The flush on Du Sanying’s face gradually faded. He took two wary steps back, hunching his shoulders as he looked at Bai Liu.

“Who exactly are you?”

Why did he know him so well? If he really was his friend...

“I once used you,” Bai Liu said, laying his cards on the table without the slightest hesitation. “That’s why you’re unwilling to see me.”

Bai Liu looked steadily at Du Sanying. “But I never forced you. You were willing to be used by me. Your luck and your intuition told you that you should follow me, so you chose to stand on the same side as me.”

“What does your intuition tell you now?”

Du Sanying froze.

Slowly, he straightened his back.

This person was right.

His luck made him trust Bai Liu. That was why he had obeyed Bai Liu so easily at the start.

But then why did the parrot keep telling him to leave this person?

Bai Liu glanced faintly at the parrot outside the window. “Do you know why you chose a parrot to record your memories?”

Du Sanying honestly shook his head.

His mind was completely blank right now. Most of the time, he could only rely on the lingering premonitions brought by his luck to do things.

For example, anyone who got close to him would definitely meet a bad end.

For example, he should believe what the parrot said.

And for example, when it came to this man named Bai Liu, he should follow him.

“Because in this world, you can no longer find a second method to record your memories,” Bai Liu said calmly. “You are trapped inside a dangerous game, but with your luck, you can always survive. Even though that luck sometimes hurts other people.”

“You reject those memories, so you wipe them clean once every week. But even so, you have no choice but to continue surviving painfully inside this game.”

Du Sanying could not help asking, “Why? Can’t I leave this game?”

“You can’t,” Bai Liu replied. “Because you still have desires that have not been fulfilled.”

Bai Liu raised his eyes. “You want to make amends to the people who suffered misfortune because of your luck. You want to resurrect your parents, your brothers and sisters, and the friends who died because of you. You want to end this unfortunate luck and redeem all the misfortune born from you.”

“And this game gave you hope and desire.”

Du Sanying’s hands trembled uncontrollably. He shook his head instinctively, trying to refute Bai Liu’s words, but when he opened his mouth, he could not say a single thing.

Because he remembered nothing.

Bai Liu continued, “It’s impossible for you to reveal anything about this game to anyone. Paper cannot record information about the game, electronic devices cannot preserve game data, and even if you confide in someone about the game, their memories will be erased after seven seconds.”

Du Sanying retorted, “But the parrot remembers things about the game! It even remembers you!”

“If I’m not mistaken, this parrot should be a game item you won. It matches your core desire and was brought into reality by you to serve as a vessel for your memories.” Bai Liu’s gaze shifted to the parrot. “It was originally a creature from the game.”

Beside them, Mu Shicheng suddenly understood. “So that’s why this parrot can remember things from the game.”

Bai Liu extended his hand toward Du Sanying. His attitude was sincere and earnest, and his pitch-black, mirror-like eyes reflected Du Sanying’s hesitation completely.

Like the crystal-clear reflection in the pool downstairs, it left Du Sanying dazed for a moment.

“I may be a bad person,” Bai Liu said softly. “But I have never harmed you. More importantly—”

“You cannot harm me either. My misfortune is innate, and it far outweighs any bad luck you could bring me. And the luck you despise is something I dream of having.”

Bai Liu looked into his eyes and took one step closer to Du Sanying.

Under Bai Liu’s gaze, Du Sanying found himself unable to retreat. He froze in place.

In Bai Liu’s eyes, he seemed to see a wild, cold wind and swirling snow, fragments of ice drifting after they had melted, raging flames, and strong acid smoking as it clouded Bai Liu’s gaze.

That clarity lasted only for an instant.

Amid smoke, dust, snow, and destruction, a human figure appeared in those pupils. That figure vanished into the depths of Bai Liu’s eyes, like a beautiful memory that had never existed, like passing light and shadow carried away by the wind.

Du Sanying felt as though he had seen this person’s heart breaking.

“I am asking you to help me,” Bai Liu said softly. “Use your luck to save someone very important to me.”

Du Sanying went quiet for a moment. He lowered his head and asked in a small voice, “If I go... can I really save people? I won’t hurt them?”

“You won’t,” Bai Liu said, looking at him with a faint smile. “When a person’s life is already unfortunate enough, the misfortune you bring may simply be another form of luck.”

“For me, for the person I want to save, and for the five escorts on that plane, you won’t harm them.”

Bai Liu lowered his gaze. “Because they already have no outcome more unfortunate than this.”

Du Sanying gritted his teeth. Suddenly, he took a deep breath and grabbed Bai Liu’s hand tightly.

“Fine. I’ll go with you. What do I need to do to save them?”

Bai Liu quickly explained the current situation to Du Sanying.

Du Sanying was a little dazed. “The plane is already over Antarctica, and it’s about to crash. What can I do?”

“You can be teleported onto the plane. Use your luck to see whether you can make it land in the ocean ahead of time instead of crashing onto land. That will reduce the severity of the crash and preserve the people and items on the plane as much as possible,” Bai Liu said.

Du Sanying’s face went pale with fright. “Teleport me onto a plane that’s about to crash?!”

Bai Liu pressed him down and said calmly, “I’ll go with you.”

Du Sanying’s small face was deathly pale from fear, but he still forced himself to remain composed. He clutched Bai Liu’s arm and asked weakly, “How... how do we teleport?”

Bai Liu’s gaze landed on the parrot on the balcony. “With a game item.”

Du Sanying had entered the game about a year ago, which happened to be when his entire family had their accident. From that, it was easy to deduce that the core desire that had driven Du Sanying into the game should be related to that traffic accident.

For example, a core desire like instantly teleporting his whole family away from the scene of the accident.

And this parrot was a game item that matched Du Sanying’s core desire, allowing it to be brought into reality. Combined with the mastermind’s deliberate design...

Bai Liu had sufficient reason to suspect that the parrot’s real function was teleportation.

Under Bai Liu’s instructions, Tang Erda pressed down on the roots of the parrot’s wings and caught it from the balcony.

The parrot stretched its neck and screeched loudly, its wings flapping nonstop.

“Bai Liu! Bad! Bai Liu! Bad!”

Du Sanying felt uneasy and a little distressed. He could not help reminding him weakly, “Be gentler. It’s uncomfortable.”

Bai Liu took the parrot from Tang Erda and handed it to Du Sanying.

The parrot quickly climbed onto Du Sanying’s shoulder. It tilted its head and rubbed against him, blinking its beady eyes as its claws shifted beside Du Sanying’s ear. Then it whispered as if revealing a secret, 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“Bai Liu, bad. Run fast.”

Du Sanying did not know whether to laugh or cry. He raised a hand and stroked the parrot’s head. After hesitating for a moment, he covered the parrot’s eyes.

“Using the item won’t hurt it, right?”

“No,” Bai Liu said, looking at him. “But you need to remember how to use this item.”

Du Sanying frowned in distress. “But I really don’t remember.”

“It’s clearly a voice-controlled item,” Liu Jiayi prompted. “Did you set some kind of keyword for the parrot to activate it? Something like ‘Bai Liu’?”

At the sound of that name, the parrot flapped its wings again, lifting its neck arrogantly as it screeched,

“Bai Liu, bad—!!!”

Du Sanying calmly covered the parrot’s mouth. “Let me think.”

“If you and your family were in a serious traffic accident, what keyword would you choose to teleport everyone away?” Liu Jiayi asked.

Du Sanying raised his head hesitantly. “Traffic accident?”

“Yes. A very serious traffic accident. The search for the remains lasted an entire week, and they still couldn’t piece together complete bodies. Because the remains of all the passengers had fused together in the gasoline fire and the violent impact, bloody and mangled beyond recognition,” Bai Liu narrated clearly, enunciating each word.

Du Sanying’s pupils contracted slightly.

He lowered his head evasively and began biting his nails in nervous agitation, his voice low. “That sounds... so serious.”

Bai Liu said, “You tried to separate your family from the others so they could be pieced together and buried separately, but you couldn’t do it. No one could. If it had to be done, it would have required a large amount of DNA testing.”

“In the end, after the victims’ families discussed it together, they established a collective cemetery for the accident, and everyone was buried together. On the day of the memorial service, as the sole survivor of the accident, you became the focus of the entire gathering.”

Du Sanying’s breathing began to quicken.

“The families who attended the memorial service asked you how you survived. Some cared about you, some comforted you, and many sympathized with you, consoling you by saying that surviving was a great blessing. Two families even expressed a willingness to support you through university—because in their eyes, you were also a victim, and the only one left behind.”

“But you knew you weren’t. You felt you were the perpetrator. You knew their loved ones had died because of your luck.”

“And yet they still wanted to help you.”

Du Sanying covered his head, shaking it again and again. His eyes had gone vacant, as if Bai Liu’s words had dragged him back to that original scene.

His eyes wide, he began apologizing mechanically, tears falling before he seemed aware of them.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose...”

Bai Liu grabbed Du Sanying’s hands, forcing him to look into his eyes, and continued speaking cruelly.

“When the collective cemetery was being buried, you disappeared. Everyone was worried and searched for you everywhere. In the end, they discovered that you had buried yourself in the cemetery. But luckily, you were found again.”

“Because a small child had been playing and rummaging around the unfinished cemetery, and a falling memorial monument crushed him to death. That was how everyone discovered you buried beneath the cemetery.”

“That child was from one of the two families who said they wanted to help you. His father died in that accident. He liked you very much and called you Gege. That was why his mother felt pity for you and wanted to help you. She never expected it would bring such misfortune upon her.”

“Did he remind you of your own meimei?”

Du Sanying began trembling all over. He struggled, trying to pull his hands back, tears falling in large drops. He was almost howling in misery.

“Don’t say any more!!”

Bai Liu did not mercifully stop. Instead, he leaned closer and gazed into Du Sanying’s tear-filled eyes.

“When you crawled out of the grave holding that child’s corpse and knelt on the ground; when you were at the accident scene holding the mangled corpses of your dead parents, your meimei, your jiejie, and your gege—what were you shouting?”

“Why was it that, after that, your memory malfunctioned, and you refused to remember anything?”

Du Sanying’s strength failed, and he collapsed to his knees. His tears would not stop, sliding down from his lowered chin. His voice was utterly hoarse and desperate, shrill as though his heart and liver were being carved out.

“Help!! Someone, come save them!!”

“Let me die!! Let them live!!”

Du Sanying cried as if his heart were being torn apart. He hunched his shoulders and curled inward, head lowered as his tears struck the floor one drop after another.

“I don’t want to live through luck. Let me die in misfortune.”

The parrot’s crest stood upright, and it sang out loudly,

“Let me die in misfortune!!”

A burst of dazzling white light descended on Du Sanying’s shoulder, enveloping him and Bai Liu.

After the white light passed, both of them vanished from the spot.