The iron gate swung open with a creak, but Tang Erda, standing before it, did not move at all.

For a moment, he seemed to have turned into a wooden statue—or rather, in that moment, he wished he really were only a wooden statue.

The factory worker beside him pushed him twice in confusion, but Tang Erda was tall and solidly built, and the worker could not move him at all. Just then, the “scent strip” inside the cage suddenly moved one finger, twitching faintly in Tang Erda’s direction.

Leaning against the wall, the “scent strip” struggled to focus that single unfocused eye on Tang Erda. In an extremely weak, questioning, hoarse voice, he called out, “...Captain?”

That one soft call struck Tang Erda, who had been frozen in place, like a bullet to the chest. The pain was so fierce that he had to clench his teeth and twist his face just to keep his expression from collapsing.

Tang Erda’s eyes were bloodshot. He had to brace himself against the wall to steady his body, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on the person—or rather, the scent strip—inside the cage.

Something seemed to have drained Tang Erda of all his strength, leaving him exhausted, scarred, and unrecognizable. He could only use the wall to support his body as he staggered, step by step, into the cage that had always trapped him—and had always trapped Su Yang.

Tang Erda walked up to the scent strip. Only then did he finally see the other man’s appearance clearly.

Su Yang’s entire face had “bloomed.” The roses in his eyes grew as lushly as the roses in the fields, and his face was covered in patterns of overflowing flesh and blood. He was still wearing the uniform of the vice-captain of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, and even his employee badge was still there.

Su Yang’s work photo on the badge was stained with blood and looked filthy.

That face and that work photo reminded Tang Erda of the time Su Yang had been executed by the Joker. Back then, the heart-rending screams of the team members had seemed to echo endlessly beside his ears.

Tang Erda had stood there like a man whose soul had left his body, staring blankly at the videotape that recorded Su Yang’s death. His brain had been like a broken machine, repeating only one sentence again and again—

If only I had been beside Su Yang.

If only I had been captured with Su Yang. If only I had been captured instead of Su Yang. If only I had been Su Yang.

If only I had been the one tortured, the one in pain, the one who died.

Why did it have to be Su Yang every time?

Every single time.

Why did it have to be the person he cherished most, the person he, a coward, had not dared to mention, face, look at, or speak to across so many timelines?

Tang Erda closed his eyes. The veins on the back of the hand he used to grip the wall bulged. He could barely keep himself standing.

There was a very weak, very faint light in Su Yang’s eyes. He did not seem to feel that his current state was painful. On that face of torn, uneven skin, there was only a pure trust and joy at seeing Tang Erda—his captain. He seemed to want to smile.

But Su Yang’s torn skin and muscles blocked that attempt.

So his smile only made it halfway before falling helplessly away. Only his tone remained cheerful.

“It really is you, Captain!”

Su Yang tried to raise his hand and reach for the hem of Tang Erda’s clothes, but after several attempts, he still failed. Instead, his hand began to tremble from the strain.

When Su Yang’s hand was about to fall again after yet another failed attempt to reach him, Tang Erda finally knelt down in silence. With his own trembling hand, he reached out very lightly, leaving a small distance between them, and hovered his hand over the back of Su Yang’s.

Su Yang gasped weakly. Leaning against the wall, already at his last breath, he looked at Tang Erda with half-lidded eyes and a smile, then suddenly turned his hand over and caught Tang Erda’s hand.

Tang Erda took a deep breath, forcing down the emotions surging inside him. For the first time in this timeline, he did not reject Su Yang’s closeness. Instead, he held Su Yang’s hand in return. His voice was hoarse and difficult.

“Mm. Captain is here. I came to save you.”

“No, you can’t... save me! Cough, cough, cough—”

A look of annoyance and helpless amusement appeared on Su Yang’s face.

He was just like he had been every time he had worked with Tang Erda in the past: troubled by his captain’s reckless decisions, yet still patient enough to persuade him in the end.

Because of his difficult breathing, Su Yang’s voice came intermittently.

“Saving me... is useless. I really can’t hold on much longer.”

Su Yang’s eyelids drooped, and his tone sank into dejection.

“My family, my parents, my teammates—they couldn’t hold on. They all withered. Now I’m the only one left, but I can’t hold on much longer either.”

“I’m just unwilling. That’s all. Unwilling to be unable to do anything against this thing. I’m too useless.”

Su Yang’s tone was faint and dazed. He raised his head, and the roses in his pale eyes became exceptionally clear. He tightened his grip on Tang Erda’s hand, which had wanted to pull away.

“But you’re different, Captain! You’re the person chosen by the Prophet! You can definitely change all of this!”

In that instant, for Tang Erda, the memories from all those different timelines seemed to converge into this one sentence.

Captain! You can definitely do it!

Captain, I believe in you!

Captain, cough, as long as you’re alive, we still have hope!

Countless Su Yangs—faces bloody, broken, pale, scarred, or mangled—had all looked at him with the same relieved expression and eyes bright with hope, calling him Captain.

Then, in the next instant, they would die for him with a smile, their souls vanishing into the light in the blink of an eye, leaving no trace behind.

Tang Erda looked at Su Yang’s anxious face. For a moment, what he received no longer felt like Su Yang’s trust and entrustment.

It felt like a desperate curse.

A kind of distancing.

Su Yang moved his body forward with difficulty. He leaned against Tang Erda’s shoulder and said in a low voice, “Captain, listen to me. Saving me no longer has any meaning. Since you’ve made it here, that means you should already have been promoted to factory worker. Next comes promotion to perfumer. There is an antidote for the rose perfume, but only each successive factory manager knows it.”

“As long as you advance from perfumer to factory manager, you’ll know what the antidote is.”

At this point, Su Yang was a little short of breath. He leaned his head against Tang Erda’s shoulder to rest, then quickly continued, a hint of a smile in his voice.

“When that time comes, you’ll be able to save the people who have been contaminated.”

Tang Erda did not know how long he stayed silent before he finally spoke hoarsely.

“...What about you?”

Su Yang did not speak. He only leaned quietly against Tang Erda’s shoulder, his chest rising and falling slightly as he closed his eyes.

With the tacit understanding between them, some things did not need to be said aloud. They both understood the decision Su Yang had made.

Su Yang had decided to sacrifice himself for Tang Erda’s test, allowing Tang Erda to successfully advance to factory worker.

That was equivalent to making Tang Erda personally kill Su Yang in order to save the other people in this game.

Even if this Su Yang was only a character in a game, only a fake Su Yang, Tang Erda still could not bring himself to do it.

“But Captain...” Su Yang leaned against Tang Erda’s shoulder and opened his hollow eyes, murmuring almost to himself, “it’s impossible to save me anymore. I’m addicted.”

“Captain, look on the bright side. Death... all humans die eventually.”

There was a bit of casual, indifferent laughter in Su Yang’s tone, as if he were coaxing Tang Erda.

“If I have to die, then I hope my death can have meaning for you.”

“I’m actually very happy that I got to see you before I completely wither. Because at the very least, it means my long, foolish struggle and pain, my self-torment from refusing to yield to the rose perfume, had meaning.”

Su Yang turned his head against Tang Erda’s shoulder and looked at him very gently.

“My meaning was waiting for you, Captain.”

Tang Erda could see the cracks on Su Yang’s face gradually deepening and peeling open, blood seeping from the edges. In Tang Erda’s pupils, Su Yang’s reflection was becoming more and more like a rose.

More and more like a monster.

He had never seen life drain from a person’s body so clearly and so rapidly.

Su Yang looked at Tang Erda imploringly.

Tang Erda slowly released the hand Su Yang was holding. Then, with the hand he had just pulled free, he made a grasping motion in the empty air.

He lowered his head. His expression was unreadable, and his voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

“...The test. How is it done?”

Su Yang smiled from the bottom of his heart.

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Oh, right.”

Su Yang seemed to remember something very important, and his expression turned solemn.

“Captain, do you remember that living heretic Bai Liu, the one you captured and who later escaped? After you leave this place, if you have the chance to find him, you must kill that person.”

“It was that person who, on the day he escaped from the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, blew up the factory we had gone to inspect.”

——————————

In another cage separated by a wall.

After Lu Yizhan finally figured out that the person in front of him really was Bai Liu, who had turned into Liu Jiayi, the two of them began chatting casually, without the slightest sense of tension.

Bai Liu lifted his eyelids and glanced at Lu Yizhan, who was sitting across from him.

“I blew up the Rose Factory?”

“Yes.” Lu Yizhan did not seem to think he was discussing anything particularly serious either. He lay on the bed with his hands behind his head, his body and tone both relaxed. “The staff of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau and I all saw it. I’d bet on the ten years I’ve known you that the person standing on top of the Rose Factory, claiming he was going to blow up the factory, was definitely you.”

“You said you were going to trigger an explosion, leak the dried rose leaf gas, and destroy the world. I even exchanged a few words with you and confirmed in the end that it was the ‘you’ I knew.”

Lu Yizhan spoke while staring upward.

The timeline of the game Rose Factory was ten years after the real world.

Bai Liu sorted through the timeline Lu Yizhan had told him.

The explosion that caused the dried rose leaf gas to spread across the world happened on the second day after Bai Liu escaped from the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau.

And on that very day, Lu Yizhan and Su Yang, the vice-captain of the third branch of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, had both come to the Rose Factory to investigate this facility that had been forcibly shut down but secretly reopened.

That was what Bai Liu had seen in the factory newspapers, and it basically matched both his own deductions about reality and what Lu Yizhan had just told him.

As for what Lu Yizhan said had happened afterward, Bai Liu only listened to a few sentences before raising an eyebrow.

Lu Yizhan said that after they arrived at the factory, they searched everywhere for containers suspected of storing dried rose leaf gas. The entire factory was very strange. The equipment was all there, but the people seemed to have vanished into thin air, and no one knew where they had gone.

They searched without sleeping or resting until the early morning, but found nothing except some iron pots and distillation devices containing the residue of refined roses.

And then, at that moment, it was as if Bai Liu had descended from the sky. He appeared out of nowhere on the roof of the Rose Factory, holding a large loudspeaker he had obtained from somewhere. With one hand in his pocket, he lazily shouted to the crowd below—

As Lu Yizhan spoke, he used both hands to mimic a large loudspeaker, reenacting the scene.

“I am the antisocial element Bai Liu. Because I have been unemployed for more than a month, cannot find a job, and have no money to earn, I am extremely sad and believe the world should simply be destroyed together with me. Therefore, in a moment, I will blow up this factory, make the dried rose leaf gas leak, and let everyone end with me.”

Bai Liu fell into an eerie silence for a moment before asking, “And then the Rose Factory exploded?”

Lu Yizhan nodded honestly.

“Yeah. And then you completely disappeared. Because of that, for a while, the bounty on your wanted poster from the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau rose to sixteen million. Even I was a little tempted.”

Bai Liu narrowed his eyes at Lu Yizhan, who was lying on the bed.

“You don’t think I caused the explosion?”

If Lu Yizhan had been certain that Bai Liu caused the explosion, then as long as he could still move, he absolutely would have leapt off the bed and shot Bai Liu on the spot the moment Bai Liu walked in.

But now Lu Yizhan was still lying calmly on the bed, chatting with Bai Liu. That proved Lu Yizhan felt the explosion had nothing to do with Bai Liu.

Lu Yizhan was quiet for a moment before speaking.

“I’m certain the person standing on the roof of the Rose Factory, shouting that he was going to blow it up, was you. I’m also certain that less than fifteen minutes after you finished speaking, the Rose Factory exploded, and that perfume leak that endangered everyone occurred.”

Then Lu Yizhan made a very brainless deduction.

“But I feel that you didn’t do it.”

Bai Liu asked with interest, “Why?”

Bai Liu rarely doubted Lu Yizhan’s judgment of him. Lu Yizhan’s understanding of him might even be deeper than Bai Liu’s own understanding of himself, and Lu Yizhan would never lie to him.

If Lu Yizhan said the person standing on the roof was Bai Liu, then Bai Liu estimated that it really had been him.

Lu Yizhan stared blankly at the ceiling of the cage for a while before answering Bai Liu.

“It’s a very unprofessional and subjective conjecture, but I believe you wouldn’t do something like that.”

Bai Liu glanced at him from the side.

“I never knew you actually trusted my character.”

Lu Yizhan slowly let out an “eh,” turned his head, and gave Bai Liu a light look.

“It’s not because of that. I wouldn’t dare trust your character.”

If not for the strange patterns on Lu Yizhan’s face, their conversation would have been as calm as their usual banter.

Lu Yizhan looked at Bai Liu.

“But I trust your trading ethics. Yesterday, you made a ten-year hotpot deal with me. There’s no need for you to destroy the world before you’ve even eaten a single meal. That would be too much of a loss. I don’t believe you could do that.”

“Mm.” Bai Liu looked at Lu Yizhan. “Although I feel the same way, other people probably wouldn’t think so, right?”

Lu Yizhan smiled and turned his head back, his tone sentimental.

“True. Among the people who went to the factory that day, I was the only one who thought that way. The reason for my deduction was too subjective to convince them, which is why the bounty on you became so high later.”

“Unfortunately, they couldn’t hold on later and left one by one.”

Lu Yizhan’s expression finally became complicated, and he let out a long sigh.

“It seems there is only one person left in this world who stubbornly believes in you, and one person who stubbornly hates you.”

The person who believed in Bai Liu was obviously Lu Yizhan.

According to the malicious humor of this game’s designer, if Bai Liu was not mistaken, the person who hated him should be Su Yang. At this time, the scent strip corresponding to Tang Erda was very likely Su Yang.

Lu Yizhan continued, “In these ten years here, I kept thinking about the ten years I knew you, trying to find traces of what kind of person you really were, so I could support my guess that you wouldn’t blow up the Rose Factory. Meanwhile, the other person kept emphasizing the evidence, emphasizing that he had seen you blow up the factory with his own eyes.”

Lu Yizhan stared straight at the ceiling, his voice becoming very, very soft, as if he were talking to himself.

“What kind of person you are became the only reason we survived.”

“And when I reached the later stages of remembering, I even began to doubt whether you had really existed at all, or whether you were only a friend, a murderer, a kind of self-compensating salvation I had hallucinated because I was too lonely here. Knowing that you existed gave me at least a little hope to keep enduring.”

Bai Liu turned his head calmly.

“And so?”

Lu Yizhan gave Bai Liu a look as if he were complaining.

“At least show me a little sympathy. I’ve been so miserable.”

After saying that, Lu Yizhan was quiet for a second. Then he smiled.

“So for a while, whenever someone came in to test perfume, I would ask them—do you know Bai Liu? What kind of person do you think he is?”

“Maybe because I was very cooperative with the testing, they basically answered. I received many, many answers about ‘Bai Liu,’ but not a single one convinced me that you really existed, and not a single one described the person I knew.”

Lu Yizhan struggled to prop himself up on the edge of the bed. He took two deep breaths, then looked up at Bai Liu.

“Now it’s your turn to answer this question. Do you know Bai Liu?”

He stared unblinkingly at Bai Liu, who stood beside the bed.

“What kind of person do you think Bai Liu is?”

“I know Bai Liu.”

Bai Liu met the gaze of the weakly gasping Lu Yizhan very calmly and said, “He is a shameless, despicable person with no empathy, who uses any means necessary, lacks conventional social awareness and common value orientations, and refuses to be bound by universal moral rules. Simply put, he is a complete bastard. In addition, he has an extremely strong desire for money. From every angle, he is quite a dangerous individual.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lu Yizhan nodded seriously. “That’s the Bai Liu I know, alright. Continue.”

Bai Liu stared at Lu Yizhan for a long time before saying, “He is indeed your friend. So even if he is that kind of bastard, he will still keep his deal with you.”

“I won’t blow up the factory. If the person standing on the roof of the Rose Factory really was me, then there must have been some situation that forced me to say those words and make that choice. But I won’t do anything that violates a deal.”

Lu Yizhan froze for a moment, then smiled from the bottom of his heart.

“Yes. That’s what I believed too.”

Bai Liu took a step forward.

“Alright, I’m done talking nonsense with you. Teach me how to do the testing.”

Lu Yizhan froze for a moment, then gave a helpless, bitter smile.

“You’re too cruel, Bai Liu. I just heard that factory worker say your talent might very well kill me in a single test!”

“You might die here.” Bai Liu glanced at Lu Yizhan. “But the real you won’t die. Want to make a deal? I can prevent that explosion that has already happened and save you and the others.”

Lu Yizhan stared blankly at Bai Liu for a while. Although he did not seem to understand what Bai Liu was talking about, nor did he know how Bai Liu could prevent something that had already happened—

But he knew that when this person spoke of a deal, there was at least a fifty percent chance, or more, that he could really accomplish it.

“Yes!” Lu Yizhan answered immediately, his eyes brightening. “What’s the content of the deal?”

Bai Liu said, “Treat me to twenty years of hotpot.”

“Adding the previous ten years, that makes thirty years! That’s way too much!!” Lu Yizhan cried out. “Look at me now. I might not even live that long!!”

Bai Liu glanced at him.

“Then for the sake of this deal with me, work hard and live until then.”

Lu Yizhan froze. He looked at Bai Liu’s indifferent expression and could not help laughing.

His way of showing concern was so roundabout.

It really was him.

————————

Su Yang grabbed Tang Erda’s hands, a rare look of deep regret appearing on his face.

“Captain, every single day here, I and the other team members regretted that we didn’t seriously carry out your orders. If only we had shot Bai Liu on the day we caught him, so many people...”

Tears filled his pale eyes, and his voice was dry and broken.

“So many people wouldn’t have died because of Bai Liu’s revenge, because of the leak and spread of something like this!!!”

“Captain, if only I had been able to stop all of this from happening... It’s all my fault...”

Su Yang seemed to be crushed beneath some extremely heavy responsibility and emotion. Slowly, in front of Tang Erda, he bent his body down.

In that instant, he seemed to have aged several decades from remorse and self-blame. The joints of his spine protruded like a string of beads from his overly thin back, skeletal and unable to straighten.

Tang Erda clenched his fists.

For the Su Yang in front of him, all of this was already too late.

But for him, there was still time.

As long as he cleared the game in time, found the antidote, and killed Bai Liu—everything he had seen, this Su Yang who had suffered so much he wanted to die, all of it would never happen again.

Tang Erda calculated the time in reality corresponding to the end of this game, as well as the time Su Yang had just told him Bai Liu triggered the explosion. His gaze involuntarily sharpened.

This was equivalent to Bai Liu going straight to the factory and triggering the explosion immediately after clearing the game.

He had to kill Bai Liu inside the game!

He already knew that the antidote could be obtained after becoming the factory manager.

Bai Liu could no longer be allowed to live.