After settling the rest of the seafood, Fatty washed his hands and sat down across from Jiang Cheng.
“Doctor,” Fatty began hesitantly, “You’re free now, right?”
Jiang Cheng leaned on the chair and picked his teeth. His other hand swiped through the short videos. The women in the video danced happily. His face slowly turned red. “They should be asleep at this hour. They won’t answer your calls…”
Fatty was confused. He reacted after a while. He quickly explained, “Doctor, I’m not talking about the rich ladies. I want to ask you… about the missions.”
Jiang Cheng provided the most basic respect when he heard the term mission. He turned off his phone and placed it on the table. After seeing this, Fatty also became serious. He straightened himself and leaned forward, “Doctor, I still have the same question. What does the clue represent? Who had it in the previous mission?”
Jiang Cheng raised his head. The way he looked at Fatty shifted. Fatty’s first reaction was to look away as if… he was hiding something.
“Continue.” Jiang Cheng lifted his chin with interest. His fingers that tapped the table stopped.
Fatty pressed his lips. He continued in a severe tone, “Since Zhang Yinyin physically searched the woman in the qipao’s body, it means the clues are something physical and not verbal messages. Plus, when she did this, the mission just started. Therefore, the clue was not found in the mission, but someone carried them into the mission.” He continued his analysis, “The thing should be small. Otherwise, Zhang Yinyin’s action of unbuttoning the qipao couldn’t be explained. The qipao is a tight-fitting outfit so if the thing was hidden by the woman, it should be very small or…”
Fatty suddenly stopped. He looked at Jiang Cheng with a complicated gaze.
“Like…” He gestured with his hand, “A piece of paper.”
Fatty’s eyes trembled.
He was not a genius, but he was not dumb. When he was on the mission, he was too focused on staying alive to think about anything else. He easily overlooked those strange anomalies. However, after he left the mission and replayed the mission in his mind, the strange points surfaced. Fatty had to admit that Jiang Cheng was very clever. His performance in this mission was beyond admirable. He controlled the rhythm of the mission and basically had everyone within his palm. Fatty admitted that everyone, including Zhang Yinyin, Xu Wen, Zhen Jianren and Luo Yi… was extremely hard to deal with. However, they all died. In contrast, the doctor who had Fatty as a burden was left unscathed.
The person who had the clues was not the others but Doctor. The clue was the newspaper Chen Xiaomeng gave Doctor. Of course, Fatty didn’t believe Chen Xiaomeng had given Doctor the newspaper. She wasn’t so kind.
“Doctor,” Fatty was stunned for a long time before he continued, “You already knew about the newspaper being the clue?”
Jiang Cheng took a sip of the water. What he said next confused Fatty, “If I knew that beforehand, do you think I’d carry the newspaper with me?”
Fatty frowned. “So… It was because of that newspaper that we were dragged into the second mission?!” Fatty still had questions regarding how they landed on the second mission. The thing he could confirm for now was no matter how scary the nightmare was, it would leave the players a lifeline. The nightmare wouldn’t allow an absolute death. That was the rule.
However, the reality was they were dragged into a second nightmare after not even 24 hours had passed since they survived the first one. Even though one’s physical wounds would be healed whenever one left the nightmare realm, one’s mental exhaustion wouldn’t heal. In this case, they were exposed to mental torment for multiple days and rested for less than a day before they were tossed into another torment. The scariest thing was they would die if they failed the mission. Then, they would disappear mysteriously in real life. No matter how strong a person was, they couldn’t sustain being tormented mentally for a prolonged period of time without any space for rest, even if that person was Jiang Cheng. Fatty didn’t think he could survive a third mission at this moment.
“That newspaper is the key to starting that mission,” Jiang Cheng’s voice was even and cold. Fatty rarely encountered Jiang Cheng . His face was strangely unfamiliar when he was not joking. It caused Fatty to sit up straighter. A wall of pressure hit him, causing him to have difficulty breathing.
“Chen Xiaomeng…” Fatty’s face was red, and his breathing became uneven, “So… that newspaper was the reward from the first mission, and Chen Xiaomeng got it.” Since Jiang Cheng didn’t answer, Fatty knew that he was right.
Then, everything else could be guessed. Jiang Cheng, who was also new, didn’t know how to use the newspaper. Therefore, he kept it on him and went to sleep. He didn’t expect the newspaper to initiate a new round of nightmares. Just like what Jiang Cheng said, the newspaper was a key. However, different from the first mission when they were passively dragged into it, they actively entered the second one.
In other words, having the key meant having the authority in the nightmare. It felt like a lot of things were flowing through Fatty’s mind, but it only took him less than ten seconds to figure things out.
“Doctor,” Fatty pursed his lips, “When did you realise this?”
Jiang Cheng glanced at him. “Realise what?”
“The clues…” Fatty’s throat moved and gave a small hint, “That they didn’t have the clues, but you have it on you… The newspapers.”
Jiang Cheng thought about it and said, “Probably around when we realised there was a ghost among us.”
“Luo Yi?” Fatty thought back about the situation then.