Unlike Ning Xi, Ding Yücan is a woman quiet enough that she tends to be ignored. She just sits there quietly, with a vaguely positive smile on her face.

There is an indomitable calmness about her, almost like a wolf that is ready to strike, laying low by the side.

Suffice it to say, she is far calmer than Ning Xi is.

She says she killed Zhang Quanhao, but he actually committed suicide. So why, then, would she have asserted so?

Under the Missiontakers’ stares, she quietly says, “I thought, if he died, then I could be with him forever. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fulfil my wish.”

Shen Yünjü asks indifferently, “so what then?”

The Missiontakers aren’t interested in the messy relationships between these people. They need to learn about the truth behind everything instead.

Ding Yücan’s smile turns rather wicked as she says, “because he loved this mad woman and was willing to die for her rather than look at me, so I let him kill himself, so he could know what the end for him looked like being with her.”

“Didn’t you want to be together with him?” He Shujün then asks, “he’s going to end up dead.”

“Even if his death isn’t desirable, but he has to,” Ding Yücan says with a brilliant smile, “if he doesn’t die, how will he learn how good he has it with me? If he doesn’t, how will he ever know this mad woman doesn’t deserve him?”

“But everything is meaningless if he died…”

“Yes, it is,” Ding Yücan widens her eyes and says, “so he can be with me forever now. Don’t you think it’s nice? He can never break up with me again, or leave me again, or flirt with others again.”

The Missiontakers are quite speechless.

He Shujün can’t help but say, “she’s just as mad now.”

Ding Yücan says, “that is why I’ve ‘killed’ him. I killed a-Hao,” she explains, “I let him die knowingly.”

“Love and death…” Ye Lan murmurs, “are two sides of the same coin here.”

Of course not, thinks Lin Qin in his mind. He will never be like that with Beijin.

Why is death ever a form of love? Why allow death to be in the way of love?

There is always a solution to a problem. Lin Qin believes so.

That is why he believes that, Xü Beijin’s Nightmare, and the problem humanity is facing that he needs to resolve, can be resolved.

He believes in Xü Beijin like that.

Though the person in question is actually questioning himself right now.

After going through another episode of suffering and near loss of consciousness, feeling as if it was like being bonked on the head by a brick several times in a row, after having already suffered a concussion. An increase in severity. Snow falling on top of sleet.

Xü Beijin thinks he even has trouble standing.

So he just sits down where he is and looks up at the floating dust particles that is the Cell Nightmares. His face is all pale, with all colour having drained out of even his lips. He looks deeply ill and weak.

The weakness is like the exhaustion he has suffered through for many years straight. It only keeps growing and proliferating.

Aside from the pain, he is also deeply troubled. Damn. What is NE doing?

Is it still not ready? If he’s going to be on the human’s side, he should be less half-arsed about it…

Complaining does no good, of course, and he knows how NE isn’t actually omnipotent in this case. NE is also, obviously, bound by rules and regulations.

Though right now, the most powerless one in this whole event, is Xü Beijin himself.

He can’t even take away. All he can do, is watch on the sidelines as Missiontakers struggle and fight. He cannot help them with even the tiniest thing.

If there is a stream going on, he might still be able to have a change of mood through the audience.

But right now, he is alone in the grey fog. He feels tired and lost like never before.

Can they really do it? Is the hope really here? Was it… right, for him to decide to open up his Nightmare at this moment?

Xü Beijin smiles bitterly. Oh, man, he still can’t keep himself from digressing into pessimism land, even after he’s declared to Dai Wu, that this is the all-or-nothing.

Even if he is regretting it now, there is nothing he can do anyway. The Nightmare is open, and they’re in. Everything is now up to fate, and NE.

An almost maddening pain and hate threatens to bubble through Xü Beijin’s mind. He hates how powerless he is. He hates leaving everything to fate, but there is nothing they can do.

Since he entered the Tower.

Since he… whether by fortune or misfortune, that he ended up drawing this role.

Xü Beijin is now genuinely questioning whether this was all lucky or unlucky.

He thinks it’s more the latter, but the role must land on somebody, and it happened to be him.

He got to learn the truth, too, even if it was far too much for him to bear. However, merely knowing the truth itself, is a kind of fortune in itself, no? No one else can be said to be luckier than he ever was.

While they are still struggling in the Nightmares, he already has full knowledge of the bigger prison cell, outside of the Nightmares and the Tower.

Xü Beijin bitterly smiles again.

He knows his thoughts are flying all over the place because he needs them to keep him going like so.

Because he can feel a numbing in his soul. Maybe this is why he can’t feel very well, now.

Maybe he is sitting on the ground as he can no longer stand.

Hmm, maybe it’s not that bad yet. He isn’t sure, but what he is sure, is that he’s tired.

He won’t last very long. He might not be able to grasp the extent of how tired he is. That’s how bad his mental state has deteriorated.

The little apple sure was right. He desperately needs a good sleep. But the situation is how it is. It’s all-or-nothing. How can he just let himself drift away to dreamland like this?

He is both sharply awake, and deeply exhausted. His mind is torn.

Although that is when he suddenly notices, that there is only one single Cell Nightmare he can see floating in front of him.

Huh? Did the Missiontakers manage to group back up?

Looking over, and being surprised, he thinks he is standing up; taking a few steps forward, he touches on that Cell Nightmare.

The next second, there is nobody left standing here. Xü Beijin is now inside of the Cell Nightmare.

Only one thing is on Xü Beijin’s mind right now.

They really did find the Nightmare he needed!