/
Oversight
Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil
Even if Lin Qin can remain calm and expressionless under the gazes of both Xü Beijin and Mu Jiashi, he still can’t help but blink.
Though he is still standing there unflinching; acting like if he left or sat down, he’d have ‘conceded defeat’ to Mu Jiashi.
XĂź Beijin also stands up, while looking at Lin Qin with a complicated expression.
Mu Jiashi, observing their interactions, feels a bit more confident in his attempt.
Xü Beijin can feel his head throbbing in pain, having already experienced how headstrong Lin Qin gets when he’s in the mood. He acts like nothing is out of the ordinary and ignores Lin Qin, and asks Mu Jiashi, “do you need me for something?”
Mu Jiashi starts considering his words carefully, and decides to go with a straightforward approach, “it’s about your Nightmare…”
Xü Beijin’s expression almost immediately sours. His brows are furrowed, and his gaze is piercing. Mu Jiashi finds himself on the receiving end of an unreadable aura.
He still continues, “the situation in the Tower has changed substantially. Are you still equally determined about not opening your Nightmare?”
The aura from XĂź Beijin lessens a little as he falls into thought.
Lin Qin, though, looking to one person and the next and back again, seizes the opportunity to interject, “Beijin is already considering it, but he says he still has to think about it some more.”
Mu Jiashi, astonished, first looks at Lin Qin, before turning his eyes back onto XĂź Beijin.
Xü Beijin “…”
He turns his expressionless, piercing gaze over at Lin Qin.
Lin Qin tilts his baby face to say, “you can’t get angry. It’s exactly what you told me.”
The corner of Xü Beijin’s mouth is twitching. He remains silent for a moment, before confirming it with Mu Jiashi with a heavy tone, “yes. It’s as he says.”
His tone is heavy because frankly, he’s just going to give up.
Yes! That’s right! He is considering, but he is not yet determined! So, just let him procrastinate and ‘think’ some more!
Okay?!
Lin Qin has failed to dress it up in pretty words, but it’s precisely what Xü Beijin wants to get across; and to be frank, his straightforwardness has helped out Xü Beijin, who was still mulling over the choices of words.
Really, it’s even secretly a relief to him.
Anyway, now, he has finally committed… been committed, to this path… To this choice.
For someone like Xü Beijin, if he’s in the stages of ‘considering’ opening his Nightmare, it means that, a certain day in the future, he will open his Nightmare.
He still just needed some more time to work out the costs and effects and minimise risks.
Well, not that he really has that much time to begin with.
Xü Beijin can’t help but feel exhausted thinking about it again. He closes his eyes, to let his parched eyes be moisturised in a little respite. Then he opens his eyes, faces Mu Jiashi, and tells him, “I still need a bit more time to consider the matter. So if… if you want into my Nightmare, please come visit me at the bookstore within three days after leaving this Nightmare.
Also, you should expect that the principle of ‘equivalent exchange’ is still in effect.”
Mu Jiashi is listening pretty closely up to this point, when he gets a little surprised.
Exchange… for what?
Xü Beijin clarifies, “therefore, you may still trade in things of worth for clues on my Nightmare.”
Mu Jiashi suddenly gets it.
He’s helping them cheat! He’s trying to clue him in to what his Nightmare is!
But… can Tower residents really do that? Or is it a rule that they have to do that?
Here, Mu Jiashi starts recalling the many Nightmares he has been to. Some guesses start bubbling up his mind.
Oh man, this sure is…
He turns to look at Lin Qin, and back at Xü Beijin again. He’s thanking the dalao Lin Qin in his mind.
He’s brought this powerful golden thigh on board for them.
Mu Jiashi was slightly worried earlier when Lin Qin interjected, that Xü Beijin might be unhappy about it; he didn’t seem too terribly displeased, though.
Or really, how gentle he’s been about it contrasts quite starkly against how he treated the people who besieged his bookstore all those years back.
It’s pretty clear who Xü Beijin treats as someone close to him.
Mu Jiashi is really glad that the dalao Lin Qin has helped sway this mysterious, probably neutral, occasionally morally ambiguous bookstore owner over to their side… Thank the lucky stars.
Yes. To Mu Jiashi, this bookstore owner whose principle is guided by ‘equivalent exchange,’ would therefore sometimes commit to acts that run… evil to more traditional ethical judgement.
This is not helped by Xü Beijin’s usual cold, apathetic attitude, and his almost fiendish, dastardly villainous and handsome face.
It means even Mu Jiashi would feel pressured simply interacting with XĂź Beijin.
It can’t be helped when first impressions keep screaming to him that Xü Beijin is a… great villain.
The mystique Xü Beijin established in the Nightmare with the post-Apocalyptic ruins through his talk of his ‘principles,’ the aura that always surrounded him as a results, plus his own identity as this impenetrable bookstore’s owner, meant he is absolutely seen as hard to approach.
That is why Mu Jiashi has been very hesitant to touch on anything related to Xü Beijin’s Nightmare.
He is also one of those deeply interested in the Nightmare, of course, both for curiosity’s sake, and for the possibility of escaping the Tower.
Especially after he has concluded that Xü Beijin’s Nightmare must hold some key secret.
Though… it wasn’t easy to act on that urge.
Mostly because XĂź Beijin really is such an imposing figure to deal with.
That is why, when Wu Jian suggested a relationship between XĂź Beijin and Lin Qin, that Mu Jiashi, while in a bit of a suspension of disbelief and some last-ditch effort sort of hope, approached XĂź Beijin, and talked about his Nightmare.
He thought it not unlikely that this would backfire spectacularly.
But Xü Beijin’s stance is actually shifting!
Mu Jiashi would attribute a majority of the praise for that to Lin Qin.
Could XĂź Beijin have changed his opinion of his own accord? Nonsense. Just before entering this Nightmare, XĂź Beijin was still telling him with his usual mysterious tone to look for the truth in this Nightmare himself, and not tell him the truth of anything.
Mu Jiashi finds it exceedingly unlikely for XĂź Beijin to have changed his mind in this short a timeframe.
Maybe he’s been showing goodwill towards the Missiontakers, but his Nightmare has always been a very rigidly enforced, immovable red line!
Yet, it seems Lin Qin has done the impossible, and convinced XĂź Beijin to reconsider.
Mu Jiashi was already losing hope and steam in the few seconds of silence earlier; he didn’t see a single sign of Xü Beijin relenting when he was asking about it himself.
Yet as soon as Lin Qin intervened, Xü Beijin’s microexpressions completely changed. Perhaps it was almost a ‘coerced’ expression, but Xü Beijin was implicitly agreeing with Lin Qin.
Though one can imagine that ‘coerce’ would only happen because it was Lin Qin that he changed his attitude, no?
Mu Jiashi is frankly, amazed.
It’s essentially common knowledge now that the crownless King of the bottom floor has romantic attraction to someone.
People talk about how he is moving all the obstacles out of the way for him, how infatuated he is with his romantic interest.
But as Mu Jiashi sees it now, the feeling looks to be mutual.
Regardless, Mu Jiashi is thankful to Lin Qin.
If it were not for Lin Qin’s intervention, they may not have this opportunity to enter Xü Beijin’s Nightmare, now or ever in the future.