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While Shen YĂźnjĂź was thinking about Fei and Wu Jian, the two in question just happened to run into each other.
Fei and Mu Jiashi, arrives into the same Cell Nightmare with Wu Jian, A-One and A-Two.
This is a Nightmare Fei and Wu Jian once went in together, so Fei is able to immediately regain her sense of self.
The two look each other in the eye, and both understands this Nightmare is set here to guarantee their regaining their sense of self. Then they both look at Mu Jiashi, who nods nonchalantly at them.
Fei reflexively sighs in relief.
They managed to escape from the strange and maddened intercity bus; the driver drove them off the road into some unknown countryside, almost like he’s going to kill them in secret.
Though when the vehicle came to a stop, he just left the car, raving and yelling, before disappearing into the wilderness.
Fei, completely flabbergasted, asked what was going on with the driver.
Mu Jiashi answered that, possibly, the driver was just tired of his urban life and a repetitive line of work just moving between two cities forever.
“The madness…” Mu Jiashi said, “made all the normal considerations that would stop him from just abandoning everything irrelevant.”
Whatever the driver thought, Mu Jiashi and Fei left the scene without further trouble. Now, they’ve regained their memories and have met up with other companions.
Fei, still anxiously biting her lips, says, “we did meet up here, but we still don’t know how the other five are doing.”
She pauses, then says, “is NE trying to do something by gathering us up?”
Mu Jiashi says, “it would appear that NE is on our side given everything that’s happened so far, but Xü Beijin’s Nightmare…” he makes a smile, but it looks quite bitter, “is quite a bit beyond the wildest imaginations I had.”
Mu Jiashi never thought he would describe any Nightmare with those words.
He’s an accomplished Missiontaker. He might call and even think of himself as a loser, but that still doesn’t erase all the success he’s had in Nightmares.
Yet, in actuality, if it were not for XĂź Beijin telling them what to do to prepare, and NE seemingly pulling strings to help them recover their senses, then clearly, they would all succumb to this Nightmare without question.
In fact, right now, Mu Jiashi still hasn’t the faintest idea how this Nightmare could be resolved.
If it isn’t ever resolved, then wouldn’t Xü Beijin also end up succumbing like them?
They haven’t even managed to spot the young man in this Nightmare at all. There isn’t even a guarantee that he is in this Nightmare at all.
The thought crosses his mind for a moment. Looking at Fei and Wu Jian, he has to say that regrouping with these two is quite the reassurance for him.
Regardless, feeling like he’s the only one that knows anything and everything is quite the burden to carry.
Here, Mu Jiashi is also wondering if this is what Xü Beijin has been thinking about all these years. No wonder he’s always so unreadable and distant in demeanour all these years.
All he’s done is scratch the surface of what this Nightmare entails, and the ‘landfill of the Tower’ is already causing him immense suffering; Xü Beijin, who’s known what this grey fog outside the Tower was, all along; would he have felt nothing but absolute despair?
Mu Jiashi then comes to a profound realisation.
If it were him, he would also not want to enter this Nightmare at all, or open it up to the outside world.
First, entering this Nightmare would guarantee Missiontakers succumbing without intervention from NE. It’s like a bottomless abyss, swallowing each and every one that dared enter.
Even if Mu Jiashi isn’t a good person at heart, he will be averse to doing something meaningless like this.
And on the other hand, without the Missiontakers help, would the Nightmare owner also be quite limited in what they can do?
Through observation of the Tower residents so far, Mu Jiashi is quite sure the answer is affirmative.
Because he’s now aware that Nightmare owners can’t ever resolve the Nightmares themselves. They must secretly hand clues over to Missiontakers to push along their progress.
But Xü Beijin’s Nightmare already makes Missiontakers nigh impossible to regain their sanity without NE’s help, never mind solving it at all.
Unless some literal personification of luck is able to land in a Nightmare they’ve already been in to trigger the unexpected bug.
Mu Jiashi would rather not talk of luck in Nightmares, though, and utility cards for that matter——
Though speaking of utility cards, all the ones they’ve prepared for entering this Nightmare, are practically useless.
Unless they run into some very specific scene which calls for some very specific utility card.
And even if they do resolve this Nightmare after all, there’s no guarantee it’d get rid of the grey fog outside the Tower
To be honest, this means this Nightmare can never be truly resolved. It will be a fake, disingenuous lie, unless they can somehow be rid of the Tower’s bounds on them.
No wonder, it is only after they have come to learn of more and more of the truth, and confirming NE’s stance, that Xü Beijin decided to open this Nightmare once and for all.
In this Nightmare, without NE’s help, it’d be assisted suicide for both the Nightmare owner and the Missiontakers… It’d be meaningless deaths all around.
But even if they did regain their sense of self, they’re still practically bumbling around like flies without a purpose. It’s quite frustrating.
Fei also knows this, and wonders, “what are we actually supposed to achieve in this Nightmare?”
Meanwhile, A-One and A-Two are exclaiming about how the three people actually know each other.
Mu Jiashi ignores the boisterous guys and tells Fei, “perhaps we’re waiting to come across a special scene; it would explain why we have to keep going through the doors.”
“But we are already meeting up with each other,” Wu Jian is worried, saying, “then we’re going to head into new scenes less and less frequently, no?”
“If NE really is on our side, then it will surely deliver the scene we need to us.”
Fei chimes in and says, “of course, that is under the condition that we keep moving forward.”
Wu Jian mumbles, “but if it could do that, why didn’t it do so as early as it could?”
“Maybe this Nightmare has its own sets of rules?” Mu Jiashi proposes, “even NE must abide by them.”
“What kind of rules?”
Fei thinks and says, “for example, some scenes can only be reached after some conditions are reached?”
If XĂź Beijin is listening to Fei, he would surely be deeply moved.
Since the bug he needs triggered did require some luck plus some preconditions to trigger.
But he’s not looking at the group of five that’s gathered up here.
Instead, he’s looking at Lin Qin.