/
In the end, our cautious, careful XĂź Beijin chickens out and returns to his bookstore, sighing in relief.
Of course, along the way, he got another order of bubble tea, which he gleefully put on the bookstore counter. Just admiring it allows Xü Beijin’s mind to prance with joy.
He likes the liveliness in this commercial complex. He likes the food and the scenes that look straight out of yesterday’s Earth, not that that affected his jaunt back to the bookstore any.
The streaming system has granted him the ability to monitor all happenings at the same time, so Xü Beijin feels like he doesn’t need to take any unnecessary risks. Plan, and act, is his motto.
… It’s definitely not because he’s a scaredy chicken.
Anyway, Xü Beijin did end up spending about half an hour showing the viewers around before retreating back behind his bookstore counter. Now, he’s controlling the streaming system to check the Missiontakers’ actions in detail.
Lin Qin looks unfazed as always, instead, curiously poking at all the electronics and furniture inside his apartment unit. The viewers are used to seeing him by now.
And the rest of the Missiontakers aren’t exactly doing anything different to what Xü Beijin saw in the beginning.
The female Missiontaker they saw in the very beginning is currently staring right at the curtain, whose corner is currently inexplicably raised up in the air.
The other twin of that Missiontaker is still crouched at the corner, burying her head into her legs, looking like she plans to oppose whatever she is frightened of through such a method.
The male Missiontaker who had an odd look while observing the commercial complex is still covering the peephole on his door with his pale hands. He is unable to make a move, and so has a rather ominous look on.
A male, muscular Missiontaker is showing a fearful expression quite unlike his physical appearance. He’s gasping while sweeping his gaze across the ceiling of his apartment unit again and again. He looks extremely agitated.
One female Missiontaker who looks like a teenager a dozen years old or so is definitely ruthless beyond her years, holding a pair of scissors she found who-knows-where, staring straight at… the air.
As for the last Missiontaker…
Xü Beijin’s jaw drops.
On the stream’s screen, he can see a tall and thin man with quite the impressively narrow waistline, currently looking hysterical and muttering nonsense while holding a toilet brush facing downwards with a pale face.
He is in a stand-off with the toilet.
This farcical scene has the viewers all typing question marks.
“the hell? whats wrong with the toilet?”
“no no, you should ask, what’s wrong with the player”
“hes gone mad [serious emoji]”
“oh fuck, I was thinking this was super spooky but now I cant stop laughing”
“i see… hes trying to duel with the toilet!”
The toilet…
Some thoughts flash across Xü Beijin’s mind watching this ridiculous scene.
And in fact, ‘ridiculous’ is the right adjective for what the Missiontaker just experienced himself.
Before he was in the Tower, he had a strange medical condition that, in extreme anxiety, his bowels rustle and diarrhoea ensues.
In-game, the sickness has been long gone. All these years, he has never experienced an urge to excrete ever again… In the Tower, all basic human needs are nonexistent.
Yet, just now, when he was nervously waiting for leave this apartment, he could suddenly sense rumbling coming from his stomach. It was like his rectum was blowing bubbles. The next second, he felt off.
… He feels like he has to go?!
What… In the Tower? In a damned Nightmare???
His head is going to burst with question marks, but still, he hurriedly rushes into the toilet and, with an embarrassed look, sits rigidly onto the toilet.
He suspects his brain is playing tricks on him, and he is also questioning whether he still knew how to piss and shit properly.
Thankfully his body… It might be a basic instinct kind of thing, but it remembers, so, with this expression of pure hopeless, he buries his head in his hands, but, somehow, it felt, alive.
… Why did he have to experience this sign of being ‘alive’ of all the signs, though?! This is so awkward!
Then, an awful stench fills the room, so much so he wants to puke. His hands reach for the back, for the buttons to flush and to send those dirty, stinky things away.
When he felt the buttons and was discerning which one was for number twos to press…
He felt, the button leave his finger behind… it has been pushed.
… But he didn’t even push yet! His fingers didn’t move! How is this even possible?!
‘Schwa——’
The sound of water flushing down the toilet is already filling his ears.
Thus, this tall, thin Missiontaker, as if he was electrocuted, shoots up from the toilet, without even time to pull up his pants, just grabs onto the only weapon in this toilet——The toilet brush, and is examining his surroundings carefully.
He is muttering, “no way… no way…”
The bright white light in the toilet is unable to dispel the fear and unease bubbling in his mind. Everything still looked just as usual. There’s the sink, the showerhead, the washing machine, the toilet… Nothing is out of the ordinary.
But who pushed the button to flush, then?
His head is filled with hypotheses while he is cleaning himself with one hand and holding the toilet brush with the other. Then he haphazardly pulled his pants back up, and thus still at least appeared decently when Xü Beijin moved the stream’s camera over. Nothing untoward happened.
Though his alert, restless form did not evoke a single sympathy from the viewers, who are laughing madly instead.
“help this bro is def trying to make me laugh to death lolololol…”
“I got it! the brush is immensely powerful! he must be thinking about getting intimate with the head of the brush…”
“shut up, im gonna throw up”
“y r u all like this? think about the toilet! no, u only think about urselves [doge emoji]”
“across all the missiontakers, outside of the apple dalao still being the apple dalao, the rest of the missiontakers can all be described thusly – man vs air”
“maybe there are ghosts?”
“how do you prove ghosts exist?”
“how do u prove ghosts dont exist?”
“fighting online is meaningless, I suggest you duel offline”
“holy shit! the toilet must be broken, why is it flushing itself?!”
Yes, under the watchful eyes of all the viewers, XĂź Beijin, and the thin, tall Missiontakers, the toilet decided to flush itself again.
And, painfully, the Missiontaker can feel that, his stomach… is acting up again.