Cen Buming covered his ears and frowned, then quickly relaxed again. “What did you just say? My ears rang for a moment. I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing.” Bai Liu changed the subject. “I’ve already seen what’s behind the door. In exchange, I’ll give you the method to save those two thousand people.”

“There is something that can painlessly eliminate the pollution symptoms caused by the dried leaf roses.”

Cen Buming held his breath. “What is it?”

“Blood Lingzhi.” Bai Liu shrugged. “If I remember correctly, you should have already isolated and preserved the strains from those few surviving children from the welfare home—or in your terms, contained them. You already possess the raw materials for the antidote.”

Cen Buming stared at Bai Liu, raising the muzzle of his gun to point at the center of Bai Liu’s forehead. “Blood Lingzhi can only be cultivated with the blood of specific children. Yet there are nearly two thousand adults waiting to be rescued. Are you inciting us to use the blood of young children to illegally cultivate a heretic?”

Bai Liu smiled. “Isn’t it often said that the antidote is hidden within five steps of the poison? Perhaps you could try cultivating the Blood Lingzhi with the blood of those two thousand infected people?”

Cen Buming froze.

As though he could not see the gun pointed at him, Bai Liu nonchalantly brushed past Cen Buming’s shoulder and walked toward the elevator.

Tang Erda pressed down Cen Buming’s gun, which was still aimed at Bai Liu. He met Cen Buming’s eyes and shook his head as if in warning.

Only then did Cen Buming lower the gun. He glanced at Tang Erda, then looked sideways at Bai Liu’s retreating back, his one intact right eye narrowing with unreadable intent. Then he forcefully wiped the muzzle of the gun and tucked it behind his waist.

“Do you know, Captain Tang? This isn’t the first time I’ve used the [Lens of Clairvoyance] on someone,” Cen Buming said coldly. “But this is the first time I’ve seen someone use the [Lens of Clairvoyance] with their left eye—especially when that person is right-handed. It doesn’t fit his visual habits.”

“I almost thought your ward was mocking me for only having a right eye.”

Bai Liu was indeed capable of that sort of malicious humor.

Tang Erda had also seen Bai Liu deliberately switch hands when taking and returning the lens, even raising an eyebrow and slowly glancing at Cen Buming’s left eye.

Bai Liu was someone who always held a grudge. If Cen Buming provoked him, although he would not say anything outright, he certainly would not miss these small details that could be used to tease and aggravate people.

Cen Buming looked at Tang Erda with sharp, cold eyes. “Are you sure you want to let such a clever heretic out?”

“I owe him.” After Tang Erda finished speaking, he ran after Bai Liu.

Cen Buming was left alone, swallowed by the darkness of the lowest level of the Heretic Management Bureau. After a long time, Cen Buming emerged from the shadows. He touched the left eye covered by his eyepatch, his right eye watching Bai Liu and Tang Erda’s retreating backs as he murmured in an extremely cold tone:

“No one owes monsters. It is monsters who owe us.”

——————————

Tang Erda escorted Bai Liu to the entrance of the Heretic Management Bureau. Seeing a group of Third Branch members at the entrance looking at Bai Liu with hostile, predatory glares, he could not help feeling a headache coming on—

—These were all debts he had incurred.

Last night, many members stationed here had fought a fierce battle with the heretics summoned by Bai Liu. Without any way to tell them the truth, their hostility toward Bai Liu would likely persist for a very long time.

Unless... that resentment was transferred onto him.

While Tang Erda had his head lowered in deep thought, a shout suddenly came from behind him.

“Captain!!”

Tang Erda’s pupils constricted slightly. He stopped walking out and slowly turned around.

Su Yang stood at the entrance, gazing at him deeply, holding his uniform in both hands. His eyes were red, and behind him stood nearly every member of the Third Branch.

They looked at their former captain with disbelief and incredulity, as though they had been abandoned, watching this bewildered hunter who was trying to flee.

“Captain, are you really leaving?”

Tang Erda was pinned in place by those words. He clenched his fists, unable to take another step forward.

—These people. These members. These gazes.

In those more than three hundred meaningless cycles he had experienced, every tiny fragment of happiness and beauty had been connected to the faces of these people as they laughed or slept.

When the drunken hunter was exhausted and curled up among piles of monsters, using his gun as a pillow, it was these faces—vivid as they had once been—that appeared in his dreams.

This was his responsibility, his mission, his fate, decided from the moment these people died for him.

Bai Liu had also stopped. He turned back and saw this scene. Not particularly surprised, he glanced at the frozen Tang Erda. As though feeling reassured, he patted Tang Erda on the shoulder and gave the unmoving man a light push forward.

“Say a proper goodbye to your members. I’ll wait for you outside.”

After saying that, Bai Liu lazily waved a hand and turned to leave without looking back.

Tang Erda was pushed into a stagger. He lowered his head and looked at the sloppy, old Heretic Management Bureau uniform he was wearing, then at his hands, covered in thick calluses from killing countless monsters and living heretics. Then he looked up, gazing deeply, dazedly, and blankly at Su Yang and the members across from him.

He suddenly realized that he could almost no longer remember what he and they had looked like at the very beginning.

Tang Erda only remembered the bad parts, the fragmented parts, the scenes filled with blood and hatred. Those scenes were like tiny knives, carving into each of their faces, slowly sculpting Tang Erda’s memories into something blood-drenched and unrecognizable.

He could not remember, no matter how hard he tried, where he and Su Yang had last raised chipped beer mugs to drink. He did not remember the reason for the last celebration he had shared with that group of idiots. He did not remember the setting behind Su Yang when Su Yang had leaned on his shoulder and said with curved eyes, “I’ll wait for you.”

They had clearly been so important. He had clearly endured so much by relying on these memories. Yet at this moment, those memories seemed far too distant—so far that they had blurred and faded, so far that they seemed to belong to a different Third Branch Captain, Tang Erda.

Not to this Tang Erda, who had already molted into a monster.

The more he wanted to return to the past later on, the farther he was forced to stay from it.

“Captain, please don’t leave!!”

Su Yang held Tang Erda’s uniform out with both hands, his back perfectly straight. He bowed in a formal ninety-degree bow. Although he forced his voice to remain steady, the sob in it could still be heard.

“Captain, please don’t leave!!”

Led by Su Yang, the entire Third Branch lowered their heads and bowed to Tang Erda. They shouted with all their strength, pleading for him to stay. Tears fell from some of their faces and dripped onto the ground.

Tang Erda finally took a step forward. He slowed his pace, walking step by step toward Su Yang and the Third Branch. In silence, he took his team uniform from Su Yang’s hands.

Su Yang looked up in pleasant surprise. “Captain?!”

On the other side.

Mu Ke, Liu Jiayi, and the others had received Tang Erda’s text message and driven to the outside of the Heretic Management Bureau to wait.

Now, seeing Bai Liu walk out unharmed, Mu Ke, sitting in the driver’s seat, let out a long breath and slumped back against the seat.

However, Liu Jiayi, who had gotten out of the car early for some air and was leaning against the car door, seemed to hear someone approaching. She raised her head in surprise.

She listened carefully several times, then said in disbelief, “There’s only one set of footsteps. You actually left that big idiot at the Heretic Management Bureau?!”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll stay behind again?!” Liu Jiayi crossed her arms and “looked” in the direction of Bai Liu’s footsteps. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that his sense of belonging to the Heretic Management Bureau is stronger. Leaving him there and expecting him to cut his psychological ties with the Third Branch on his own is like sending a sheep into a tiger’s den.”

“He won’t include our side in his psychological sense of belonging.” Liu Jiayi shook her head and reached a certain conclusion. “I can feel that he repels us very strongly. He’s even hostile.”

Liu Jiayi’s eyebrows arched impatiently as she criticized Bai Liu. “Didn’t you go through such a huge detour just to completely control Tang Erda? What’s going on? Dropping the ball at the critical moment? That’s not your style.”

Faced with Liu Jiayi’s questioning, Bai Liu unhurriedly turned and leaned against the car door. He took a bottle of water from the open driver’s-side window, unscrewed it, took a sip, and only then answered her:

“I suddenly became curious. I wanted to see what kind of choice Captain Tang would make if I didn’t deliberately cut those ties.”

“What are you suddenly getting curious for?!” Liu Jiayi stomped her foot in anxiety. “The league is in two months. If you don’t hurry up and control your team members—and Tang Erda is such high-quality material—your members will be snatched away just like the Queen of Hearts!”

Bai Liu looked down at Liu Jiayi. “So, do you want to see me use the same method the Queen of Hearts used to control you to control Tang Erda? To make him go through a life-and-death separation from the person closest to him as well?”

Liu Jiayi froze.

“I originally planned to do that.” Bai Liu’s tone shifted again, and he admitted it without reservation.

Bai Liu capped the bottle of mineral water. With one hand casually in his pocket, he looked into the distance at the enormous white circular building. The morning wind and dew brushed past him, making Bai Liu’s loose hair and wide shirt—untucked from his pants—rustle and sway.

The dazzling early morning sunlight shone on Bai Liu’s profile, outlining his faint smile. He seemed to glow in the dawn that was about to fade the night away.

“But at certain specific times, I feel that using Lu Yizhan’s method to guide the human heart feels... not bad.”

The brilliant, radiant sunlight diffused into countless bright rays through the morning mist. Then the beams gathered, staining the horizon inward, illuminating the desolate, empty underground filled with monsters, the enormous circular metal building, and the octopus-shaped badge on the uniform with a reflective, shimmering gold.

Tang Erda stood with his head lowered, looking at the octopus badge on his uniform—the badge that had followed him for several centuries and was now shining brightly beneath the sun. He did not move for a long time. Then he let out a very, very long breath and suddenly gave a soft laugh.

“Captain?” Su Yang asked cautiously.

“Do you still remember when we first started training as reserve members at the Heretic Management Bureau?” Tang Erda brought up a completely unrelated question.

Su Yang was startled, but still answered seriously, “...I remember. At first, we were both reserve members of the First Branch. The training was very hard.”

“It must have been hard work stopping me from being an idiot, right?” Nostalgia appeared in Tang Erda’s eyes. “Back then, I was the most impulsive person in the entire branch. Whenever I encountered a heretic killing people, I couldn’t restrain my temper and insisted on killing the heretic. Every time, I would be stopped by the First Branch Captain. He taught us a lot.”

“Yes. Back then, Cen Buming was the vice-captain of the First Branch. He was especially strict with us, but he would very obediently call the First Branch Captain ‘Senior Brother.’”

Su Yang did not know what Tang Erda wanted to say, but he very cooperatively reminisced with him. “Back then, you didn’t like him, and you even mockingly imitated the way he called the First Branch Captain ‘Senior Brother’ to make fun of him. He even cursed you, saying that with a temper like yours, you would eventually be polluted and suffer a mental collapse.”

Tang Erda was somewhat dazed. “...Did I really used to fight with Cen Buming?”

“That was all more than twenty years ago. It’s normal not to remember.” Su Yang smiled. “Why bring this up all of a sudden?”

“I suddenly remembered something the First Branch Captain once said to me.” Tang Erda lowered his eyelids to look at that team badge, clenched it, and whispered, “In this world, there are no two identical leaves, and there are no two identical timelines.”

“When you are chosen by time, no matter how many things you encounter that make you want to stay, no matter how many people you meet that make you want to stay, you must understand clearly that they are no longer the true people or things you want to stay for. They already passed away long ago.”

“You cannot look back. You can only continue forward.”

“This is the [Future] that belongs to you.”

Tang Erda raised his head. He looked around at all the members and said in a deep voice:

“I have become the [Guardian] and [Bound Person] of Heretic 0006. The accidents caused by Heretic 0006 last night and this morning were all caused by my improper judgment of Heretic 0006, which led to his agitation.”

His deep-blue eyes were clear and upright. “For this, I should bear full responsibility.”

“Heretic 0006 is not a harmful type of heretic. In two near-violent riots, he controlled himself and did not kill a single person. Furthermore, afterward, he took compensatory measures to remedy the consequences he caused. Meanwhile, I misjudged Heretic 0006 and used various methods to coerce him, which was the original cause of the accident. For this—”

Facing the stunned remaining members, Tang Erda bowed deeply to them.

“I am deeply sorry.”

“I will do everything I can to compensate the sixty-seven injured members from last night. The Rose Factory explosion from the day before yesterday has also been resolved. As punishment—” Tang Erda grabbed the team badge on his uniform and tore it downward with force.

Su Yang shouted sternly to stop him. “Captain!!”

But it was too late.

The team badge was completely torn off. Tang Erda took a deep breath. “I resign from the position of Captain of the Third Branch. Furthermore, as the person bound to Heretic 0006, until he has completely integrated into society, I will never return to the Heretic Management Bureau.”

Su Yang closed his eyes, his jaw trembling from how tightly he clenched his teeth.

Tang Erda straightened his back. He smiled as though he had let everything go, though his eyes were red. He gripped the team badge over his heart for a moment, then shook out the uniform, draped it over Su Yang’s shoulders, smiled, and patted his shoulder before lightly placing the badge representing the captain into Su Yang’s palm.

Su Yang opened his eyes and looked at him in shock.

Tang Erda said in a heavy voice, “Hereby, I appoint Vice-Captain Su Yang as the new Captain of the Third Branch and transfer all permissions to him, except for the [Prophet] permissions.”

“I order you, Vice-Captain Su, to accept the badge!” Tang Erda’s tone suddenly deepened.

Su Yang endured and endured, but in the end, he still could not hold back. Tears streamed down his face as he took the team badge from Tang Erda’s hand through gritted teeth.

“Yes, Captain.”

Tang Erda smiled and said, “You will be a better captain than me, Su Yang.”

Su Yang clutched the badge and uniform and burst into loud sobs.

For more than twenty years, he had never thought there would come a day when Tang Erda was no longer his captain.

Especially not in such a cruel, self-punishing way.

Su Yang understood what the Heretic Management Bureau meant to Tang Erda, and he understood how terrifying it was for him to give it up.

Su Yang had imagined ten thousand ways Tang Erda might leave the Heretic Management Bureau—being killed by a heretic, committing suicide due to pollution, or even dying of old age here as a watcher of heretics.

But he had never imagined it would be like this. In Su Yang’s conception, and in the conception of every member, there had never been any possibility of Tang Erda leaving the Heretic Management Bureau alive. This meant that, in their perception, leaving the Heretic Management Bureau was something even more terrifying than death for Tang Erda.

Tang Erda led them as they charged into battle. He was the permanent captain recognized by every member of the Third Branch. He was righteous, brave, and sometimes a little hot-headed, but he would never miss any life-or-death battle, and he feared no heretic “game” from which there was no return.

But when exactly had they drifted apart?

Through tear-filled eyes, Su Yang watched Tang Erda’s retreating back in the sunrise. He waved his hand nonchalantly, as if he did not miss this place at all. But that man’s clothes, pants, even his shoes and socks, had all been specially made by the Heretic Management Bureau.

They were already worn to the point of dilapidation, washed until they had faded, yet Tang Erda still wore them firmly—as if this old Heretic Management Bureau uniform had long since grown onto his body and could never be taken off.

But the team badge that had “grown” over his heart had been pried off by his own hand.

Bai Liu leaned against the car and waited for a while. Liu Jiayi could not help sarcastically commenting on Tang Erda, who still had not come out. “Bai Liu, you’ll regret being soft-hearted. Our captain doesn’t look like someone who can cleanly break away from a team. Just wait. He’ll... betray the team...”

Before Liu Jiayi could finish speaking, a black dot appeared beneath the circular building, walking toward them.

He walked very slowly, draped in a torn and tattered team uniform.

But he was indeed walking this way.

Liu Jiayi’s words caught in her throat. She looked in the direction of the footsteps in disbelief.

Tang Erda walked over. Bai Liu looked him up and down, his eyes lingering for two seconds on the torn spot on the chest of the uniform. He smiled and teased, “I thought you would leave the badge and the uniform with Su Yang.”

Tang Erda was no longer surprised that Bai Liu could guess the direction of events. He nodded, his voice somewhat hoarse as he spoke. “I originally planned to. I gave him the uniform and the badge...”

Bai Liu’s gaze remained on the uniform Tang Erda was wearing. “So?”

“But Su Yang insisted on leaving the uniform for me,” Tang Erda said softly. “He said the badge was only for him to keep for me temporarily, and that he would always wait for me to come back.”

After saying that, Tang Erda was silent for a long, long time before continuing:

“But I cannot look back. That is not the [Future] that belongs to me.”

“I can only keep walking forward.”