Chapter 237: Game Pool

Armand jolted out of his sleep, sitting on the edge of his bed in a sweaty heap, looking down and gasping for a moment to catch his breath from the nightmare.

Or rather, a reprieve from nightmarish reality.

Armand shook his cold sweaty hand, his last image of sleep was Mu Sicheng with his head on the ground bleeding and his pupils dilated.

The other man's blood spread out across the floor, merging with the pool of blood beneath his own.

Armand sat on the edge of his bed in a daze as he thought back to the dream he had just had, or to his past life.

His brother, Georgia, is the head of the Heretic Authority's Sector 3, and has been extremely busy for as long as Armand can remember, and because Georgia's job is a dangerous one, he's very protective of Armand--Georgia has Armand's every move planned. Georgia planned Armand's every move.

For example, Georgia strictly prohibits Armand from entering the Heresy Processing Bureau and engaging in any work related to heresy.

But Armand isn't convinced, and the more Georgia denies him access, the more he wants in, and the work of the Heresy Bureau is attractive to him-it's the job he fantasizes about saving the world!

Growing up admiring his older brother Georgia, Armand became more and more interested in the Heretic Authority, and in his adolescence, he rebelled and went straight to Heretic Authority training camp.

This causes Armand and Georgia to break out in their first fight, Armand makes a scene and eventually gets his way.

And Georgia said to him coldly, Armand, thou art a cowardly and soft-hearted man, thou hast no means of being cruel to thine enemies, and if so, thou wilt be severely punished by fate.

Now that I think about it, Georgia was right. Georgia is always right.

And at that time Armand had not yet been severely punished by fate, and he would always have some unrealistic and naive fantasies about its mercy.

He entered the Heretic Authority with the naivety of a ticking time bomb, and was placed by Georgia in the safest of the Heretic Regulatory Departments, in charge of paperwork.

A depressed Armand boredly counts all sorts of heretics, trying to make a run for the most dangerous front line at every opportunity, only to be spotted by Georgia and kept more tightly under control within the Sector Three headquarters.

Armand felt an unspeakable emptiness and loneliness.

From the time he was growing up, he was surrounded by the high protective wall Georgia had built to protect him from heretics; there was nothing inside the wall but himself, and even Georgia stayed discreetly outside the wall, even eating through a plastic cover to prevent contaminating him.

And he grows up and ends up still staying in this walled building without even a person to talk to.

And soon this man appeared.

Sector 3 under Georgia's supervision is a storage area for high-risk heretics, storing the most dangerous and valuable heretics, and the strongholds in Sector 3 are usually in very classified locations that few people can explore, but all of this is an exception for Mu Sicheng, the natural enemy of Sector 3.

Mu Sicheng was the biggest enemy of the third district, this arrogant thief made a mess every time he visited the third district to patronize it, and the members of the third district practically cut their heads off to study the weaknesses of this godly thief in an attempt to catch the other side.

Armand couldn't help but roll his eyes when he heard the team next to him mention Mu Sicheng's background for the thousandth time as he stuffed bread into his mouth.

"Mu Sicheng ......'s best friend died ...... now has no way to work with anyone and is especially withdrawn and solitary ...... "

"He seems to mind this a lot, and when he hears it, he rages and loses control ...... could use this ......"

Armand, with bread in his mouth, slurred and interjected, "How can a dead friend be considered a weakness?"

He playfully patted himself on the back, "Unless you guys make him a living friend, that would be considered a weakness, and I think I'd be good enough to help you guys out as a spy to be this thief's friend."

Knowing that Armand was the captain's brother, the team laughed and teased him, "Do you know how this thief's friend died?"

Armand shook his head honestly.

The team scared him, "He was killed by Mu Sicheng himself! If you are friends with him, you might be killed by him too!"

Armand froze, choking on the bread he'd swallowed.

That night, the red alert went off in Sector 3.

Armand awoke from his sleep in a daze to Georgia's serious voice on the radio, "All districts are on alert! Mu Sicheng was shot in the back by me after stealing three heavy level two red heretics, and is now incapacitated and on the run inside the Authority! All team members search the area!"

"- Shoot on sight if necessary!"

The team searches room by room for the bullet-riddled thief, their faces overjoyed, and the joy of their imminent success is so great that the team turns a blind eye to Armand, who has sneaked in to join the search party and is discovered by the team.

Armand followed the search excitedly, but after two searches he was discovered by Georgia, and Armand rolled back to his room in disgrace, after being scolded by Georgia.

But when Armand returns to his room, he instantly senses that something is wrong, that something has infiltrated his room.

Armand left the door open as he left the dormitory, and though the visitor was discreet and everything in the room looked as if it had been left untouched, the smell couldn't be masked--Armand caught a very strong whiff of blood.

His heart thumped nervously.

Armand was self-conscious about his inability to stop the other man, and pretended not to notice anything as he turned and prepared to leave to inform the others.

But the moment he turned his head, he was hooked by the throat with a sharp claw, and there was a tall man breathing heavily on him, laughing evilly, "Very sharp, your nose is as good as mine, smelled my blood, did you?"

Armand's heart leapt out of his throat, and he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and before he could speak, the man on his shoulders slowly slid down on his own.

Armand turned around in a trance.

He saw a young man about his age lying weakly in a pool of blood with a monkey headset on his head, breathing heavily.

The man was about to go into shock from blood loss, Armand realized immediately, staring blankly at Mu Sicheng in a pool of blood, his mind involuntarily echoing with all the background information he'd heard about the murderous thief.

[...... has no friends ...... is alone ...... seems to be lonely ...... can only be with a follower behind him Conversation]

[Every time I steal something, anything I do is to please the one behind the curtain and get approval from the other ......]

[It seems that the person behind the scenes is expanding his smuggling line recently, which is why Mu Sicheng is visiting District 3 more and more frequently ......]

Armand thought the other party would be a bad old man in his forties or fifties, but he didn t realize ...... that he was actually so young.

Blood spreads into pools from underneath Mu Sicheng's body, and he hunches over with his eyes lost in thought, not bothering to cover his wounds, but instead protecting the three heretical boxes he stole from inside with his wounded abdomen.

Armand's lips pursed into a straight line as he gripped the pistol at the back of his waist, then gritted his teeth and drew it to Mu Sicheng's head.

But no matter how he pushed himself, Armand couldn't do it-his brother was right.

There was no way he could shoot such a living, breathing human being, even knowing that he was a bad, bad guy, but he could see in the dying Mu Sicheng's eyes the same longing as his - the longing for life, for the meager sustenance of being understood and recognized, the longing.

At this time, there was a knock on the door of his room.

Armand was so startled that he subconsciously propped up Mu Sicheng and hid under the bed, then stripped the floor clean, fearfully sprayed a lot of air freshener, and lay down on the bed and pretended that he was asleep.

It's the regulars. He asks Armand, "Have you seen anyone suspicious?"

Armand, who was in a state of alarm on the bed, quickly replied, "Nope! The air freshener was sprayed on because I just took a lot of really smelly poop!"

The visitor: "...... would not have to tell me such a thing."

Luckily, no one suspected Armand, the captain's brother, so the visitor pinched his nose and walked away amidst the choking smell of air soberer.

Armand was limp on the bed, and he hesitated long enough to place a bottle of potent healer and a roll of bandages at the bottom of the bed.

It may have been a long, long time before a pair of monkey paws reached out from under the bed and "swished" these things away.

Armand was half-squatting on the bed, clutching his knees, his eyes fuming out of focus as he contemplated why on earth he was doing this.

But before he could ponder an outcome, a rejuvenated, somewhat tugging voice came from under the bed, "Hey, what's your name?"

Armand answered honestly, "Armand."

The bottom of the bed snorted, "Hard to hear, you look exactly like the guy who shot me, who is he?"

"...... brother." Speaking of which, Armand got even more depressed.

Why on earth would one save an enemy that his brother had shot and wounded?

There was a long, long moment of silence under the bed before the same question was asked that Armand had in mind, "Why did you ...... save me?"

Armand let out a long, despondent sigh, "I don't know, I couldn't help but save it."

A series of extremely mocking laughs and choking coughs came from underneath the bed for some reason, followed by a low chuckle and a curse, "Stupid."

Armand: "......"

Although I think it's pretty stupid too, isn't it not quite right for you to say that?

When Armand woke up early the next morning, Mu Sicheng had already disappeared. Armand was relieved on the one hand, but on the other hand, he wondered if he had gone crazy trying to make a success of himself, and that was why he had such a dream of catching Mu Sicheng.

But why did his dream self save him and then let him go?

Armand was puzzled, so he called it quits.

Soon after, however, the infamous thief visited the Heresy Authority once again, but this time Mu Sicheng did not take anything with him, instead he left one thing behind.

He's like every arrogant over-the-top weirdo in history, and this time he actually sent an advance teaser letter naming Zone 3.

[- Come steal on Wednesday, steal what you don't know yet, watch and take, and tell your captain's brother, the one with the awful name whoever it is, to wash up and wait for me at the door!

Georgia lifted his eyelids as he flung the teaser letter in front of the demented Armand: "Explain to me why Mu Sicheng would start targeting you?"

"...... I don't know ......" Armand cried tearfully, he really regretted it.

Georgia took a deep breath as he stared at Armand for a long time before finally passing judgment, "Whatever has happened to you and Mu Sicheng, Armand, keep in mind that this man is a demon and you will end up being victimized by him."

"But if you really need a chance to recognize that reality, I'll give it to you."

Georgia scrutinizes weak-minded Armand: "Wednesday took a gun and joined us in the siege."

On Wednesday, Armand, with his gun, stood trembling in the forefront, and soon the burglar came.

This was the first time Armand saw Mu Sicheng running and stealing.

Mu Sicheng was as fast as the wind, and as free as the wind, grinning with a speed invisible to the naked eye as he brushed past Armand's side, then grabbed Armand's wrist and pulled the frozen Armand into a run with him.

In the midst of the flurry of gunfire and the sounds of all the Heresy Handling Bureau members screaming, the rival thieves and Armand scampered off like two children caught red-handed in the act of mischief.

Armand was stumped and he jerked his hand to get away, but this time Mu Sicheng raised his eyebrows mischievously and looked back at him in the wind, "Fun to see they can't catch us, isn't it?"

Armand was stunned as he turned his head back around, behind him were the hysterical team members chasing them, the grim facial expressions of these running team members looked somewhat comical against Mu Sicheng's extreme speed - it was indeed amusing, and Armand couldn't help but laugh.

Mu Sicheng runs fast, and so does Armand, who is holding his hand.

Heretics of all kinds are presented under Mu Sicheng's mastery of theft, and these dangerous heretics, measured and organized by Armand, are weighed in Mu Sicheng's hands as if they were not heretics, but merely Mu Sicheng's toys, and that this is not a theft or a crime against the world, but merely a game of whim for this thief.

Mu Sicheng casually tossed a heretic to Armand and hooked his lips in a smile, "Do you know what this is for?"

"Number 8035 ......" Armand wracked his brain to recall the stats he'd done, "This one seems to be ...... in the wind ......"...... Butterfly.

He remembers being able to blow a hurricane.

Mu Sicheng interrupted Armand impatiently, reaching out to open it directly, "Don't you know when you open it?"

Swarms of colorful, exotic butterflies fluttered out of the box, the wind fanning out from under their variegated tails, the fierce wind swaying back and forth in the closed chamber, blowing so hard that one's hairline could be panned back a centimeter.

Armand was caught off guard and was blown right off his feet.

Mu Sicheng grabbed Armand's ankles to prevent Armand from being blown away, and he couldn't help but laugh heartily as he scoffed, "You've been guarding this place for so long, your brother wouldn't have even let you play with this, would he?"

"Is this for fun?!" Armand yelled in a devastated voice, "Stop it, it's causing violent climate change!"

"No." Mu Sicheng grabs to balance his body in the wind as he floats shallowly right above Armand, stabilizing Armand's shoulders before explaining with a low chuckle, "That's silly enough, your brother taught you that somehow, watch this, every heretic has a weak spot- "

Mu Sicheng took control of Armand's fingers to grab the tail of a butterfly fluttering in the wind, and attached himself to Armand's side and whispered in his ear, "--This heretic is your toy, once you control its weakness."

Armand watched incredulously as the butterfly in his hand stopped flapping and rested obediently at his fingertips.

Mu Sicheng grunted smugly, "Right?"

But the next moment, Mu Sicheng maliciously released his grip on the butterfly's fingers and also flicked the butterfly's tail feathers with his forefinger, and there was a gust of wind.

Mu Sicheng grabbed the panicked Armand by the back of the neck and raced back through the butterfly-induced hurricane, laughing wildly in the wind at the team members who had come to chase them and saying goodbye with two fingers to the forehead:

"I'll steal your captain's brother for fun!"

They disappeared without a trace in the sudden wind.

In fact, the wind didn't carry the two for very long before Mu Sicheng stopped.

He did not know who received a phone call, the original jubilant complexion instantly calmed down, the tone also became calm from jumpy: "...... know, I will bring the things back, there is no problem with the safety of this side of the smuggling line."

When the call was over, Mu Sicheng turned around and saw Armand, and instantly burst out laughing.

Armand had a face ninety-nine percent similar to Georgia's, and at the moment, Armand, who had never experienced such excitement before, now had his brown hair windblown into a chicken nest of grass clippings and an expression of retarded-level bewilderment.

He was now on all fours - not that he didn't want to get up, but Armand was a little wind-sick from not having ridden in a hurricane before.

Mu Sicheng half crouched in front of the sprawled Armand, smiling, "I thought the big kook's brother would be a little kook, but I didn't realize he was a little retard."

Armand gave Mu Sicheng a sly look, "You curse again."

Mu Sicheng stifled a laugh as he stood up with his pockets inserted, pulling out a few heretic boxes from his pockets and tossing them all to Armand : "Well, I'm pretty much done for the day, I'll catch up with you sometime later, bye."

After saying that, he turned around in style and left.

Armand came back to his senses, and he looked at the several boxes before him with a sudden start--

--These boxes were not only taken by Mu Sicheng today, but the three boxes that Mu Sicheng saved last time Mu Sicheng was injured Mu Sicheng also returned them to him.

"Mu Sicheng--" after much thought, Armand called out to Mu Sicheng, "You gave me back what you stole last time, too."

Mu Sicheng raised his eyebrows and turned on one foot, "What, it's not good enough to give it back to you?"

Armand answered honestly, "Today you are supposed to be here for fun, the ones you took were light tier 1 red heretics, but these three are heavy tier 3 red, they should be your target, it's certainly nice of you to give them back to me, but I'm mostly afraid that you'll come back and steal them again next time."

"Indeed it is my target." Mu Sicheng hooked his lips in a smile, "But last time I was caught by you, the theft naturally failed, and this is not part of my loot."

Mu Sicheng waved and left without looking back, a smirk in the sound of his words, "Of course I'll come back to steal again, try to catch me if you don't want to lose out, Armand."

Armand looked at the three boxes and was silent for a long time.

Having successfully brought back the stolen box, Armand finally has the credentials to make it to the front line.

After that, Mu Sicheng would send Armand teaser letters from time to time, and Armand seemed to have grown up overnight; he became more composed and would pursue Mu Sicheng with all his might.

Whenever Mu Sicheng came, Armand was the one who ran the fastest, almost as fast as Mu Sicheng, but he never shot Mu Sicheng.

Gradually, Armand became the person in the department who recovered the most stolen goods from Mu Sicheng.

As Armand grows up in his pursuit of Mu Sicheng, he becomes more stable, more responsible and more capable, becoming Georgia's second-in-command, or vice-captain.

When Armand returned to his dormitory one day after dinner to register his heresy, he found a teaser letter next to his bed that read - [Lieutenant, no more game of chase, drinks coming?

Armand quirked his lips slightly and slipped out the back door of the Heretic Authority after carefully making sure his brother wasn't there.

Armand came to the clearing where he'd been swept up in a gust of wind by Mu Sicheng in the first place - they'd come here to get together once in a while, and though they didn't know why two guys from opposing camps were doing it, it just started without them realizing it, turning into a kind of unspoken agreement between the two.

The clearing is quite barren on the ground, but when you look up you can see a very bright night sky, and when Armand arrived, Mu Sicheng was sitting on a small hill looking up at the stars.

"Coming." Mu Sicheng greeted Armand lazily, tossing him a bottle of wine.

Armand took it steadily, as he always did, then looked up, with a lurch.

He sensed that Mu Sicheng, tonight, was not in the right mood.

"What's wrong?" Armand asked, sitting next to Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng leaned back and poured himself a mouthful of wine, exhaling a cloudy breath, "That one has assigned me full authority over the smuggling line, so I won't be coming back to steal anything."

He was quiet for a moment when he said this, then continued as if nothing had happened, "I'll see you later, I'll be shooting both of us, so replace that empty shell gun you've been pretending to have."

When Mu Sicheng finished speaking, Armand fell silent.

--If it was just stealing, it could be treated as a game, but when it rises to the point where it can jeopardize everyone's smuggling, it's no longer a game between them.

Rather, it is the life and death of countless people.

Armand rarely drank, but he took a long, hard swig at that moment and wiped his mouth, "I will."

"I've played many, many games, grueling ones, horrible ones, and one ......" Mu Sicheng muttered as he looked up at the stars, "- -that I will never forget."

"But it was the most fun I've had in a while." Mu Sicheng lowered his head, he didn't look to Armand, but held out his hand to him, "Thanks, both for sparing me, and for keeping me company."

Armand shook Mu Sicheng's hand and said earnestly, "It's okay, we're friends."

Mu Sicheng paused for a moment, he was silent for a long time, then snorted, "Do you know how my last friend died?"

"Killed by your own hand." Armand held Mu Sicheng's hand tightly, and in his deep brown eyes was an unshakable firm emotion, "But I believe you won't kill me, or rather, I will try my best to become much stronger than you, to do what I can to not be killed by you, and not to kill you!"

Armand shook his fist, "I'll be strong enough to stop what you're about to do!"

Mu Sicheng drew back his hand and turned his head away in a twisted manner, but with a bit of an uncontrollable smile on his face, "...... Stinky brat, don't think you're so smug because you've caught me so many times."

But perhaps neither Armand nor Mu Sicheng could have imagined that this would be the last time they would look at each other and laugh.

Three months later, Bai Liu came to deliver a shipment, and Mu Sicheng was spotted by George, who came to patrol the area, during the handover.

After Georgia determines that this is a high-risk shipment of smuggled heresy that will have serious consequences if it reaches the market, he doesn't hesitate to launch an onslaught, and Mu Sicheng, who has been left behind, is struggling to cope with the situation, but Bai Liu, who has already left after handing over the shipment, kills his way back into the harbor.

With Bai Liu's assistance, Mu Sicheng captured the famous Zone 3 captain on the spot.

Mu Sicheng's pupils couldn't help but flinch when he saw that the person who came was Georgia.

Bai Liu, who was sitting in his seat, did not miss this slight change in Mu Sicheng's expression, Bai Liu looked over to Georgia, who was half kneeling in front of his knees with no expression on her face, and raised the end of his eyebrows slightly.

"You know this captain?"

Mu Sicheng replied with difficulty, "I often go to his supervisory district 3 to steal heretics ......"

Bai Liu sidled his face as he looked faintly at Mu Sicheng : "I don't like it when someone lies to me, and you know I'm talking about knowing on more than just the level of having met - you have feelings for him?"

"No!" Mu Sicheng denied very quickly.

Bai Liu turned his head thoughtfully to Georgia, "But you can't fake your reaction when you saw that face, surprisingly it wasn't him, it would have been someone who looked like him."

He attached himself to Georgia's head and lifted it, his eyes dropping to examine the face, "You should be able to tell if a female's immediate family member is the one from their stature, so this person would have to be a male, and a bit of a male of a very similar age or you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference in appearance at first glance."

Mu Sicheng's breathing stopped as his hands clenched into fists.

"--is his brother, isn't he?" Bai Liu calmly announced the answer, "Close to your age, and perhaps with a degree of similar experience, this relationship established in this antagonistic position--"

Bai Liu lifted his eyelids to look at the silent Mu Sicheng and folded his hands in front of him, "--Fun?"

Mu Sicheng's eyes were red and he let out a long breath; without a word in his own defense, he bowed his head and bent his knees.

"Please ...... let Georgia go," he said, word for word, "I overplayed my hand, I'll control myself next time, and killing him now will cause Zone 3 to change administrators and change the layout, making it inconvenient to conduct our probing ......"

Mu Sicheng was ready to go on, but he seemed to realize how absurdly feeble his attempts to persuade Georgia to let him go were, and after receiving no reply from Bai Liu, Mu Sicheng quieted down and knelt motionless in front of Bai Liu.

Bai Liu lowered his eyes, "As a sign of respect for you and the seriousness of this time's work, I can release him."

Mu Sicheng looked up in consternation.

"Next time." Bai Liu gave Georgia a shallow glance, "But before we do, there is one thing that needs to be shown to this Sector 3 Captain in order to prevent him from memorizing our smuggling routes."

Mu Sicheng breathed a sigh of relief, "--Is it a memory-erasing type of prop?"

"No." Bai Liu said softly, "I'm going to let him try out the new prop I just got my hands on, [Future]."

Georgia, after taking one look at the object, was immobilized as if his soul had been taken out of him, like a corpse, and he was left by Bai Liu on a piece of wasteland - the same secret wasteland where Mu Sicheng and Armand occasionally drank.

Mu Sicheng secretly informed Armand to come and collect his brother.

Armand, who had come forward, panicked and carried Georgia, who was lying on the ground with a blank look on his face.

--that was the beginning of all nightmares.

After a month of Georgia being silent and ready to kill herself, a desperate Armand explodes and logs into the game.

After struggling and crawling his way through the game, a dying Armand sees a different side of the thief named Mu Sicheng for the first time on the big screen.

This man laughed with abandon and slaughtered with his hands, human life as careless as a toy in his hands, and he followed in the wake of another, transforming himself from a thief into an incredibly sharp and ferocious weapon, striking out for blood.

Armand stood dumbfounded in the crowd that cheered Mu Sicheng's grip on his opponent's neck, looking up at his friend on the screen, a stranger to him, his mind going blank.

So those games Mu Sicheng talked about ...... are like this ah ......

Is this ......?

After winning yet another match, Mu Sicheng casually lifted up his shirt to wipe away the sweat and blood dripping from his jaws, waved impatiently at the cheering spectators, and prepared to leave the ring.

Bai Liu, as if on the spur of the moment, turned to him and inquired, "Which is more fun, this game or the game of friends between you and that Sector 3 lieutenant?"

Spirit values falling, the desire to kill and steal being unleashed caused Mu Sicheng's pupils to contract slightly in excitement, and he hooked out a vicious grin, sharp teeth peeking out at the corners of his mouth like a demon stretching its nature after a bath of blood, "Then, needless to say?"

"--The game here, of course."

Armand stands like a wooden statue in the bustling crowd, the giant screen glows white behind him, and Bai Liu leads the procession past Armand, cheered on by the crowd.

Mu Sicheng, the man with the most kills in the game, was walking behind Bai Liu, and he walked past Armand, his big, fast, impatient steps bringing down Armand, who was weakened after passing the level.

Mu Sicheng didn't care which woefully underdog player he knocked over.

Mu Sicheng, who was immersed in some kind of emotion, just condescendingly swept back a glance at the player who only stared up at himself dumbfounded after being hit by himself, his face covered in mud, contemptuously snorted a stupid laugh, and walked away without looking back.

Armand, who was sitting on the ground, looked up in a trance, and he saw Bai Liu in front of him look back, lock eyes with him from a distance, and then crook out a smile as if he pitied him.

He saw Bai Liu smiling and mouthing to him, "It's just a game."

--All of it, it's just a game.

The delirious Armand, forgetting how he logged out of the game, stumbled back to his dormitory at the Heretic Handling Bureau, rummaged through the teaser letters he still had, written to him by Mu Sicheng, and frantically ripped them to shreds and burned them in a single fire.

Change those Mu Sicheng and the drinks he had drunk with him, the heresies he had played with, surreptitiously exchange them for bullets from an empty gun, throw them away if you can, spit them out if you can, and forget them if you can.

Armand was lying in bed for a long, long time, and he closed his eyes as if he could smell the blood wafting out from under the bed, hear the guy laughing softly and calling him stupid, and see the starry sky of freedom that had no boundaries in that wasteland.

But by the time he opens his eyes, Armand's brown eyes are empty of anything.

He got up like a puppet, exchanged the blanks in his pistol for live rounds, and contacted Mu Sicheng - he didn't know if Mu Sicheng would come or not, and could only hope that Mu Sicheng would have the patience to play this game of friends to the end.

And Armand will go all the way.

Mu Sicheng is coming.

So Armand puts an end to this game of friends, with tears in his eyes and teeth gritted, and for the first time he shoots at this bad guy who is full of lies and who grabs and catches a big hole in his throat.

Moments before Mu Sicheng fell to the ground, he looked at Armand with unbelievable eyes, as if he couldn't believe that Armand had done such a thing to him.

After falling to the ground Mu Sicheng, his face grimacing from the pain, struggled to transform into a monkey's paw and crawled towards Armand.

Armand, thinking he was going to attack, used his last ounce of strength to fire another shot at him.

The shot hit the temple, and Mu Sicheng snapped Armand's hand in his monkey paw and hissed, "--got your brother, sorry--"

Mu Sicheng's hand covered Armand's as if he wanted to shake it, and his lax eyes looked at Armand with dullness in the bright eyes that had always held a harsh smile.

The guy was obviously shot by him, but the last last words spoken to him were sorry for arresting your brother.

Tears gradually welled up in Armand's eyes.

He tried to talk to the dead bad guy, but couldn't get a syllable out of him, and Armand realized that his throat had been clawed out by Mu Sicheng's monkey's paw, and his vocal cords were more than likely gone, so now he couldn't speak.

Armand felt his body grow cold and his heartbeat slow.

The last thing he saw in front of him was a pair of leather shoes that were coming towards him, and a black whip that was dragging to the ground.

Armand saw the man drop to one knee, turn over the head of Mu Sicheng, whom he had shot dead, hold it gently in his arms, and then solemnly close Mu Sicheng's still-open eyelids with a gloved hand.

Armand heard the man possess down and whisper gently to the already dead Mu Sicheng in his arms, "--If this is your game of choice, then this is your [END]."

"But death to you is but a long sleep; your soul is my never-fading possession, and upon waking we shall be reunited together again."

"Sleep."

The tone was light and airy, as if a patient father who was lulling his child, who refused to sleep, was telling a beautiful fairy tale about death.

Armand tried with all his might to raise his head and see who this man was who had come to collect Mu Sicheng's bones.

But no matter how hard Armand tried to open his eyes to see the man's face, his eyelids grew heavier and his breathing fainter at the sound of the man's strange, coaxing words.

Before Armand closed his eyes completely, he thought that if his brother were here, he would have criticized him severely for coming to attack in such a presumptuous manner, and he would have made him write a 3,000-word review of his inappropriate relationship with Mu Sicheng, his enemy, and hand it in by tomorrow. ......

A tear crossed the corner of Armand's eye as his soul, fluttering like a butterfly in the wind, finally fell into the long sleep called death.

The hurricane inside the fence has finally stopped.