Volume 2 - CH 35.2

To use or not to use a utility card is often a question asked in the Nightmares.

Most Missiontakers would never use a utility card in the first few runs assuming they haven’t got themselves stuck in a hopeless bind, they aren’t unbelievably rich or they aren’t 100% sure they’ll achieve a True End after using the card.

Otherwise, wasting one use of the utility card would be quite the loss for Missiontakers.

And because of the rampant Carddealers’ threat, they have all become used to hiding their own utility cards in the Nightmares.

So, even if Selfish has a utility card that could help with the situation, he’s not planning to use it either. There is no need——Nor is he willing.

While Mu Jiashi falls into thought again.

Selfish talking about utility cards reminds him that if he has an appropriate utility card, then they could stop the mass slaughter of the man in black without Lin Qin’s help.

Though… There is no way that this is the solution the Server expects.

Basically, utility cards are a means of cheating, but not a normal method of passing Nightmares.

Naturally, if a utility card is related to a Nightmare, then it may certainly be an important or key object or clue itself. Otherwise, utility cards are outright cheating.

Not that they would look down on using utility cards, though.

The bigger problem is that, in this situation, the Missiontakers will never make public what utility cards they have brought.

This is the complete opposite of the situation Mu Jiashi was used to as part of a Golddigging team. In Nightmares, he knew exactly what utility cards his teammates brought. Therefore, he could summarily dictate when and which utility card to use to prevent waste.

This is something unachievable in a team of strangers.

Therefore, after Mu Jiashi became a lone wolf, he has adapted his thinking to ignore utility cards entirely.

And so he did, as he continues thinking about a what the normal way of resolving this situation would be.

Not even until the fifth minute passes, the Nightmare restarts, does Mu Jiashi manage to come up with a solution.

The sixth run of the Nightmare, begins.

Meanwhile, the viewers in the stream are also discussing about how this Nightmare can continue to be solved.

It seems that the unexpected breakdown of the Nightmare has caused the situation to devolve massively out of hand. The great progress the Missiontakers made in the fourth run of the Nightmare has been upended by the nightmare crumbling.

The comments are numerous.

“damned scriptwriter has got them stuck!”

“i could feel the evil inside the scriptwriting lol”

“srsly, i dunno what they can do anymore”

“can’t the little apple just beat the man in black up?”

“but lin qin is like a bug himself, other missiontakers wouldnt be able to fight nearly as well?”

“that means, there must be another way to get out of this”

“… I have no idea anymore, might as well ask lin qin to do it at this point”

“though whether the little apple is willing is also a question…”

“our Beibei is here though?”

Xü Beijin, whose name popped out of nowhere, shows a blank expression.

Just like Mu Jiashi, he is thinking about how to resolve this predicament, but he is out of ideas as well.

Or rather… He can feel that all the things that have happened thus far after entering the Nightmare seem to be connected somehow, like a string of pearls on a necklace. They possess the individual pearls, but they do not have the string that connects the pearls into an elegant jewellery.

What would it be…

Xü Beijin is thinking while staring at the screen in the stream.

After the nightmare restarted, just like the audience in the stream suggested, without a way to break through this bottleneck, Mu Jiashi asked for Lin Qin’s help without hesitation.

Lin Qin refuses, as expected.

Mu Jiashi takes a deep breath, as his brain quickly churns through relevant information, then rapidly says, “dalao, I have met you and Xü Beijin, the bookstore owner, earlier in his store before. I take it you are interested in him; I have once worked with him for a while, so here’s my proposal – I will tell you about what I knew back then while we are hurrying to the service area later. What do you think?”

He used a very deferential tone; he doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem with such a humble gesture.

Lin Qin really is the crownless King of the Tower, because all Missiontakers will definitely come to rely on Lin Qin’s strength eventually.

Even though they call Lin Qin a mad dog behind his back, but this mad dog does not kill; at most, it goes berserk, suppressing everyone in the Nightmare…

It’s embarrassing to admit for sure, but isn’t achieving a Special End in the Nightmare also a way of leaving safely?

To Mu Jiashi, Lin Qin might as well be their lucky star here.

He obviously made the proposal because he realised Lin Qin’s interest in the bookstore owner.

The young man was seated at the bookstore entrance when he was looking for him; later, Lin Qin had a whole shopping trolley of drinks. The keyword ‘drinks’ had triggered some memories inside Mu Jiashi’s mind.

Of course he remembers how Xü Beijin provided him clues for a Nightmare because he gave him his drink after he gave up on him entirely.

Therefore, what Lin Qin did seem to point to one thing.

Lin Qin is interested in Xü Beijin——this earlier conclusion gave Mu Jiashi confidence in his proposal.

As expected, after a brief hesitation, Lin Qin agreed to help them once.

In the stream, the viewers are ecstatic.

“hahaha, i knew Beibei was the weakness of the little apple!”

“this is already the second time Lin Qin is making a move for Beibei! oh what a better love story than twilight (no lol”

“let’s interview our Bei – are you touched this great dalao is doing all this because of you?”

Xü Beijin “…”

Uh… no, not really.

Xü Beijin is actually feeling slightly embarrassed.

He remembers how, in the last Nightmare, information on him, provided by Mu Jiashi, no less, was exactly what Ponytail used to make a deal with Lin Qin for him to help.

This time, Mu Jiashi himself is doing the same – asking for Lin Qin’s help with information he knew about Xü Beijin.

Not to mention how Ding Yi also got Lin Qin to help by using drinks, even though she didn’t know this was fundamentally related to Xü Beijin.

Lin Qin agreed, all three times.

It is really making Xü Beijin embarrassed.

He can’t help but feel like he is the reason Lin Qin has basically become a mercenary for hire for the Missiontakers in the Nightmare…

‘I do not kill Bairen, but Bairen died for me.’ (TL: Classical Chinese saying referring to how someone died for another person that could but did not kill him (i.e. it’s kind of like a favour; I don’t really know this story well either))

Though Xü Beijin has no intention of ever killing Lin Qin, but his embarrassment is basically the same.

In another sense, Lin Qin could be said to be taken advantage of due to Xü Beijin. Not that helping the Missiontakers was any trouble for Lin Qin, but… Lin Qin did agree implicitly, that they were friends.

Xü Beijin does not want a friend of his to suffer such treatment.

Lin Qin may be willing, but Xü Beijin isn’t.

Plus, there’s three times now. It may not seem much yet, but if more Missiontakers knew in the future, that Lin Qin would agree to a deal for matters related to Xü Beijin; if all these unscrupulous Missiontakers aren’t like Mu Jiashi, who really did have information he want, but just takes advantage of him with some deception, trying to bluff their way to easy mode…

That’ll be a catastrophe.

Xü Beijin has made a decision. He’ll talk about this sternly with Lin Qin in his meeting later.

Though… He starts awkwardly thinking about how Lin Qin fundamentally agreed to these deals so that he could fight with Xü Beijin; he wanted to learn about him more in order to know how he can successfully persuade Xü Beijin to fight with him.

So, if Xü Beijin did not want himself becoming a weakness for Lin Qin…

Wouldn’t that mean the goalpost is now moved onto him – He will have to provide the answer of ‘how Xü Beijin will agree to fight with Lin Qin’ to Lin Qin himself?

That’s basically suicide.

Xü Beijin is in a conundrum.

Not long after, though, he again decided he will tell Lin Qin about it.

No matter what, principles are principles.

Xü Beijin exhales while rubbing his nose in exhaustion.

He may have decided, yes, but regarding how to face Lin Qin and explain all the intricacies and his own mindset while also dissuading him from fighting with him at all are still things that are paining him.

He sighs again, wondering why Lin Qin, the Missiontaker… is always just thinking about fighting instead of literally anything Missiontaker-like.

Why can’t he just be like the other Missiontakers on-screen, all frustrated just dealing with the ever-changing Nightmares?