Seeing that Jiang Qi seemed to have finished reading, Liu Lan asked, “How is it?”
Jiang Qi found the plot somewhat absurd.
There didn’t seem to be a single normal person in this script.
John’s biological mother was literally insane, with daily hobbies consisting of drinking and cursing at people. She even went out of her way to call and curse John after he started working, saying he wouldn’t live past 27. Her storyline wasn’t particularly extensive.
John’s father was a mysterious eccentric. If you said he didn’t like his son, the earlier content showed the father and son getting along quite harmoniously. Old John would buy sandwiches for young John, sign his composition papers, and let young John stay at his house when he ran away from home to become self-reliant and escape his insane mother.
But if you said Old John loved his son, he completely ignored the suit young John bought him with money painstakingly saved over years from delivering milk, delivering newspapers, and doing hard labor at a dairy factory. Young John returned home joyfully with the suit, wanting to surprise his father, only for Old John to not even glance at it, showing complete indifference, which led to the breakdown of their relationship.
Young John wasn’t exactly normal either – for a person to be this unlucky was truly somewhat absurd.
The wealthy, beautiful girlfriend Mina was even more abnormal – a complete love-struck fool who would cut ties with her family for her boyfriend, abandoning her life as a wealthy heiress to become a poor office worker, only to disappear without a trace in the end, leaving no message behind.
Jiang Qi felt that Jiang Bing had a point.
Emotional Script – absurd plot, gathering of love fools, farewell to intelligence.
Jiang Qi nodded to show he understood.
“You just finished the first act, right?” Liu Lan realized.
Jiang Qi continued nodding.
“Let me tell you, there’s a plot twist later! This script is really touching!”
Jiang Qi expressed some skepticism about Liu Lan’s recommendation.
The second act was a short scene, just one page long, where the seven present characters exchanged sarcastic remarks with each other. While they were arguing, a waiter wearing a white mask appeared and announced that there were some minor issues with the evening’s preparations. The story-sharing session would begin early, and guests could move around the banquet hall area. There was a smoking room to the right of the banquet hall where gentlemen who needed to smoke could go.
The third act’s plot was particularly bizarre.
There were only 6 player books, but 7 people attended the banquet, indicating that one person was an NPC.
This NPC was John’s former supervisor who made a brief appearance in John’s Character Book without even having a name. His presence was so faint that Jiang Qi had to flip back through the script to confirm that this character was actually written in.
The third act contained a murder case.
During the free activity period, John used smoking as an excuse to go to the smoking room, but actually wanted to investigate other areas as he found the banquet suspicious. While John was sneaking into a records room, he unexpectedly encountered his former supervisor who had removed his mask.
Upon seeing John, the former supervisor began attacking him with a ferocious expression. After an ineffective struggle, John accidentally killed his former supervisor.
Without any prior criminal experience, John suddenly became a crime master through instinct alone. He quickly cleaned up the crime scene, disguising the former supervisor’s death as an accident where he was hit by falling documents and fatally struck his head on the corner of a table. Before leaving, John even remembered to put the mask back on the former supervisor.
While handling the corpse, John accidentally spotted scattered files on the floor. One page clearly contained Mina’s information, further convincing him that her disappearance was connected to this mysterious club. Finally, John returned to the banquet hall. Before going back, he hastily lit a cigarette to leave a faint tobacco scent on himself, tossed the unfinished butt into an ashtray outside the smoking room, and reentered the banquet hall pretending nothing had happened.
Jiang Qi, who hadn’t expected any plot twists but certainly not one this absurd: …
“Are you sure this twist is touching?” Jiang Qi was dumbfounded. Is this what an Emotional Script is?
Did he just not understand emotions?
“John’s murder motive makes absolutely no sense.”
Liu Lan calmly responded, “The murder cases in Emotional Scripts are always poorly written. This one actually has some logic to it. The real twist comes later, keep reading.”
Jiang Qi turned to the fourth act, which featured a short scene before a story-sharing session began. When he flipped to the next act, he discovered the fifth act started with the story-sharing session already concluded, and John having passed the Club Owner’s test, now eligible to make an equivalent exchange wish before leaving the club.
Jiang Qi: ?
Did he somehow miss ten thousand words of crucial plot?
He flipped back through the pages, confirming there was indeed no content about any test.
“Is this script missing some content? How does it jump straight to the test being over without showing it?” Jiang Qi asked.
“The test content is in the host manual,” Liu Lan explained. “The test is part of the gameplay segment that players aren’t supposed to know about in advance.” The host needs to facilitate it.”
Jiang Qi went to check the host manual.
“Flip further back in the manual. The front sections are all procedures. The test content should be on page seven – that mechanism section between the fourth and fifth acts, the one completely filled with text.”
Jiang Qi found the section Liu Lan mentioned. The text was indeed quite dense.
According to the manual, the host needed to role-play as the Club Owner at this point, adopting a sarcastic, villainous tone to interrogate players and prompt them to enter their memories.
Every player’s first act contained missing content – these gaps represented memories they were unwilling to recall.
The so-called test involved the host distributing these memory fragments to respective players, then either sarcastically or thunderously questioning them about these memories.
“Here, these are John’s Memory Cards.” Liu Lan retrieved six Memory Cards belonging to John from the box and handed them to Jiang Qi. He took the cards and looked through them.
Hah, what a scumbag.
Despite constantly claiming he wanted to find Mina, only one of the six cards contained sweet memories of their past together.
The remaining five were:
Writing a fake essay “My Father” that required parent-teacher meeting attendance, asking Old John to go but being coldly rejected.
Inviting Old John to a parent-child activity only to be coldly rejected while Old John was reading.
Gifting Old John a suit as present, only to have it ignored with the gift bag remaining unopened (detailed description).
Inviting parents and siblings to graduation ceremony with no one showing up – only Sunny called in advance to say she couldn’t attend due to work, while others didn’t respond.
Detailed description of the day Old John passed away.
Jiang Qi went through each card one by one. Every card was filled with accounts of John – this love-starved child since childhood – repeatedly testing his father’s affection only to be constantly rejected. As he read, Liu Lan continued explaining beside him.
“At first I thought John’s script was purely a romance story, but it turned out to be about family bonds. No wonder there were so many childhood scenes earlier. But his father Old John is really strange – clearly wealthy yet choosing to live like that till the end without any explanation. I feel this might be…”
Liu Lan’s voice gradually faded, while another gentle female voice became increasingly clear.
“John, Sunny should have probably just got off the plane by now. Can you call her to ask for her secret apple pie recipe? I forgot again.”
English?
Jiang Qi looked up in confusion, realizing he was no longer in the shop. He was sitting on a sofa in someone’s living room, with a man and woman chatting and laughing behind him.
The woman had gorgeous golden hair, brown eyes, and when she smiled, shallow dimples appeared with crescent-shaped eyes. Her deep-set features marked her as a classic Western beauty – even the ugly pink apron with cartoon cat patterns couldn’t diminish her charm.
The man wore a suit, apparently just off work, with black hair and relatively gentle features.
It was Mina and John.
For no particular reason, Jiang Qi felt certain these two strangers were the main characters from the script.
Jiang Qi stood up, noticing they showed no reaction – clearly unable to see him. Uncertain about his current situation, he glanced down at the large card in his hand only to find it completely blank.
Looking at the Christmas decorations filling the room, a speculation emerged in Jiang Qi’s mind.
Had he entered the world inside the card?
Relying on his barely-passing CET-6 English level, Jiang Qi struggled to follow their conversation.