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Mu Sicheng’s expression changed as he looked at Liu Jiayi on his shoulder. “How can we go quickly?”
Liu Jiayi looked around before finally focusing on the sealed doors in the airtight corridor. “Someone refitted this floor into an airtight environment and released water to drown the escaping Bai Liu. However, this has also made the corridor structure extending in all directions very much like a sewer.”
Liu Jiayi lowered her head and ‘looked’ at the water. “Bai Liu should be near the outlet of the sewer pipe. Then we can find him faster. We don’t need to use the previous, more complex coordinate system method.”
“I get it.” Mu Ke reacted quickly. “The water flow, right?”
Liu Jiayi node. “Yes, the water flow.”
“No...” Mu Sicheng interrupted the conversation in a humiliated manner. “Can you occasionally say something that a person with an intelligence value of 74 can understand?”
Liu Jiayi was dumbfounded. “It means we can find the location of the water outlet through the direction and sound of the water flow. Then we will be able to find Bai Liu.”
“How can we judge it?” Mu Sicheng still didn’t understand. “There is no way to precisely pinpoint the location, right? The water current here looks very messy and it isn’t a small stream.”
Liu Jiayi handed the goggles to Mu Sicheng and interrupted him. “Help hold this for me.”
Mu Sicheng took it in a confused manner. Then Liu Jiayi took a breath and plunged into the water. Seconds later, she floated up and pointed in one direction. She turned her head to ‘look’ in Mu Sicheng’s direction with an expression of dislike. It seemed she didn’t want to waste more time explaining this.
“In the water, I can judge the position of the water outlet based on the sound of the water and direction of the water flow.” Liu Jiayi made a ‘follow me’ gesture. “The place where you are standing has a backflow due to the water flow being blocked and there will be a sound. I can also rely on this to determine if there is anyone in front of us.”
Mu Ke looked at Mu Ke. He sympathized with Mu Sicheng, who looked dizzy, and added an explanation, “It is like how a fish uses the senses of their body to discern the direction of water flow.”
Liu Jiayi nodded. “That’s pretty much what it means.”
“How can you even do this?!” Mu Sicheng looked at Liu Jiayi who was moving in the water. “Hey! This is the real world! Are you a person or a monster? This is a superpower!”
Liu Jiayi didn’t answer Mu Sicheng’s question. She just glanced at him before turning around and swimming in the water like a fish.
She could do this because she was innately blind. Her senses were several times more sensitive than usual.
In addition, she was used to living in the water like a fish.
As a child, Liu Jiayi was often thrown into the pond by her father to catch fish. It was only when she caught enough fish that the man would be merciful and let her go. In order to chase these cunning fish in the mud pond, she gradually developed a fish-like perception.
She had always hated this ability but at the moment, it was an exception.
“Whoever made the decision to release the water—” Liu Jiayi touched her face and shook off the water droplets on her hands. Her body floated in the water while her tone was calm and cold. “He is prepared to use the water to torture Bai Liu but this made it more convenient for me, a blind person, to find him.”
***
“—148, 149, 150—Okay, drain it.”
The door of Room 1087 was closed but the walls on both sides of the corridor loosened and water flowed through the gaps in the walls.
Bai Liu coughed and emerged from the water.
He knelt down on the ground with a lowered head, coughing hard. His white shirt was wet and stuck to his trembling shoulders.
Bai Liu’s skin showed an inorganic whiteness due to being soaked in water. The lack of oxygen meant his fingers were purple and his chest moved up and down violently. The experience of suffocating for three minutes made him exhausted.
Soo, Bai Liu collapsed. He opened his mouth, his eyes wide open as he fell to the ground, struggling to grab the hard-earned oxygen into his lungs.
However, it felt like oxygen could no longer enter his lungs through breathing hard. Bai Liu seemed like he was about to go into shock.
“How does it feel to be in the water for three minutes? Are you used to it?”
Tang Erda’s voice came from the communicator of the patrolman at the end of the corridor. “It is said that the world record for holding on the longest is 13 minutes, Bai Liu (6), do you want to try it?”
“Are you reminded of bad memories?” Tang Erda’s voice was low and hoarse. “Are you thinking about how to explain the Rose Dry Leaf?”
“Death can’t make you compromise. You aren’t afraid of death at all. Therefore, I won’t threaten you with death. Instead, I will give you two choices. Give me the solution and I will give you a sum of money and satisfy you. If you don’t go back on your word, we won’t interfere with you again.”
“The second option is that I lock you up with this Swallowing Spring Eye. I’ll drain the water between 1.5 to 3 minutes. You won’t die but you will have to keep drowning in the water. You should be familiar with this feeling of suffocation, right?”
Tang Erda’s voice had an unclear meaning as he chuckled lightly. “After all, the dean of the private welfare home really liked to educate you like this. You are too bad. You have been bad since you were a child. She wanted to lead you back to the right way so she often educated you like this.”
“Unfortunately, no matter how harshly she educates you, nothing will change. You have no expression. It is like you are born to like torture. Bai Liu (6), you should understand that educating such children makes people feel very unfulfilled.” Tang Erda’s voice dragged out. He sounded peaceful like he was teaching a condemned prisoner.
Bai Liu put his arm over his eyes to block the dazzling white light coming from above, his breathing gradually becoming fainter.
Tang Erda continued, “Therefore, she changed many methods and finally found a way to torture you where you will struggle. It is to let you—”
Tang Erda’s words were interrupted. It was the voice of the struggling Lu Yizhan. He screamed and yelled like he wanted to overwhelm Tang Erda’s voice and not let this person continue. “Don’t say it! He has forgotten! Don’t make him remember it again!”
Tang Erda raised his volume and continued speaking coldly. His voice was like an incomparably sharp thorn that pierced Bai Liu’s brain, which was still blank and groggy from the suffocation.
Bai Liu gave a rare frown. He instinctively rejected what Tang Erda was saying. This rejection made his head hurt even more, like it was going to crack.
“Bai Liu (6), have you forgotten? No one pushed you in the water. It was you who kept burying your head in it!”
“It is because someone took the blame for the bad things you did. Someone accepted the punishment of the teachers in order to protect you. However, the teachers got carried away when punishing him and he drowned to death in the pool of the welfare home while being constantly pushed under the water.”
“His body sank to the bottom and you kept burying your head in to see his corpse, trying to pull him out.”
Tang Erda’s voice sank. “Bai Liu (6), why are you afraid of water? You aren’t afraid of water at all. You are afraid of seeing his body in the water. Do you remember who he is?!”
Lu Yizhan exhausted all his strength to struggle angrily, trying to stop Tang Erda. His cries were piercing. “Don’t tell him!!!”
Tang Erda’s voice was low. “His original name was Xie Ta but in this timeline, you forgot about him and regarded him as Lu Yizhan.”
“Do you still remember Xie Ta’s face that you saw when you were submerged? Was it accompanying you by your side or staring at you from the bottom of the water?!”
“Xie Ta died for you. Remember it!”
Xie... Ta?
In the midst of the suffocation of dying, Bai Liu saw a dazzling white light.
The white light flashed with countless memories that Bai Liu intentionally or unintentionally avoided.
The memories turned into fragments in the white light, scattering into pieces like a torn picture book. It was black and white, or the corners of colored pages on which there was the fragmented silhouette of a person he had forgotten.
Then at Tang Erda’s cold voice, these originally blurred or forgotten memory pieces were once again pieced together in Bai Liu’s mind to become a complete, page by page picture book. Like a kaleidoscope before death, they started to play back in front of his eyes.
A person’s memories could deceive them.
If they were unable to bear the intense emotions carried by the memories, the memories would carefully and automatically correct themselves, allowing the master to pretend that nothing happened, using the fake to calm down and continue living.
In layman’s terms, it was self-deception.
The memories were automatically cut into a shape acceptable to Bai Liu and stored in Bai Liu’s brain. They didn’t easily change back to their original shape until the last moment.
The honest and straightforward face of Lu Yizhan was erased in these memories, turning into another face that Bai Liu was both familiar and unfamiliar with.
This face was very beautiful but there was long, curly hair hanging down to cover his eyes. Even so, his exposed lip shape was still beautiful and exquisite. He had a very eye-catching appearance.
He looked at Bai Liu from the forgotten memory and whispered his name. ‘Bai Liu (6), long time no see.’