Recovering Memories
Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil
Fei and Mu Jiashi successfully escaped from the little village in the mountains.
It was really a serendipitous stroke of luck that they escaped successfully.
The villagers couldn’t find Fei by the waterfall, and skipped looking where they lived directly to head for the meal and explain.
So Mu Jiashi, who reported on her hanging out there, was under immediately suspicion. He denied it, telling them he thought she might have went to the waterfall, but doesn’t know if she did go there or elsewhere.
However, when the rest of the villagers have looked around the village without finding Fei, someone asked, with a shaky voice, “could she… have been taken away by them already?”
Mu Jiashi gave the villager a discreet glance, thanking him in his mind.
As expected, the rest of the villagers present were uproarious.
They were going to kill these people before the madness they spread would cause the cultists to sacrifice them in cold blood, but it seemed they have succeeded first?
So they quickly rushed for the cultists, so soon enough, barely anyone remained in the village elder’s house.
Mu Jiashi then excused himself to the bathroom to look about the elder’s house, finding a locked side door by sheer luck.
After forcing it open, he saw a cowering, frightened person inside. Finally, he has understood what happened.
The first child, the one the villagers labelled a ‘traitor,’ was locked up right here.
Why?
He was locked up, alive, with clear scraps of food nearby. Was he… the elder’s child?
Since when has he been here? He was still dressed in urban clothing, completely distinct in style from the village’s mundaneness.
He probably wasn’t back here for a long time yet. He might have felt regret about leaving the village without a word, so he came back to visit?
If that’s really the case, then the madness spreading throughout the village, is it really because of they, the outsiders, or… him?
Standing there, Mu Jiashi fell into thought.
That was when he heard something behind him. Looking around in surprise, it was Fei.
“Don’t ask!” Fei hurriedly said, “I remembered something!”
Mu Jiashi was surprised. Fei remembered clues?
Fei told him, “there was this small detail – the minivan we came here on, it had 20 seats. It was fully booked out.
But think about it – there were twelve of us foreign visitors, and seven university undergraduates from this village… there’s a missing passenger!”
Mu Jiashi nodded quietly, then moves aside to let Fei look inside the door.
“He’s…” Fei is shocked, before quickly understanding, saying, “so he’s the one who… came here with us? He was locked up here all along?!”
Mu Jiashi nodded again, saying, “I suspect so.”
Fei felt a deep chill.
She looked at the locked student blankly. He was cowering, shaking because of the strangers.
His hands were pushing down on the ground, as if trying to gather strength.
She quietly muttered, “how laughable…”
Who? The ‘traitor’ who regretted his own choices? Or the villagers?
She shook her head, then says, “this must be the door we’re looking for.”
Mu Jiashi nodded, again.
So there they went, and the grey fog rolled, and here they are, with Mu Jiashi in total astonishment.
They’re in a station terminal. People are crowding around, and it’s really busy. Fei, standing by his side, asks quietly, confused, “do we… have to get on a bus?”
Mu Jiashi doesn’t answer immediately.
Something subtly strange is coming over him, unrelated to his experience so far, but purely, because of this scene, this area, something special is triggering. His body is screaming, ‘yes! This is it!’
He’s been here before!
Fei, worried, asks Mu Jiashi, “are you alright?”
“I’ve been here!” Mu Jiashi quickly explains, “I’ve been… No, not this place exactly, but the… Nightmare.”
When the words ‘Nightmare’ pop out of his mouth, some kind of deep daze overcomes him entirely, as he spaces out.
Fei looks at him, bewildered.
Mu Jiashi, in a rare display of frustration, yells, “how could… why is his Nightmare like this?!”
Anxious, he turns to Fei, and sees that she still clearly remembers nothing.
But he remembers everything, now, about the Tower, and why they’re in this Nightmare, and also why, Xü Beijin told him to find Missiontakers who have been to as many Nightmares as possible.
Because, that is the only way they could recover their memories in the Nightmare.
Thanks to a bug.
Theoretically, if Missiontakers end up in the grey fog, somehow, they must have’ succumbed.’ Their status is Succumbed, and they lose their sense of self, mired in some unending Cell Nightmare in the fog forever.
However, when Mu Jiashi and friends enter, and they end up inside of a Nightmare they have already went and achieved an Ending in, a contradiction occurs──
They have already been through this Nightmare, without becoming Succumbed before an Ending – a marker of completion of the Nightmare – is assigned to them. So, what happens if they end up in a Nightmare whose Ending tag they already own, while being in the state of being Succumbed?
If they are indeed Succumbed, they can never have had an Ending tag, because they would have been trapped in it forever;
They are in the grey fog, though, so being Succumbed was a given.
Suffice it to say, entering the grey fog through Xü Beijin’s Nightmare was a shortcut.
And the occurrence of the ‘doors,’ part of the feature of Xü Beijin’s Nightmare, allowed Missiontakers to traverse between Cell Nightmares.
If they are lucky enough to end up in a Cell Nightmare whose Nightmare the Missiontaker has already been through and achieved an Ending, then the bug occurs.
And fortunately, the way the logic is handled in the game, this bug results in the illegal Succumbed tag that was assigned last being removed. So the Missiontakers would regain their sense of self.
This bug shouldn’t even have ever occurred, because it was expected that Xü Beijin, the Actor, would have entered this Nightmare via sleeping the first day he became trapped in Escape, and disappear from this world entirely, when there are no Missiontakers who have completed Nightmares who could accidentally trigger the bug. Then with Xü Beijin eliminated, no more Missiontakers will be able to enter the grey fog through his Nightmare.
No one was expecting for Xü Beijin to never go to sleep from the very moment he entered the Tower.
So this bug that should never have been remained here forever, until finally, this group of Missiontakers, and Xü Beijin himself, decided to gamble it all, and enter the grey fog with their lives on the line.
Or rather, their consciousness. So they have to use this special bug, to help themselves remember everything about the Tower, and Nightmares. Otherwise, there was nothing they could do except Succumb to these Cell Nightmares.
When Mu Jiashi works out the rough logic of this entire debacle, he can’t help but cuss. It’s completely dependent on luck whether they regain their sense of self, and if NE had anything to say about it… unless it’s on their side.
That is when Mu Jiashi realises, that this is only the third scene he’s in – the third Cell Nightmare – so if he’s able to regain his sense of self in this short period of time, it must mean…
A smile starts floating onto his face.
Ah. NE really is on their side this time, it seems.
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