Volume 1 - CH 23.2

In the stream, the viewers are in a heated discussion.

“woah, im really curious what the rules of the game actually are now”

“wu shen said they’ll have to do it behind the missiontakers’ back even if he’s curious… what could it be? I feel like there might be two different factions?”

“Beibei y u not telling us? or u want us to guess?”

“host always makes us think over his riddles anyway lol”

“I have a hypothesis now”

“its the dalao! ill wait and listen!”

“Watashi ga kita! Was typing just now.

So Wu Shen said the Missiontakers cannot know, but it’s obvious he is in with our Bei, therefore, we know at least two different factions in the hub map of this game.

He mentioned our Bei having to ‘act’ earlier, so let’s call their faction the Actors, and the other is, as they say, the Missiontakers.

What would the difference be?

The answer is simple, the Actors must have blend into the NPCs in-game! And they ‘Act’ as the NPCs!

The reasoning is simple and straightforward. Think about how we thought Wu Shen was an NPC because he was so convincing at being one; if he didn’t bust himself, he was practically no different from one.

And going back, we joked earlier that the host was practically being used as an NPC, and in fact, his role did appear to agree with the remark.

Given that Beibei once told us some players receive special roles and identities after logging it, it seems that it would be referring to the Actors and Missiontakers precisely.

At this stage, there seem to be advantages and disadvantages to either role, respectively.

The Actors clearly know a lot, and the keyword, ‘Act,’ would imply that they are performing some fixed script verbatim. This is their limitation;

The Missiontakers look to be wholly uninformed when they enter the Nightmares, but they are free to explore and do other things. They are unrestricted.

We do not yet see a clear conflict of interest between these two factions, but that is not necessarily true or false for now.

PS, I like how Beibei is pacing this right now, hiding clues and key information in everyday conversation and actions, so that we can figure out the truth of the Nightmare and the mechanics of the game itself! Please keep it up!”

“woah, as expected of a dalao, i got it!”

“tho i cant get half the info just listening to Beibei talk (pout emoji), but theres the detective dalao for me (flowers emoji)”

“hahahaha our Beibei really is good at keeping us on the edge! we (I mean the dalao) like this!”

Xü Beijin “…”

He isn’t keeping them on edge! He just simply can’t say a thing more to these people from the outside!

Realising how far away the viewers’ thoughts have drifted from the truth, Xü Beijin is sinking into hopelessness.

Worse, he can’t even try to clear his name or action up, and can only watch that certain overly imaginative individual continuing to fire the mood up…

Even worse, up to this point, every statement that imaginative monster has conjured up has been technically correct… Besides that ‘suspect hostism’ thing, of course.

Xü Beijin is back at the bookstore at this point, and is quietly blanking out behind the counter, with his glass of water in hand. His gaze is empty and unfocused; he could be described as having lost meaning in life.

With the camera source having been moved back to the Missiontakers, he is able to take a sip of his water in solitude. It cheers him up somewhat, readying him to keep watching the stream.

Earlier, Wu Shen worried over his lack of sleep. That is definitely true. Although the Tower’s special circumstances mean there isn’t exactly a problem with that, but mentally, he has always felt endlessly exhausted.

He is easily bummed out. His mind is often dozing off to recover. Most of time, despite his poker face, he is actually deep in idle, meaningless thoughts. His eyebags is part of his regular facial feature at this point – Mentally, he is convinced he severely lacks sleep, therefore it is reflected on his surface as seriously needing and wanting to sleep.

Drinking juice——Or, if nothing else, just water——Is one way he has of raising his mood slightly.

Of course, that also goes for food and snacks, but they’re nowhere as economical as drinks. There are also showers, strolls and the occasional exercises. Every little thing helps.

As for actually sleeping…

That is not something Xü Beijin can consider at the moment (TL: Will be explained in about a hundred plus a dozen chapters or so. Yup, the pacing is that slow).

His attention is drifting towards the stream when the bookstore door is suddenly pushed open to reveal a wild Lin Qin.

Xü Beijin turns his head around to gawk at him.

Because… There is a whole pile of drinks in Lin Qin’s crossed arms (TL: Something like this picture).

Then Lin Qin walks over, throwing all the soft drinks and canned drinks onto the counter, saying, “it’s for you.”

Xü Beijin “…”

He is still blinking, stupefied.

A strange idea begins forming in his head.

Lin Qin is…

Xü Beijin looks up at the dalao who is inhumanly powerful. Seeing his face that is expressionless save for furrowed brows and the fixed gaze at him… He can almost predict the words that will come out next.

——Let’s fight.

“Let’s fight,” says Lin Qin.

Xü Beijin suddenly begins chuckling.

Lin Qin knits his brows tighter, looking at him with this displeased expression. He has already handed the man the drinks he supposedly likes. What is with the reaction?

Laughing? What is there to laugh at.

Lin Qin then adds, “I heard you like drinks.”

Xü Beijin nods.

So Lin Qin goes on, “so let’s fight. I already brought the drinks you like over.”

Xü Beijin counters, saying, “you can’t force a gift on me though, right?”

Lin Qin nods and says, “I am negotiating with you.”

Xü Beijin answers, “I don’t want to fight.”

“Oh,” Lin Qin remarks, as he takes the drinks away, saying, “I’ll ask again.”

Xü Beijin can’t help but chuckle again.

Lin Qin examines his expression for a while before asking, “do you not like these drinks?”

“I do,” Xü Beijin nods, and then questions him, “where did you find so many, anyway?”

Lin Qin is still examining him over, and perhaps he has finally concluded this isn’t working for now, he answers casually, “from the street outside.”

“The street? Is there even anything there?”

Lin Qin gives him an odd look, telling him, “there’s a supermarket. It’s closed, but I went inside and there are still some drinks that haven’t expired yet.”

Xü Beijin “…”

How did you even ‘go inside’ in the first place?!

Weren’t the storefronts supposed to be part of the unexplorable façade background?

Xü Beijin is already picturing the Server hastily patching up some products for that abandoned supermarket somewhere…

And Xü Beijin’s strange expression probably makes Lin Qin misunderstand something, and he explains to him, “the supermarket had a glass front door, so I smashed it and went inside. I searched the racks and found all these. I checked and none of them are expired yet, so you can drink them without worrying.”

Xü Beijin looks all speechless and conflicted, but still genuinely tells Lin Qin, “thank you for doing all this.”

Just for the sake of fighting him, they even troubled the Server like that…

Lin Qin says, though, “I wanted to do this myself, so it wasn’t hard work for me,” and then asks, “but, can’t you at least…”

“I am sure I can’t win in a fight with you,” Xü Beijin tries to make himself sound as sincere as possible, continuing, “I mean it. You can easily break the glass window of a supermarket, but I definitely can’t do that at all.”

Yet Lin Qin says, “breaking glass is nothing, really.”

Xü Beijin “…”

Yeah, for you, maybe!

Xü Beijin is feeling genuinely troubled by now, and asks, “why do you even think I can win against you?”

It is already his second time asking this exact question, and Lin Qin gives him an answer as seriously as he can.

The man with the baby face tells him, “because, I think you are really special,” he then tries to describe it more concretely, “in the Tower, everyone has their own secrets and trump cards, but yours must be the strongest.”

Xü Beijin turns expressionless for a second, asking, “why do you think so?”

Lin Qin gives a simple answer, “instincts.”

Xü Beijin “…”

Even someone as patient and soft-spoken as Xü Beijin has had enough, and says, “I can’t win in a fight against you, dalao, so please don’t ask me to fight anymore.”

Lin Qin gives him a silent stare for a while before sighing, then he says, “alright. I got it.”

Then, with the drinks he grabbed from the supermarket in his arms, he casually strolls out of the bookstore.

The lonely silhouette somehow makes Xü Beijin feel slightly guilty.

…. Guilty, his arse!

Fighting with Lin Qin would put his arse on the line! Nobody can die in the Tower, but it is still 100% without question he would suffer being a complete punching bag!

Xü Beijin doesn’t enjoy feeling pain (TL: Well, neither do I, and everyone el- I mean, almost everyone, other than the good little Ms, I suppose? Hehe).

He can only hope that Lin Qin is giving up for good this time around.

He shakes his head a few times and decides to stop thinking about it.

It was a good thing the viewers didn’t hear any part of that conversation as the source of the sound in the stream follows the main character. If they heard it, he’s sure the comment barrage would have had a field day.

The conversation took some time, too, so when Xü Beijin finally looks back at the stream, the three Missiontakers, back on the second floor of the dilapidated, run-down doll store, are already talking to Wu Shen.

When the flashback ended, the doll of the little girl is still looking at them, the Missiontakers, standing on the corridor with her head tilted, but after learning who she truly is, the Missiontakers don’t fear her… as much; they’re at least also sympathetic towards her now.

Wu Shen is back on his bed, with his eyes wide open and unresponsive inside the room.

The three Missiontakers in the corridor look at each other, nonplussed, and Ponytail is the first to speak after a deep breath, saying, “let’s organise the information first.”

“It seems certain that Wu Shen is mentally disturbed,” Glasses follows-up, ending with a “and killed his own daughter because of it.”

Quarrelsome still seems unconvinced somehow, saying, “he really looked normal all the while before…”

Ponytail is quiet for a bit, pondering before murmuring, “that’s right. There are two personalities to him… we were pulled into his flashbacks twice, both because of mentioning Wu Chun, but the situation was different inside the flashbacks…”

Glasses then says, suddenly realising something, “the first time is the normal Wu Shen; the insane one the second.”

“The former heard her name while he was in this half-awake state and the memory was of the day his daughter disappeared…” Ponytail continues murmuring, “the latter… was when, was when he was full-on dollified, and saw Wu Chun as she currently is——As a doll…”

‘Dollified.’

This is a word she made up entirely, but refers to the state of Wu Shen’s sick form, when he looked completely doll-like.

The first time they went into a flashback, Wu Shen was not completely dollified. He still had some reason about him, but was also acting slightly insane.

The second time, he has become completely dollified.

In other words, under the influence of his different personalities, Wu Shen’s memories are not entirely the same. When he was insane, the doll-like personality is the true culprit behind Wu Chun’s death.

The problem now is, does the main personality of Wu Shen, know that he killed his own daughter?

He looks like he didn’t know, but what if he just stayed blind to everything on purpose?

Besides…

Ponytail speaks up again after thinking a little more, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the result of going through different letters brought different influences to Wu Shen as well.”

Glasses and Quarrelsome both turn towards her.