Sticky red blood dripped from the tip of the dark monkey's paw. Mu Sicheng raised his head. His expression had never been so calm before. "I don't know where you guys are from. You have so many strange assumptions about me."

"But I don't steal to please myself."

Mu Sicheng retracted his monkey claws and rolled his knuckles inward. The butterfly cocoon moved restlessly in his palm, and then was crushed. It shattered into a piece of wind and dissipated from his fingertips. His eyes were filled with a flourishing emotion——

——murderous intention.

"This is just a game. People's actions lose their meaning."

"I stole to atone for my sins."

"—like, you kill to protect."

Mu Sicheng clenched his fist into a claw and rushed straight towards Armand's heart. Armand's pupils constricted, he pulled up the longbow, gritted his teeth and stepped on the string.

"Go to hell, Mu Sicheng!!"

"Go to hell, Armand!"

The smoke cleared, revealing two people who had lost all life force lying among the blood-stained wooden longbow and the scattered ropes.

Mu Sicheng's monkey claws scratched Armand's throat, and Armand's arrow pierced Mu Sicheng's heart. They fell in a pool of blood, coughing and moving towards each other, unwillingly trying to attack again, but in the end they could only fall to the ground, holding the weapons in their hands with their eyes open.

The tactician did not give up protecting himself until the last moment.

——The most important person in your life.

[System prompt: Player Mu Sicheng's health points are reset to zero, exit the game.]

[System prompt: Player Armand's health points are reset to zero, exit the game.]

viewing pool.

"Georgia is the only one left in Golden Dawn." Phoebe put her hand over her face and sighed with regret, "The winner is already decided."

"What a loser! He is a veteran tactician, but he lost to a rookie team."

Red Heart squinted: "Instead of wasting time here on me, why don't you go watch another competition? Is the Killer Sequence competition about to start?"

"Yes, for the Invisibility Cape." Phoebe patted her knees and sat up. She glanced at Heart and said, "I'm going to go and have a look. Do you want to come and watch it? You've watched every Killer Sequence match before."

Hong Tao withdrew her gaze and looked at the big screen. She was silent for a moment: "...I won't go there."

Viewing Pool No. 1.

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu's eyes were hollow, cold sweats were pouring down their cheeks, and their souls were rising to heaven: "Damn it, dammit! What should we do! Nishen and Liao Ke are not here!"

"It's our turn to compete soon! What should we do? How can we play in a team match without a tactician?"

"Oh." Hei Tao suddenly raised his head, turned his head, looked at Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu, and said indifferently, "Ni Shen had found me before and asked me to play a singles match first, and then you can play a doubles match, a quick match, to get double points. Ni Shen said that when we are now capable of fighting against the Invisible Cowl, we can kill the game in advance."

"He said that there was an 80% chance that the other team would give up the team match because they didn't want to play overtime, and we would win."

"If unfortunately the other party did not give up the rights, he should have come back by then, so we don't have to worry."

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu looked at Hei Tao dimly: "Hei Tao."

Spade nodded: "It's me."

"You dog lizard!" Bai Yi was furious, and hit Heitao with his fists. "Nishen told you about the tactics, he should have told us earlier! You were dozing off peacefully beside us, and it was fun to see me and Bai Jiamudan frightened to the point of almost crying! Ah!"

"You are so mean! Who did you learn this from? You even play with the feelings of your teammates!"

In game.

Only when the system prompt sounded that Armand had quit the game did Tang Erda and Bai Liu stop controlling Georgia.

Tang Erda heaved a sigh of relief, and a cold sweat broke out all over his body - just ten minutes ago, Georgia really rushed out of the palace recklessly, and he and Bai Liu worked together to protect her, but they almost couldn't stop her.

If Bai Liu's weapon wasn't a whip that was good at multi-directional defense and had such a strong mechanism judgment, Georgia might have really been able to escape from their hands, which would have been troublesome.

"Okay, now you're the only one left on the team, Georgia's captain." Bai Liu smiled as he sat on the bench and extended his hand to Georgia across from him. "Now that the game is decided, we're no longer enemies. Maybe we can sit down and have a friendly chat?"

Tang Erda looked subtly at Georgia, who was tied tightly to the bench opposite Bai Liu by his whip: "..."

This is not a friendly attitude, is it?

As expected, Georgia turned her head away indifferently: "You can kill me to win the game. There is nothing good to talk about between us."

"How can you say there is nothing to talk about if we haven't talked about it before?" Bai Liu used three fingers from his gloves as if performing magic and produced a small hourglass - this was what Tang Erda had just found from Georgia's body. Judging from Georgia's dishevelled clothes, it could be seen that the search process was horrific.

Bai Liu smiled kindly: "What if I say that I really have a way to fill up the hourglass of time?"

"You also know that now that I have already won, there is no need to deceive you, so I really have a way."

Georgia's expression was slightly moved, but she still pursed her lips and did not speak.

Bai Liu turned around and glanced at Tang Erda, who nodded: "I used props to block the sound. For ten minutes, the audience couldn't hear you talking."

"Then we can talk safely." Bai Liu smiled, "First of all, Captain Georgia, I want to tell you that you know your citizens--"

"——Are they all still alive?"

Tang Erda was stunned. Georgia paused and said, "I know they are not dead. They just turned into golden sculptures, waiting for the moment of awakening."

"No, no, no." Bai Liu shook his head, "They are still alive."

"Alive?" Georgia slowly realized something in his heart, but he quickly denied the answer. "... Impossible. The Bureau of Heresy has used special equipment to scan them. They are really just golden sculptures. There is no human physiological activity."

"Yes, from a physiological point of view, all their organs have been completely hardened. They are indeed gold." Bai Liu raised his eyes and looked, "But from a psychological point of view, they are still human."

"Because they have souls, they can feel."

Georgia's expression froze completely.

Outside the game, on the surface of the Gu Luo Sea, the Heresy Processing Bureau is divided into three islands.

Lu Yizhang and Liao Ke had surveillance cameras on their hands and necks, and then followed the new members of the Third Bureau onto the boat, heading towards the floating island on the calm yet dangerous sea.

"Old Lu." Liao Ke and Lu Yizhan were standing at the stern of the boat. He said with worry, "You said heretic 0073 is not a heretic. What's going on?"

"The people inside have simply turned into gold, but they are still alive." Lu Yizhan took a deep breath and said, "If [Mu Sicheng] opens the protective shield I set up ten years ago, and the seawater floods into the country of Guloren, then all the surviving Guloren people will be drowned."

"Still alive?!" Liao Ke was surprised. "You couldn't have taken in this country without checking it. They are still alive. Why didn't you notice?"

"Because these sculptures are made of pure gold, whether in terms of weight, density, or electromagnetic wave testing," Lu Yizhan closed his eyes and clutched the guardrail. "...and I was also seduced by Bai Liu based on Georgia's description."

"You remember me saying that Georgia played a game with Bai Liu, saying that if he won, he could terminate the deal, but if he lost, he would have to pay for the pain of all the citizens."

"Georgia understood it logically and naturally thought that he would pay for all the pain, but Bai Liu played a word game with him. His original words were - [Whether it was the pain of the philosopher's stone a thousand years ago or the pain of this one now, when the time comes, you will pay for all the pain.]"

Lu Yizhan said in a heavy tone: "Bai Liu talked about the result, but Georgia thought it was the process. He was deceived by Bai Liu."

"Georgia thought that if the deal was done, it meant that the people would not suffer. The people's time would be frozen. They would not suffer or feel bad. They would just wake up when Georgia completed the deal, and then they could continue to live their lives as usual."

"But if we follow Bai Liu's consequence theory, Georgia has not paid a thousand years of pain, so this deal is naturally invalid. He can certainly charge these citizens for pain."

"…I was negligent. I didn't expect that Bai Liu could keep people alive in the form of golden sculptures to collect pain."

"Don't be too hard on yourself." Seeing that Lu Yizhan's shoulders were tense, Section Chief Liao sighed and wanted to say something to persuade him, but in the end he didn't say it out loud.

At that time, Lu Yizhang also had to deal with Bai Liu's affairs, and also had to deal with Bai Liu. Even if he was divided into eighteen parts, it would not be enough.

The more everyone wants to save someone, the more likely it is that no one will be saved, Army.

"Bai Liu deceived you." Bai Liu's tone was very calm. "Although your citizens turned into gold, they are still alive."

Therefore, when you turn into gold, your health and spirit points will not decrease - because that is just another way of survival, not some kind of heresy.

"Don't you find this strange, Georgia?"

"It's been ten years since this place sank to the bottom of the sea, and it's also been ten years since the explosion. It should be dead silent, but gold dust is still falling from the sky here, as if something is still alive, constantly dropping gold dust from the sky to the ground."

"Have you ever wondered where this gold dust comes from?"

Georgia looked up. His eyes were empty. He murmured softly, "Where did this gold powder come from?"

Bai Liu flicked his fingers and picked up a piece of paper - this was the message Mu Ke sent him before he left. He softly repeated the words on it: "Palace, gold powder, tears."

"This is what my team member left for me before he left. He thought it was the key decryption information."

"I guess he turned golden during your interrogation, and he shed tears during your interrogation, and then he found that his tears turned into gold dust. I also saw this in your team member Chris - when she turned into a golden heretic, I shot her in order to send her out of the game."

"She cried so hard that her tears turned into gold dust."

"Georgia." Bai Liu calmly said the answer, "This golden dust all over the sky is the final solution to the hourglass of time that you have been looking for."

"These are the tears shed by these citizens who have been trapped here for ten years, longing for your return day and night."

Behind Georgia, a drop of gold slowly fell from the eyes of the golden statue of the king who was sitting on a bench leaning against the table. The drop of gold then dispersed into gold powder in the air, turned into a track, and slowly spread out in this long-silent country.

"They are waiting for me to come back..." Georgia asked suddenly, "I have trapped them here for ten years, unable to move or speak. It is my willful behavior that has tortured them to this point."

"Why would they wait for such a traitorous prince?"

"People cry because they have feelings." Bai Liu raised his eyes, "They have been under this sea for ten years like sculptures, until the ground was filled with gold powder, their hearts were as hard as yellow stone, and there was no more golden sand in the sky. But the moment you step into this place, the gold powder in the sky starts to float again and falls on you."

"They have feelings for you, Georgia."

"You are the only person in the world who would turn yourself into a statue and stay by the sea for ten years to protect them. Who else can they wait for besides you?"

Georgia slowly lowered her eyes to look at the hourglass in Bai Liu's palm, and fell into memories in a daze.

In the spring of Guloren, the innocent children and citizens would grind the gold mined by the first minecart into gold powder, scatter it into the sky, and sprinkle it on the people they wanted to bless.

At that time, whenever young Georgia went down there for a walk, his hair and shoulders would be covered with thick gold powder, sometimes even more than his father, who would grumble and complain that Georgia was too popular with the people.

Those people laughed and made noises, and shouted teasingly, letting the gold dust fall all over his clothes and long hair:

"Georgia!"

"Georgia!"

Georgia looked back at them and thought to herself - if only this scene could exist forever under his protection.

Ten years later, his body was covered with gold dust again. Georgia turned his head to look out the window at the platform. The citizens who had thrown gold dust at him were no longer there. The banners they held outside the mining area to drive him away had turned into golden sculptures. The king, against whom he would smile and complain about his popularity, was now standing beside his chair, worrying about how he could hide it from him and bury the philosopher's stone in the ground.

In the end, he still failed to protect it all.

Georgia closed her eyes.

A tear fell into the hourglass in Bai Liu's hand. The golden sand in the hourglass began to flow. The thick gold powder floating in the entire kingdom turned into a visible golden track, which wrapped and dragged the hourglass in Bai Liu's hand and poured into it.

In the flow of golden sand, Georgia silently opened his eyes. His golden sculpture had spread to his heart, so even his voice became gentle: "...Is the deal between me and God finally being fulfilled at this moment?"

"I think so." Bai Liu looked at the hourglass in his hand that was about to start turning over and said with a smile, "It's better to make a deal with me than with God."

"The heir of God?" Georgia raised her eyes and asked softly, with a hint of resistance in her eyes. "...As the eldest prince of Guloren, I am very grateful that you told me all this and terminated the transaction, but I will never make any more deals with you at the cost of the suffering of my people."

"No." Bai Liu chuckled, "I don't want your country or your pain."

"What do you want?" Georgia asked.

Bai Liu looked at him: "Your soul."

The moment Bai Liu finished speaking, the hourglass suspended in Bai Liu's palm was full and turned upside down.

[System prompt: Player Bai Liu has gathered the hourglass tears. The hourglass is full and time is about to start to reverse back to ten years ago. Players, please be prepared to travel through time! ]

The golden sand in the hourglass, wrapped in the gold powder transformed from tears, began to flow in the opposite direction. Everything around began to reverse. The gold powder all over the ground flew into the sky. The gold foil on the statue of the king sitting at the long table began to fall off, revealing the person inside.

Tang Erda suddenly stretched out his hand and tried to catch Bai Liu who suddenly disappeared, but the moment he stretched out his hand, he only grabbed a handful of golden sand.

Georgia also turned into golden sand and disappeared in the copy.

[System prompt: The game "The Lost Kingdom of Gold" is completed, the player Tang Erda quits the game, the players Bai Liu and Georgia trigger the plot and enter the DLC - "The Kingdom of Gold Ten Years Ago"]

When Tang Erda opened his eyes again, he was already inside the viewing pool, and Mu Ke surrounded him in an instant.

"What's going on?" Mu Ke asked calmly, "The big screen has gone black, which means the game has ended. I also saw that you guys finished the game, so why are you the only one who logged out?"

"Where's Bai Liu?"

"Bai Liu was left in the game." Tang Erda took a deep breath, "He triggered a branch line."

Across the viewing pool, Armand stared at the extinguished big screen. He stood up suddenly and clenched his fist unwillingly - where is Georgia? !

Why didn't his brother log out?!

"Armand!" The team members nearby looked at Armand's broken hands and shoulders and tried to grab him in panic, but Armand was covered in wounds and he had no idea where to start. He could only shout, "Your wounds haven't been bandaged yet! Where are you going?"

"The game is over, Captain, nothing will happen to you! You are so badly injured, don't walk around!"

Armand couldn't keep calm at the thought of Georgia being with that guy named Bai Liu. He ignored the fact that his shoulders were half-tied and exposed, and he stood up forcefully and walked towards the big screen.

"Hello." Armand managed to be polite while talking to the staff beside the big screen. "The game is over, but our team's tactician is still inside. Can you keep the small TV on so we can see what's going on inside?"

"I'll pay for that."

"Or maybe you can open the entrance again and let us log in..."

Before Armand finished speaking, a threatening voice came from the side:

"Hey! Our president is still in there! Open up a hole so I can get him out!"

Armand seemed to sense something and stopped. Mu Sicheng seemed to have heard the sound coming from this side and stopped as well. They both turned their heads at the same time and looked at each other across the big screen.

The big hole on Mu Sicheng's right shoulder was still dripping with blood. He grabbed the employee's collar with his left hand and threatened him fiercely. Seeing Armand snorted in dissatisfaction for a moment, he made a click of the tongue.

Half of Armand's face was covered in blood. He glanced at Mu Sicheng coldly, as if he didn't exist, and turned around to continue talking to his employees.

The two voices overlapped again:

"Is there any way I can get in?"

Mu Sicheng exploded instantly, and rolled up his sleeves to fight Armand: "What are you going in for? Are you going to fight Bai Liu?"

"Come on, let's fight here again! You, little white face, will be defeated by me!"

"You are no match for me." Armand looked calm and spoke calmly, but he summoned his longbow and said, "I advise you not to go in again. If I can kill you a second time, I can kill you a third time."

"Huh?!" Mu Sicheng was furious. "I'll show you who killed who!"

The players from both sides arrived and were all helpless.

"Armand, calm down. We can't log into the game again... and we can't fight in the viewing pool."

Wang Shun stopped Mu Sicheng who was about to charge forward. He was overwhelmed and tried to persuade him with tears in his eyes: "Mu Shen, don't make trouble. Our team will be fined a yellow card!"

"But Bai Liu hasn't come out yet..." Mu Sicheng clenched his fists and lowered his voice, "...If I clear the main attack faster, then..."

“I’m still too slow.”

"Georgia is still in there." Armand pursed his lips tightly, tears welling up in his eyes, "I can't leave him alone in there."

“He never left me alone.”

The players on both sides were silent for a moment.

"Armand." The team members handed the bandage to Armand and sighed, "You have done a good job. It is us who did not do well. Believe in the captain, he is a very strong and powerful person."

"Georgia will definitely finish the game of the Kingdom of Gold properly and come out to see you."

"He won't leave you alone."

Wang Shun helplessly and amusedly helped Mu Sicheng, who was already on the verge of stumbling, up: "If you are considered slow and a drag, then what am I?"

"You did well enough. You should have looked around you. When you and Armand finally logged out of the game, the entire viewing pool was filled with spectators cheering for your wonderful performance."

"You proved that Bai Liu's choice was correct."

"The president will definitely be able to finish it well." Wang Shun helped Mu Sicheng up, who was lowering his head, with blood dripping from his jaw onto the ground, or something else, and patted his head with a smile, "Then I'll come out to see you and praise you for your good work."

The desire to protect something or someone is probably common to everyone who has something to protect.

Why do people shed tears?

Is it because of pain?

Armand covered his face with a bandage and clenched his fists to endure it, but his shoulders still shook from crying so hard.

Is it because you resent your own incompetence?

Mu Sicheng's face was twisted so hard that his features were distorted, but he still couldn't control the tears that flowed out of his eyes. He gritted his teeth, wiped them with his monkey paws in a wolfish manner, and turned his head away, not wanting to face himself like this.

Is it because of weakness or loss?

Sitting in the audience, Hong Tao raised his eyes slightly. The audience around him was gradually dispersing. They all went to the next round of competition, while Hong Tao sat there quietly, like a moviegoer waiting for a non-existent Easter egg.

"Can you give me an answer?" Standing at the gate of Gu Luolun, Bai Liu smiled and stretched out his hand. In his palm was an hourglass that could reverse time if filled with tears. He smiled and asked Bai Liu who suddenly appeared in front of him, "Why do people cry?"

"People cry." Bai Liu raised his eyes and looked at Bai Liu across from him, "It's because of emotions."