7
Placement
Liu Lan went off in high spirits to study her performance lines, while Jiang Qi shook his head, expressing his inability to understand today’s working generation, and continued reading the script.
For the 500-yuan mission reward and also to upgrade his Cards, he needed to thoroughly study the script, especially all the parts where Old John appeared. Only by targeting the specific issues could he find a way to upgrade the Cards.
Jiang Qi went upstairs and spent an hour reading all six Character Books and one host manual for “Mask Club.”
The core of the story was actually quite simple: Mask Club was a place similar to Pawnshop No. 8, where the club accepted all kinds of transactions but required the most precious thing from the trader in exchange.
The plot twist Liu Lan mentioned likely referred to Mina also being one of the Character Books.
Yes, Mina was also a Character Book, originally named “A Haggard Short-Haired Woman.”
Back when John was addicted to drugs and alcohol, his body was so depleted he wouldn’t live much longer. Under these circumstances, Mina received her first invitation to the club. There, she learned that all of John’s misery stemmed from his former boss—the unnamed villain whom John later killed.
John’s former boss had visited the club many years earlier, trading his conscience for a promotion and raise. Later, when the company’s new drug development failed and the former boss had to take the main responsibility, he returned to the club, trading his family bonds to frame John and make him take the fall. After John was released from prison and started his own business, the former boss, aware that John and Mina had been gathering evidence to overturn the case, feared John would succeed and uncover the truth. He visited the club a third time, trading his talent and happiness for John’s new company to suffer a major blow.
That was the essence of Mask Club: those who had made a transaction could easily return to make another, and continuous transactions would endlessly amplify human greed, ultimately leading to destruction.
During her first visit to the club, Mina wanted to save John, to make him healthy and motivated. After evaluation, the club determined that the most precious thing Mina possessed was the deep emotional bond between her and John. However, this alone wasn’t enough to exchange for what she wanted, so Mina added her beauty and family background, trading her looks, love, and wealth for a new life for John.
Mina lost her love and memories of John, forever forfeiting romance, and became a plain-looking woman exiled by her father from the family, living a tragic life.
When Jiang Qi read Mina’s book, he didn’t realize in the first act that this seemingly abandoned, miserable woman was actually Mina. In the first two acts, Mina’s role was more about explaining Mask Club to the other players, as among the seven guests this time, aside from the doomed former boss, Mina was the only one with any knowledge of Mask Club.
At the end of the first act in Mina’s book, this desperate woman receives another invitation from Mask Club. She knows she has been here before but doesn’t remember what she did. With nothing left to lose, she ultimately chooses to return to this place of devilish bargains.
Mina wasn’t the simple, love-struck rich girl Jiang Qi had initially assumed. On the contrary, her childhood was even as tragic as John’s.
In her memories, her mother passed away early, and all her beautiful childhood recollections came from her mother. Her father favored sons over daughters, devoting all his attention to several illegitimate sons and the son born to his stepmother. Though she never lacked material comforts or suffered outright abuse growing up, she never received any emotional reciprocation.
During her teenage years, Mina fell into depravity and indulgence—drinking, drug abuse, and street racing. At a time when she most needed guidance from elders, no one cared for her. Her father even lavished money on her, as if encouraging her self-destruction. Later, Mina awakened on her own, yet still, no one paid her any mind. Leveraging her privileged family background, she attended prestigious schools, secured a position in a major corporation, and had many boyfriends until she met John, whom she felt mirrored herself.
Mina’s desperate efforts to save the fallen John stemmed not only from love but also from her belief that she was rescuing her own past self. She saw too many similarities between John and herself; in striving to save him, she was equally striving to save herself.
The scripts for the other four players followed separate storylines with minimal overlap, each adhering to a similar pattern—individuals at the end of their rope, devoid of hope.
After reading the entire script, Jiang Qi’s perception of Emotional Scripts shifted slightly.
They remained absurd, yet intriguingly so.
Jiang Qi found the most fascinating aspect to be the final mechanism: after all truths were revealed, the six players faced choices. John’s options were relatively diverse—he could exchange for what he desired, with the club assessing what he had left to offer. Alternatively, he could choose to return what Mina had originally exchanged to the club, which would allow him to select two from love, appearance, and family background to restore to Mina.
Having absorbed all the stories, Jiang Qi roughly understood why Liu Lan claimed the script lacked impact without live performance.
The highlights and twists of this script were largely concentrated in the mechanism where players undergo trials and recall forgotten events. No matter how elaborate, delicate, or rich the text on the cards, it couldn’t match the visceral impact of a live performance in front of the players.
With proper sound and lighting, even if the acting was somewhat awkward or performed from behind a curtain with only voices, it would far surpass the effect of merely reading text.
As a mainstay of the drama club, a specialist in playing trees, flowers, and background characters, and occasionally doubling as an amateur stagehand handling lights and props, Jiang Qi declared that the performance segment would rely on him.
It was time to showcase the advanced acting skills he had honed over the years in the drama club.
Just as Jiang Qi was brimming with ambition, ready to display his talents, Old John descended the stairs carrying cleaning tools and said, “Cleaning’s done.”
“Can we clock out now?”
As the boss who provided room and board but no salary, Jiang Qi symbolically inspected Old John’s work.
The results were astounding.
True to his decades of experience as a professional cleaner, Old John had completed a deep clean of the entire shop in under three hours. Not only was the shop spotless, but he had also organized the storage room, previously cluttered with miscellaneous items and delivery boxes. Such remarkable efficiency left Jiang Qi—who had been exhausted by mandatory dorm cleanings during college inspections—utterly stunned.
Another person left dumbstruck was Liu Lan. From her shocked expression, Jiang Qi could tell that the hygiene conditions in their dormitory were likely equally appalling.
“Lan Lan, we have to go now.” Jiang Qi still needed to take Old John to buy some clean clothes. If they waited any longer, the affordable shops on the street would close.
“Oh, okay.” Lan Lan was sitting at the front desk eating noodles, her mouth stuffed as she nodded vaguely. Forcing down a big mouthful of noodles, she shouted at Jiang Qi who already had one foot out the door, “Come early tomorrow afternoon, we’ll rehearse the performance!”
“Got it.”