop can let me jump into different parallel timelines at any time. Whenever I feel dissatisfied or regretful about something, I will reverse time to change it."
"I thought I was reversing time, but I soon found out that it wasn't the case. I was in a different timeline in a parallel universe. I didn't return to my original timeline." Tang Er drooped his eyelids and chewed on a cigarette butt.
He was silent for a while, but soon he regained his cynical expression. He turned his head back to look at Bai Liu, "And the interesting thing is, Bai Liu, in all the timelines I have experienced, you will definitely become the biggest enemy of our Bureau of Heresy."
"Because in all the eternal and continuous timelines, you are destined to become the only believer of the evil god Tavel." Tang Er took out a gun from his waist. His eyes were hazy as if he was not awake yet, but his posture of holding the gun was steady.
He raised the gun horizontally and pointed it at Bai Liu's right eye: "Then you, a devil who does not care about anything for money, used the evil gods you believed in to turn the world into a hell full of evil in almost all the timelines I have experienced."
"You use your identity as a follower of the evil god to create all kinds of evil objects that can be used to save money. You auction mirrors that can reflect people's inner fears at sky-high prices, allowing shameless people to steal them and then circulate them in the market and sell them repeatedly at high prices. You put the bones of sirens on display in museums with the highest ticket prices, making visitors go crazy for the rotten beautiful mermaids. You sell the most expensive life-saving medicine, blood ganoderma, to rich people, and smile to receive the rewards from these mutts who survived by sucking the blood of children."
"And this rose leaf gas that makes everyone crazy and wither." Tang Erda looked down at the perfume in the small glass bottle on the table, "After you let it spread, you kept raising its price, making the poor who couldn't afford it wither in despair on the deserted roadside in the dissipated fragrance of the rose, while the rich who could afford it saw the rose blooming happily in the magnificent palace."
Tang Er opened the safety with his thumb and put his index finger on the trigger. He stared straight into Bai Liu's eyes with a sharp look like a thorn: "You are just like You, a lunatic who buys human souls and turns the world to evil for your own benefit."
"And my destiny is to kill you."
Bang!
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6:? What does Bai Liu do have to do with me, Bai Liu.jpg
Advance warning: Bai Liu and Bai Liu are not the same person at all. Bai Liu is a real villain and has done a lot of crazy things.