Bai Liu gave a simple assessnt.
“This sounds like sothing another version of from a different tiline would do.”
Tang Erda glanced at him.
“If that were all there was to it, then it would only be one insignificant item among your many criminal achievents.”
He paused.
“And I wouldn’t have only rembered it now.”
Bai Liu turned his head to look at Tang Erda.
“What happened after that?”
“...After Armand died, George regained his clarity. But the fact that Armand had died seeking revenge for him destroyed him all over again. George was grief-stricken and unable to carry out his work normally. The Dangerous Heretic Managent Bureau had no choice but to force him to take a long leave...”
“After going on leave, George locked himself in Armand’s room and would sit there for an entire day at a ti. I went to see him several tis, trying to talk to him and ask exactly what Bai Six had done to him, but he only kept speaking to himself as though his soul had been hollowed out. He kept saying, it shouldn’t be like this, the future I saw wasn’t like this, the one who should have died was , it should have been other people in this world, not Armand...”
Tang Erda fell silent for a mont. He bit the cigarette filter between his teeth and looked up at the four words [Golden Dawn] written on the whiteboard.
“Later, I asked his colleagues whether George had said anything about what Bai Six had done to him. His colleagues told that George said Bai Six had only let him take a look at the [Future].”
“No one knows what kind of [Future] George saw, but what happened afterward exceeded my expectations.”
Tang Erda looked at Bai Liu.
“Bai Six destroyed six secret strongholds of the Dangerous Heretic Managent Bureau one after another and stole many high-risk heretics we had contained. Although we also successfully shot and killed the Joker who ca to destroy the heretics, our losses were still heavy.”
“But the most terrifying part of that incident was not the loss itself. It was how Bai Six knew the locations of the Bureau’s secret strongholds. The specific geographical locations of high-risk strongholds housing Special Grade I Red Heretics are protected by layers of interrogation-type heretic encryption. Only George knew them, and they could not be easily spoken.”
“—Unless they were told to soone George trusted completely. And in George’s heart, that person could only be Armand.”
Tang Erda sighed softly.
“Although we were unwilling to believe that George would betray the Bureau and tell Bai Six the locations of those secret strongholds, out of caution, we began investigating George.”
“George passed 127 rounds of Balance testing. We confird that he hated Bai Six and would never betray the Bureau or abandon peace and justice. However, after weighing all factors, we ultimately retained George’s position for the ti being and moved the overt investigation into him underground.”
“Outside the ga, the investigation into George reached a bottleneck. But inside the ga, I saw a reserve mber suddenly appear in Bai Six’s team wearing a mask. His attack power was formidable, and his killing was cold and decisive, like a killing machine. His body type and height were extrely similar to George’s in every way, but what made most suspicious was his skill.”
Tang Erda stared at Bai Liu for a long while before turning his head away and taking a drag from his cigarette. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.
“His skill is a bow and arrow called the Bow of Regression. It can regress a person’s physical ti to three hours earlier.”
“The ti interval between Armand’s death and our discovery of his body was exactly three hours.”
Tang Erda took two deep breaths.
“I found George and asked whether that new reserve mber in Bai Six’s team was him. He admitted it.”
“I didn’t understand why he had chosen to join Bai Six’s team. George had passed the Balance test. I was certain that deep in his heart, he hated Bai Six and longed for peace and justice, yet I didn’t know why he was willing to beco a bow in Bai Six’s hand.”
“So I questioned him. I asked him why. George said that no matter how hard he tried to redeem it, this would not be a future leading toward peace and justice, nor was it a future where Armand existed. He was going to correct this future, and only Bai Six had a way to change it.”
“So despite his incomparable hatred for Bai Six, he was willing to beco a bow in Bai Six’s hand, stained with the blood of innocent people, for the sake of the ‘correct’ future. The mont Armand returned to his future, he would die for his sins. That was the correct future.”
During their conversation, the cigarette in Tang Erda’s hand had burned down to the end. Bai Liu handed him an ashtray. He lifted his eyelids and looked at Tang Erda, who had suddenly fallen silent.
“What was George’s final outco in that world line?”
Tang Erda said nothing. He stubbed out the cigarette butt in the ashtray Bai Liu had handed over. Then he turned his head to face Bai Liu, exhaling the last ring of smoke from his throat.
“He followed Bai Six and won the League, obtaining a wish. I don’t know what wish he made, but he committed suicide the next day.”
“George died in the sa place where Armand had died. We discovered his body three hours later.”
——————
“I hope Armand can be resurrected... in the correct future.”
In his sleep, George saw himself covered in blood, kneeling before a blur of light whose outline could not be seen, making a wish. Beside him lay a rusty, silver, streamlined longbow.
He vaguely realized that within that mass of light existed sothing extraordinary.
Sothing like a god.
The god asked him, “Do you not need to live in the correct future?”
George saw himself shake his head.
“I am not worthy of such a future. I made an improper choice, and I should take responsibility for it. Death is the future that I, as I am now, should have.”
So the god asked him again, “You are a kind winner. Do you not want others to exist in the correct future as well?”
George shook his head again.
“The incorrect future is caused by every single person in this world making their own choices. Just as I should be responsible for my improper choice, so should everyone else in this world. They should bear a cruel future for their own indulgent desires.”
Then the god said, “Armand is the sa. You are condoning his mistake, giving him a correct future after he made an incorrect choice.”
“This is your selfishness and desire, George. This is your unfairness.”
George closed his eyes and remained silent with his head bowed for a long ti. Blood fell from his long eyelashes to the ground like tears of self-pity.
“Yes. This is my selfishness as a gege. I know he did sothing wrong, and I know he should be responsible for it. I only hope all the sins will fall upon alone, and not upon Armand.”
“But I know that is impossible.”
The god said, “You and Armand shall both pay the price for your own private desires and unfairness.”
“As punishnt, you shall forever lose a future with Armand, and Armand shall never exist in a future with you as his gege.”
“Except for the mont of birth, you shall beco a pair of brothers forever moving in opposite directions, back to back.”
George wanted to wake from this dream that made him feel vaguely uneasy. But no matter how he struggled, the dream continued, growing fragnted and even more broken.
He saw himself lowering his head in a respectful posture, half-kneeling before a person hidden in the shadows, while his exposed white nape was covered in crisscrossing dark-red whip marks.
The person unhurriedly adjusted the long black whip in his hand, then lazily used the tip of a leather shoe to lift George’s chin.
Thus, George in the dream finally saw this person’s face.
The person sat in a wide leather chair and possessed an extrely handso, harmless-looking Asian face. A very friendly smile rested on his face, and his tone was casual, as though he were only chatting with him.
“George, I am very satisfied with you.”
“I know you aren’t sincerely submitting to , but your achievents are truly too excellent.” Bai Six lowered his eyes and used the handle of the whip instead of his toe to lift George’s chin even higher.
George’s slender neck was stretched to the limit under Bai Six’s playful, malicious upward tilt. His Adam’s apple bobbed with restraint, and the whip marks above his collarbone were clearly visible.
“In one match, you can kill more than a dozen ordinary players who have nothing to do with you without hesitation. You can tell the information of six secret strongholds just like that. When the news of the deaths of more than a hundred of your forr team mbers is placed before you, you don’t even blink.”
Bai Six praised him in a sighing tone.
“Whether it is your cold-bloodedness or your execution, you are as perfect as a machine.”
“In the ga, people praise you as a beautiful elf without emotions.” Bai Six stretched out his thumb and stroked George’s expressionless face. “I quite agree with that. I can no longer see any trace of that holy and noble Captain George from before.”
“It truly surprises that the death of one close person could bring such a great change to you.”
Bai Six withdrew his hand. He gripped the whip thoughtfully.
“I have experienced the sa thing, but the only change it brought is that when I see this face of yours, which looks far too much like your didi’s, I lose control of my anger a little.”
His voice was lazy and light. No one would ever have imagined that he would suddenly lash George hard with the whip while he was speaking.
But the kneeling George seed accustod to being whipped by Bai Six. He only trembled slightly in endurance, then remained still with his head lowered.
“Let think. This ti, when you shot those poor innocent people in the ga, which vital points did you attack?” Bai Six asked calmly. “I believe our Captain George certainly rembers, right?”
George’s eyelashes trembled very slightly. He answered softly, “I rember.”
Bai Six half-closed his eyes.
“You should be punished for your cruel slaughter. Take off your clothes.”
George stood and obediently removed his clothing.
His body was covered in all kinds of crisscrossing whip marks that had not yet faded. They looked like snakes coiled around his waist, abdon, and thighs, flicking their tongues against his fair skin.
George’s breathing in the dream quickened.
He realized in a daze that every whip mark represented a person he had killed.
The person before him was torturing him.
This person knew that he would not feel pain from simple physical whipping, but that he would feel extre agony because of his own impurity, incorrectness, and unfairness.
So every ti they finished a match, whenever George killed people on the field, this person would, after the match, make George recite the nas of those he had killed and the places where his arrows had struck them, then leave whip marks on George in those sa positions.
Bai Six was using these scars and this pain to constantly remind George of a cruel fact:
What I do to you is not even one ten-thousandth as cruel as what you did to those people.
In order to hide the whip marks, George wore a long-collared zippered uniform that could be pulled all the way up to his chin. After enduring Bai Six’s emotional venting this ti, George stood steady, dressed himself, bowed respectfully to Bai Six, and left Bai Six’s room.
George saw himself walking with fixed eyes through corridor after corridor until he reached a certain room. He opened the door and walked in, then imdiately rushed to the toilet to vomit, scratching at the painful whip marks on his body as he retched.
He seed to want to vomit sothing out of his body that made him loathe himself. But no matter what he did, he could only throw up clear water. In the end, the forced vomiting caused George’s entire body to convulse.
George constantly tortured himself through various ans. He even used a small knife on those whip marks, trying to carve them deeper in order to punish himself. George panted soundlessly, tears flowing without stopping.
Finally, George saw himself collapse onto the bed in exhaustion, his gaze unfocused as he gripped a pocket watch and curled into a ball. He seed to want to open the pocket watch and take a look, but in the end, he only kissed the watch once, closed his tear-filled eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.
George recognized that pocket watch.
He knew that inside it was an old photo of Armand and himself.
————————
Bai Liu saw Tang Erda out of the room, and they chatted as they walked down the street.
“I’m curious. When you discovered that George had betrayed the Bureau, you must have told them imdiately.” Bai Liu turned his head to look at Tang Erda. “How did the Bureau handle him?”
Tang Erda shrugged, put on his jacket, and turned around.
“First, they stripped George of his position and began investigating the reason for his betrayal. As it turned out, the investigation had only just begun when George defected.”
“At the ti, there were two theories within the Bureau. The first was that George had been contaminated by so kind of heretic from Bai Six, and his ntal dinsion had been lowered, allowing Bai Six to control him.”
“But this theory couldn’t explain George telling Bai Six the locations of the secret strongholds. Even if George had gone mad, if Bai Six couldn’t make the mad George trust him one hundred percent, then there was no way for him to obtain the locations of the secret strongholds from George’s mouth.”
“There was another theory so people speculated about...”
At this point, Tang Erda hesitated strangely, and his expression beca distorted.
“So people speculated that George had fallen in love with you because of Stockholm syndro, and that was why he was completely controlled by you.”
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow.
“Your First District is quite gossipy.”
“...It wasn’t gossip. In order to find the truth, we had to make hypotheses from every angle.” Tang Erda struggled to defend himself, then glanced at Bai Liu and added subtly, “One reason that theory was so prevalent back then was that there were always so mysterious whip marks on George’s body, and your... Bai Six’s weapon just happened to be a long whip.”
Bai Liu: “...”
His other-tiline self played that hard?
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