After a brief exchange with other members, Bai Liu quietly logged out of the game.

The other members of the wandering circus all understood the result and no one blamed Bai Liu.

To be honest, they really had no right to blame. If it really came down to it, they, the team members who were basically cleared out by Lu Station at the beginning, would have a greater responsibility. It was all thanks to Bai Liu who held on to the end.

"Don't be so stressed." Tang Erda patted Bai Liu's shoulder solemnly, "Have a good rest, we still have a tough battle to fight later."

Bai Liu hummed, logged out of the game, and lay on the bed in his rental apartment. He looked at the ceiling with a calm expression and breathed lightly.

He didn't suffer any injuries this time and he was conscious from beginning to end.

Including the final stop.

"Lingling——"

His cell phone suddenly rang. Bai Liu answered the call without even looking at the screen. After answering the call, there was no sound from the other end, only the sound of unstable breathing, so Bai Liu did not say anything.

After a long time, a bitter smile came from the other side: "Shall we chat?"

"Where shall we chat?" Bai Liu asked calmly, "Here with me or where you are?"

"Come over here." Lu Yizhan touched his face, "I'll cook for you. Is there anything you want to eat?"

Bai Liu paused for a moment: "Whatever."

"Okay, then I'll go buy some groceries and wait for you. You just came out of the game, so don't ride a bike when you come over. Take a taxi and I'll reimburse you." Lu Yizhan said.

Then Bai Liu took the most expensive express taxi.

When Bai Liu asked Lu Yizhan to come down to pay him, Lu Yizhan, who was wearing an apron, wiped his hands while taking out his phone in shock to pay: "Why is the call over a hundred?!"

The taxi driver answered truthfully: "The guy said he wanted to go to the commercial street near Qiaomu Private High School, so I took a detour. He went down to buy something and came back to ask for this price."

Lu Yizhan realized that Bai Liu had deliberately taken a detour to avenge him: "..."

Lu Yizhan turned to look at Bai Liu: "What did you go out of your way to buy?"

"Put it in the trunk." Bai Liu got out of the car, opened the trunk, took out a huge black plastic bag, and dragged it up to the third floor. "Find me a place to put this."

The bag looked square, but the thing inside was vaguely a human figure, being carried by Bai Liu, with the head moving up and down unconsciously, making it look like a shroud.

Lu Yizhan, who was following behind, was even more shocked: "What on earth did you buy?"

Bai Liu glanced at him and said, "Corpse, do you want to report it now?"

“…No need.” Lu Yizhan weakly withdrew his probing gaze. He lowered his head, wiped his hands vigorously on his apron, and suddenly said, “I’m sorry.”

Bai Liu's back paused for a moment, but he didn't say anything and continued walking forward.

Bai Liu stopped in front of the door of Lu Yizhan on the third floor. Just as he was about to raise his hand to knock on the door, Lu Yizhan whispered to him, "You have a key."

"I gave it to you last time you came."

Bai Liu just raised his hand to knock on the door but stopped in mid-air. He paused for a moment, then found the key, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it with somewhat awkward movements.

The door is closed.

Lu Yizhan reminded him quietly: "You turned the wrong way."

Bai Liu: “…”

Bai Liu glanced at the Lu Post Station with his remaining eyes and asked, "Why don't you open it?"

"No, no, no!" Lu Yizhan smiled cautiously, "You haven't had your period for a long time. It's normal. You won't be able to do it after a few more times."

Bai Liu moved his gaze back, his eyes lingered on the door lock and key for a moment, then turned in the opposite direction twice.

The door finally opened.

The damp steam from the hot soup pot rushed towards my face. There were already two or three pen marks on the newly pasted wallpaper in the bright room. It was obvious that the careless hostess had accidentally drawn on them. The TV in the living room was playing some noisy entertainment programs. The sound of gurgling bubbling came out of the kitchen. Three or four large dishes were already placed on the dining table next to the living room, and white smoke was rising from the hot steam.

It was a very lively and bustling house, as lively as if it were a festival.

Bai Liu took a step forward and walked in.

"Bang--"

It was the sound of fireworks exploding. Fang Dian jumped out from behind the shoe cabinet and came to Bai Liu with a bright smile. She held a fireworks tube in one hand and a cake in the other, and shouted loudly:

"Happy 25th birthday to Bai Liu!"

Bai Liu's right foot walked in and just stayed where it was.

His gaze slowly shifted from the table of delicious food and the overly lively atmosphere in the living room to the square-shaped face wearing a birthday hat and holding a candle, and finally slowly fell on the birthday cake with a [25]-year-old candle on it.

Oh, it turns out today is his birthday.

It had been so long that he had forgotten about it.

From high school to now, Fang Dian and Lu Yizhan have celebrated almost all of Bai Liu's birthdays for him.

But on Bai Liu's 22nd birthday, something happened to Fang Dian. From then on, Bai Liu never came to Fang Dian's house to celebrate his birthday again. It was even said that he never came back again.

No matter how Lu Yizhang and Fangdian invited him, Bai Liu would always refuse coldly. In the end, it gradually became a text message congratulation and a birthday cake takeaway on the birthday. Bai Liu's sense of ritual for the birthday ended there. He would eat the cake as food like eating beef noodles for breakfast, then scan the text message, and his birthday would pass like an ordinary day.

Now he suddenly remembered - oh, today is my birthday.

That's right, three years ago when the accident happened on his birthday, it was right after Furious Lamb lost the challenge against Deer Hunter, and this year his birthday was after he lost the challenge against Killer Sequence.

In this way, he and the tactician of the Furious Lamb have something subtle in common - they both lost to Lu Yizhan.

"Come in, come in!" Seeing that Bai Liu didn't respond, Fang Dian naturally grabbed Bai Liu's shoulders and shoved him in. Then he blew and stamped his feet twice, looking at Bai Liu in surprise, "You just wear a white shirt and come over. Aren't you cold?"

"It's already September and October, the weather has turned cold, and it's raining again today!" Fang Dian looked at Bai Liu, who was wearing very thin clothes, and shook his head in disapproval, "You're just wearing this? Can your small body handle it?"

"I'll get you some clothes!"

Fang Dian put the cake aside, went into the inner room, and started rummaging through the drawers looking for clothes.

Bai Liu and Lu Yizhang sat on the sofa facing each other in silence, watching the cartoon playing on the TV opposite them.

Lu Yizhan took a deep breath, clutched his apron, and spoke first: "...What do you want to ask?"

"Besides Werewolf, what else do you and Bai Liu play?" Bai Liu asked in a light tone, but his question was very to the point. "What is your next plan?"

Lu Yizhan gave a bitter smile and said, "I am going to give you the identity of the prophet."

Bai Liu also paused for a moment. He turned his head and looked at Lu Yizhan, his eyes narrowed: "If you sell your soul to me, won't you die?"

"Originally, I would." Lu Yizhan sighed. He stretched out his hand and said, "First, find some paper money to trade with my soul. After the transaction, you will know what is going on."

Bai Liu paused expressionlessly, then took out a dime from the corner of her wallet and held it up to face Lu Yizhan, who was stunned: "One dime for your soul."

Lu Yizhan was completely furious: "At least one dollar! One cent is too much!"

"Forget it." Bai Liu calmly took back the coin. "Lu Yizhan, you have to understand that this is a buyer's market. You are the one who insisted on selling your soul to me. I don't want it."

Lu Yizhan: “…”

Lu Yizhan took a deep breath, held out his hand with a heavy heart, tears glistening in his eyes: "At least 50 cents! 10 cents is too little!"

"I can buy it at the marked price of 50 cents." Bai Liu crossed his arms and said in a cold tone, "But later you will transfer 40 cents to me, and the actual price is still 10 cents. I am faking the price for your soul."

Lu Yizhan: “…”

I only have one soul coin and I am not planning to open a wholesale store. I don't need to fake orders or raise prices, thank you.

"One cent is enough." Lu Yizhan was so embarrassed that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Give it to me."

Bai Liu slapped a dime into Lu Yizhang's palm, and almost instantly, a new soul banknote appeared in his wallet. He pinched the newly generated soul banknote between two fingers and pulled it out, his brows quickly furrowed.

This banknote was not as new and straight as Bai Liu's other banknotes. Instead, it was a little old and wrinkled. There was a hole the size of a baby's fist in the upper right corner. The area around the hole was blackened, as if it had been burned by something.

Bai Liu raised his head quickly. He looked at Lu Yizhan's right shoulder which had been shot by the soul-crushing gun. His voice sank. "Was your soul damaged after being shot?"

"Yes, so my soul is incomplete after the last injury." Lu Yizhan spread his hands and said helplessly, "So even if I sell my soul to you, it is not completely sold to you. It is in a Schrodinger's state of selling the soul."

"This can be considered a cheating and illegal operation."

Lu Yizhan sighed and chuckled: "It's rare for me to be able to cheat when facing Bai Liu."

Bai Liu stared at Lu Yizhan and asked abruptly, "When did you start planning to let me become a prophet?"

"—before you took the bullet for me last time, right?"

Bai Liu's tone was extremely calm: "So, at that time, you deliberately stood in front of me and took the bullet, just so that you could sell your broken soul to me smoothly later, and give me the identity of the prophet that you couldn't bear, so that I could get those useless, so-called responsibilities and rights to save the world."

"——Is this why you raised me, Lu Yizhan?"

"Either kill me as a criminal, or treat me as an heir, as a tool?"

Lu Yizhan slowly raised his head. He did not avoid Bai Liu's questioning, but answered calmly, "Fifty percent."

Bai Liu immediately understood what Lu Yizhang meant.

——What Lu Yizhan meant was that he raised him, 50% because of what Bai Liu had just said.

"That's still 50%." Bai Liu opened his eyelids and looked at Lu Station. "What is it?"

Lu Yizhan stared straight into Bai Liu's eyes for a long time, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

What is it?

It was this guy who stayed up late to study at the age of fifteen because of his words, who didn't kill his classmates at the age of sixteen because of his prevention, who showed off to them implicitly when his grades rose to 400 at the age of seventeen, and who collected popsicles under Fangdian's bed and bought them Coke.

At the age of eighteen, he jumped into the College Entrance Examination Lake, but controlled himself and did not enter the game. At the age of twenty-two, he collapsed outside Fang Dian's operating room, and he folded his memory with his hands.

When he was 25, he stopped playing the game because he only had a little health left.

——Because he is a human being, and I am also a human being, the emotional connection that arises between us is unavoidable and cannot be severed.

"The other 50 percent... is because you are my friend." Lu Yizhan's eyes were extremely complicated, his voice was trembling, and he had a very forced smile on his face. "You may find it ridiculous, but I really think so."

"I'm sorry you had to find this out on your birthday."

Bai Liu paused for a moment, looked away, and was silent for a while:

"You gave me 50% of your reasons, and I received 50% of your soul."

"We're even."

Bai Liu collected the half-burned soul coin.

Lu Yizhan raised his head in astonishment. Before he could say anything, Fang Dian poked her head out from the inner room. She looked at Bai Liu curiously and asked, "Bai Liu, I'm looking for a coat for you. How tall are you now?"

Bai Liu: “…177.”

"Wow, you've grown a bit." Fang Dian thought for a while, "But Lao Lu's clothes are still not very good. He is 1.8586 meters tall, and you are a bit far behind."

"Then you can wear mine first. I'm 1.78 meters tall and the jacket will fit you perfectly."

Bai Liu: “…Oh.”

Fang Dian found a camel-colored coat for Bai Liu to wear. When he put it on, he couldn't help but complain to Bai Liu: "What's wrong with you? Have you eaten well? You're too thin. Your waist is almost as thin as mine. You have to push one button inwards to wear a waist-hugging women's coat like mine."

"No, you have to eat more." Fang Dian pushed Lu Yizhan, who was hesitant to speak, into the kitchen and said, "Go in and bring out the pig's trotter soup for Bai Liu to eat."

After being forced by Fang Dian to eat two large pieces of pig's trotters and a bowl and a half of rice, Bai Liu had to put down the bowl and reiterated: "I am really full."

"Nonsense." Fang Dian's eyes scanned Bai Liu's waist like an X-ray, and he judged coldly, "Your belly isn't even bloated yet, you should be able to have more."

Bai Liu: “…”

I really want to vomit.

Lu Yizhan didn't know whether to laugh or cry so he helped Bai Liu out: "Let him save some space for the cake."

After finishing the meal, Fang Dian mysteriously pulled Bai Liu to sit on the sofa: "You sit here, I'll get you a birthday present."

After a while, Fang Dian took out three large gray boxes and a brand new box from somewhere.

Bai Liu seemed to have noticed something, and his gaze seemed to stop on those gray boxes.

Fang tapped it and opened the first box: "This is your 22nd birthday present."

Inside the box was an old-school game console and a bunch of horror game cards.

"Lu Yizhan and I found them at the flea market." Fang Dian laughed, and she patted her chest to assure, "They are all out-of-print games. I guarantee you have never played them!"

"This is your 23rd birthday present."

Inside the box was a set of formal attire that looked very valuable.

Fang Dian opened the box and took it out with a nostalgic look in his eyes: "You are working now, and I thought you would need it for some formal occasions, so Lao Lu and I saved up money to buy you a set. It's quite a lot."

"This is your twenty-fourth birthday gift."

Fang Dian opened the box, and Bai Liu looked at the things in the box, his eyes moved.

——The box was filled with all kinds of amulets and prayer charms from different temples.

"Some of these were obtained by Lao Lu and I from the temple, and some were brought back to me by my friends from other places." Fang Dian sighed as he looked at the amulets. "Your luck was always bad during that time. Although I don't believe this, sometimes I think too much and wonder what might happen."

She smiled and looked at Bai Liu: "If there really are gods in heaven who can bless us Bai Liu, Lao Lu and I can buy a talisman and ask them for help. It's nothing."

Bai Liu was silent for a long time: "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank us." Fang Dian waved her hand to interrupt Bai Liu's thanks, and then she sighed sadly, "I was going to give it to you on your birthday, but you didn't want to come, and you didn't see me much. I don't know what you think. What if I give it to you and you don't want it, it will only add to your troubles. Maybe you will want to find a way to repay me, and then I will be really sad."

"After much deliberation, I ended up not giving it out every year."

"Fortunately, you finally came this year." Fang Dian smiled again without any grudge, "Then I'll give them to you in person."

She didn't mention a word that Bai Liu had never come to this house once in the past three years.

"Oh, and this." Fang Dian flipped through the box again, happily pulled out a set of things from the bottom of the box, and placed them in front of Bai Liu, "This is warm, you can wear it later!"

Even Bai Liu couldn't help but feel his pupils tremble when he saw the things Fang Dian took out, and he quickly and calmly refused: "That's not necessary."

"What's the use of this?" Fang Dian held up a whole set of red autumn clothes, red autumn pants, and even red underwear, and pushed it in front of Bai Liu, saying righteously, "You didn't wear these in your zodiac year, and I think this is the reason for your bad luck!"

Bai Liu: “…”

I don't think so.

Fang Dian emphasized again: "These autumn clothes and pants have been blessed, and they are made of velvet. It's your zodiac year now, so go in and change into them later!"

Bai Liu slowly shifted his gaze to Lu Yizhan who was behind Fangdian. Lu Yizhan helplessly spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders, making a gesture of being unable to help.

Fang Dian interrupted the silent exchange between the two people coldly: "Lu Yizhan also wore red autumn clothes and red autumn pants for a whole year during his zodiac year. It's useless for you to beg him."

Bai Liu: “…”

Lu Yizhan: “…”

That's right.