“Look, I came back safe and sound!” Bai Yu walked up to An Mu and extended a hand toward him.
An Mu’s eyes held a trace of pleasant surprise, and he immediately broke into a smile, grasping Bai Yu’s hand firmly. “Welcome back!”
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, everyone quickly returned to the main topic, continuing the meeting about the Nightmare.
“So, this is a Rule-Distorted Nightmare?” Bai Yu looked at the data on the large screen, lost in thought. He habitually picked up a pen and began twirling it in his hand, while his other hand propped up his chin. He waited for Lan Ce to continue, his mind already beginning to analyze the contradictory aspects of these rules.
“Yes. The child in the coffee shop, the employee in red, the music, and the restroom are the key threats to be on guard against in this investigation.” Lan Ce nodded at Bai Yu. “At the same time, whether the employees in black serve any other purpose within it also remains unclear.”
“This is the customer code posted at the coffee shop entrance, but based on experience from past weird tale assignments, there may be other rules hidden within it.” Lan Ce continued, “And as for whether it contains false rules, we have no way of knowing either.”
At this point, Lan Ce suddenly stopped and looked at Bai Yu.
“None.” Bai Yu said crisply. The spinning pen came to a stable stop in his hand. He could borrow part of Hei Yan’s ability, allowing him to distinguish the authenticity of rules at a glance, but this time, he felt a hint of unusual ambiguity.
“Then it seems we’ll have to obtain further clues by going to the coffee shop.” Bai Yu stood up as he spoke. “Leave it to me.”
“Want to go together?” Mo Fei asked Bai Yu, who was walking toward the door.
“No need.” Bai Yu shook his head. “In this kind of rules-based weird tale, the whole system is interconnected. The more people there are, the easier it is to trigger incorrect rule options, causing the difficulty of the entire weird tale to multiply exponentially. Besides, even if I can’t crack it, at least preserving my life won’t be a problem.”
Rule-Distorted Nightmares were different from ordinary Nightmares. For example, the one Lu Yueqi had encountered simply needed to be eliminated. Rule-Distorted Nightmares usually hid themselves very deep; only after completely deciphering the clues could one encounter their true form. Merely relying on the rules to preserve one’s life and escape the nightmare was not the ideal outcome—in such cases, it didn’t count as cracking the nightmare. The Nightmare would still remain in the real world. Only by completely cracking it could the Nightmare of this type of nightmare be thoroughly destroyed, causing it to perish from reality.
With the Bureau’s help, Bai Yu quickly arrived at the scene. Before him, a modern shopping mall had already been cordoned off with isolation tape, and quite a few investigators were patrolling back and forth.
“Otherdream Coffee Shop.” Bai Yu quickly found his target for this trip. At this moment, the space surrounding Otherdream Coffee Shop seemed to be shrouded in a distorted film, and the light had become blurred and indistinct, appearing neither fully real nor illusory. Fortunately, it showed no signs of further spreading. If the nightmare continued to spread and enveloped the entire shopping mall, Bai Yu would have to seriously weigh whether he could resolve it—the difficulty of investigating a coffee shop rules weird tale versus a shopping mall rules weird tale was like the difference between heaven and earth.
The moment he pushed open the door, the scene before Bai Yu’s eyes rapidly transformed.
“Welcome to Otherdream Coffee Shop.” A female voice sounded from beside Bai Yu.
Bai Yu turned his head to look. The other party was wearing a black-and-white work uniform. Did this count as an employee in black? Bai Yu couldn’t decide for the moment. Hei Yan’s ability allowed him to distinguish true from false rules at a glance, but faced with this kind of ambiguous situation, even Hei Yan couldn’t give a clear answer. He recalled the rules: “2. Employees in black within the coffee shop are trustworthy. Please purchase coffee from them.”
“Hello, customer. How many in your party?” the girl asked politely.
“One,” Bai Yu replied.
“One!” the girl called toward the inside.
Soon, a tall, thin man walked over. His work uniform was the same style as the girl’s.
“This way, please.”
Bai Yu was quickly brought to his seat—a single table by the window, where he could clearly see the cars coming and going on the street outside. Unlike the hustle and bustle outside, Bai Yu was the only person in the shop. Other than those few sentences just now, the staff didn’t converse with each other at all. The entire shop was terrifyingly quiet.
“What would you like?” The server handed Bai Yu a menu and asked.
In nightmares of this kind, the target of interaction was very important. He could purchase coffee from employees in black, so first he had to determine what kind of people the employees in black here referred to, and whether the server currently attending him fell into this category.
Bai Yu looked over the menu. There were many kinds of coffee, and no other beverages or food appeared, but he was still conflicted in his heart about whether he could purchase coffee from this server.
After a moment, Bai Yu spoke: “Step back for now; I’ll look a bit longer myself.”
“Very well.” Just as the server was preparing to turn and leave, Bai Yu called out to him again.
“Wait—could you tell me where the restroom is?”
The server maintained the same smile he had worn since meeting Bai Yu and replied, “There is no restroom in the shop. If you need one, you can try looking in the shopping mall.”
This answer also matched what was mentioned in the customer rules: “8. The coffee shop is not equipped with a restroom.” At the same time, this kind of answer was also typical of a nightmare that had not yet spread. In normal real life, if you asked a server where the restroom was, they wouldn’t say “try looking in the shopping mall” but would tell you exactly where it was located.
And the reason the server here answered this way wasn’t that there was something wrong with his reasoning, but because he simply didn’t know whether there was a restroom in the shopping mall. His concept of reality was granted by the weird tale. Since the weird tale hadn’t spread to the shopping mall, his concept would stop at “this coffee shop is inside this shopping mall”—that was all. He couldn’t answer any questions about the shopping mall, because in this weird tale world, leaving the coffee shop was equivalent to leaving the scope of the weird tale. Of course, this didn’t mean one would return to reality; rather, one would be pulled back by the weird tale through various means to do it all over again, until one successfully exited the coffee shop according to the rules.
Bai Yu’s goal this time was not just to return to the real world; more importantly, he had to crack the weird tale. Therefore, finding new rules became a necessary condition. The information provided by the customer rules was too meager—one could even say it was impossible to find how to leave this place from the customer rules alone.
“What if I don’t order coffee?” Bai Yu recalled the rules. Although they mentioned purchasing coffee from employees in black, they didn’t say what would happen if he didn’t order coffee at all. Perhaps he could test it? Bai Yu had already observed his surroundings. Those things that the rules mentioned would not appear truly had not appeared. The only two strange things in the shop were these doll-like servers and the fact that he was the only customer.
He sat there, waiting patiently as time ticked by second by second. But even though he ordered nothing, after a long while, trouble still didn’t come knocking. It seemed the weird tale didn’t mind waiting either. The shop staff all stood like dolls at their posts, motionless. The male server who had received Bai Yu earlier also returned to his original position and stopped there, maintaining the smile on his face, doing nothing at all and not coming to ask again, as if he had gotten stuck. Or rather, because of Bai Yu’s inaction, the entire weird tale world now seemed to have gotten stuck.
In the end, Bai Yu lost the contest of endurance to the weird tale. “Server!” He waved at the male server. “Order!” Bai Yu randomly pointed to a coffee on the menu, then returned it to the server. He then saw the staff member standing behind the counter finally begin to move, starting to make the coffee.
“Here is your coffee.” In no time at all, the male server appeared before Bai Yu carrying the coffee. He placed the cup on the table and turned to leave. The coffee tasted quite good. Bai Yu raised the cup and took a small sip. He could tell that this Nightmare had done some research into the coffee; it hadn’t been a perfunctory effort. It’s just that the hallucinogenic effects were a bit severe.
His mind swam, and everything before his eyes twisted and stretched. A wave of intense dizziness assaulted him. Once the dizziness receded slightly, Bai Yu found himself standing once again at the coffee shop entrance.
“Welcome to Otherdream Coffee Shop.” The same female voice sounded again. “Customer, you—”
“One.” This time Bai Yu directly interrupted her, having learned to answer preemptively. He sized up the girl’s uniform from top to bottom, then patted her shoulder with satisfaction. After returning to the entrance again, he noticed the changes in the shop’s interior. If what he had seen before was a semi-finished, hollow shell of a world, then this moment was when he had truly entered the weird tale world.
The staff no longer rigidly went through the motions. Their movements were smooth and natural, their eyes lively, no longer wooden and dull like puppets. Quite a few people sat in the shop—drinking coffee, eating desserts, eating bread. The clamor of voices and soft jazz music intertwined, and the entire coffee shop came alive. Some people even listened to the shop’s music with their legs crossed, tapping rhythms with their feet while sitting in their chairs.
“This way, please.” The one who came to receive him this time was still that male server, except he finally no longer wore that unchanging smile from before. Now he looked no different from a real person. The menu the server handed over was no longer a thin sheet of paper but a thick booklet, specially categorized with things like steak and noodles—everything one could want. Bai Yu quickly skipped over the front contents, flipped to the last page with the coffee section, ordered the same cup as before, then stuffed the menu into the server’s arms.
Bai Yu looked around. Several of the things mentioned in the customer rules had already appeared: employees in red, employees in black, music, and food that shouldn’t be there. What was still missing was the child and the restroom. This time, the coffee-making efficiency was clearly much slower than before. Bai Yu waited quite a while before he saw the male server approaching with a tray carrying the coffee.
“Please enjoy.”
“Wait a moment.” Bai Yu looked at the server preparing to leave and called out to him once more. “Could you tell me where the restroom is?”
The male server once again revealed his signature smile. “There is no restroom in the shop. If you need one, you can try looking in the shopping mall.”
“Alright, thank you.” Bai Yu thanked him and let him leave.
“Big brother, are you going to the restroom?” An immature voice rang out from behind him, laced with a hint of incongruous hoarseness.
“That’s right,” Bai Yu replied.
“Big brother, it seems I left my eyeballs in the restroom just now. Can you help me go get them back?”
Bai Yu turned his head, his eyes looking toward that immature face—and the two bottomless black holes like dried-up wells where eyes should be.
“Sure.” The corner of Bai Yu’s mouth curved into a faint smile. That smile seemed rather meaningful in the dim shop, carrying a few parts playfulness and a few parts coldness.