Volume 3 - CH 45.3

Muscular is quick to add, “I’m not going. I plan to explore this apartment elsewhere,” then he turns to the young man who hasn’t spoken the whole time, “well? You with me?”

Shen Yünjü looks all cold and distant, even in the Missiontakers’ eyes he seems overly devoid of emotions.

After arriving in the lobby with the others, other than introductions and recounting his experience in the first run of the Nightmare, he hasn’t spoken another word.

The young man glances at Muscular.

The smile on Muscular slowly fades away. While he is sweating in secret, suspecting his intentions may have been discovered, Shen Yünjü unexpectedly nodded.

Muscular looks happy all of a sudden.

It is so painfully obvious on his face that the thin Missiontaker gives him an odd look then looks back at Shen Yünjü. He is hesitant, but still decides to say, “be careful.”

Muscular didn’t think otherwise of that remark, and just nods to say, “we will.”

Shen Yünjü also nods slightly.

Jiang Shuangjie and the teenage girl ignored their interactions entirely to wait on the elevator themselves, planning on heading for the eleventh floor directly. The thin Missiontaker is following behind them, all worried-looking.

He has realised that, in this Nightmare, the things to keep an eye out for is, perhaps, more than just the Nightmare itself.

In the stream, the viewers are sighing for them, typing, “oh, it’s over for them, why are they not heading for the commercial area?”

“exploring in the apartment now? theyre trying to shoot another final destination lol”

Xü Beijin is holding his milk tea and blanking out with a neutral expression.

The viewers of the stream have become used to their host’s silence and taciturn nature, too. Xü Beijin is often blanking out like that, but it’s not easy to say whether he’s thinking or just zoning out because of mental exhaustion.

He’s always been rather obscure in the Nightmares, both for the audience and the Missiontakers. He maintains a certain distance from all of them. Not that he would reject suggestions from the viewers, of course.

Though… Even when he’s quietly blanking out, the viewers still can’t help but turn their attention to him.

Anyway, Xü Beijin’s consciousness has returned now after seeing that question float past the comment barrage. He hesitates, but doesn’t mention Muscular, because he still hasn’t any proof.

Instead, he asks, “I’m wondering where the owner of the Nightmare is.”

“!! oh yeah, we havent seen them yet”

Xü Beijin then chimes in to ask, “… a safehouse?”

“yeah!”

“makes sense”

“great, without the detective dalao here, weve gotta pick ourselves up by the bootstraps”

“lolol you guys are praising me too much, it was just a thought, call me the new dalao and I might just let my ego go to my head”

Xü Beijin ignores the viewers’ teases at each other and instead straightens himself and murmurs, “the commercial and apartment complex; where would they be…? Safehouses are in the commercial complex… No, he should be a tenant at the apartment…”

Deductions about the owner of Nightmares should always take the Nightmare’s scenes into consideration.

There was a Dollmaker’s in the first Nightmare, which means the owner of the Nightmare must have been related somehow. The second Nightmare owner was a little boy, whose family bedroom tied into the whole family business with him.

In this Nightmare, there is a commercial complex and an apartment complex. These scenes must tie into the Nightmare owner somehow.

He may be a tenant in the apartment, or equally a store owner of the commercial area.

Or even the management, but this is more unlikely, because the Missiontakers went straight into the apartment unit in the very beginning of the Nightmare.

An apartment complex, and a commercial complex…

Xü Beijin is speculating on scenes. In his mind, he is picturing the unknown owner of this Nightmare realising their apartment’s electronics were acting weird. They ran outside and right into the nearby commercial area, only to run into similar troubles there.

It’s a simplest possible of conjectures.

Of course, some other more outlandish conjectures may also be possible. For example, imagine the Nightmare owner being a delivery driver who delivered some takeaway to the apartment complex, during which they became terrified as he realised the electronics have gone sentient and rogue.

No matter what, though, it all remains speculation before they can find the Nightmare owner.

Sentient electronics… the Luoke Apartment…

Xü Beijin is staring right at the screen of the stream, watching it play out, while wondering, what those terms might imply here.

It might be something that leads him to deep despair.

Meanwhile, the audience start typing, “theyve gone to the 11th floor!”

They have arrived right outside of Room 1104 on the eleventh floor.

They knocked on the door for a while, but no response comes. It’s really quiet inside, too, nothing could be heard. Jiang Shuangjie is feeling the fixed gaze on her back again, making her uncomfortable.

… After arriving in this Nightmare, the situation has turned up so many times that Jiang Shuangjie is becoming numb. She still has no idea what’s going on, or what’s happened in this apartment building.

She takes a deep breath and knocks on the door hard again, yelling, “Shuangshuang! It’s sis! Are you in there?!”

No response comes.

The thin Missiontaker quietly interjects, “could she… have left her apartment unit already? We just missed each other?”

Possibly, because there are six whole elevators in the apartment building. They cannot be certain if Jiang Shuangmei has taken another elevator down. It would be awkward if she went down as they went up.

The teenage girl just simply says, “we just need to check the elevators then.”

They arrive at the elevator hall to check them out. There are six of them, and besides the one they came up in, which is stopped on floor eleven, one is on floor eight, and the rest are all on the ground floor.

The elevator on floor eight is still slowly coming up.

“What’s this?” The thin Missiontaker murmurs, “who’s coming up?”

They are waiting. The elevator might be Jiang Shuangmei, or Lin Qin, or the Muscular and Shen Yünjü pair.

The dozens of seconds felt much longer than that.

Finally, with a ‘ding,’ the elevator arrives at the eleventh floor. The door slowly opens.

All three Missiontakers are in full view of its interior.

… There is nobody inside!