That night, at the children's welfare home.

Xiao Bailiu, who was lying on the bed, opened his eyes silently. He heard a series of intermittent flute sounds that were enough to wake him up, but everyone else in his room was still asleep. Running all night had consumed enough energy for these children. Except for Xiao Bailiu who had always been vigilant, the other children were sleeping soundly.

Xiao Bailiu got out of bed quietly and put on his shoes. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall - it was two o'clock in the morning.

Late at night in the shared bedroom, one could only hear the children's soft snoring. The children hid in their small beds, covering their soft bodies with quilts. Xiao Mu Ke even covered his head with the quilt, as if that could protect himself.

But in fact, as long as someone wanted to, these children could be easily crushed. Xiao Bailiu watched the door of their room being slowly opened. With the melody of the flute, the wooden door twisted and creaked, revealing the dark, gloomy and empty corridor outside.

There was no one outside the door; it opened by itself.

The sound of the flute began to become continuous, floating in melodiously and cheerfully. The children sleeping in the beds began to frown and twist restlessly, as if they had entered into some magical dream and began to mutter and dance their arms and legs.

Seeing this, Xiao Bailiu calmly woke Xiao Muke up.

——No wonder he was not affected by the flute sound. The flute sound works on sleeping children, but Xiao Bailiu was only in the second day of the welfare home, and he slept very lightly in a strange and unfamiliar place. As soon as the flute sounded, Xiao Bailiu woke up, so he would not be hypnotized by the flute sound.

Xiao Mu Ke was pushed awake by Xiao Bailiu. He rubbed his eyes, his forehead was covered with cold sweat, and he took a deep breath in a daze. After waking up, he looked at Xiao Bailiu standing at the head of the bed in a daze. It seemed that he had not yet reacted that he had woken up, nor that there was a person standing at the head of his bed.

Xiao Mu Ke half-closed his eyes, got out of bed in a daze, put on his shoes and walked to the corridor. As he walked, he said blankly: "We have to leave this orphanage. This orphanage will suck our blood and kill us..."

"Wake up, you were just dreaming because of the hypnosis of the flute sound..." Xiao Bailiu grabbed Xiao Muke's wrist, pulled Xiao Muke, who was about to go out, to face him, and then he narrowed his eyes.

Xiao Mu Ke's eyes were clear. He was still trembling. Although there were red marks on his face from sleep and he looked a little sleepy, his eyes were very clear and his eyes were filled with tears because of fear.

"That wasn't a dream..." Xiao Mu Ke said tremblingly. The dream obviously scared him a lot. "I saw many nurses tied us to the bed. They used many syringes to insert into the backs of our hands and feet. Then red blood gushed out along the infusion tubes and dripped into a stainless steel jar. Later we couldn't draw blood..."

Xiao Mu Ke was so scared that his shoulders hunched up. He hugged his shoulders tightly and said, "She, they would use the thick black needles used to stab livestock to pierce our scalp and face, and tie our necks with rubber tubes to squeeze the blood vessels in our faces so that they could draw blood."

"…We were tied up until our faces turned purple and black and we were suffocating. We struggled hard but couldn't escape from the hospital bed…"

With tears in his eyes, Xiao Mu Ke looked up at Xiao Bailiu who looked calm and unmoved. He took a step forward anxiously and grabbed Xiao Bailiu's hand, wanting to pull him away: "I swear that was not a dream! I saw what will happen after our baptism tomorrow! Those investors are all bad guys! They baptized us and funded us for the blood in our bodies. They didn't fund us for free. Let's run! Let's get out of here!"

"Of course they are not helping us for free." Xiao Bailiu said coldly, "There is nothing free in this world, especially for young humans like you and me who don't have much value. The only valuable thing is naturally our bodies. They invest in us for what's inside our bodies. What's so surprising about them doing this? Isn't it natural?"

Xiao Mu Ke stared at the calm Xiao Bailiu in a daze, and took a step back in fear: "You knew that those investors were bad people?"

"They are not bad people, they are just consumers who have the ability to purchase our bodies." Xiaobai Roku looked at the obviously frightened Xiaomu Ke calmly, "And humans like us who don't have our own purchasing power are commodities that can be bought and sold at will, and can only be purchased."

Xiao Bailiu had no expression on his face. He said calmly, as if stating an objective truth: "We only have the value of commodity categories, so it is normal for us to be purchased."

"But the people here want to suck our blood!" Xiao Mu Ke shouted anxiously.

Xiao Bailiu looked at him calmly: "So what? Do you think the people outside are good people and will never suck your blood? They might eat your flesh and do other more terrible things to you? Do you have the ability to resist? What's the point of you escaping? Before you have the ability to buy others, even if you escape, you are just a commodity that has escaped from the small shelf of [Love Welfare Home] into a larger shelf."

Hearing Xiao Bailiu say this, Xiao Mu Ke was completely stunned. He opened his mouth to refute, but he didn't know where to start.

"You're already..." Xiaobai paused, "Sorry, how old are you?"

Xiao Mu Ke was about to cry again after hearing what Xiao Bai Liu said. He twisted his fingers and replied to Xiao Bai Liu tearfully, "I, I am eleven years old."

"Oh, you are already eleven years old. Don't be so naive, Mu Ke." Xiao Bailiu took over the conversation indifferently, and then continued, "A group of children disappear from this welfare home every Sunday. It is obvious that these children are chosen to disappear, and our group of children are all good-looking. At first, I thought we would be taken away..."

Xiao Bailiu looked at Mu Ke, who had an overly delicate appearance, and his eyes paused subtly on Mu Ke's snow-white shoulders exposed from his pajamas.

Xiao Mu Ke looked at Xiao Bai Liu with his big eyes, and asked innocently and confusedly: "What were you taken to do?"

Xiao Bailiu tilted his head slightly as if nothing had happened, looked away and changed the subject: "...Nothing."

At first he did think that this welfare home was a place where child pornography was traded, so when his [investor] asked him to protect Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi, Xiao Bailiu's first reaction was this, because from his experience, such pornographic places were indeed prone to breeding such things. But soon Xiao Bailiu realized that the purpose was not so simple.

These dying [investors] had something else in mind for them.

Because if they were motivated by relatively direct purposes such as love and desire, they could have started enjoying these kids on the first night they entered. However, a day had passed, and these investors had not taken any obvious actions towards them, and were only using the phone to maintain a one-way connection.

Xiao Bailiu was guessing that this group of [investors] might not even understand the purpose of purchasing their [products].

In other words, this group of [investors] are also exploring the functions of their pile of [products].

Are they used for charity promotion? For psychological comfort before death? Or is it a feudal superstition that one cannot be desperate in order to survive - believing that doing good deeds can prolong life?

But these [purposes] are too obscure and indirect. Xiao Bailiu feels that there are more core things that determine the [investors]' close observation and investment in them, and the practice of building a hospital opposite the welfare home made Xiao Bailiu think of a point - for example, they can cure diseases.

This kind of healing includes psychological self-comfort - for example, the church in the [Love Welfare Home] where they were to be baptized the next day was beautifully decorated and obviously had a certain symbolic meaning. [Investors] might be able to seek a kind of virtual healing by doing good deeds and praying for God's protection.

However, compared to this method, there is a more direct way to treat the disease - that is to use these children directly to treat the disease.

Xiao Bailiu looked at Xiao Muke calmly: "On the first day I came in, I knew that my role should be a medicinal inducer, but I didn't know which part of the body I used as the medicine. Now it seems to be blood."

Xiao Mu Ke shook his head in disbelief: "Since you knew they were going to suck your blood, why didn't you run away? You were still on the phone with your [investor] last night, chatting for half an hour. Are you crazy! He is not a good person at all, he is a monster who sucks human blood!"

Xiao Bailiu looked at Xiao Mu Ke with a cold gaze: "First, the Ai Xin Welfare Home is completely closed. We can't get out except on open days. Second, if my [investor] hadn't paid me to save you last night, I wouldn't even look at you dying in front of me. Even if he is a monster, he is only a monster who saved you. You'd better understand this."

Xiao Mu Ke was speechless and quickly retorted Xiao Bailiu: "He saved me for my blood!"

"Impossible." Xiao Bailiu's eyes were dark, but he refuted very straightforwardly, "Although I don't quite understand his purpose, he did give up his own life to prioritize saving me, you, and Liu Jiayi's life. If he wants to draw your blood, he can pay me to do it for him. I will fuck you tonight."

Xiao Mu Ke's face turned pale and he took several steps back. He crossed his hands in front of his chest in fear and made a guarding gesture: "You, why are you... like this!"

Xiao Bailiu glanced at Xiao Mu Ke casually, and suddenly took a step forward with a bit of viciousness, opened his hands and threatened Xiao Mu Ke: "What about me? According to your standards, I am much worse than the [investor] who saved you, ten-year-old Mu Ke."

Ten-year-old Mu Ke was so frightened that he took several steps back and almost fell down, tears streaming down his face: "Ahhh! Don't come over here!"

After scaring Xiao Mu Ke in a playful way, Xiao Bailiu quickly retracted his hands and returned to his expressionless look: "Even if all the investors here are vampires, my [investor] is on our side, because it is too easy for him to kill you. He will help us, so you'd better listen to his instructions and don't act rashly."

Xiao Mu Ke nodded frantically. He was so frightened by Xiao Bai Liu that he felt uncomfortable and stuttered when he spoke: "Okay, okay, I got it!"

After making sure that Xiao Mu Ke was obedient, Xiao Bailiu turned and walked towards the corridor. He stood behind the bedroom door which had been opened by something and leaned over to look into the corridor. As he looked, Xiao Bailiu suddenly frowned.

In the corridor where the sound of flutes floated, the doors of several rooms were open, and the hanging open lamps were covered with spider webs and swayed gently with the night wind and the sound of flutes. The sound of children running and laughing came from somewhere, echoing vaguely in the deserted corridor in the night, giving people a creepy feeling.

But these are not the reasons why Xiaobai has six wrinkles on his eyebrows.

"Something's coming in."

Xiao Mu Ke hid behind Xiao Bai Liu. He didn't dare to stay alone. After waking up, he couldn't fall asleep again. He also forced himself to imitate Xiao Bai Liu and look into the corridor. After hearing what Xiao Bai Liu said, he looked confused: "I didn't see anything coming in..."

"Look up." Xiao Bailiu said calmly, "It's on the ceiling."

After hearing what Xiao Bailiu said, Xiao Mu Ke was stunned for a moment. He raised his head slowly and stiffly, like a machine with a rusty neck.

The corridor of the welfare home is a deep and high arch type, more than one meter wide, tall and narrow, with many colorful oil paintings of animals painted on it. In the night, these vaguely visible animals look spooky, as if they have the light of real carnivorous animals in their eyes. This is usually what Xiao Mu Ke fears the most at night, but now there is something that scares him more than these animals——

In these oil paintings, there are many children hanging like bats, with blood-stained IV bags and tubes all over their bodies. The children are surrounded by densely packed IV tubes, and the needles of the IV tubes are stuck into the wall. They move forward by relying on these constantly moving IV tubes with needles stuck into the wall.

These children were just like in Xiao Mu Ke's dream, they had been completely sucked dry, the skin on their faces had been sucked dry and wrinkled, sticking to their skulls like a piece of dried orange peel, their hands and feet were extremely thin, like big-headed dolls with malnutrition and developmental deformities, their eyeballs appeared clearly black and white and frighteningly large on their skinny faces, because their eyelids had atrophied, and one could see half of an eye bulging out of their faces.

Translucent IV bags of various colors were wrapped around them like a flowery dress, and they were playing the flute.

But the flute they were playing was not an ordinary flute, but a very long and large needle tube with holes drilled on it to make a vertical flute. The wall of the needle tube was stained with dried blood scabs, and it made a strange-toned flute sound under their thin lips.

"The Pied Piper." Xiao Bailiu seemed to have realized something. "It turns out that I didn't see anyone playing the flute yesterday, but I felt that the sound of the flute was everywhere because the group of flute players were on the ceiling of the house."

Xiao Mu Ke's legs went limp as he watched this, and he frantically pulled at the corner of Xiao Bai Liu's clothes: "Let's go back to bed."

Xiao Bailiu didn't care about Xiao Muke at all. He looked up at the group of children playing the flute for a while, and after seeing them enter different open bedroom doors, he followed them out quietly. Xiao Muke almost fainted when he saw them, but he was afraid to stay alone in the bedroom with the door wide open. In the end, Xiao Muke followed Xiao Bailiu with tears in his eyes. He was still shaking, like an unprofessional follower.

After entering different bedrooms, the group of flute-playing children moved their eyeballs so big that they seemed like they would fall out of their sockets at any second. They stood on the ceiling, twisted their heads into an angle almost parallel to the ground, and tilted their heads to observe the sleeping children below.

Xiao Bailiu hid beside the half-open door and did not go in. He leaned slightly through the crack in the door to observe what the group of flute-playing children were doing.

The child on the ceiling walked around the bedroom. It tilted its head and looked carefully at each sleeping child. Finally, it stopped on a child who was sleeping soundly. As if it had finally locked onto the target, it slowly lowered the tentacle-like infusion tube from its body and gently lifted the child's quilt.

Xiao Mu Ke felt difficulty breathing and covered his mouth tightly for fear that he would scream out.

Soon the child woke up. It was obvious that he, like Mu Ke, had woken up from a horrible dream brought about by the flute sound. There were still traces of tears and panic on his face. He almost screamed when he saw such a horrible child, but his mouth was covered by the infusion tube.

The child on the ceiling seemed to be gesturing to the awakened child with the IV tube, and soon the child burst into laughter, quickly jumped out of bed, put on his shoes, and followed the child on the ceiling. Xiao Bailiu quickly retreated back to his room and closed the door, leaving only a small crack to watch the scene in the corridor.

Every child who played the flute and entered a different bedroom came out with a smiling child. The child on the ceiling played the flute with a syringe with a strange tune, and the children on the ground lined up to hum songs and followed him out one by one, just like the scene that Xiaobailiu saw yesterday.

But suddenly the team stopped, and all the children on the ceiling suddenly tilted their heads through the crack in the door, staring with their lifeless eyes at Xiao Bailiu who was peeping at them through the crack. Xiao Mu Ke, who was hiding behind Xiao Bailiu, pulled the corner of Xiao Bailiu's clothes frantically, looking at Xiao Bailiu with a look of fear that made him almost cry.

Xiao Mu Ke covered his mouth to control himself from crying. With shaking hands, he slowly pointed at the top of their heads.

Xiao Bailiu was silent. He slowly raised his head and saw a child above him with his head tilted. On his wrinkled and blackened face, there was a pair of eyes as big as ping-pong balls, which were staring at him intently with lifeless eyes.

This child should have come in from the ceiling when Xiaobailiu went out just now. The IV tube right below it was wrapped around a child's head. This child shared a bedroom with Xiaobailiu and the others and was originally sleeping. Now, the child, wrapped in the IV tube, looked at Xiaobailiu and Muke with a strange smile on his face.

Xiao Bailiu slowly opened the door and let them out. The child skipped away. The child on the ceiling observed Xiao Bailiu and Mu Ke, who was covering his mouth, trembling and crying, for a while, then touched them with the IV tube, as if confirming something. Finally, he rustled back his own IV tube and left, stepping on the ceiling with an expressionless face.

The sound of a flute was heard again in the corridor, whistling in the blood-stained syringe, and gradually faded away along with the humming of the children who were being taken away, echoing etherealy in the corridor and disappearing at the end of the corridor.

After checking that there was no monster on the ceiling, Xiao Bailiu quickly locked the bedroom door from the inside.

Xiao Mu Ke fell to the ground completely exhausted. He covered his chest and breathed in and out with difficulty to regulate his heart rate. He was really almost scared to death just now. But when Xiao Mu Ke recovered and turned around, he saw Xiao Bailiu, as if nothing had happened. He was already lying on the bed, had lifted the quilt to cover himself, and was ready to go to sleep.

It doesn't look like he was almost taken away by a monster just now.

Xiao Mu Ke was speechless and devastated. He walked to Xiao Bailiu's bedside and accused him in a low voice: "We were almost caught just now! Can you think before you rush out next time!"

Xiao Bailiu covered himself with the quilt and closed his eyes. When Xiao Mu Ke came over to scold him, he did not open his eyes, but explained in a neutral tone: "They won't take us away. I have observed before that the children taken away by the flute sound are very directional."

He had noticed this when he was observing yesterday. The sound of the flute hypnotized all the children equally, but in the end only a few were taken away. Before, Xiao Bailiu was wondering how they did it. His door was not opened by the sound of the flute yesterday. He was in the bedroom, observing the corridor through the window, and his vision was limited, so he did not see the group of children on the ceiling.

And there was no child playing the flute who entered Xiao Bailiu's bedroom yesterday, so he had no idea how these children locked up and took the child away.

But Xiao Bailiu felt that he needed to find out. After all, his [investor] would definitely be very interested in the information, so Xiao Bailiu took the risk.

"But, even if there is a direction, how do you know that we are not the kind of children who were taken away?" In fact, Xiao Mu Ke also noticed this point. This group of "flute-playing children" were obviously looking for children who met certain characteristics to take away, but the problem was that they didn't know what the criteria for selecting children were.

Xiao Mu Ke frowned and questioned, "Our door was also open tonight, which means there are children in our room tonight who meet the conditions for taking away. How do you know it's not us?"

"Because today is Tuesday." Xiao Bailiu finally opened his eyelids and looked at Xiao Mu Ke. "Today is just our baptism day, so we will not be taken away."

The author has something to say:

Fourteen-year-old Bai Liu said to eleven-year-old Mu Ke: You are no longer a ten-year-old child, you have to be a calm adult, you are not allowed to show your emotions, you are not allowed to miss someone secretly, you are not allowed to look back, live your own life, you have to be obedient, understand?

Xiao Mu Ke (confused): Is that so? Am I already an adult?

Xiao Bailiu (unchanged): Yes, so you have to listen to me.

Xiao Mu Ke: Something seems to be wrong...?

The words spoken by Bai Liu in the small theater were quoted from Mr. Haruki Murakami. I don't know why my manuscript box can't be opened. My gay friend called me and asked me to take a look. Then, I, an idiot, set the posting date to tomorrow. Sorry, I must remember to check it!