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Vol. 1 Chapter 24.2 - In The Tower
All three Missiontakers choose ‘Yes’ without hesitation.
Their forms immediately disappear. And so does Lin Qin’s form. And so does Xü Beijin, the doll of the little girl and Wu Shen himself.
After that, the Nightmare begins to disperse like fog. It slowly dissipates and fades into the endless grey smog.
XĂź Beijin opens his eyes back up in his bookstore in the Tower.
His bookstore in the Tower has two stories. The first floor is the storefront, full of shelves and books. The second floor is his personal space.
Right now, XĂź Beijin is sitting on his usual deck chair. On the wall that is also part of the wall of the bottom floor of the Tower, there is dim rays of light cast through the window. The bookstore is quiet, in contrast to the liveliness in the stream.
Xü Beijin can’t help but find it humorous. The moment he was heading to Wu Shen’s Nightmare, he was thinking about how he could laze about again. Yet, what he did gain in this Nightmare, seems like it would upend his entire life.
He turns his attention to the stream.
“woah, didn’t expect the true end to be like that”
“but wait, so w/o the utility card they couldnt have achieved the true end?”
“That’s right… The relationship between Actors and Missiontakers seem to be even more interesting than we thought, given that Wu Shen confessed he went to great lengths to ensure the Missiontakers picked up that utility card…”
“wouldnt that mean theyre helping each other not?”
“but actors can’t tell their own identity, so it sounds really challenging, what if some actor ended up in a role where they have to kill the missiontakers?”
“yeah… sounds hard”
“feels like wu shen got lucky and had these smart missiontakers; it’d be all over if they were dumbos”
“The Nightmare was hard regardless of that, too.”
“yea, and if we didnt have the infocard that said the doll is wu chun, whod have thot wu shen would do something so perverted?”
Though Xü Beijin can’t help but add, “actually, the most key thing is to realise that every single line of ‘evidence’ against the owner’s wife originated from Wu Shen himself.”
“eh?”
“that sounds… right?”
“Beibei is right! Once the problems with the diary entries, the letters, and the information Beibei spoke of became clear, it’d be obvious that Wu Shen is smearing his ex-wife’s reputation!”
“wait wait, even tho dalao and beibei are both saying that, i didnt see that?!”
Xü Beijin chuckles before saying, “then let’s have a little summary session, shall we?
We acquired information through Wu Shen’s diary, Wu Shen’s letters to and from his friend, his ex-wife’s letters that he tore apart, and one more letter from her that was put in the first floor counter. There’s also the information I told, but we’ll leave that aside for a moment.
Our first impression of Wu Shen’s ex-wife is from Wu Shen’s diary. He painted her as someone apathetic towards her own daughter’s disappearance, even going so far as to tell him that she thought something has already happened to her so they should stop searching.
This would make us suspect her immediately.
Then, in Wu Shen’s letters with his friend, the image has actually been reinforced, because the friend did agree that Wu Shen’s wife is temperamental.
However, if we analysed the contents of this letter, which actually concluded with the friend disagreeing with Wu Shen, along with the two letters she sent herself, it paints a whole other picture.
She wasn’t one to treat her daughter harshly or ignore her; these were all Wu Shen’s own delusional accounts of her.
And now, the information I told the Missiontakers.
They also had a clear distinction – Personal accounts, and second-hand information from Wu Shen.
The former included the fact that I saw her carry bags of sweets home, telling me she made a detour to buy them for her daughter. The information is first hand.
The latter included the ‘fact’ that she assaulted and told off her daughter at home at night, told to me by Wu Shen. This means the information depended on whether Wu Shen was trustworthy himself.
In conclusion, we can definitely see that every piece of news that negatively portray Wu Shen’s ex-wife came from Wu Shen himself. She herself didn’t even so much as appear inside this Nightmare.
I believe this is actually the Difficulty in this Nightmare. If the information was carefully scrutinised, particularly in terms of their source, the truth would have been revealed easily.
… That’s what I think.”
XĂź Beijin adds that last sentence as an afterthought after that long analysis, then he scratches his hair awkwardly.
Divulging all his own analyses and thoughts in front of an audience is an unfamiliar experience. The Tower is definitely not a place conducive to communication, so he has become used to keeping his thoughts to himself.
Though that kind of introverted habit is definitely not good for a stream.
Despite there only being four viewers, the number of comments has been significant, especially ones asking for the host to do things like exploring outside. No audience enjoys watching an ‘autistic’ host, so to speak.
And it is also worth mentioning that the viewers continued viewing the stream in its entirety not just because the Nightmare was thrilling, but also because XĂź Beijin was handsome.
Well, even in spite of his heavy eyebags and his drowsiness that means he’s always expressionless, and despite his muted self during streams. As long as his face remained in the bottom right corner of the stream, the viewers can only say, ‘our Beibei sure is handsome.’
Therefore, this first time that Xü Beijin has shown off his ability for careful thought and analysis, the viewers excitedly showering petals, applauds, cheers and praise and ‘666’ (TL: Typing lots of ‘6’ in comment barrages means you’re impressed in a Chinese context), all enthusiastic, makes Xü Beijin slightly awkward.
He quickly thanks them.
“hehe, no need to be humble Beibei, you’re amazing!”
“i didnt expect that at all… nice, Beibei!”
“i think i got it… but y did wu shen smear her in the first place?”
The detective dalao begins typing, “I believe I have a hypothesis for that.
Wu Shen might be ‘unaware’ he killed his own daughter, but that does not mean he doesn’t subconsciously ‘know.’ There must have been blood in the workshop, strange stenches in the air, the new doll he had no memory of making, etc. These were all hinting at the truth.
The flashback cutting off reflects that fact well; he did not want to face this reality, and chose to forget the horrible truth.
Yet forgetting does not eliminate all these strange clues in the store itself. Naturally, he ended up attributing them to his own significant other.
We could actually see from the information provided that Wu Shen and his wife did not actually have a good relationship. She told him off for being useless, and Wu Shen complained all the time about how his wife has been growing ever more impatient since their daughter was born.
I think this is enough to explain why, from the diary, to the letters, to his conversation with the host, he kept defaming his own wife.
There is also the fact that the dolls would chase after the Missiontakers which I believe can be explained by this. Wu Shen forgot, but his subconsciousness didn’t. Therefore, his fear of his own dolls, of his own insane personality, manifest as the dolls chasing and killing people.
In the end, he did commit a grave sin.”
The detective dalao sighs in front of his screen, and so do the viewers and XĂź Beijin.
XĂź Beijin is suddenly wondering, as the Actor himself, what does Wu Shen think of the Nightmare, and that owner of the Nightmare he was acting as?
Though unfortunately, they will never meet each other again. His curiosity is unlikely to ever be answered.
XĂź Beijin packs his emotions away and, after a few idle chats with the audience, promising to stream again soon enough, he ends his first ever gaming stream.
He isn’t sure how many hours the stream has been, either.
Meanwhile, there are four new ‘Follows’ on his stream interface. He falls into a bit of thought staring at the number, before closing the stream entirely. Then he sinks back into his chair, sitting in solitude for a while.
The lively stream and its comments having departed, the loneliness and emptiness of the Tower flows back in to surround him. He yawns and blanks out for a while, leaning by the table next to him.
Later, he gathers his self back and stands back up. Then he takes a coat with him as he heads out of the bookstore for a stroll.