/
“Mu Ke, the focus of this plan isn’t my health. I have only 50% of my health.” Bai Liu’s tone was calm and almost cruel. “The plan is for you to safely stay in the ICU all night and find the life recovery medicine.”
“The moment you have the life recovery medicine, the task of your main identity line is complete. As for the task of the secondary identity line, i.e. the children’s task, little Bai Liu (6)’s progress is the fastest. You can seduce him with money to help you do things. He will cooperate with you so you can clear the instance. If I die, you will have to take the other 50% of my health through the instance, understood?”
Mu Ke cried and shook his head frantically. “I can’t do it! I really can’t do it!”
“If you can’t do it, we will die together, Mu Ke.” Bai Liu stared directly at Mu Ke casually. There was even an indifferent smile on his face when he spoke these words.
Bai Liu wasn’t threatening Mu Ke. He was just stating the fact that if Mu Ke couldn’t do it, they would probably die together in this place.
Mu Ke shuddered at Bai Liu’s smile. He lowered his head and bit his lower lip like he was fighting himself. It took a long time before he raised his tearful eyes and looked at Bai Liu. “I-I will try my best…”
Bai Liu slowed down his tone as he patted Mu Ke on the shoulder. “My death is indeed the worst case scenario and we have to prevent it from happening. The simple orange paper cup game is indeed easy to be seen through by old players. People who have played it a dozen times can guess it 100%. Thus, what I prepared isn’t a simple orange paper cup game.”
Mu Ke watched Bai Liu with teary eyes. “It isn’t a simple orange paper cup game?”
“Yes, it is an orange double paper cup game to match this game’s dual identity lines.”
“We will prepare to give them the answers to the first round of the orange paper cup game.” Bai Liu took out six new, identical paper cups and placed them on the table.
He lowered his head, took out a marker and wrote ‘Bai Liu’ on one paper cup and ‘Mu Ke’ on another paper cup. His face was calm as he covered the paper cup with ‘Bai Liu’ written on it with the paper cup with ‘Mu Ke’ written on it.
Bai Liu wrote ‘Mu Ke’ on another cup and covered it with a cup with the word ‘monster’ on it. Finally, Bai Liu put a paper cup with the word ‘monster’ on it and covered it with ‘Bai Liu.’
Mu Ke watched Bai Liu’s operation in a daze.
“This is the answer to the first round of the orange game.” Bai Liu pointed to the words on the paper cups and explained it to Mu Ke one by one. “These three paper cups are Bai Liu, Mu Ke and the monster right? Then they won’t be sure. They won’t believe it so easily and will doubt my identity. Thus, I will prepare the second round of answers.”
Bai Liu lifted the paper cups to reveal the ones underneath. “This is the second layer of answers they will see. Then—” Bai Liu didn’t have any emotions on his face as he quickly rotated the paper cups. He stopped, raised his chin and asked Mu Ke with a smile. “Now guess where is the orange that represents me?”
Mu Ke was convinced of his memory and placed his hand on the paper cup that had ‘Mu Ke’ written on it. “This one.”
“You guessed it wrong.” Bai Liu’s lips curled up and he opened the three paper cups. The orange was under the paper cup of ‘monster.’
“How can that be?” Mu Ke was surprised. “I saw you put the orange under the paper cup with ‘Mu Ke’ written on it in the second layer.”
“People are animals who are fooled by the instant messages they get. You remembered correctly but I cheated.” Bai Liu lowered his eyes and smiled slightly. His hand slowly opened the ‘Bai Liu’ cup. Under Mu Ke’s stunned gaze, Bai Liu’s index finger gripped the edge of the paper cup and gently pulled it, dividing the two paper cups into three.
Bai Liu laughed lazily. “It is a rough hand trick. You actually remembered and guessed it correctly but I placed three paper cups under this identity paper cup of ‘Bai Liu.’ What you saw was just the second paper cup when there were actually three. So I, as the ‘orange’, am actually hiding under the identity of the third paper cup.”
Bai Liu picked up the orange. “In other words, at the end of this orange game, I will use other information to cover up my identity. This is the third layer paper cup to protect me. It will confuse the old players, Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang.”
“They definitely won’t doubt the information they get.” Bai Liu peeled the orange under the paper cup and handed half of it to Mu Ke.
Bai Liu smiled. “It is because the message is from the other half of the orange calling to tell them. Mu Ke, do you want to eat an orange?”
Mu Ke shook his head dully, rejecting the orange that Bai Liu handed over. He was stunned silly by Bai Liu’s operations and couldn’t understand it at all. After Mu Ke refused, Bai Liu shrugged indifferently and placed the orange in his mouth.
The moment he bit it, Bai Liu’s expression slightly distorted. He spat out the orange into the paper cup that read ‘Bai Liu’ on it. “…Hey, the oranges in this hospital are so sour.”
The most successful paper cup identity exchange model of this plan was that the monster patient died as ‘Bai Liu’ and Mu Ke stayed safely in the ICU overnight as the ‘monster patient’. Bai Liu, the orange, stayed under the eyelids of the dangerous father and son as ‘Mu Ke’.
In order to achieve this goal, Bai Liu made more than two layers of identity cups for three people, or three monsters.
In the first round of the orange paper cup game, he gave Miao Gaojiang a simple identity answer corresponding to each monster. The monster that was killed was ‘Bai Liu’, the monster hiding under the hospital bed was the real monster and the monster he took away was ‘Mu Ke’.
However, Miao Gaojiang definitely wouldn’t believe an answer that Bai Liu gave him. Thus, Bai Liu prepared the second round of the orange paper cup game for Miao Gaojiang.
In the chaos of the second round of the orange paper cup game, Bai Liu gambled on Miao Gaojiang. He and Mu Ke hinted at the Miao father and son about their abnormal identities in various ways, such as Mu Ke obviously helping Bai Liu and Bai Liu helping the patient. This aroused Miao Gaojiang’s suspicion and made him constantly change the ‘identity label of the paper cup’ for the three monsters in his head. In the end, Miao Gaojiang was like Mu Ke who trusted his memory. He would make the same mistake.
Miao Gaojiang believed in his experience and used the information at hand to suspect that the orange called Bai Liu was hidden under the ‘Mu Ke’ paper cup, triggering the third layer of the identity paper cup prepared by Bai Liu. It was the self-certification phone call from little Mu Ke that Bai Liu had prepared long ago.
Mu Ke panted and looked up at the time. It was already 9:30 and all the nurses had started patrolling. Mu Ke didn’t hear the news about patients dying or hear the sound of fighting, so it was likely that the protective layer of Bai Liu’s layer paper cup had worked.
Mu Ke lay on the bed, his eyes dazed due to excessive stimulation and he sighed with relief.
In the process of implementing the entire plan, Mu Ke was responsible for introducing the Miao father and son to the ICU and reducing his health and mental value to gain an appearance consistent with the monster patient. After he was alienated, he had to stay awake enough to cooperate with Bai Liu’s plan. The final and most important part was to spend the whole night perfectly and safely in the ICU ward of the dead monster, following Bai Liu’s instructions to find the life recovery medicine in the bookcase.
The other dangerous parts of the plan—Bai Liu was responsible for all of them.
Mu Ke closed his eyes. His heartbeat hadn’t calmed down completely. He pressed a hand against his chest and could feel his fragile heart beating fiercely—due to fear, fear. In the process of planning, they had almost overturned several times.
Miao Feichi simply didn’t follow the routine Mu Ke imagined at the beginning. He relied on his panel attributes and high strength to try and kill all the monsters. He almost did it as well. If it wasn’t for Bai Liu relying on skills and items to hold Miao Feichi back for 10 minutes, Miao Feichi might really achieve the triple kill achievement in this ICU ward and Mu Ke would definitely be dead now.
After calming his heartbeat, Mu Ke breathed out. He sat on the bed for a while and after barely adapting to his current physical state, he gritted his teeth and stood up. He started to clean up the chaotic ward.
There wasn’t much time. He had to hurry up and do the task.
I forgot to post this earlier. An entry for CG’s 10k event. Check out:
Child Welfare home by Rhiannon
CG 10K event
Proofreader: Purichan