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Vol. 1 Chapter 13: Speculation
When Wu Shen suddenly came into view on screen, it shocked both XĂź Beijin and the viewers.
Seeing XĂź Beijin himself scared, though, the viewers immediately begin joyously teasing him back.
Xü Beijin’s face looks pretty grim. He’s regretting listening to the viewers and casting his own view into the stream!
Yes, this streaming service has a feature called multi-window mode.
The host can lock a certain video source in and fix it in place on the bottom right of the streaming screen, so that the audience can see both at once and choose the one they want.
The most common application is to allow the host to be seen while the main screen turns somewhere else.
Xü Beijin didn’t know this mode existed, but when he switched the camera over to the second floor of the Dollmaker’s, the viewers told him so and he agreed to do it.
So… That happened.
His own shocked face was in full view of the audience.
Or not full view, exactly; Xü Beijin is quite the expressionless poker face, the poker face always looking rather serious or scheming. He always looks like he’s planning something or should just simply be left alone.
Yet when he is scared, his gaze very obviously drifts up away from the screen and his mouth opens slightly, so the eagle-eyed viewers immediately bust him open.
“oho, so the host is scared too, im satisfied”
“Oh fuck! Why did he pop in suddenly? The sound from the trash bin falling over woke him up? And then suddenly appearing at the door… Okay, I’ll go the owner is guilty +1”
“sob, no one is buying hostism anymore”
“hey even the detective dalao has given up on that, you wanna be faceslapped still saying [emoji]”
“Insane… Wrong… Could this be, the owner’s letters to his wife?”
“oh, as expected of dalao, when were laughing at host ur working out the truth [thumbs up]”
“Doesn’t seem conclusive. While the wife’s image is not exactly good, but we haven’t seen adjectives like ‘insane’ up to this point. The contents of the letters are really key here… I got screenshots! I’ll go study them”
“were cheering for u dalao”
“too bad the owner suddenly appeared, we can’t study the fragments like this…”
Yes, after Wu Shen showed up, Quarrelsome and Glasses got chased away immediately..
They tried to reason with Wu Shen like Ponytail did the last run, but they were still in the corridor that time, and this time he found them snooping about his room already. It is beyond a reasonable doubt at that point.
It’s lucky they were quick on their feet and Wu Shen didn’t manage to beat them up.
And, even more dramatically than last time, Wu Shen ends up locking up the glass door to the first floor entirely, stunning both Quarrelsome and Glasses.
On the abandoned streets, the two stare blankly at each other. The mood is frigid.
Glasses then bursts out angrily, “I told you! I told you we should go to Wu Shen first. Now great… Great! What next?!”
Quarrelsome is being quarrelsome, “I… It’s your fault for chickening out of arguing with me back then in the first place!”
Glasses “…”
Never mind. Humans cannot communicate meaningfully with Homo Quarrelsomus.
He’ll just end up driving himself mad.
Glasses tightens his fists.
That is when Ponytail and Lin Qin, finally free of the second wave of dolls, rushes back from the other side of the street.
Lin Qin glances at the locked Dollmaker’s before continuing his way towards the bookstore.
He’s been disinterested in the whole Nightmare and dolls situation in general. Now that it’s locked, obviously he’s going to go to Xü Beijin instead, maybe he’ll end up agreeing to fight if he continues clinging to him?
Ponytail, meanwhile, is patiently dealing with the pointless argument and blame-shifting between Quarrelsome and Glasses.
After listening to the whole ordeal, Ponytail is quiet and, instead of laying blame, suddenly throws out a critical question, “if the door is locked, can the dolls still come out of the first floor to chase us?”
Dolls that have already participated in the chase wouldn’t come back to life again and add to the chase. Every chase is done by newly emerged dolls.
So now that the first floor is locked, won’t the dolls be locked inside?
The three of them look at each other, nonplussed.
Ponytail begins whispering to herself, “if so, this might be a chance, perhaps.”
When suddenly, Quarrelsome raises his hand, “I… uh, have something to say.”
“What?” Ponytail asks, “say it.”
Quarrelsome splays his palm open to reveal several crumpled pieces of paper, explaining, “just now, in the chaos, I grabbed some out.”
Ponytail’s eyes seem to shine as she slaps his shoulders to say, “good job, pretty quick on your feet, huh! Then let’s hurry to the bookstore now. We can also talk to him while piecing together the words on the paper.”
Glasses interjects, though, going “wait” and glaring at Quarrelsome, asking, “why didn’t you say anything just now?”
Quarrelsome rolls his eyes at him and says with this cheerful tone, “oh, I didn’t wanna. What’chu gonna do about it?”
Glasses “…”
He is pointing his fingers at the damned guy while trembling from anger. He almost feels like tearing up their cooperation at this point.
They almost got it all figured out anyway, and know everything that’s in the second-floor rooms now. Even if there’s information on those torn pieces of paper… What, can’t he check them out the next time?!
This attitude of Quarrelsome’s makes him worry he’d be angered to actual death before getting a True End.
Plus…
His thinking takes a dark turn as he is certain these two know nothing… Here, only he has the most key piece of information.
He’s almost about to talk about terminating their cooperation when Ponytail furrows her brows to order Quarrelsome, “apologise.”
“What?” Quarrelsome widens his eyes and says, “please, look at that attitude of his. The two of us can…”
“Apologise.”
Quarrelsome takes a deep breath and says stiffly to Glasses, “I’m sorry.”
The guy only ‘tch’s and bumps into his shoulder before walking away.
Quarrelsome takes a step back and angrily complains, “look, he’s…!”
“Then what about you?”
Quarrelsome widens his eyes again, going “huh?”
Ponytail coldly says, “what about your behaviour? How many times have I told you to stop picking fights with other people at a whim. Many Missiontakers in the Tower have information and utility cards we have no way of knowing about!”
Quarrelsome is still trying to excuse himself, “but, sis…”
“No buts!” Ponytail explains, “remember that Missiontaker that just up and disappeared? He may just happen to have a Trick card that lets him forcibly leave this Nightmare. Do you think that guy with glasses wouldn’t have any similar cards as a precaution?”
Quarrelsome goes quiet.
Ponytail says slightly coldly, “we all do. So, stop jumping into everyone’s crosshairs. As long as any of us manages a True End, all the Missiontakers in that Nightmare can ascend to higher floors. We are in a cooperative relationship, not a hostile one.”
Quarrelsome slowly nods.
Ponytail nods in turn, saying, “right, then let’s move. We’ll see what the paper has to say. We also need to organise all the information we’ve got so far.”
A few minutes later, everyone is studying Quarrelsome’s pieces of paper in the bookstore.
The bookstore owner, XĂź Beijin, is looking at them with that usual unreadable expression of his.
Though the Missiontakers now all know how this is just his front… Or rather, they know at least that he’s a harmless, information-providing NPC here.
They can always see these residents in other Nightmares too; Nightmares always feature Tower residents, the least unexpected of which is of course the owner of the Nightmare, and as for the rest, some are important and provide lots of information to the Missiontakers, but most of them are just there to be background objects.
These Missiontakers here have all been through a lot of Nightmares and know that by heart by this point.
Other than Ponytail who suspected XĂź Beijin at first, and Lin Qin who is still keenly interested in him, the other two Missiontakers have completely ignored his presence.
And to be frank, this is the attitude XĂź Beijin is most familiar with.
A nameless extra kind of role is most often taken by the Missiontakers as background NPCs. While he is slightly worried the audience would grow suspicious of how the players are treating him, but a look at the comments and he sighs in relief.
As the detective dalao has imposed his image of him being a player with a special role, the rest of the viewers also seem to have been convinced, even saying, “poor host, basically just a tool-person NPC lol.”
XĂź Beijin is also bitterly smiling inside. He truly is.
Now finally back in his comfort zone, Xü Beijin just quietly sits behind the counter, pouring a glass of water down, and takes a sip. Then, he focuses his attention to listen in on the Missiontakers’ discussions.
Quarrelsome just grabbed whatever paper he could in the chaos, and now that they’re working through them, they see that he only grabbed four crumpled balls, and of those only two have something written on them. They unfurl them and there’s a lot of weird sticky stains obscuring the words. It’s really hard for them to discern anything.
“… Wake up to reality…” Ponytail reads out, narrowing her eyes, “… never be back… impossible…”
She tries to look more closely, even scratching at the stains using her fingernails, but ends up sighing to say, “it’s useless. Those are the only characters recognisable.”
Glasses is holding up the other piece of paper and slowly reading out, “… I don’t believe… all my fault… don’t say… nobody loves… more than me…” He furrows his brows and mutters, “loves what?”
Ponytail puts the pieces of paper aside and mulls over them for a second before saying, “never mind then. Since the dolls are probably not going to come, we can organise our thoughts.”
Glasses begins by saying, “sure. First off, this Nightmare is about the case of the missing child, Wu Chun. The Nightmare’s owner is her father, Wu Shen, the owner of the Dollmaker’s. She has been missing for over two months at this point.”
Ponytail follows from that, “this case is unresolved. When xiao-Chun went missing, Wu Shen was making dolls in his second-floor workshop. His wife was off at work. No surveillance camera captured her form at all.
After her disappearance, xiao-Chun’s parents argued and ended up divorcing. Wu Shen believes that his wife does not care about their daughter, and even suspects xiao-Chun ran away from home because of her mother’s strict attitude towards her.”
Glasses interjects at this point, “however, according to the letter from Wu Shen’s friend, this friend does not believe that the owner’s wife is at fault here, but suggests Wu Shen should reconsider who’s truly at fault here.
The bookstore owner also said that she would go out of her way to buy snacks for her daughter. It does not seem like she doesn’t like her daughter. She may have just had high expectations for her.”
Ponytail nods and concludes, “that’s right. So all in all, the owner’s wife seems to be a strict, but still loving mother. Of course… Wu Shen’s view of her may also be correct. Her image to the outside world is not necessarily reflective of her real self.
The bookstore owner also mentioned having heard a woman’s scolding and a child’s cries in the middle of the night. It is possible she is someone who would beat up and chastise her kids behind doors.
And the diary also recorded that not long after xiao-Chun disappeared, the wife began to say if something terrible might have already befallen xiao-Chun, and even suggested to give up their search for her.”
Glasses can’t help but sigh, “the clues are all contradictory…”
So is the wife a good person or a bad person?
There’s proof backing both claims of her either being a strict but loving mother, or a temperamental madwoman that lambastes her daughter and ends up driving her to run away from home.
And it is also merely a guess that xiao-Chun ran away from home. She is only six years old. It is hard to say if she is able to independently think of something as mature as ‘mommy always beats me up, so I should leave this home.’
And what if someone did kidnap her?
XĂź Beijin also falls into thought.
When suddenly, a comment rolls over the stream, from the detective dalao.
“Everyone! I have a new theory!”