/
Lin Qin thinks about it carefully, and finally, asks rather quietly, “what’s wrong?” Then, perhaps his instincts are at work again, he adds, “is… is something wrong with me?”
“No, it’s not you.”
“You’re hiding something from me again. Don’t do that. I’m worried about you.”
XĂź Beijin is still quiet.
In the end, he instead laments, “I should not have brought you here. You’re trapped.”
Whatever Lin Qin’s true identity──No idea what it is, especially when he doesn’t have the time to ponder──Lin Qin has no way in or out. The screen of light blocks him in the front, and Xü Beijin’s own Nightmare was terminated a long time ago, and gone is the bug alongside it. It means, Lin Qin has no way out.
He is trapped at the boundary of the Tower.
XĂź Beijin is in deep regret. It was his wish to take Lin Qin along, after all.
And at this climatic moment, he wishes to be with Lin Qin. It makes him feel safer.
But… but… he wasn’t expecting, Lin Qin would be trapped here!
Feeling guilty, and even self-loathing, his mind is going through all the things he did wrong. He knows he doesn’t have time for all this; every second he dawdles here is a percentage point off what tiny chance of escape humanity had. Even so, he cannot lift his legs.
He is stuck in a quagmire of defeat, anxiety and hopelessness.
In this almost entirely dark space, all the emotions that has been piling, that has been accumulating but pushed aside, is threatening to blow himself up. It’s like he is realising how powerless and puny for the first time. He never──
He never managed to save anyone.
He finds his thoughts lost for a moment there, and bitterly smiles. Some quagmire this really is; all these years, he’s never managed to do the right thing…
Witnessing humanity’s plight but helpless to stop. Bringing his love into a dead-end and incapable of escaping…
Though that is when, XĂź Beijin feels his cheeks gently caressed.
Like some clumsy little animal, Lin Qin is brushing his own cheeks on Xü Beijin’s cheeks.
XĂź Beijin just watches, stupefied.
“I want to follow you too. You said you will never abandon me; this is not your fault. I also want to be by your side, and you cannot refuse me,” Lin Qin’s words are incoherent, but they are confident.
Well, and gentle in tone.
Xü Beijin can’t help but blink.
“Now, Beijin, both humanity and I are waiting to be saved by you.”
This somehow makes XĂź Beijin break into a chuckle.
Lin Qin doesn’t understand why Xü Beijin is amused. He thinks he did his best to say serious stuff, to make sure he had the drive to carry on doing what needs to be done──Even if he clearly doesn’t like doing this.
He continues, “don’t laugh──I’m serious. Now I’m trapped here, you say, and those people said humanity is trapped in the Tower. So both they, and I, are going to depend on you.”
XĂź Beijin looks firmly at Lin Qin.
“You’re right…” he says.
Lin Qin isn’t sure what Xü Beijin is trying to imply by that. He finds that he really doesn’t understand anything sometimes.
For example, is it or is it not that XĂź Beijin has found the motivation to do the serious business?
XĂź Beijin takes a deep breath, and once again pushes all the boiling emotions deep back down.
The boundary of the Tower──For Lin Qin, at least──poses no danger. All the jumbled data and sharp game object polygons, are all too easily avoidable for him. Lin Qin would never be hurt by them.
XĂź Beijin is able to convince himself of that.
But it’s dark here, so he wants to…
Man, he’s hopelessly indecisive. His lover is the top dog of the Tower. He has strength and power unfathomable to the average Missiontaker or Actor. But still, that doesn’t stop him from worrying about how he might leave him behind here alone.
Once, XĂź Beijin was ready to take this path completely alone, without fear or anxiety.
But now, simply making Lin Qin stay here for a bit is making him so utterly worried.
He can’t help not to worry, because this moment…
“I just want to save you,” Xü Beijin, having thought for a long time, says, “do you know that? The other humans just happen to be on the side of that.”
Lin Qin seems stunned, blinking in surprise.
“Even now, I still think… I don’t have much certainty in winning. There is hope, but hope is intangible,” Xü Beijin mumbles, “I can never forget… that moment…”
He doesn’t specify which.
Then he just cuts to the chase, saying, “I still cannot believe that NE is on humanity’s side. It must have some other goal in mind.”
This uncertainty, plus the mysteriousness surrounding Lin Qin overall, is a thick fog clouding Xü Beijin’s judgement, making him hesitate before stepping onto the top floor once and for all.
He still can’t see how he can grasp victory.
Lin Qin, though, seem somewhat confused now. He knows everyone has said that NE is on the human’s side now, but it seems Xü Beijin doesn’t think so?
“NE may be helping humans right now, but it is merely an artificial intelligence…” Xü Beijin’s voice trails off. It looks like he is recalling something deeply demoralising, and his expression turn sullen and unmotivated once more. He says, “Lin Qin, I just…”
Lin Qin looks closely at XĂź Beijin.
“I just wish that, you didn’t have to become involved in all this,” Xü Beijin explains, “if you can follow me, perhaps we can prevent humanity’s tragedy together. At least… I don’t know how it will all turn out to be, but…”
He has difficulty putting what he wants to say in words.
Splitting Lin Qin out from the other Missiontakers, and instead, just follow after him, is his rather selfish wish.
And if the ones behind this whole debacle, is angered by their puny resistance, and decides to ‘punish’ them, then, Lin Qin, who is with him on the top floor, might… might be able to avoid it, he thinks.
But it’s as if even fate is laughing at how naïve his little self-indulgent will is.
XĂź Beijin is doubting himself. He is wavering. Lin Qin is not allowed into the top floor, and it is making him question everything.
It’s just like the moment when he realised his own identity in the Tower… and everything after that…
He is fated to be powerless against it all, it seems. Nothing could be saved…
“… We all might lose it all.”
Xü Beijin’s gaze turns towards the screen of light, looking rather distant; powerlessness is written all over his face.