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Right now, the Missiontakers are bearing the full brunt of harsh, cold winds on the rooftop, but the victim and the killer who pushed him, are yet to appear.
Mu Jiashi is murmuring, “it’s almost time… are the two of them still nowhere to be found?”
Almost by instinct, he glances at Fei, who has proven to be the most reliable in the Nightmare so far──Notwithstanding her paranoia and… creativity, of course. He is at least able to vet for her seriousness in investigating the Nightmare.
Although, the face Fei is making, is making Mu Jiashi’s chest clench.
The next second, he hears Fei ask, “um… What are we doing… here?”
Mu Jiashi “…”
He turns his poker face away from her.
All the Missiontakers are silent.
Fei looks at the other Missiontakers oddly, and is quiet for a moment, before suddenly, a look of terror overtakes her and she asks, “did I… forget something?” She reflexively turns to Wu Jian, yelling, “did I?!”
Wu Jian is rubbing his face and saying with a parched tone, “yeah… Fei, yes, you have forgotten,” he looks more exhausted and even frightened than usual, “I did, too. Yeah. I forgot lots of things, but…”
Fei is pale as a ghost when she follows up, “but, I do not feel that anything is wrong.”
Almost as soon as she said that, she looks practically petrified with fear and hopelessness.
Mu Jiashi looks like he wants to interject. Like──Enough, the both of you. This man and this woman have managed to instil nothing but fearmongering and panic in the Nightmare so far, that even the three other normal… Well, ‘normal,’ Missiontakers have ended up focusing too much attention on their conspiracies.
Even though… Even though they’re in a Nightmare right now!
Mu Jiashi takes a deep breath, as he compares how he is feeling right now to how highschoolers close to gaokao feel when all their friends are instead talking about what job they’re going to take when they graduate university.
… Like, what’s wrong with all of you?!
While quietly observing, he also sees Collector still looking at Fei and Wu Jian with that glint of intrigue in his eyes, while Biceps and Baldie look like they’re just daydreaming instead. Fei and Wu Jian… are the paranoid, worrying Fei and Wu Jian, yes.
Mu Jiashi has to speak up, telling them, “now get yourselves together, please.”
The rest of the Missiontakers seem surprised by the slightly threatening tone with which Mu Jiashi said it.
In this Nightmare so far, he has always looked like some unenergetic goody two-shoes. So when he suddenly steels his face and tone to warn everyone else, they are all stupefied.
Mu Jiashi, standing there, his hair currently fluttering wildly (TL: Like Boris Johnson’s, perhaps, hehe) in the strong winds, is exuding a strong, firm aura through his firm gaze. He starts speaking.
“We’re in a Nightmare. What we need to do is get this Nightmare done with, and not to talk about how to escape the Tower.
If you keep getting distracted with other topics, we might just end up all succumbing to this Nightmare instead. The future will be never.”
His gaze sweeps across each and every Missiontaker present, piercing through their helplessness, coldness, disdain, and shame, before he tells them, “there’s a time and place for everything,” and then he specifically turns to Fei and Wu Jian to say, “don’t talk about that anymore. The apocalypse…”
His expression turns too complicated to analyse as he comments, “even if it’s true, so what? What can we even do?”
Both Fei and Wu Jian seem taken aback for a moment before they both look like they want to speak up, but Mu Jiashi has already changed topics, saying, “it’s almost the time when we saw the two of them the last run.”
Fei and Wu Jian had to swallow their questions back in.
Fei has started forgetting, but she still remembers what happened the last run, and so is able to easily work out why they’re up here on the rooftop with a little thinking.
She knows what Mu Jiashi said is correct, that is why she is now doing her best to focus on the scene in front of her for now.
On the first floor of the building, XĂź Beijin sees that they have finally got back on track to deal with the Nightmare, and also sighs in relief inside, because the moment they did so, the viewers of the stream are also back.
He observes the comment barrage, to see it’s all along the lines of “suddenly dc’ed,” “Beibeis signal is bad?” and “aaaah did i miss anything.”
Xü Beijin is quiet for a bit, and decides against following along the viewers’ line of thought, and tells them, “something happened just now, I’m sorry about that… It’s, you know, something I had to sign…”
“oh! an NDA!”
“got it got it, we all understand, yup”
“these games really are mysterious… i wonder who actually gets to even play, like tbh, the host is here to show us, but we can just see no touch, it pains me”
“if only the detective dalao is here, sob, he could definitely have analysed lots of things”
“hes probably caught up in %&#$?”
XĂź Beijin is stunned for a moment, seeing garbled text suddenly appear in the middle of the comment barrage.
‘He is probably caught up in %&#$’?
… What happened? Why is there this garbled text in the comment? What did the viewer actually type?
Xü Beijin’s brows are furrowed, but he isn’t going to act lightly. He observes the responses from the other viewers, and nothing suggests that it was out of place.
… A censor? What did the viewer say that had to be censored?
After that, the string of jumbled text is repeatedly mentioned on the comment barrage, and the viewers’ attentions have become focused on it, and are entering a discussion.
“oh… %&#$? seriously? I didn’t think the detective dalao would be involved in %&#$?”
“unexplained disappearances these days can only be cuz of %&#$, i think?”
“but… but I’m still worried about the dalao”
“heh, not like us worrying would have any effect anyway”
“if u have so much free time to worry about it, might as well come admire our Beibeis pretty face, and ud feel better [hold_face emoji]”
Xü Beijin “…”
How did the conversation completely go off the rails and steam right ahead towards him? Talk about the %&#$ some more!
XĂź Beijin is cussing inside.
The viewers did mention that the general situation seemed bad before, and now, with the inexplicable %&#$ here… He can’t help but wonder, would it be war?
There is too little to go on, so he decides to drop the question in favour of another.
Why was it jumbled up? Is it the streaming system’s inherent filter for sensitive words, or… is it NE?
If it’s the former, then with the sudden drop out of his stream already earlier, then something like censoring sensitive topics is to be expected.
But if it’s the latter…
Is NE really onto him, watching him already?
Xü Beijin rubs his nose at the thought. He’s worried, of course, but, he also can’t help but even feel relieved.
But… But, if NE really knew he was livestreaming all along, why did he not stop it? Why is he letting it pass?
XĂź Beijin is now watching his control panel floating n the air while feeling deeply confused, and suspecting.
He is suspecting, if something…
Has happened to NE?
He narrows his eyes a little, and recalls how he did not have a single workday for over a dozen days straight. Does this imply that NE is tacitly permitting his streaming? (TL: And so is curating which Nightmares he gets to enter and thus, stream)
Then he thinks about how the Tower has been filled with both rumours of ‘someone has successfully left the Tower’ and ‘the Ultimate Nightmare,’ and falls deeper into thought.
Is NE just watching idly by while these rumours spread?
He does not believe that NE wouldn’t know about how lifeless the general mood has been in the Tower these few years, nor does he believe that NE wouldn’t know about the changes those rumours could bring to such a Tower, nor, in fact, does he believe that NE wouldn’t have prepared any emergency measures for tackling such rumours emerging.
So, could NE even be part of the forces fanning the rumours along?
… To what end?
The question posed in front of Xü Beijin has a quick, dirty conclusion; a conclusion which makes Xü Beijin’s expression turn sour.
Both the rumours of a ‘successful escape’ and an ‘Ultimate Nightmare’ can only lead to one certain conclusion, that is, both the Missiontakers and even Actors of the Tower desperately seeking for that uncertain glimmer of hope.
The Tower will be reignited. People will once again get fired up climbing the storeys.
In fact, if he puts it like that, the rumour that ‘someone has successfully left the Tower,’ could actually bring about the result that ‘someone has successfully left the Tower.’
… But could someone actually really leave the Tower during this upheaval? Can anyone really escape ‘Escape’? And then what happens… after they actually escape?
XĂź Beijin finds his own fingers trembling. He knows that there could be fright, anxiety, paranoia, and other emotions behind it, but somehow, he seems to be detached from all those emotions at the same time; he would describe himself as being entirely encased in ice, isolated from the world.
He can’t help but faintly recall, that many, many years ago, he was in a similar state.
That is because, back then…