Chapter 641: Throwing Lives at It

The whole thing had been a conspiracy from the very beginning. Two-Faced Buddha and the live show streamers were merely players drawn into the game; the true protagonists tonight were actually the Uncorrupted Bone and Wang Wu.

After hearing his story, I looked at him in doubt.

Wang Wu and the Uncorrupted Bone's plan had gone smoothly. With my help, they had even obtained Gu Tongtong's blood ahead of schedule.

By all rights, they held the upper hand. Under those circumstances, why would Wang Wu bow his head to me and ask for a deal?

"Tell me what you're really thinking. That's the prerequisite for working with me." I held Gu Tongtong in one arm while my other hand gripped the bone I had stolen from the coffin.

The Writer hemmed and hawed, his eyes repeatedly darting toward my palm as if fixated on the Jade Bone.

I caught on immediately. Raising my hand, I opened my palm. "Does it have something to do with this?"

I had always thought "skin of ice and bones of jade" was just a figure of speech, but after seeing the Uncorrupted Bone's body, I realized that jade-like bones truly existed in this world.

Held in my hand, it radiated a biting chill, as if I were gripping the grim reaper's scythe.

Once I called him out on it, Wang Wu lowered his raised hands. "You're a smart man. Leave that bone behind, and I'll send you out of here."

"No rush," I said, watching him warily. "Why did you choose today to kidnap Gu Tongtong? Did you catch wind of something?"

He kicked the shovel aside and shifted his posture. "Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital has always been overseen by Mr. Paper. He seemed to have sensed my betrayal, so he spent several consecutive nights guarding the Uncorrupted Bone inside the hospital. That map you saw earlier was drawn by his own hand. With the Uncorrupted Bone's help, I could temporarily neutralize Mr. Paper's poison curse and leave the hospital for short periods. However, because the Uncorrupted Bone's blood flows through my veins, I can't stay out in the sunlight for too long. For all these reasons, our plan was put on hold."

"As time went on, bad news came from the Uncorrupted Bone. It felt it couldn't hold out much longer and was on the verge of being refined away. To preserve its consciousness, I prepared to make a move right under Mr. Paper's nose." At this point, a faint smile appeared on Wang Wu's face. "By sheer coincidence, just a few days ago, Mr. Paper suddenly left the hospital. It seemed they ran into some trouble over in Xinhu and needed him to go back and handle it."

"Xinhu City?" I fixed my eyes on Wang Wu's face. "Give me the details. Don't even think about muddling through this."

"I really don't know the specifics. I'm just his subordinate. While passing by the outer perimeter of the hospital, I overheard him talking with a man. The man said the linked-fortune feng shui array he had set up in Xinhu had been broken, and told him to hurry back." Wang Wu blinked, as if suddenly remembering something. "Right, they mentioned a name. They said someone named Gao Jian had gone to Xinhu, and they were planning to capture and kill him there."

Hearing my own name from the mouth of someone completely unrelated, my first reaction was to wonder if Wang Wu was playing tricks on me.

Yet nothing in his tone or expression suggested he was lying. This might really be a coincidence.

The timing of Mr. Paper's departure perfectly matched when I had gone to one of my livestream viewers, the King of Bad Movies, for help erasing those broadcast clips from the internet.

That day, I had helped Wu Youde break the yin-dwelling layout in his home and killed the Little Ghost hidden inside the statue. Those very actions must have drawn Two-Faced Buddha's attention.

"A linked-fortune feng shui array?" It was the first time I had ever heard of something like linked fortune. I committed the term to memory, planning to ask Daoist master Wan about it once I got out of here.

"Don't ask me. I don't know the first thing about feng shui. I haven't left the hospital once in all these years—I've been living cut off from the outside world."

"Cut the crap and get to the point," I interrupted, focusing my attention.

"What happened next is where it gets interesting. In all my twenty years in this hospital, I've never run into anything quite this interesting." Wang Wu let out a laugh, the skin of his face bunching together in a hideous grimace. "When Mr. Paper left, he locked all the monsters in the hospital inside the medicine vats—those water tanks you saw. Without those monsters in the way, I began carrying out my own plan: kidnapping Gu Tongtong and toying with her family."

The smile on his face grew even more morbid, his tone brimming with pride. "Several years ago, I tried opening the coffin to release the Uncorrupted Bone, but that attempt failed. I only managed to let out a wisp of a remnant soul—that little girl you met. She looks dazed and muddleheaded, but all of that is just an act. Having gathered every bit of negative emotion in this entire hospital, she is hands down the most vicious, terrifying entity I have ever seen."

"You mean that ghost girl?" I had been fooled by her myself, and hearing Wang Wu's assessment of her made me furrow my brow deeply.

"That's right. Don't ever be fooled by how she looks. The moment that remnant soul escaped from the Suspended Coffin, she couldn't wait to take revenge on the family that caused her death. Her power was weak since she was only a remnant soul, so to avoid exposing herself, she hid inside her sister-in-law's belly, and later possessed her brother's child. There are no parents in this world who don't dote on their children. She took advantage of that exact weakness, manipulating Gu Tongtong to secretly do all sorts of dreadful things. She nailed the rag doll her parents had given Gu Tongtong inside the wardrobe, mutilated herself to write words in blood, and even tried to kill Gu Bei with a knife." Wang Wu spilled all of this in a single breath, excitement lingering on his face.

'Is that really her true face?' I thought back to the time I had spent with the ghost girl; the only impression she had ever given me was one of frailty and loneliness.

I narrowed my eyes. I couldn't take Wang Wu's words completely at face value; there was a chance he was just trying to drive a wedge between us.

"With the help of the Uncorrupted Bone's remnant soul, we locked Gu Tongtong inside the hospital and then sent messages to Gu Bei, luring him over step by step. The plan was going smoothly at first, but then something unexpected happened. A little after ten tonight, Mr. Chen suddenly showed up at the hospital and demanded I help him kill every living person inside." Wang Wu wore a baffled expression of his own. "At the time, I thought our scheme had been exposed. Who would have guessed that not long after, while making my rounds, I'd run into an outsider?"

"An outsider? You mean me?" I asked casually, only to get an unexpected answer.

"Not you." Wang Wu pulled out a yellowed lab slip. "Just like Zhang Heng and Chen Mo, that person came to the hospital after receiving a slip like this."

"A Death Invitation?" Surprise flickered across my face. "Didn't you people send these out? Isn't this your method for luring living people here?"

Wang Wu shook his head firmly. "We only prey on vagrants, and every single target is carefully handpicked. Why would we ever do something like that?"

'If it wasn't you, then who else could it be?' I felt a chill creep into my heart. During this broadcast, there were three factions inside the hospital: Two-Faced Buddha, represented by Chen Jiuge; the Uncorrupted Bone, led by the Writer; and the live show streamers.

If these Death Notes hadn't been sent out by Two-Faced Buddha's side, then logically, only another live show streamer could have done it! But why would he do such a thing? Sending out Death Invitations to lure innocent people into this mess—was he trying to muddy the waters to conceal his own identity? Or had he found a loophole in the Live Show's rules, planning to manufacture innocent bystanders this way to farm points?!

'What the fuck? You can do that?' Using the lives of living people to hide his own identity—he wouldn't hesitate to become a devil just to complete a broadcast!

It made sense. The Live Show's rules forbade streaming while accompanied by outsiders, but one could use other methods to inadvertently draw living people into the broadcast venue, using their lives as stepping stones to test the waters.

Back during the Real Death Game, I had leaked information to Du Yu in exactly that way without being punished by the Live Show.

However, I had only done that after getting Du Yu's consent. What this streamer had done, on the other hand, was fabricate a nonexistent urban legend and back it up with some special ability of his own, compelling innocent people to believe it and walk right into the broadcast of their own accord. That way, not only could he hide his identity by blending in alongside them, he also knew full well who the innocents were. Whether he ended up slaughtering them all or rescuing them, he could maximize his point haul.

'Is this what a live show streamer who has been through multiple broadcasts is like? Compared to them, my methods and mindset are still far too green.' In every broadcast, I worked my way from a pawn in the game to the one breaking it open. What they thought about, however, was how to turn themselves from pawns into the ones setting the board.

I could never bring myself to do something like that, nor had it ever crossed my mind to run a broadcast that way.

This was my first time sharing a broadcast with other live show streamers. Seeing their methods firsthand, I knew there was still a huge gap between us.

At the very least, that was true when it came to how we treated innocent people.