/
A long time later, XĂź Beijin shuts his dried eyes.
He has no concrete answers, and at least, he hasn’t resolved to open his own Nightmare up yet——Perhaps he never would, but he has realised that it is already difficult for him to return back to how he has been.
He has the streaming system, a way to contact the outside world——An outside world beyond his little bookstore.
It’s hard to go back to simplicity after experiencing opulence.
XĂź Beijin chuckles bitterly, wondering if it was possible for him to see this happening ahead of time, when he first acquired the streaming system, when he was simply excited at the prospects.
It’s almost instinctual, what someone does when they finally see the rays of dawn after being in the dark so long.
However, right now, he is even feeling a sense of fright.
Is the light real? Is it what he can touch? If he, if people like them, really did go and touch the light, would they be scorched?
XĂź Beijin is confused what he is even feeling right now.
… No matter what, though, the ray of sunlight, is still hope, right?
A hope he has been waiting for.
The Server, NE, being entirely quiet on this matter, has made him more acutely aware of this.
XĂź Beijin takes a deep breath, leaving the chaotic thoughts aside to focus back on the Nightmare.
He wonders, to what degree, can the Missiontakers achieve.
The little girl is still hiding under a certain office desk of the 31st floor.
With the bracelet Mystic gave her on her own wrist.
Almost as soon as she saw the bracelet, Mystic looks so pale she could faint on the spot, standing no more steadily compared to the building itself.
At least, Jiang Shuangmei is worried she’d trip over the next moment.
In fact, Jiang Shuangmei is also really surprised here to see the bracelet; she didn’t even know in the beginning, or realise that it’s the exact bracelet Suits and Teen said Mystic gave the little girl.
She understood it immediately when she saw Mystic’s reaction, though.
This is what surprised her, and now she understands better why this was so impactful to Mystic.
So, more importantly…
Is this Nightmare, already crumbling, from the second run onwards?
Jiang Shuangmei falls into thought.
Other than the bracelet on the little girl’s wrist, though, nothing else seems to have changed. Can it really be called crumbling?
Mystic’s lips are trembling as she stumbles forward to the little girl.
She is hiding under the office desk, widening her eyes in wariness, and looking quietly at Mystic, who incoherently blabbers, “look, see… I’m here for you, I promised; do you remember?” She points to the bracelet on the little girl’s wrist, saying, “here… I gave you the bracelet.”
The little girl is blinking her eyes in confusion, even backing off a little reflexively when Mystic points to the bracelet.
When Mystic said she gave it to her, the little girl quietly but firmly refutes it, “no, mommy gave it to me!”
Mystic’s face goes completely pale again.
Jiang Shuangmei analyses it, “this seems to corroborate with what the guy said…?” She pauses and turns to Mystic to say, “she does not remember you, but remembers what you did the last run, and is cognisant of the act as something her own mother did.
In that case, it seems we can say the last run, you really were acting as her mother, who is likely the owner of this Nightmare, trying to run away from the fact that she abandoned her daughter.
Of course, this is merely the Nightmare’s setting…”
So please, get ahold of yourself.
… Jiang Shuangmei is quite sure the last sentence is not good for the situation, but it takes everything she has to stop herself from saying it.
It’s difficult to say whether Mystic understood her, because her attention is focused elsewhere entirely – she is looking intently at the little girl, glaring, with a pleading aura, almost.
She seems desperate for an answer, even if she would never have the courage to face it if she did find one.
When Jiang Shuangmei said the owner of the Nightmare was “trying to run away from the fact that she abandoned her daughter,” Mystic’s body almost immediately twitched in response.
She looks deeply ashamed and even hates herself, but the next second, she is confused; she doesn’t know why she is feeling all of this.
Though Jiang Shuangmei has already moved on, murmuring, “this run we have to take the little girl away, if so, then we will probably be breaking out of the role of being her mother… Which would bring us back to reality.
Speaking of which, what if there were only male Missiontakers? Would they also fill the role of being her… mother?”
Jiang Shuangmei is thinking of the concept of a ‘male mommy’ with a complicated expression.
Would the Nightmare even recognise this being a thing?
Jiang Shuangmei then puts that largely absurd thought aside, and kneels down to coo the little girl, until finally, she comes out of her hiding place from under the desk.
She looks at Jiang Shuangmei with her big, clean eyes, asking, “jiejie, where are we going?”
While feeling guilty inside at how gullible this little girl is and worrying what she’s going to do if it was a bad guy persuading her, she suddenly feels like she is prematurely experiencing child-rearing before ever falling in love.
She caresses the little girl’s hair to say, “jiejie is going to find mommy with you, ok?”
The little girl immediately responds enthusiastically, “hurray! Thanks jiejie!”
Jiang Shuangmei takes her hand and turns to Mystic to say, “let’s go?”
Mystic nods, looking somewhat slow, and still fixing her gaze on the little girl, when she suddenly adds clumsily, “we go, now… to look, look for your mommy…”
The little girl seems somewhat uneasy when she looks at this strange-looking woman.
Jiang Shuangmei has to cheer the little girl up again, as Mystic does her best to appear unsuspicious and normal. The three of them depart the 31st floor.
After this, they will be heading to the 20th floor to look at the suspicious photograph.