Volume 5 - CH 91.1

Look at what Lin Qin has done here.

Involving a Tower resident in their thing directly, and declaring so openly.

Does he think it’s so impressive to ask a Tower resident for help or something?!

… Actually, looking at Lin Qin’s face there, he’s not only being impressive, but even gloating.

The whole place is shrouded in a mist of awkwardness, like a random lovestruck guy barged in on some serious work setting, and is currently very inappropriately showcasing his affections for his target to the entire world.

The Missiontakers who know of Lin Qin’s ‘love’ to Xü Beijin, like Fei, Wu Jian and Jiang Shuangmei, are all casting rather complicated gazes in Xü Beijin’s direction, so much so he’d like to bury his head in the ground.

What else could he do, though, but sit there like nothing has happened?

… Yes. This is average NPC #01 of the game. An artificial AI knows nothing. No.

Suits is the one to break the awkward silence, saying, “that works, but…” he glances over at Mystic and says, “should we let Mystic try it? We might be able to end the Nightmare like so.”

They made that decision in the third run of the Nightmare, but it’s already the fourth run now. Keep going, and more unknowable crumbling may be in place. Whether they should even try for a True End at this point is the Missiontakers’ call.

The Missiontakers look at each other, and no one objects.

Here, no one is paying attention to how Lin Qin is still staring in Xü Beijin’s direction with narrowed eyes.

Fei is walking towards Xü Beijin.

She wants to communicate with him, over the Tower residents. She is too distracted to even notice Lin Qin’s gaze. After giving Wu Jian a heads-up, she sneaked over. The rest of the Missiontakers are focused on Mystic, and take no notice of her.

She’s now in front of Xü Beijin.

Xü Beijin sits there calmly, looking up at her.

He interacted with this Missiontaker once last Nightmare, and that’s it. Xü Beijin saw her many guesses shared with Wu Jian through the stream, and is aware of how imaginative and perceptive they are.

So he knows that, as soon as Fei realised the question with the Tower residents, she would have come for him.

… Xü Beijin is at least aware of his own reputation on the bottom floor of the Tower.

Fei, standing in silence, finally breaks it to ask, “in this Nightmare, are you all just Acting?”

Xü Beijin, looking at her with the calm and coldness she is familiar with from the last Nightmare, tells her, “… life is like a performance, isn’t it?”

Fei then quietly mumbles, “and so does performance imitate life.”

Xü Beijin “…”

Oops. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to speak cryptically.

He lifted his own image on so high in the beginning that Xü Beijin isn’t even sure how to continue this conversation from here.

He knows that Fei is probably suspecting the Tower residents are ‘Acting,’ the same thing the survivors in this building are nominally doing. They could be forced to take part in this survival game under coercion, too.

Yet, of course, it could still merely only be a setting in a game.

In the escape game, ‘Escape,’ where the NPCs are ‘Acting,’ as per the game’s settings. NE is their final boss… Something like that.

So Xü Beijin has to convince Fei that, in fact, Tower residents, the Actors, are the same humans, the same species as them, the same players in a game as them.

So he knocks on the desk with his finger, and suddenly breaks out a smile to say, “in fact, are you not also playing the part of the players of the game in this building? Acting is merely one other way of participating in the game… to become a player within.”

Fei seems lost.

“You are the players in this game,” Xü Beijin says, “and so are we.”

Fei continues staring at him blankly, until suddenly, all colours drain from her face.

She is looking at Xü Beijin with fear and confusion. She opens her mouth, but no words come. She is even fearing that the words Xü Beijin told her would be gone from her memory the next second… Like… Is this seriously something that could be told?

All these years, and no one has ever suspected the Tower residents. Yet right now, right here, in a simple sentence from Xü Beijin, she has been told the truth? These Tower residents… They, they are not merely the NPCs in a game?!

They are equally players?!

Is this what Xü Beijin wanted to tell her?

He is definitely referring to the ‘game’ taking place in the building on the surface, not necessarily the ‘game’ ‘Escape,’ right?

But… but…

Xü Beijin’s eyes, that are so deep, so serious, so lifeless, are staring right into her. No, no… He must be implying something. He has chosen his words to mean exactly what he wants them to. He is not referring to this Nightmare alone. He is trying to use this Nightmare to tell her some… information, that he cannot talk about.

Fei is thinking more deeply about what Xü Beijin just implied.

She opens her mouth, and says with this dry tone, “perhaps… perhaps… I might know what you mean… I, no, I mean… I don’t know…”

Xü Beijin, looking at her gently, tells her, “you don’t have to push yourself here. You know who I am on the bottom floor,” then he smiles again, telling her, “no? You can come see me when you need to.”

Fei falls silent, and nods, then returns to the Missiontakers in a daze.

Then, when she has finally adjusted herself, and listens in on the Missiontakers’ discussion on information related to this Nightmare, she finds a morbid hilarity taking over her thoughts.

Obviously, they are laughable thoughts stemming from some the position on her high horse… These Missiontakers know nothing. That is why they can only see what is right in front of them.

Yet, the fact that they know nothing, is what is making Fei feel ridiculous.

She bites her lips tightly, afraid that the next second, the tears she has been holding back down her throat would come pouring out alongside her emotional clutches, and she would be reduced to a mindless, sobbing mess.

Wu Jian, seeing her like this, asks worriedly, “Fei, are you alright?”

“No… No, I’m not,” Fei makes a bitter smirk, and adds, “but… but, I’m better than I have ever been.”

The truth is excruciating, but for people who pursue truth at all cost like them, knowing the truth here, is the best result they could have asked for.

Fei is willing to live with the excruciating pain and open eyes; she finds no bliss in ignorance.

She thinks about it some more, before taking a deep breath to focus back on the Nightmare at hand. They should be out of this Nightmare soon, and she will have plenty of time to think about it all back in the Tower.