Volume 3 - CH 49.2

Ten minutes earlier, following the stream’s camera, we would arrive at the commercial complex.

Muscular was already gone somewhere, and the rest of the Missiontakers have split into two, one looking for their missing utility card, while this group left the apartment building altogether.

Xü Beijin chose to focus on Thin, the teenage girl and Shen Yünjü mostly because he is still rather curious about the expression Shen Yünjü once showed towards the commercial complex.

They found nothing useful about the apartment building, and decided to head towards the commercial complex, when Shen Yünjü showed that strange look on his face again.

He could feel that something unreasonable, terrifying was approaching him, so he was restless, agitated, fearful, but he had to hold back from showing it, lest the monster notices and rushed his way.

Thin and the teenage girl were preoccupied talking about something else, meanwhile, on things regarding this Nightmare.

They basically knew what was happening in this Nightmare, but have yet to discover the Nightmare’s owner or found out anything about the Ending of the Nightmare.

Thin complained, “if only we knew it wasn’t an empty house…”

Just like Lin Qin, they thought the house next to Xü Beijin’s in the Tower was empty.

The Tower resident moved away a few days ago, and nobody expected a new resident would have moved in without so much as a noise barely a few days in?

So they have basically been surprise-included into this Nightmare.

“Watch your words,” the teenage girl uttered coldly, “regarding this Nightmare… I might have heard something about it.”

Thin’s eyes sparkled and he turns to take a glance at Shen Yünjü, seeing if he was far enough away that the girl could just tell him then and there, only to notice his lingering fear and being so distracted that he didn’t even notice Thin looking at him.

Thin went hesitant.

They were at the commercial complex’s entrance already, they’ll be inside in a moment.

Thin asked, “… are you alright?”

Shen Yünjü was looking up at the electronic display of the commercial building when he answered with such a gravelly voice, “no…”

Both Thin and the teenage girl paused.

Shen Yünjü bitter smiled, saying, “not doing too well.”

Thin thought carefully about what words to say, and asks, “uh… If it’s something about the Nightmare… Of course, we’re not necessarily forcing you…”

Shen Yünjü looked up at the commercial building and said with this dream-like, floating kind of tone, “I’ve been here…”

Thin and the girl both looked shocked

In the stream, Xü Beijin was quite visibly shaken just hearing that too. He glanced at the comment barrage where the viewers were now speculating that the young man might have been to this Nightmare already… But Xü Beijin was anxious.

Clearly, Shen Yünjü wasn’t talking about the Nightmare, or even the Tower, but…

“… on Earth,” Shen Yünjü finished his sentence, “I’ve been to this place on Earth.”

Now even the viewers in the stream are in shock, “woah, what did he mean?”

“he meant the artists of this game were so lazy they ported buildings on earth directly into the game! there might even be copyright issues!”

“so, he’s basically a physical cheat? [doge emoji]”

“as a usual player, id like to express my disdain at this behaviour… game companies, plz look at buildings ive been to!!!”

The viewers have veered off the rails completely to laugh at themselves, completely failing to realise what implications Shen Yünjü’s words carried.

Xü Beijin was truly relieved the detective dalao was absent then, and wasn’t here to watch the stream.

Otherwise, when he had the clues of ‘a host-only game’ plus what the players assert ‘to have once seen these on Earth,’ he may come to rather unfortunate conclusions.

At least, Xü Beijin could come up with unfortunate conclusions.

His expression was changing a lot as he stared at the young man in the screen… This should be impossible.

“… That’s impossible!” Thin almost looked like he was stung by a hornet, loudly disagreeing, “how could buildings on Earth be in the Nightmare?!”

Even the usually calm and collected teenage girl had her face contorted and muttering something to herself.

Shen Yünjü chuckled coldly out of reflex. He just told them he had once been to this commercial complex on Earth. He hasn’t even told them that he could not find out where this feeling of familiarity came from in any of his memories.

He was certain he had been here, but he could remember nothing more, so he believed… His memories, were faulty.

He didn’t dare say anything about this, though.

He didn’t dare face the issue or share this issue with anyone else, because everyone knew that the Server, NE, was monitoring them 24/7.

There have always been rumours in the Tower, or rather, conspiracies in the Tower, that involve NE.

A common theme among them is that there is some kind of unseen hand moving things behind it all, monitoring them through the means known as NE.

Even though NE is just an artificial intelligence, whether it could recognise itself as being an accomplice in such a terrible act is yet another question, but the Server, undoubtedly, is monitoring everything in Nightmares around the clock.

There was a moment when Shen Yünjü really was going to talk about the problem with his memories, because he alone could never ever shoulder such a hefty, horrifying truth, and he needed to share, no matter what, he did not want to face this truth alone.

Yet fear has made him give up on the idea.

For the current Shen Yünjü, whether he said it out loud or not, it would seem some terrifying fate was awaiting him, regardless. That’s why, in the end, he said part of the truth.

The other part may, one day, end up driving him mad.

Xü Beijin gave a good, hard look at this rigid, pale young man. He was also curious about what this young man knew. If he has already told them everything that gripped him, then why was he still so fearful?

Also, the other question, just like the audience has said, what if this commercial area was really just a product of laziness, of deciding to borrow something from somewhere in reality? Why could that not be a possibility?

This was a simple, straightforward enough conclusion, easy to make, since all in all, this was just a game.

So… What was it that Shen Yünjü feared?