When Bai Liu grabbed him, the circle of players who had just escaped from the Game Pool all froze.

Mu Shicheng and Liu Jiayi began coughing violently. Mu Ke had not yet formally met Spades, but even he vaguely realized that the man in front of him was not someone to provoke. Tang Erda, standing beside Bai Liu, had veins throbbing at his temple. Without a word, he reached out to knock away Bai Liu’s hand gripping Spades.

At that moment, everyone had the same thought.

Why are you provoking him?!

But before Tang Erda could strike, Bai Liu had already let go. He drew his hand behind his back, clenched it, and took a step back to create some distance between himself and Spades. Then he smiled politely.

“Sorry for grabbing you so suddenly. I mainly wanted to get to know you.”

Spades turned sideways. Water slid from the ends of his hair down to his pale lips, which parted slightly.

“Spades.”

Bai Liu introduced himself. “Bai Liu.”

Spades’s eyes, hidden behind his soaked hair, seemed to scrutinize him for a moment. Then he nodded faintly.

“I know you. You said on the forum that you wanted to stick your name on me.”

Bai Liu: “...”

He had forgotten about that.

The atmosphere became incredibly awkward in an instant. Bai Liu pressed his lips together and said calmly, “Then what do you think?”

“If you win against me, you can,” Spades replied. His voice was clear and gentle. “I don’t dislike your name. It sounds good.”

The surrounding onlookers drew in sharp breaths.

What kind of logic was this?!

Bai Liu’s breathing quickened slightly. The hand hidden behind his back curled tightly into a fist, but none of it showed on his face. He smiled and forced himself to continue this strangely logical topic.

“Can I stick it anywhere on your body?”

Spades did not seem to think there was anything wrong with their conversation at all. He looked at Bai Liu calmly.

“Anywhere is fine. If you have any special preference for a certain part of my body, you can tell me in advance so I can prepare.”

Bai Liu: “...”

The onlookers: “...”

Help!!

Was this something they were allowed to hear so casually?!

“The premise for all of this is that you can beat me.” Spades looked steadily at Bai Liu. “But right now, you don’t have that strength.”

Bai Liu’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, avoiding Spades’s direct gaze. He blinked faintly.

“I will definitely beat you in this game.”

Spades nodded, unmoved. “Then you can stick your name anywhere on me.”

Bai Liu: “...”

He really was not doing it for that...

After saying this, Spades flicked his wrist and gathered up his whip, then turned and left without looking back. The players in front of him dazedly stepped aside, making way for this frost-covered god of death, seemingly still surprised that Spades had managed to have such a “harmonious” meeting with this newcomer League player who had abruptly stopped him.

After Spades left, Liu Jiayi silently leaned closer. She looked up, peeking at Bai Liu’s complexion and ears, and could not help saying sympathetically, “Clearly, you couldn’t handle it from the moment Spades answered you the first time, yet you insisted on continuing the conversation with him.”

“That guy is a complete natural airhead with no human common sense. He’s immune to all provocation, teasing, trash talk, and even confessions from his opponents, and he can unconsciously reflect them back. Look at you. You got counter-teased by him...”

Bai Liu reached out and amiably pressed down on Liu Jiayi’s head.

“What did you just say?”

Liu Jiayi obediently changed her tune. “I saw Spades get so provoked by you that he was practically half-dead with anger and breaking out in a cold sweat. You’re amazing!” 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Mu Shicheng could not help cutting in. “Why did you provoke him just now?”

Bai Liu looked up in the direction Spades had left.

“To confirm certain things.”

“Then did you confirm them?” Mu Ke asked softly.

Bai Liu suddenly revealed a very relaxed smile.

“I suppose so.”

Other than that person, there was probably no second person in this world who could make him choke up like this the moment they met.

Although he still did not know why this guy did not remember him for now, it did not matter.

Some unpleasant things only needed to be remembered by one person.

Bai Liu withdrew his gaze and turned to look at the Game Pool, where light and shadow flowed. His dark eyes reflected those multicolored, eerie hues.

“Let’s start training.”

“Okay!”

————————

The seventh day of training.

Charles sat in his chair, hands folded on the table, leaning forward.

“The League is getting closer and closer. Matters related to cheering and support are currently being handled by me and your guild members, so you don’t need to interfere with that for now. But I called you here today because there are two other very important things that require your personal decision—”

“—team badges and weapon modification!”

Charles lifted two fingers with a bright smile.

“You need a collective team badge, just like the other teams.”

“According to the ranking of popular teams, the badge of the first guild, Killer Sequence, is an inverted cross. The badge of the second guild, the Kings Guild, is a crown. The badge of the third guild, Golden Dawn, is a lyre with wings. The badge of the fourth guild, Kabbalah, is a leaf from the Tree of Life. As for the fifth guild, which is my Gamblers Club, our badge is a chip.”

As Charles flipped his fingers, a silver-edged chip badge appeared. He placed it on the table and continued, smiling at Bai Liu.

“The sixth guild, Deer Hunter, uses a deer head. The seventh guild, Heaven’s Hand, uses a folded cloak, and so on.”

“Your guild’s original badge was a single zombie fang, but that clearly no longer suits the style of your team. After a week of careful discussion by the design team I hired, we designed a new badge for you.”

Charles took a box that looked as if it held valuables from a side drawer. With his gloved hands, he deftly flipped it open and looked at Bai Liu with satisfaction.

“It looks roughly like this.”

Inside the box was a sparkling circular badge.

Within a platinum hexagram rimmed with diamonds was a half-open werewolf eye. At the very center of the eye was a blood-red gemstone the size of a pigeon egg.

Bai Liu lowered his eyes and examined it for a long while before speaking.

“The hexagram is a symbol of Satan, and I’ve often seen this half-open werewolf eye on the Werewolf cards. It symbolizes the Werewolf card.”

He slowly lifted his head and looked directly at Charles.

“I remember that my team is called Wandering Circus. It has nothing to do with Satan or werewolves, does it?”

“You should be good at digging out the hidden, deeper connections between yourselves and this symbol.” The smile on Charles’s face became increasingly cryptic. His gaze swept over the inverted cross pendant at Bai Liu’s collarbone, and then he sighed regretfully. “Actually, there was a symbol more suitable for you than the hexagram, which was the inverted cross, but that is already Killer Sequence’s badge, so we had to change it.”

Bai Liu’s gaze lingered on Charles’s face for a moment before dropping back down to the glowing red badge.

Charles reached out at just the right time and began introducing it.

“If you are willing to adopt this design, this badge can be given to you as a reference. Its cost is roughly 10,000 points, which, converted into your RMB, is approximately—”

“—ten million.” Bai Liu smiled and reached out to take the badge Charles handed him. “Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Charles. Wandering Circus’s badge will be this one.”

Mu Shicheng, Mu Ke, Liu Jiayi, and Tang Erda beside him: “...”

Didn’t you just imply you wouldn’t accept this badge?!

Did ten million make you yield that quickly?!

Yes. Ten million made Bai Liu yield incredibly quickly.

He gestured for Charles to continue.

“And—” Charles drew the topic back, “compared with the badge, what’s more important for you is weapon modification.”

Charles lazily leaned back in his chair and snapped his fingers. A system screen automatically unfolded in front of him.

The system screen itself could be projected into thin air, but that did not suit Charles’s aesthetic. Therefore, he projected the screen onto a dark wooden board.

When Liu Jiayi saw the wooden board, she could not help making an “= =” expression.

This guy Charles had even gilded the edges of the projection board.

Truly extravagant...

Projected onto the wooden board were rotating three-dimensional structural diagrams of various weapons. From black whips and playing cards to firearms and bows, the weapons of various captains appeared one after another.

“In this game, there are two ways for your weapon to change. One is through a change in your own core desire, like Mu Ke’s dagger.”

Charles’s gaze swept over Mu Ke, then stopped on Liu Jiayi. The corners of his lips curved into a restrained smile.

“And the other way is to use someone else’s skill to carry out modifications.”

“The skill playing cards the Queen of Hearts gave the Little Witch were made by using my skill to store her skills in playing cards, which were then handed over for you to use.”

“The Queen paid quite a price for that,” Charles said slowly.

Liu Jiayi looked up in astonishment.

She did know that Charles’s skill, [Phantom Swallowing Hand], could turn other people’s skills into physical objects and store them. But she had never known that her playing cards had come about this way...

Because the Queen of Hearts had always been at odds with Charles. She disliked frivolous men like him, let alone cooperating with him.

“My skill is very suitable for modifying weapons, so I can be considered a small-scale weapon modifier. I can demonstrate the process for you.”

Charles stood, walked to Bai Liu, bent slightly, and extended his hand. Like a street magician asking a passerby for a prop, he requested with a smile, “For example—Mr. Bai Liu, could you lend me your skill weapon, the old wallet, for a moment?”

Bai Liu raised an eyebrow, pulled the old wallet from his system panel, and handed it to Charles.

Charles bowed and accepted the old wallet, clasping it between both hands. With a reverse turn, the old wallet transformed into a pair of yellowed, old leather gloves. Charles held them between his thumb and index finger and showed them to Bai Liu.

“Wallet gloves. Your banknotes are folded inside, making them easy to access. They are not as conspicuous as a wallet, and they are convenient for making deals.” Charles separated the inner layers of the gloves for Bai Liu to see. “Your main weapon is a long whip. Using gloves suits that weapon better and also protects your hands when you use it.”

Charles placed the gloves back in Bai Liu’s palm and made a “please” gesture.

“You may try them.”

The gloves fit Bai Liu’s hands perfectly, neither too large nor too small. Bai Liu tested taking soul banknotes from the gloves, then tried taking out point coins.

Through Charles the magician’s hands, accessing points became as simple as a magic trick. Bai Liu could easily hook a coin out from the inner layer of the glove and hold it between his fingers.

When he used the long whip, he would no longer have to worry about friction against his palms. It was indeed far more convenient.

Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke both watched with intense curiosity. This was their first time seeing weapon modification happen in front of them.

Liu Jiayi kept her head lowered in silence, while Tang Erda looked at the gloves with a complicated expression, then shifted his gaze to Bai Liu’s face as Bai Liu tried them on with satisfaction.

He had the feeling that he was watching Bai Liu gradually become the Bai Six from other world lines.

Bai Six’s skill weapon was also a pair of gloves modified from a wallet, although they looked far more expensive and refined than this pair. They were black, glossy leather gloves that looked as if they cost a fortune. It was said that the annual maintenance fees the Wandering Circus guild spent on those gloves alone reached several million points...

“This modification doesn’t cost me money, right?” Bai Liu asked after putting on the gloves and flexing his fingers.

The smile on Charles’s face froze for a second before returning to normal.

“I am very happy to serve the horse I have chosen to bet on.”

As he spoke, his gaze lingered on Bai Liu’s somewhat shabby gloves for a moment, and he pointed out, almost unable to bear it, “But you really should take good care of your skill weapon. I have never seen a skill weapon more damaged or older than this one.”

“How many points does maintenance cost?” Bai Liu asked casually.

Charles’s expression grew serious.

“The maintenance cost of each captain’s weapon is different, but the average maintenance fee for captains of the top ten guilds is generally around 630,000 points. Among them, the most expensive is Spades’s lizard bone whip. Last year’s maintenance fee was 1.26 million points...”

Bai Liu was silent for a long while. Then he asked incredulously, “Is he that good at spending money?...”

—

Author’s Note:

Spades is Tata, Xie Ta / Tawil, but he has no memory. He is a soul and vessel that has lost its memories. Everyone will understand as the story continues.

6: So expensive. He wasn’t like this when he was little. When he was little, he seemed very easy to raise. How did he become so good at spending money after growing up?

6, trying to earn money to support the family, falls into deep thought.

Spades’s maintenance cost really is too high. 6 realizes he cannot afford to support him.