CH 65.3

Lin Qin, having sorted his thoughts, raises his head back up to tell the woman who looks rather uneasy, with a slightly cold tone, “I see.”

He pauses, but then, he seems unsure if this was too unclear, so he clarifies, adding, “no matter what, I do not want people monitoring his life, or his Nightmare. If he does not want anyone in his Nightmare, he must have his own reasons.”

He has to get this done quickly and then go ask Xü Beijin about everything. He does not plan on asking any other Missiontaker; he does not trust them.

Besides, he is sure they are misunderstanding his interactions with Xü Beijin in any case.

He is not sure whether he likes or doesn’t like Xü Beijin right now… No matter what, though, it remains that he will not stand by idly if any Missiontakers try to disturb Xü Beijin.

That is what he promised Xü Beijin. That is also what he wants to do.

If he could not so much as do that for him, then on what grounds is he even trying to get Xü Beijin to fight with him? Whether he likes Xü Beijin aside, he definitely does not want Xü Beijin to dislike him.

Even if he does not like Xü Beijin, then for being able to fight’s sake, Lin Qin is willing to go to these lengths to deal with the problem; if he does actually like Xü Beijin, then all the more reason to.

In Lin Qin’s barbarically simplistic mind, is an extremely straightforward piece of logic──Who are all you people who dare to bully the person he likes?!

He is not sure of the latter yet… Who cares, he’ll act like he does in the mean time!

Lin Qin, thus determined, deals with everything he needed to with the literal speed of a raging storm. Jiang Shuangmei just watched in a daze.

After the man then stormed out of the house, Jiang Shuangmei finally murmurs quietly, “tch, so even the mad dog has found an owner for himself…”

Yet, she has lost her older sister, her only older sister.

All this time, she has returned to that Nightmare, several times, even, looking for her older sister, but she never met her again. The elevator’s voice was male the entire time.

This means, either her older sister has been bumped into some other obscure electronic device, or…

Whichever the case, though, she seems, to have no chance of rescuing her older sister, Jiang Shuangjie, ever again.

The moment she came to the realisation, there was a period when only an intense sadness and hopelessness enveloped her.

After leaving the house, Lin Qin stopped for a moment before heading for Xü Beijin’s bookstore.

Because he stayed in Xü Beijin’s bookstore day in, day out for a while before, and always came extremely early in the morning, and leaving at wee hours in the morning, so Xü Beijin, for the first time ever, allowed him the permission to use his bookstore’s teleportation door without him having to invite him in.

This now means that Lin Qin can enter his bookstore at any time he pleases, as long as Xü Beijin is inside.

Xü Beijin was feeling awkward about it at first, but then thought, actually, Lin Qin is just here to read books, which would make this situation, the equivalent of him receiving any regular customer in a store. So what’s the problem?

Xü Beijin is satisfied with that explanation.

What he wasn’t expecting, though, was for Lin Qin to come at night while he was summoned away by a Nightmare.

Lin Qin knew that Xü Beijin does not sleep, so he just pushed the door open to enter, however, when he saw the man sitting behind the counter, with his eyes closed, he couldn’t help but be confused for a moment.

He’s asleep…?

But then, he gets it; it must be that this Tower resident is participating in someone else’s Nightmare.

Oddly enough, Lin Qin is actually feeling slightly irritated with the thought.

The same kind of unhappiness that he felt when he was here visiting Xü Beijin earlier, only to find Mu Jiashi already in the bookstore.

He thinks for a moment, and concludes, it must be because, it feels like someone is trying to keep Xü Beijin’s attention away from him.

… That said, Tower residents being present in others’ Nightmares seem to be a completely random thing as arranged by the Server. Therefore, unhappy as Lin Qin may be, he can only sit down with a long face, watching Xü Beijin and waiting for the Nightmare to end.

In the Nightmare, Xü Beijin is feeling an inexplicable chill down his back.

Of course, there is no way he could know that a certain little apple has invaded his home and is now glaring intently at him.

It would be nightmarish just to imagine… Get it?

Right now, the sentencing has just been over, and it seems whatever tasks the Server wanted Xü Beijin to do is also complete, as there are no further orders for him.

Not that it means he could just start doing whatever he wants to do, though.

What extras in Nightmares could possess in terms of freedom is in the sense of choosing a more comfortable posture when they’re lying down as a corpse.

Xü Beijin is… different from that, at least after acquiring the streaming system. As long as he could stay out of the Missiontakers’ attention, then he could basically do whatever he wants without a warning from the Server.

So now, he hesitates between snooping around for clues in the amusement park and settling down somewhere obscure to watch the Missiontakers’ activities via the stream.

Before he could come to a decision, though, Dai Wu, who is coincidentally passing by in front of him, sees him standing there, and so approaches him to remark, “it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Missiontakers being so good at stirring up trouble.”

Xü Beijin is surprised, and asks, “you mean… in this Nightmare?”

“Yeah,” replies Dai Wu, “this Nightmare keeps starting every single night recently; I’ve been here for days.”

A few days in a row?

Xü Beijin pauses to think.

It’s been more than a dozen days since he has been in any Nightmare; he has not ever been inside of this Nightmare in particular, in other words, it’s his first time Acting here.

He thought this was a rare Nightmare, or a Nightmare assigned to an Actor on the bottom floor for the first time.

This latter is not actually that rare, because when Actors are allowed to the higher floors, then the new characters assigned to the Actors to fill the gap are randomly picked.

But, from what Dai Wu is saying, this Nightmare has been here for a while?

Xü Beijin furrows his brows a little──Why has he never been inside of this Nightmare? (TL: especially when, clearly, this one has so many extras) Did the Server do this on purpose?

Dai Wu does not know what Xü Beijin is thinking about, so he then changes topic to say, “the Tower is pretty noisy recently too. It just reminds me of a few years ago…” He looks Xü Beijin in the eye before moving his gaze away again, “you know, when the Tower was especially rowdy.”

Xü Beijin pulls the corners of his lips up to show a wooden smile.

That’s true, to an extent. It was lively a few years ago, followed by a few years of frigid chilliness.

Now, the ashes are relighting, is it?

Xü Beijin doesn’t make the connection that his Nightmare might attract people again like moths to a flame for now, instead, he is thinking about what Mu Jiashi told him – the rumour that ‘someone has left the Tower successfully.’

That is certainly big enough news to cause restlessness in the Tower.

Dai Wu is showing a rather shady smile all of a sudden, saying, “hey man, do you know what those Missiontakers are calling this Nightmare?”

Xü Beijin asks, confused by how often the topic is changing, “what?”

“The Ultimate Nightmare.”

Dai Wu speaks each syllable slowly and clearly, while watching Xü Beijin’s face closely.

As expected, the moment those words leave his mouth, Xü Beijin’s face contorts noticeably.

Dai Wu smiles, and quietly asks, “hey, bro, my man, since I told you so much already, won’t you tell me a favour? Do you actually know… what the ‘Ultimate Nightmare’ is?”

Xü Beijin looks at him solemnly, and shortly after, finally opens his mouth to say, “you would not want to know about it.”

His voice is slightly hoarse, dry; it sounds miserable, even.

Dai Wu seems somewhat surprised, asking, “so… you do know?” Then, looking at Xü Beijin, his expression changes drastically as well, when he recalls that long-lasting rumour of the Tower, asking, “oi oi, you can’t mean, it’s actually your Nightmare?”

“No. No, it is not,” Xü Beijin exhales a little as he calms back down, and, unexpected, a smile emerges, “why does everyone seem to think my Nightmare has secrets?”

Dai Wu “…”

He can’t help but wonder, if Xü Beijin’s Nightmare isn’t the ultimate Nightmare, then why, would he not let others into it? What he is doing is of course going to draw deliberate attention to his own Nightmare.

Dai Wu continues staring at the young man──at his acquaintance, with a complicated expression.

What secrets does he hold?

The conversation has reached a cold, dead end. On the other hand, the Missiontakers have reached a pinch as well.

Mu Jiashi, with deeply creased brows, is glaring at the piece of white paper in front of him.

Not long ago, Wu Jian, Baldie and Biceps actually found paper that is good enough for writing somewhere in the amusement park.

So the four of them, while following behind the survivors and Fei and Collector, tried to write down all the clues they have already gathered in the Nightmare.

Biceps seemed like he wanted to speak up, but with Baldie remaining quiet, he also does.

So Mu Jiashi began by testing the ink of the pens.

When suddenly, he just felt his vision… acting up, for lack of a better verb, when the next second, the few clear characters he wrote down, suddenly turned into illegible scribbles right there on the paper!