In the night, a huge motorcycle with yellow-brown stripes flashed by and threw up countless dust.
They were getting closer and closer to the factory that was about to explode.
The factory that was found to be secretly making the rose perfume was in the suburbs. This was precisely the time when Su Yang’s team went to investigate.
Su Yang held a special gun made by the Dangerous Heretics Bureau by his side and cautiously looked inward with his back against the factory door.
After looking around the sides, Su Yang came out. He raised his collar and spoke into the small microphone attached to it.
“There is nobody. It is safe.”
At the same time, there was a response from his headset.
“Vice-captain Su, there is no one here either. It is safe.”
“District two is also safe.”
“The third district is also safe. Vice-captain Su, it is strange…” The voice in his earpiece paused hesitantly. “It doesn’t look like people are working here at all. The ground is full of dust and the latest footprints belong to us.”
“The last time we came to inspect the factory, it wasn’t like this. This time, it seems to have been abandoned for years.”
Su Yang’s eyes were clear and his expression was calm. “Don’t panic. It is likely that there is a new heretic associated with the dry leaf roses or this new heretic is derived from the dry leaf roses.”
“This should be the ability of this heretic.”
Su Yang continued to look down. He stepped through the open-air square full of dead leaves and came to the processing worker’s dormitory. He stared at the old and abnormal door of the dormitory before stretching out his feet. He didn’t hesitate to kick at the gap at the bottom of that door that was raised due to dampness.
The corpses lying on the dormitory beds opened their eyes and stood up with twisted limbs. Their decaying eyes turned to look at the crumbling, about to be kicked open the door. They moved toward the door with their bare bones.
Meanwhile, the first underground floor of the factory.
The team members pinched their noses and walked through the foul-smelling prison. They scanned the neatly arranged iron cages with complicated eyes. Behind them, the team members held up night cameras to carefully photograph the structure of the factory.
The green screen of the night camera cast an ominous light in the dim underground area.
“I don’t know what these cages were built to hold…” One of the team members took a few steps inside with a furrowed brow. “This place wasn’t here at all when we came here a month ago to seal this factory.”
“Yes.” Another team member agreed. “In addition, we have always had people closely monitoring the situation here. There is no way to operate this factory. I don’t know how they are still producing and transporting perfume.”
They walked deeper as they spoke.
Inside the cage at the end of this floor, there was a huge, cylindrical glass container that was three meters tall and a thickness equivalent to four people hugging each other. This vessel was filled with the brightly colored Dry Leaf Rose Gas perfume liquid.
There was a time bomb on the glass cabinet with less than 10 minutes remaining on it.
If Bai Liu were there, he would’ve estimated that this much perfume liquid was enough to pay the entire staff of the in-game Rose Factory for a year.
The dry leaf rose gas was a flammable and explosive liquid. The moment this amount of liquid exploded, it would spread to the entire nearby Jing City area.
Even if Bai Liu knew how to deal with the dry leaf roses using the blood ganoderma lucidum, in the early stages of the disaster, before order was established, there would be quite a few people with poor tolerance to the dry leaf rose who would wither as a result.
For example, a breastfeeding mother and newborn who was just one month old.
The team members walked to the cage at the end and someone sniffed with a frown. “…I smell a very strong rose fragrance.”
This sentence instantly made the team members vigilant. They raised their flashlights to carefully search the dungeon, walking countless times in front of the glass vessel containing the huge amount of rose liquid.
The strange thing was that they acted like they couldn’t see the glass container. They even went right through the glass container.
It was as if they were in a completely different dimension from the glass container that was about to explode.
“It is strange. I did smell it but why can’t I see anything?” The team member looked at the empty last cage and frowned in confusion. Finally, he chose to turn away.
The team members walked toward the exit of the first underground floor. They turned on the communicator and reported to Su Yang. “Vice-captain Su, the scent of roses can be smelled from the underground floor but there is nothing on this floor.”
Behind them, the countdown of the time bomb decreased by one second and dropped from 9:00 to 8:59.
On the first floor of the factory, outside the dormitory of the processing workers, Su Yang kicked open the door.
Su Yang walked into the dusty dormitory, raised his gun and looked around warily. Finally, he pinned the gun to his waist.
His brow was furrowed as he looked around the empty dormitory. He lifted his collar and announced, “I haven’t found anything in the first floor dormitory but I smell the very strong scent of decomposing corpses…”
“I thought the dozen or so missing employees who have been missing for a month could be found here…” Su Yang sighed before cheering up again. “No news can be considered good news. Perhaps they are still alive.”
“In addition to searching for the equipment that secretly makes the rose perfume in the factory, we must pay attention to searching for people. A month ago, we came to search this factory and found that there were more than a dozen employees from the employees list who went missing…”
“Most of these employees are high-risk migrants who have come to work here from other places. No one will notice if they go missing. They might still be alive so be ready to rescue them at any time…”
Su Yang walked outside as he spoke.
In another space behind Su Yang, more than a dozen pairs of decaying eyes stared at him without moving.
There were 8 minutes and 47 seconds left before the explosion.
“There are only 8 minutes and 47 seconds left.” Bai Liu looked at the time on the motorcycle’s dashboard and calmly announced.
“This is already the fastest speed!” Mu Sicheng gritted his teeth. His motorcycle tires almost wiped out on the cold and hard ground due to the high-speed rotation. He couldn’t help cursing. “F*k! Shouldn’t an explosion of the scale in the game require a large container for the perfume? Why didn’t anyone who went to investigate see anything?”
“It is impossible not to see it.” Bai Liu answered indifferently. “In order to minimize the harm of the rose perfume, the investigation of the Dangerous Heretics Bureau crossed the line and arrested me to prevent it.”’
“Normally speaking, forget a bottle of rose perfume. They couldn’t even miss a rose seed.”
Mu Sicheng was stunned. “Then why…?”
“It is because the existence of the Rose Factory has a higher world authority in order to log it into reality. It is just like how ordinary people in this world can’t hear anything about the game.” The night wind blew the hair on Bai Liu’s forehead up and backwards as he looked at the factory not far away. “These ordinary people who want to protect others can’t see or touch the world related to the game.”
“In order to protect the factory and keep it functioning properly in reality, the game designer gave the factory manager an ‘inner world’ that hid the real Rose Factory.”
Mu Sicheng let out a breath. “It is the same as the Rose Factory game, right?”
“Yes.” Bai Liu squinted against the fierce night wind. “According to my understanding, Tang Erda has been monitoring these factories that might produce perfume 24 hours a day but this factory has still continued to produce the rose perfume for export under his surveillance. This is illogical in itself.”
“The only possibility is that they made the perfumes in the inner world and then sent them back to reality to sell. That way, it is completely impossible to find, right?” Mu Sicheng asked back.
“That’s right.”
Bai Liu continued. “It isn’t only that. The newspaper in the game said that before the explosion, the members of the Dangerous Heretics Bureau repeatedly searched the factory but they didn’t issue any warnings to the city. The citizens weren’t notified of an emergency evacuation. Instead, the team members stayed directly in place to search until the bomb exploded.”
“It proves that they didn’t see anything dangerous.”
“It is quite possible—” Bai Liu looked up at the factory that was getting closer. “All they saw was an empty factory in disguise.”
“There is nothing in it.”
“Vice-captain Su, this is an empty factory.” The team members searched the entire building and reported to Su Yang. “There is nothing inside.”
Su Yang frowned. He looked up at the old factory, which withered away in the night, and there was a deep sense of foreboding that was getting heavier.
He turned around and went back to the car to get some special night vision equipment to search again. Yet the moment he opened the door, a pair of hands seemed to have expected Su Yang to come back to get the night vision equipment. They reached out and handed the equipment to him.
Su Yang looked at the person sitting in the car. “Why did you come with me? Didn’t I tell you to stay in the bureau and get a good rest?”
Lu Yizhan, who was sitting in the back seat of the car, scratched his head and smiled bitterly. “Vice-captain Su, I have thought about it. If this matter is related to Bai Liu and he really did it then I have the responsibility of not supervising him well. I can’t escape the blame. So after thinking about it, I still followed you.”
Lu Yizhan raised his eyes, let out a deep breath and looked at Su Yang. “Vice-captain Su, I am asking you to let me search with you!”
Su Yang was silent for a moment. Finally, he was helplessly defeated by Lu Yizhan’s gaze and he nodded. “It is an empty factory and there is no danger. Come if you want.”
Lu Yizhan sighed with relief and got out of the car. He entered the factory with Su Yang for a second search.
There were still 6 minutes and 31 seconds left before the explosion.
The motorcycle buzzed and stopped steadily in front of the factory.
Bai Liu glanced over and saw several cars parked in front of the factory with the sign of the Dangerous Heretics Handling Bureau.
Bai Liu had ridden this type of car on the way to the bureau and had an impression of the strange octopus logo.
Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng got off the motorcycle and looked for a place to hide. The people of the bureau were patrolling outside. One of them was a heretic who escaped from prison while the other was a criminal who robbed the prison. Both of them were people to be arrested by the bureau and would only be arrested on the spot if they appeared directly.
However, being arrested was a secondary matter. Tang Erda could help them deal with it. It was just that dealing with being arrested would waste time.
“How do we get in? Break in?” Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu. Then he glanced at his watch and his expression darkened. “There are only six minutes left!”
Bai Liu’s eyes fixed on the factory. “Go in brightly.”
He touched the reverse cross and system coin around his neck that Tang Erda had returned to him.
[System warning: It is forbidden to use items that have nothing to do with the core desire in reality—zi zi zi—forbidden—stop—]
The sound of resistance gradually weakened.
[System notification: Does player Bai Liu want to use the extraordinary item, Reverse Right Eyeball?]
[This item can glimpse the hidden evil truth.]
[I will.]
Bai Liu took out a glass marble-shaped eyeball that had a rose floating in the center of the eyeball. He held it up between Mu Sicheng and himself.
“Close your left eye and look at this eyeball. Then we can enter the inner world of the factory.”
Before Mu Sicheng could think about Bai Liu’s intention behind letting him do this, he instinctively closed his left eye in accordance with the instructions.
The rose in the eyeball slowly blossomed and made people dazzled. The original scenery around them accelerated and withered. There were the howls of rotten corpses and the skulls of unknown people at their feet.
Mu Sicheng took a deep breath. He covered his head, pushed away the eyeball and took two steps back.
Mu Sicheng had been racing for so long without any discomfort. Now he just looked into this eyeball for a second and felt a bit nauseous. It was the feeling of being mentally polluted.
They entered the dark and real inner world.
Bai Liu didn’t seem affected at all. He opened his closed eye and turned to look at the factory behind him. The originally empty factory was now brightly lit. There were the shadows of people coming and going with dust pans full of roses in their hands and it wasn’t known if they were ghosts or not.
It was exactly the same as the scene in Rose Factory.
Bai Liu grabbed Mu Sicheng’s wrist and ran inside. “Go.”
“Wait! Do you know where the perfume bomb is placed?” Mu Sicheng tried to grab Bai Liu. “We must first determine the location before we rush in. Otherwise, isn’t it just giving them a gift?”
“My guess is that it is the innermost cage in the dungeon on the underground floor.” Bai Liu turned back to Mu Sicheng for a moment while running. “Someone told me.”
Mu Sicheng was stunned. “Who told you that?”
Bai Liu had no expression on his face. “Lu Yizhan, that fool.”
“Hey! F*k! How come I don’t know when he told you? Was it during the time when I was blocked by Hearts? Bai Liu, tell me!”
Bai Liu didn’t say a word. He ignored the screaming Mu Sicheng and pulled this person into the factory.
In the game Rose Factory, the place where the test paper Lu Yizhan was staying was the last cage in the prison.
This fool Lu Yizhan was arrested with a group of people after the explosion. Then in order to protect others, he must’ve applied to be imprisoned in the place where the perfume pollution was the most serious. It was to suffer the most severe torture in place of others.
In the entire Rose Factory, was there a place where the pollution was worse than where it exploded 10 years ago?
Bai Liu felt that there was none. It was estimated that this guy Lu Yizhan also felt there was none.
So he was held in the place where the explosion happened for 10 years.
Bai Liu bypassed the factory’s defenses and entered through the back door. As they passed through the corridor, Mu Sicheng put down a few shaky, rotting corpses. Then they walked to the entrance of the underground area.
Mu Sicheng turned on the flashlight of his mobile phone and walked down with Bai Liu. They headed all the way inside to the last cage.
There was a huge glass container constantly emitting pink smoke and the entire cage was filled with the scent of roses.
The countdown on the glass container had reached four minutes.
“What should we do?” Mu Sicheng covered his mouth and nose and asked Bai Liu angrily, “Move it out? Or just smash it directly?”
Bai Liu stared at the container for less than a second before calmly saying, “It is too late.”
“What is too late?” Mu Sicheng’s mind was confused and he instinctively looked at the countdown on the bomb. “Aren’t there still four minutes left?”
Bai Liu’s eyes moved down to the bomb at the bottom of the container. “It is useless to smash it. The real bomb isn’t this timed bomb. The bomb is just a lighter and the real bomb is the perfume liquid and gas that is bubbling out.”
“The dry leaf rose gas means this perfume should be some type of liquid gas. Even if we smash this glass container or take away the bomb, the liquid just needs to be present and any spark will cause the explosion to go off smoothly.”
“If the game designer plans to let this factory explode tonight, he can use anyone in this factory who has made a lot of perfume to do it. We can’t guard against this.”
Bai Liu wasn’t panicked even when saying this. “Unless all the perfume solution stored in this factory is used up, they can create an explosion in the inner world and flip it back to the real world at the moment of explosion.”
Mu Sicheng let go of the hand covering his mouth and nose, his expression tense. “Then what should we do?”
“Evacuate the people.” Bai Liu raised his eyes. “Then blow up this factory first.”
***
Tang Erda requisitioned a high-end private car passing by and Mu Ke was driving at full speed to the factory.
Tang Erda and Liu Jiayi were sitting in the back seat of the car. The owner of the car that had been requisitioned wasn’t willing to let them borrow it but Mu Ke directly threw a credit card with more than three million yuan to him and bought the car directly. Then Tang Erda rushed them to the factory.
“The call still can’t get through?” Mu Ke looked anxiously in the rearview mirror.
Tang Erda said in a deep voice, “It should be impossible to get through. They all turn off their phones when performing tasks. If I want to contact them, I need to go back to the headquarters of the bureau to use their wireless FM.”
“It is too late.” Liu Jiayi refuted the suggestion without hesitation. “Bai Liu should’ve arrived by now. Call him and ask about the situation over there.”
The moment Liu Jiayi finished speaking, there was a call from Bai Liu.
He called Tang Erda. “Captain Tang, is there any way to disperse the citizens within the explosion range within a short period of time?”
“The citywide air defense siren.” Tang Erda replied quickly but he soon clenched his fist. “However, that requires a lot of evidence to prove that a high-risk situation will happen before it can be activated. My privilege is only for dealing with the heretics and I can’t activate this level of alarm.”
“We can’t prove it. We can’t even prove to the people who haven’t entered the game that the factory is about to explode. It is because it is in-game content and we will be silenced when we say it, right?” Bai Liu asked.
Tang Erda leaned weakly against the seat of the car. “…Yes, they won’t be able to hear it at all.”
“The explosion… will still happen, right?” Tang Erda raised his hand to cover his eyes and asked hoarsely.
Bai Liu answered him honestly. “Yes.”
“However, maybe it is just an explosion.” His voice was still calm, without any fluctuations at all. “Just now, you said that if someone can prove there will be an extremely dangerous thing like the rose gas perfume, this alarm can be activated, right?”
Tang Erda sat up straight as he realized that Bai Liu seemed to have found a method. He just couldn’t think of what it was.
“Yes.” Tang Erda’s breathing became heavy. “No matter what method you use, they simply can’t accept the message you want to convey. They will even think you are crazy for asking people to run away quickly.”
“How are you going to prove that this terrible thing you’ve witnessed with your own eyes will really happen?”
Bai Liu’s voice was filled with a lazy laugh as he said, “Captain Tang, who has privileges, please remember to bring me out.”
Then he hung up the phone, leaving a confused Tang Erda.
***
Dawn was approaching and the wind was blowing.
Bai Liu left the inner world and tidied up the black trench coat that didn’t fit very well.
After smashing the glass cabinet and throwing the timer bomb away, the two outsiders were discovered by the Rose Factory people in the inner world.
Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng were discovered stopping the explosion that was done in order to spread the rose perfume and were chased by the employees. At the same time, the employees were still working intensively to create a second explosion using the reserve rose essence solution. It was exactly as Bai Liu expected.
In order to delay the time, Bai Liu left the fast moving Mu Sicheng in the inner world to make trouble for the employees who were preparing for a second explosion. Meanwhile, he left the inner world by himself and was responsible for moving the people out of the area affected by the explosion.
Before Bai Liu left the inner world, Mu Sicheng had asked Bai Liu the same question as Tang Erda. How would he convince these people that such a thing would happen?
How could he let the ordinary people who weren’t in the game believe that their world was a cruel game full of monsters?
It was especially difficult when such words were banned.
The temperature in the real world was somewhat cold so Bai Liu wore a black trench coat he had taken from the inner world. He didn’t know who it belonged to but he used it to keep out the cold.
From the hidden stairwell at the back of the factory, Bai Liu walked to the top floor of the factory step by step. There was a big red and white plastic loudspeaker hanging from his wrist that seemed to be used for employee training and shouting. This was also taken out of the inner world by Bai Liu.
The moment he reached the top floor, he was discovered by the team members below who were closely inspecting the factory.
“There is a figure on the roof!”
“Is it the missing factory manager? Turn on the high beams to see who it is!”
“Level one alert!”
Two dazzling high beams swayed and were positioned on the figure on the top floor. Bai Liu squinted at the strong light aimed directly at his face but he didn’t move. He still stood smoothly in the highest location.
The cold night wind blew Bai Liu’s hair hanging down the side of his face and the ill-fitting long trench coat on his body. Morning dew seemed to linger around him and there was the residual smell of roses at the soles of his feet.
The people below recognized who he was.
“—Bai Liu!”
“How can he be here? Hurry and notify the bureau! The escaped heretic No. 0006 has appeared at the factory!”
“Captain Tang said he is very dangerous! He possesses the ability to control all heretics! Why is he here?”
Su Yang and Lu Yizhan looked up in disbelief at the Bai Liu who seemed to have fallen from the sky.
There was the same smile as always on Bai Liu’s face as he raised the loudspeaker to his lips. “Good morning, everyone.”
“Before I escaped, I decided to do something that is in line with my identity—” Bai Liu’s eyes widened and he smiled in the increasingly fierce wind. “How can I, a laid-off worker who has been identified as anti-social, take revenge on society?”
“I lost my job, my friends, everything I had for no reason—I couldn’t find anyone responsible for it. Then I was branded a monster by you and imprisoned.”
“How can I not take revenge?” Bai Liu’s lips curved up and he said softly, “I decided to let you all taste what it is like to become a monster as well.”
“I decided to blow up this whole factory and let the roses spread all over the world. All of you will become my slaves.”
After a few seconds of stagnation, someone shouted hoarsely, “Contact the city and sound the air defense siren! Let all the residents retreat out of the explosion range!”
“Someone is maliciously spreading the perfume addiction!”
Su Yang looked up in horror at Bai Liu, who was standing on the top floor with one hand in the pocket of his trench coat.
In the morning wind and fading night, the man smiled at him with interest and asked him lazily, “Does the rose scent on you smell good, Vice-captain Su?”
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