The edges of the crack on the ground created by Bai Liu's whip twisted and stretched out tentacle-like blood vessels to connect and pull each other. The meat-like land was slowly pulled together and the crack closed.
The land let out a contented, hoarse gasp.
Bai Liu glanced at his system panel and noticed that after he whipped the land-like developer, he himself was losing blood faster.
Tang Erda also noticed this and frowned: "What's going on?"
Bai Liu explained calmly: "The damage is transferred. I attack this monster developer once, and after it loses blood, it can quickly heal itself by sucking blood from me and other tenants on the land in Area E."
"Attacking it is equivalent to attacking you." Tang Erda looked solemnly at Bai Liu, whose lips were bloodless. "Won't it suck your blood endlessly if it goes on like this? Why don't you transfer the house in Area E to me first?"
Bai Liu shook his head and said calmly: "This is just treating the symptoms but not the root cause. What's the difference between sucking your blood instead of mine?"
Tang Erda was silent for a moment.
Bai Liu continued, "If seizing property rights will attract large developers from various regions, and this game requires us to own five buildings, then one of the five of us must own the building and be sucked dry by the large developer."
"This is a game. If there are monsters of this form in the game, then this monster must have a weakness. We need to find this weakness." Bai Liu looked at Tang Erda with a light gaze. "Since attacking the land that this monster is attached to is useless, we need to find a way to cut off the connection between it and the land and force it out of the land."
"The connection between the land and this monster?" Tang Erda asked back, "What do you think it is?"
Bai Liu's mouth curled up into a smile. "From the current game information, I really don't know, but thanks to you, Captain Tang, you reminded me that this is very likely a game that will be logged into reality, so the most basic settings of this game must conform to the rules of reality."
"For example, how can the land and the dead be connected together—" Bai Liu opened his eyelids and smiled, "Of course, the dead person still owns this piece of land after death, so he lives on it."
"In reality, what allows a person to own a piece of land?" Bai Liu asked lightly.
Tang Erda suddenly said, "Land use right certificate?!"
Reality, sunny property.
Su Yang quickly scanned the information of the developer named Li and looked up at his team members: "Besides the developer named Li who is in prison, where are the other four developers?"
"It was a long time ago last year. As soon as Li was interrogated, they all ran away. We only found their information again in July this year." The team member sighed and handed over a report. "But these four people are also dead. They died in a traffic accident."
"They're all dead too?" Su Yang's voice sank. He took the report with a heavy look on his face, and raised his eyebrows. "Last June, they went on a company team-building trip with their parents, relatives, wives, and mistresses. They chartered four buses and went to the border in a low-profile manner. However, they encountered a very bizarre series of high-speed truck rear-end collisions. The out-of-control, overweight truck kept rushing forward, and the four buses flipped over the guardrails at the same time. No one on the bus survived."
The team member nodded. "Because they had fake IDs and changed their appearance, all the bodies in the bus that exploded had varying degrees of burns. All the people related to them also died on the bus, so no one came to claim the bodies of the four developers. It wasn't until May of this year that their whereabouts were discovered and it was confirmed that they were on the bus."
Su Yang raised his head and looked at the team members intently: "If I remember correctly, there was an 18-year-old survivor of this serious traffic accident last June who had just finished the college entrance examination."
"Yes." The team member looked at Su Yang in surprise, "Captain Su, how did you know?! This survivor is called Du Ying."
Su Yang closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his chest heaving violently twice.
Of course he knew it clearly. Tang Er had asked him to investigate this traffic accident two months ago and specifically asked him to check if there was a child named Du Ying involved.
I didn’t expect to encounter it again here, and it also led to the death of these four developers…
All the coincidences were linked together so perfectly, weaving into an invisible net that led them to a certain path.
It was as if a god was casually fiddling with a node in the world, dropping a card or a chess piece according to his own preferences and arrangements. These light toys could smash the ground, causing it to dent, and ordinary people standing on the ground to be smashed to pieces, howling in a bloody mess.
This kind of joke-like, uncontrollable thing that befalls a person is called fate.
What is it called when it descends upon a group of people?
When a person is in pain, he can rationally explain it all by saying that this may be fate, that he may be unlucky, that he is unlucky, and that he is unfortunate. Then he looks at the happy people around him and endures and lives on for the sake of this high-probability happiness.
What about that group of people?
But when everyone around you is suffering from the same accident, what do you think? Is the pain of one person diluted because of the group's understanding, or is the pain of the group concentrated on everyone because of mutual understanding and empathy?
Can people... continue to endure and live under such circumstances?
Su Yang was in a daze for a moment, and he found that he was unable to give an answer.
A team member rushed into the room, pushed the door open with a bang, and screamed in despair: "Captain Su! Seven patients who had just recovered from the Sixth City Hospital snatched the nurse's razor blade and committed suicide!"
City Sixth Hospital, inpatient department rooftop.
Seven people wearing hospital gowns with blood on their wrists stood with their backs to the rooftop, pale and numb. In front of them stood a group of panicked medical staff, security guards, members of the Bureau of Heresy and police.
The doctors and nurses were anxiously communicating:
"He suddenly snatched the blade I was using to remove stitches! I was so scared!"
"Luckily, the attending physician reacted quickly and snatched the blade back, so the cut was not deep."
"Now I'm running to the rooftop..."
One of the police officers put his hands down, hunched over, and walked forward slowly: "Everyone, if you have any problem, you can discuss it with us. Don't commit suicide."
An auntie wearing a hospital gown, thin, with dry lips and curly yellow hair, looked at the policeman expressionlessly. Before she opened her mouth, tears slowly fell from her eyes:
"It's useless. What good will it do to discuss it?"
She stared blankly at a certain point in the air, her eyes blurred, and suddenly she laughed. She raised her hand and wiped the tears from her face:
"I don't blame you. I know you have tried your best. You have been helping us get relocation certificates today. But suddenly something strange happened and you had to move us back..."
"It's our fate. We can't escape this blood-sucking mess."
As she spoke, the auntie slowly began to move her back towards the rooftop. She tilted her head to look into the distance, and muttered to herself with a dazed look in her eyes:
"...Xiao Yuan has been holding us together for three years. Today, Xiao Yuan also went on the court. This kid can't hold on any longer..."
"It would be too selfish for us to continue to live and put all the hope of survival on him with our death."
"That's it. I'll just live this long. I accept it."
She closed her eyes, smiled twice, opened her arms, and fell backwards.
"Don't die! Work hard and live well today!"
A male voice came from the ground.
The aunt who was about to fall suddenly opened her eyes, twisted her waist and turned her head to look at the ground: "Xiao Yuan?!"
Other patients with blood dripping from their hands also rushed to the fence and looked down: "I heard Xiao Yuan's voice too!"
"But isn't Xiao Yuan competing?"
"Did I win the competition?"
The same voice came from downstairs again: "Don't die! Work hard and live well today!"
When the sound rang for the second time, the people upstairs finally realized something was wrong—the sound had an electronic feel, like it was recorded.
Su Yang stood downstairs. He held up the speaker and pointed it at a sponge-shaped alarm clock, then pressed the play button again: "Don't die! Work hard and live well today!"
Then Su Yang moved the speaker to his lips and calmly stated: "People upstairs, what you just heard was Yuan Guang's alarm. I know he has a close relationship with you and has been representing you in the dispute with the developer's representatives."
"Yuan Guang plays this alarm clock for himself every morning, hoping that he can live well and gain more benefits for you. I believe he also hopes that you can live well and enjoy everything he has fought for you."
Su Yang looked up at those people who were about to fall off the edge of the rooftop and said, "Please believe us. We will do our best to deal with everything that is bothering you."
His eyes were firm and clear: "No matter who brought this misfortune upon you, we will risk our lives to help you solve it!"
The auntie tightly grasped the railing of the rooftop, her eyes were red, then she slowly loosened her hands on the railing and took a step back.
The people behind immediately heard the news and pulled her and six other people down.
Su Yang breathed a sigh of relief.
The team member next to him looked confused: "Captain, how do you know that the alarm clock sounds like this?"
Su Yang finally smiled. He tapped the team member on the head with his loudspeaker and said, "I found this when I was testing an object. The alarm went off as soon as I pressed it. It was very loud and full of energy. I remembered it."
Is it the collective fate... Su Yang thought as he walked back.
If this group of people could meet someone who could change their fate, perhaps this life path that seemed to be maliciously arranged by God could also be changed...
Su Yang was stunned, and he couldn't help but think of Bai Liu at the Rose Factory.
That guy also changed the fate of everyone, including himself, by his own efforts.
The team member next to Su Yang followed Su Yang forward while quickly checking the news report: "Captain Su, you just asked us to search the four cars that had the accident to see if there were any certificates of land ownership, but we haven't found any yet."
Su Yang nodded: "Did they find anything at the place where the accident happened?"
"That's what I want to tell you." The team member raised his head. "Several document bags were found at the site of the accident. The document bags contained almost all the real estate information of the four developers, except for the four illegal secondary contracts of the Sunshine Building."
Su Yang paused and turned around slowly: "Where is the body of the developer named Li buried?"
"The body of the developer surnamed Li was cremated and taken away by his son. His son has not yet reported the burial location, saying that he kept the body at home and did not bury it." The team member searched quickly and paused, "But our people found that after the developer surnamed Li died in August, his son often went in and out of a certain cemetery."
Su Yang quickly issued an order: "Have people surround the cemetery and don't allow anyone to enter or leave!"
In the game, area E.
Bai Liu and Tang Erda quickly returned to the place where Liu Jiayi and the others stayed. Mu Sicheng, Mu Ke and the others were half-crouching on the ground.
On the ground lay an NPC, barely breathing, with only outgoing breaths but no incoming breath. His skin was all dried up and stuck to his cheekbones and forehead. He was so thin that he looked more like a praying mantis than a human.
Tang Erda couldn't bear to look any longer and turned his eyes away.
"Is he still alive?" Bai Liu asked calmly, "Can you tell from this NPC how fast he is losing blood?"
Liu Jiayi shook her head: "Although I'm almost dead, I'm still alive now. I can't calculate the speed of blood loss, but if I calculate the speed of death, this monster should be able to suck me dry in about an hour."
Mu Ke frowned: "This blood loss is too fast."
Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu and asked, "Did you solve the monster?"
"No, that monster is very tricky." Tang Er tightened his jaw, "We have to stay here for a while to find its weakness. Bai Liu means that you should take this NPC to other areas first."
Mu Ke and Mu Sicheng were both shocked.
Especially Mu Sicheng, he jumped up and said, "Damn it, Bai Liu! You have a blood loss buff on you that can kill people in an hour, and you want us to act separately? Don't you know that acting separately is a suicidal act in horror stories?!"
Mu Ke frowned in disapproval: "Bai Liu, at least let Liu Jiayi stay."
Liu Jiayi looked up at Bai Liu and was about to speak.
Bai Liu looked around indifferently and said nothing.
Everyone fell silent.
Bai Liu spoke at this time. He calmly and methodically gave orders: "This is not a game between you and me in a swimming pool. This is not a horror movie. This is a competitive horror game. I am your tactician."
"Now I need you to split up, and you must split up."
Liu Jiayi, Mu Ke and Mu Sicheng all lowered their heads and whispered, "Yes."
"Mu Sicheng goes to Area A, Liu Jiayi goes to Area B, and Mu Ke goes to Area D. There is a new building in Area C, which should be a new branch line. The amount of information should be richer. Captain Tang and I will go there after we deal with the matters in Area E. You should not stop by to explore for the time being."
"Go to each area and first clean out the cemetery buildings. After cleaning, do not take the property rights of the cemetery. Keep cleaning until you anger the developer. That cemetery building is the developer's cemetery. Look for the land ownership certificate inside. After you find it, report to me in Area C."
Bai Liu looked at everyone and said, "Let's move now."