Chapter Eleven

Boss Lu stepped out of the room looking the same as when he first walked in. He paused at the sight of Bai Mo, who was staring straight at him. He laughed to try and break the awkward atmosphere. "Haha, have you calmed down? Let out some steam?" He placed his hand on his forehead and noted how the blood was cleaned off. "You're all sweaty. Gross. What the heck were you doing?"

Bai Mo grabbed his hand off of his forehead and tightly held onto his wrist. "Protagonist #934,"

Boss Lu's eyebrows wrinkled at the sound of his number but kept the smile on his face as steady as he could, "Yup, that's me, the one and only."

Bai Mo, for whatever reason, didn't like Boss Lu's attitude and clenched tighter on Boss Lu's wrist. "What took you so long?"

Boss Lu tried to pry Bai Mo's hand off, "Just saying goodbye and stuff, you know? Hey, let go, you're hurting my wrist."

Bai Mo listened and removed his hand, "And the guy in there?" He questioned.

Boss Lu turned his head to hide his expression, "Pulled the plug. Just wanted to put him out nice and quick, you know?"

Bai Mo noticed Boss Lu's aversion to the topic and decided to move on. Not out of politeness, but just because he couldn't put in the effort to care. "Alright then let's go." He turned around and headed away.

"Oh? Do you want to talk in private? I see I see." He said as he nodded his head with a smile. He jogged ahead of the man and motioned for him to follow. "Then follow me, I got a good spot to go to."

He led Bai Mo to the roof of the hospital. The breeze blew through his hair, the sunlight peeked through the clouds and onto his face. "Wow, look at that." He said as he looked at the horizon. "All of that smoke and clouds that you made before are all gone already. So Quick?" He placed his hands on the railings and noted how the rusty bottom creaked with his added weight. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and faced the clouds, "Let's get this over with quickly."

He turned and faced the man behind him. And Bai Mo, with the natural neutral face, stared right back at him. "Sence you got me out of that chaos, does that mean you want to work with me?" Because if not, then it would be good to say that now, and not when I get all my hopes up and stuff."

Bai Mo narrowed his eyes at him, not in a threatening way, but almost like he was thinking. Boss Lu heard a passing thought in his mind call it cute. "I want to ask a few things first." He asked. Boss Lu just gave him an encouraging nod. "What is it... that you want to do? Why are you doing this?"

Boss Lu's eyes widened in surprise at his question, "What...I want?" He mumbled, repeating after him. "What I want..." He turned his head to the side and acted like the passing cloud in the sky looked a lot more interesting than the conversation. "I just want to do what I want, I guess. I want to see the people that I want, talk to them in a way that I want. Eat whatever and whenever I want. I don't want to be forced into relationships I'm not interested in and wars I don't want to fight." He paused and adjusted his stance, feeling awkward in exposing his thoughts. "All in all, I just want to be free from doing things I don't care about. This is harder to do when you have the system always on your back, you can relate to this, right? So, because of that, I just want to be free from it." He turned his head back to Bai Mo. "Is that a good enough answer? Sorry, I'm a bit short on words on this topic. What I want is a little hard to put into words" He said as he awkwardly scratched his nape.

Bai Mo didn't seem fazed by his answer, "That's fine. And how do you plan on accomplishing this, how do I come into play?"

Boss Lu gave out an awkward chuckle at his question. "Well, uh, this might be a little hypocritical, but I want you to go with me in a bunch of different worlds."

Bai Mo frowned and anger started to rise off of him, "You want to do what?"

Boss Lu put out his hands for defense, "Wait, wait, listen to me for a second." Bai Mo shut his mouth. Boss Lu internally thanked god for giving Bai Mo good obedience skills. "Both you and I would go through some worlds together. And I will be your system." Even though Bai Mo's frown became more apparent, he didn't speak. "All we have to do is the same thing we did to this world." He gestured to the horizon around them. "We just have to break it a little. Change the protagonist to be exact."

"Why would we need to do that?" Bai Mo spoke. "How does that change anything?"

"It'll just be more reassuring for me. It's kind of useless," Bai Mo watched Boss Lu rub the bottom of his nose with his finger. A tick that he would later attach to when Boss Lu is lying. "but I can't just give you what you want for free now can I." Boss Lu gave him a lazy smile. To which Bai Mo responded, 'I don't need to pay, you getting to keep your life was enough payment."

"Uwahh, how threatening. Too bad that's not gonna work." He waved his hands, "Whatever, whatever, all that matters is that in the end, you" Boss Lu dramatically pointed at Bai Mo. "get the answers that you want."

"You have the answers I need?" He threatenly moved closer to Boss Lu. "Then there's no need for this deal and you can tell me right now." His eyes stared deeply into Boss Lu and a familiar dark aura surrounded him. It was thick and solid, which made it hard for Boss Lu to breathe. He swallowed some dry saliva and said to the deadly man in front of him. "No, no, I don't have any of the answers. I don't know anything about your superpowers and your past and stuff." Again, he rubbed his nose. "But I'm sure that I can get you those answers."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because my life is in your hands. Even when I'm a system in your head, you have those creepy powers of yours. You can just suck me into your nostril like that girl from before, right?" Boss Lu strained his face to keep on his best negotiator smile he could get. 'Just listen to me, you big, creepy, threatening bastard!'

Bai Mo narrowed his eyes in thought. Before he finally said, "Alright." He backed away from Boss Lu and gave him more room to breathe. "So, how are you going to do it?"

"Huh, do what?"

Bai Mo furrowed his eyebrows and looked like he wanted to hit Boss Lu's dumb-looking face. "How are you going to be my system?"

Boss Lu chuckled slightly and itched his nape, "Oh uh, well. I was wondering if you would let me borrow that system you sucked up before I think I can do something with it."

Boss Lu ignored Bai Mo's slightly disturbed expression and held both of his hands out in front of Bai Mo's nose. "Come on, come on, give it to me. It's not like you're going to do anything good with it."

Boss Lu continued to encourage Bai Mo and failed to notice his worsening expression. "Hey, come on, are you embarrassed by shooting it out of your nose? Do you want me to turn around?"

Bai Mo clenched his fist tight, and forced out of his teeth, "No."

"Well, then what are you waiting for? We don't have all that time in the world, you know?!"

Bai Mo stayed silent for a moment longer before he spoke out quietly, "I... don't know how."

"..eh..."

"..."

"What do you mean you don't know how?! You snorted her up, can't you just blow her back out?!

"I'm not doing that! There's no way that would work!"

"You're only saying that because you don't want to embarrass yourself by blowing out some boogers into my hand! What?! Do you want me to get you some tissues?!"

"I said I'm not doing that!"

Boss Lu rubbed his forehead. He looked at Bai Mo with a strange look. 'How am I supposed to be threatened by you if you act like that?' He covered his smile.

"Alright." He said. "Well, then how did you do it before?"

"I don't know."

"Well then," He rubbed his temples. "Just mimic the feeling that you had before, and then reverse it. You know?"

Bai Mo didn't seem to think that his explanation was useful. And honestly, Boss Lu didn't think so either.

"Okay then." Said Bai Mo. He closed his eyes and focused. He thought of that feeling of exhilaration that he felt before. When the wind blew around him and the lightning intertwined with his fingers. Without his noticing, a spark around his hand went off and Boss Lu said to him. "Hey, Hey, stop focusing on the lightning and stuff alright, you're gonna turn me into a crisp without realizing. Focus on the snorting thing. " Very motivating and reassuring.

He thought about the feeling of that system's neck in his hands. How it felt so fragile and weak. He could feel the fake body's blood pumping through its veins and the rhythmic drum of its heart. Its skin was warm and its eyes were filled with panic. He felt that life was in his hands, and that feeling reassured him. He wanted to crush the system right there. He wanted to watch its life be taken away from it, to watch it crumple onto the ground and never get up again. But that wouldn't kill the system. No, that would only hinder it. Make it need a new body to occupy. That wasn't what he wanted. What he wanted was its life.

Bai Mo heard Boss Lu exclam and he opened his eyes. And in his hand was the same smoke from before. It swirled in his hand before coming together to form a dim ball. Its gray color seemed foggy and opaque. It looked like a solid storm cloud in his hand.

This was that system's life. Its bright color was taken from him and was now the color of the dead.

"Good, good. Now give me that." Boss Lu said as he snatched the ball away from him.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Um," Boss Lu scratched his cheek. "Well, since I'm just made out of data. I'll just try and change it to work similarly to the way a system works." He explained.

"You can do that?" Bai Mo doubted.

Boss Lu laughed a little, "This will be the first time I try it of course. But including this one, I've looked at a couple of systems' internal programming before so I think I can make it work." Boss Lu gave a smug look to Bai Mo. "Not to mention I have changed my own programming, so I think I got it in the bag, no problem."

"Alright." He said as he put the marble-looking system into his pocket. "Now there's one more thing you got to do for me."

Bai Mo stood straighter, "What is it?"

'Aish, so eager.' He thought as he looked at Bai Mo giving him such a straight look. He laughed, "Well, you gotta live up to your promise, right?"

Bai Mo looked confused. "What promise?"

Boss Lu grasped Bai Mo's hands, "Didn't you say that you were going to drive a blade through my chest?"

Bai Mo's eyes widened in realization. He remembered back in this hospital, where he said he did say something similar to that. Who would have thought? Back then he was trying to murder the guy. And although he still felt like killing him out of annoyance, he was working with him as he said. It sickened him slightly on how everything worked out in Boss Lu's favor. "You're right..." He said as he pulled one of his hands out of Boss Lu's grip and materialized the same blade from that hospital room. "I did say something like that."

Boss Lu felt a little irked by Bai Mo's attitude. 'Huh? So, no hesitation now, is that how it is?'

"I'm guessing this has something to do with what you want, correct?" Said Bai Mo, as he moved the pointed tip towards where his heart would be located.

"Yup," He laughed again, "just have trust in the process."

"I don't need to." He said as he drove the blade in.

Again, Boss Lu felt like how it was to feel pain. So intense, and painful. The feeling of his body being ripped into by the hard blade. The feeling of it driving through muscle and prying through bone. Before piercing through his heart. Bai Mo let the blade linger, before giving it a good twist and ripping it out. His body felt cold while his head felt hot. His muscles felt tired and heavy as he lifted his hands to grab onto Bai Mo. His feet felt like they were buried in cement as they took steps backward. His eyelids felt heavy as they tried their best to watch Bai Mo's expression. How his eyes widened with surprise and his mouth opened to speak. Boss Lu thought that it looked funny. How his face showed something so different than before. He thought about the expressions that Bai Mo had shown him long ago. Way back then when the system wasn't around and he was living his life, so ignorant. Yet it was so sweet. He wished he could go back then, to when he didn't know anything. But he knew that this was inevitable. It was bound to happen at some point. So he thought that it would be better if it happened the way he wanted it to.

The rusty railings served their purpose. They broke as Boss Lu's body weight pushed too hard against them. And with Bai Mo in tow, Boss Lu fell off the roof of the hospital.

The wind whipped around them as Boss Lu gave out another laugh, which ended with a bloody cough. "Trust in the process!" He said as loud as he could. The deafening winds making it harder to hear. He gave the surprised Bai Mo a big smile as he felt his body die. The system in his pocket dissipated into smoke and swirled around his hand up to his arm and quickly into his nostrils. He felt it burn down his pipes and into his body. It was clear that it wasn't meant to be in him. Boss Lu gave Bai Mo a sincere smile. His lips curved and his teeth stayed hidden. His vision of Bai Mo turned into the face of another man, and yet, they were both the same. And with that Boss, Lu felt his body die.

And then he started his new job as Bai Mo's system.