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Everyone has gathered up, and moved where Chen Simiao told them.
Mu Jiashi is squinting his eyes and observing closely, but he fails to see the gap at all.
Blinking his dried eyes a few times, he asks, “is it the lighting? Or maybe the design
”
“Or,” Fei says, drolly, “the gap isn’t in this game at all.”
The Missiontakers go quiet after this.
They don’t know why XĂŒ Beijin is looking for the gap either, but since XĂŒ Beijin said it’s what he needs, then the Missiontakers have decided to be hopeful about some secrets being hidden here.
But right now, they can’t even see the gap itself.
Fei’s guess is certainly possible.
Perhaps the gap exists in reality, in that labyrinth on Earth.
But they’re in the game named ‘Escape.’ Would the game really recreate that detail perfectly?
Besides, what could they do with a gap one millimetre wide?
Slowly, everyone’s gazes land on XĂŒ Beijin one by one. Some distance away from them is Chen Simiao, who followed along quietly, but no one is paying attention to him.
XĂŒ Beijin is himself looking at the place Chen Simiao identified, but his gaze
 possibly because of the environment, or otherwise because of his emotional state, is rather flicker. He looks hesitant.
He doesn’t pay much attention to the Missiontakers’ gazes himself.
Staring at the area, XĂŒ Beijin says, “everyone, please walk back and forth ten times in front of this section of the wall.”
The Missiontakers all look confounded──What did XĂŒ Beijin just ask them to do again?
The straightforward A-One already says, “woah there, so we’re literally tool-persons right now?”
Well, he says he’s treated like a pawn, but he’s the first person to start walking as XĂŒ Beijin asked him to.
XĂŒ Beijin points out the path to them – some distance towards the entrance, to this gap, and slightly overshooting it; the path itself is about five metres long.
While it’s not far, but walking back and forth in such an area is quite dizzying to the Missiontakers indeed – spinning in circles while sharp colours flashed all around them has made some Missiontakers look rather ill.
Despite the confusion, they all followed XĂŒ Beijin’s request to the letter.
XĂŒ Beijin also pushes Lin Qin a little, saying, “you go, too.”
While Lin Qin would rather not leave XĂŒ Beijin leaning on the wall, all he could do is just give XĂŒ Beijin worried glances before going off, much quicker than the Missiontakers did, completely unfazed even after ten circles.
Lin Qin is the last one to walk back and forth on the section of wall there; Mu Jiashi is closely examining the part of the wall Chen Simiao told them about. And the moment Lin Qin finished walking around, Mu Jiashi can clearly see that, as if part of the electronic display is broken, parts of the wall is erroneously colourless.
Mu Jiashi can’t help but rub his eyes.
The others notice his reaction and also checks out the wall.
They can all see that there is a black line, about thirty centimetres long, and about as thick as a strand of hair, suddenly making itself shown on the wall.
“It’s
” He ShujĂŒn blurts out with widened eyes, “what’s going on?!”
The Missiontakers look at each other in disbelief, before all turning towards XĂŒ Beijin.
“It’s a bug,” replies XĂŒ Beijin.
The Missiontakers perk their ears up, not even wasting time to ponder why XĂŒ Beijin would know all this, but they just want to know what this weird line is.
XĂŒ Beijin coughs a little, like he’s pretending to clear his throat to mask his weakness.
Lin Qin is looking at him quietly but with a rather dour gaze. It’s quite rare to see such an expression on his baby face, which makes XĂŒ Beijin give him a curious look, before extending his hand to hold Lin Qin’s, successfully calming the little apple down.
Then he organises his thoughts for a while before answering the Missiontakers, telling them, “this labyrinth and what happens inside is constructed based on the Nightmare owner’s memories; that’s the basis of all Nightmares, really.
Therefore, this gap, if you ask the original owner of the Nightmare, does not actually exist. Nor would it exist in the Nightmare recreated thusly──And just in case, I’m using the term ‘Nightmare owner’ specifically. I’m not talking about Tower residents.”
The Missiontakers fall into thought, before understanding what XĂŒ Beijin is getting at.
Tower residents are the ones who Act out the role of the owner of the Nightmare. They learn about the owner’s identity and memories, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s simply a plot.
Of course, it’s different for XĂŒ Beijin, who is actually Acting as himself here──
Not that that is something the Missiontakers need to know. It’s too complex to explain for now.
While Lin Qin
 well, he probably knew all along, thanks to his outrageous instincts.
After mumbling about it in his mind, XĂŒ Beijin continues his explanation,
“But this game does not only reference the Nightmare owner’s memories when recreating these scenes, because Nightmares frequently feature other’s experiences or even happen to incorporate the scenes of others’ Nightmares, so,
When actually constructing the Nightmare, other people’s memories are also used as a reference──By other people, that usually means people who are part of the Nightmare as well.
As an example, in this scene here, the Nightmare’s builder, Chen Simiao, and, his student
 all these people’s memories would also be referenced.
So a conflict would arise – Chen Simiao’s student would clearly remember this gap existing, even if it can’t be found in the labyrinth of other’s memories.
The game has built the Nightmares based on the original owner’s memories regardless, but
 what would they do with the gap?”
Here, XĂŒ Beijin pauses.
The Missiontakers are already a bit numb. They have no idea why XĂŒ Beijin would even know how Nightmares are constructed in the first place.
It only adds to the mystique already surrounding his identity, and made them question him being human more than ever.
And also
 why are human’s memories referenced when building scenes in this game?
Perhaps an even more prudent question to ask is, why can ‘they’ see human memory? This question gets scarier the more one tries to think about it.
Mu Jiashi himself is recalling the game design document Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ and Ye Lan saw.
Did ‘they’ design this game based on that plan, or something similar? Then lock humanity inside?
But the Missiontakers would rather stop thinking about such matters. The more they thought, the more they might end up losing all hope and can only despair.
So instead, they decide to focus on what XĂŒ Beijin just asked them about.