Artifact Report

Chapter 111 Sea Reed: The First Hour of Being a Guide
There is only one secret to being happy in life: keep your expectations in check.

Hai Luwei sat on the steps in front of the library, looking at the dark and empty parking lot in front of him, and let out a long sigh.

He had thought he would definitely get it this time...he had thought he wouldn't have to come to the lair again. But he hadn't expected that in the last step, he would lose everything just because he overlooked a detail.

No one will not feel pain if they fall from the top of a mountain just a stone's throw away from achieving their goal.

Having avoided paraplegia should make one happy...

But if you look at it from another perspective, wouldn’t it be frustrating if you worked so hard for so long but could only barely maintain the same state as the beginning?
So you see, whether a person is happy or not depends entirely on how big the gap is between your expectations and your reality.

Although he understood the reason, Hai Luwei still felt mixed emotions, lost and bewildered. He sat blankly on the steps, waiting for the "short-haired young female hunter" who needed him as a guide.

Oh, never mind. At least I saved my life and both legs this time. Come to think of it, I have to thank that female hunter.

I don't know what happened to the other person, but he could actually replace my punishment...

He glanced at the fluorescent watch on his wrist.

It's ten forty-nine now, and it's almost the 19th.

He didn't know if there were luminous watches available, and was too lazy to look for them, so he just ordered a children's fluorescent watch on Amazon. When he got it, he saw that there was a cartoon pattern of Ninja Turtles on the dial. Anyway, being able to tell the time was enough, and maybe he wouldn't have to come to the nest anymore soon.

Sea Reed was not suited to being a hunter, and he knew it well.

He didn't have a strong desire for money and material possessions; just enough to live on and save was enough. There was no need to risk his life by repeatedly entering the lair. Earning so much money, he wouldn't be able to spend it even if he died. Look, if the punishment hadn't been replaced this time, the rest of his life would have been...

"Come so fast?"

With a start, Hai Luwei jumped up from the steps. A figure approached from the far side of the parking lot, its face hard to discern. Feeling uneasy, he tightened his coat and asked, "Didn't you come from ten kilometers away? How come you're here in less than half an day?"

In the human world, ten kilometers would only take more than two hours of continuous walking to reach the destination; but this is a nest after all - let alone half a day's work, there is a high possibility that the other party will not be able to reach the destination at all.

If she died on the road, would his punishment change back to paraplegia? This was a question that Hai Luwei had not even dared to think about.

This person didn't know much about the nest, so he must have been lucky to get there so smoothly.

The shadow gradually walked into the light. It seemed to be an Asian man, and the short, messy black hair could be seen from a distance.

Probably because she had been walking for four or five hours, she was so tired that her face turned pale. She collapsed on the steps with a thud, and waved to him weakly, smiled, and said hello.

"Um... I thought I was in trouble this time, but I didn't expect the punishment to turn out like this."

Sea Reed walked down hesitantly, and stopped a few steps away from her. "That's you, right? The one who needs a guide?"

"Yes," she breathed a sigh of relief, looked back at him, and asked with a smile, "Have you been waiting for a long time?"

"Oh, no,"

Sea Reed, unknowingly, smiled, even though his mind was a mess just moments before. He walked down the steps and said, "I'll only wait an hour. That's nothing in the nest."

Perhaps it was because her features were clear and bright, and when she smiled, it was as if it was an autumn afternoon with a particularly pleasant climate; although she was not very old, when she looked at her, one felt as if being gently embraced by an elder.

"Really?" The woman was surprised. "Waiting for an hour is nothing? What time is it now?"

"Ten fifty-four," Hai Luwei said, and moved his watch closer to show her.

"I've been walking for so long," she smiled, "Hey, I know this, the Ninja Turtle."

Seeing that she was obviously exhausted, Hai Luwei asked, and she smiled bitterly: "I haven't slept much in the past two days. I've been walking all the time. Young man, you usually have to have a place to rest in the nest, right? You can't stay awake for seven days."

The term "young man" is a bit old-fashioned.

"Of course, family hunters have their own private safe bases, but for those of us who work alone, we also know some safe public resting places where we can rest and sleep."

Sea Reed sat down beside her and said, "This 'safe' means there are no residents and no nests to bother you. You still have to be wary of hunters, but generally speaking, people don't want to disrupt order in public places and become a target of public criticism."

He suggested, "Sit down for a while. I can take you to the nearest place to stay. There are also some precautions to take when resting."

"You're quite the guide, young man," the woman praised. "Your explanations are very clear."

"Shall we start now? I'm going to be a guide for twelve hours. The sooner we start, the sooner the punishment will end. I don't have much time left in the nest, so let's finish the guide job quickly and go home." Sea Reed smiled and said, "What's your name? My name is Sea Reed."

As he spoke, he extended a hand.

Logically, one should be extra careful in the nest and shouldn't touch strangers or unfamiliar objects casually; however, some people in this world have an aura that can make people feel soothed and relaxed when they are around them, as if... as if they were returning to their grandmother's house when they were a child.

Besides, we still have to spend the next twelve hours together.

"My name is Mai Minghe," the woman also smiled and shook hands with him.

"Are you new to hunting? Where would you like to start?"

She tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Being a hunter... should be quite interesting, right?"

"Indeed, it's not boring by any means," Sea Reed replied sincerely. "As for whether it's interesting or a nightmare, that depends on the individual."

Mai Minghe suddenly raised her head and laughed in a clear voice; she was not afraid of attracting anything in the night, but it seemed that she had brightened up this small area.

"Well, why don't you start by introducing the residents?" she said. "I don't know much, but I've met quite a few of the den's inhabitants... They're quite strange."

Compared to finding a way through the lair, escaping the realm of rules, and so on, telling her what he knew was a much easier task. "Then let's start from... well, from the source. All the inhabitants, artifacts, realms of rules, and the traps found throughout the lair... let's put it this way, everything you see in the lair has only one source: humans."

Mai Minghe opened his eyes wide.

Starting with the inhabitants born after the death of humans, Hai Luwei carefully told her the information he knew about the inhabitants; some of them that he couldn't remember at the moment also surfaced one by one after Mai Minghe asked questions and reminded him.

You don't know until you talk about it. Once you talk about it, you will find that the nest, just one "resident", contains so much information. He talked until his mouth was dry. When he looked at the watch, he found that more than an hour had passed without him noticing, and the topic was still about the residents.

Mai Minghe listened attentively and seriously, which made Hai Luwei understand the sense of accomplishment of being a teacher. If he had to say something bad, it would be that this student was sometimes a little talkative.

"It's amazing! How many people must have spent so much time and effort to compile this experience. See, human experience must be passed down." She sighed and said, "Is there any way to check the surrounding environment to see if there are any hidden residents?"

"There's no one-hundred-percent way. At least I don't know."

Sea Reed replied, "But there are some common things that can easily go wrong. No matter where you go, you should make it a habit to check them first. Being careful can save your life."

He glanced around and, as if giving a lecture, said, "The library is a very important landmark... Well, there's too much to cover. Let's start with the parking lot."

When he first arrived, he had already checked the parking lot, and now he felt more confident as he took Mai Minghe for another walk around.

"The most essential item in your lair is a flashlight and its spare batteries. You can never take any shadow lightly."

As he spoke, he pulled out his flashlight, and the beam swept across the darkness, like lifting a corner of a curtain—and on the cement floor behind the curtain, a curled-up figure was revealed. "See? That!"

Mai Minghe took a closer look and took a breath. "Huh?"

A baby about one or two years old was squatting on the ground, his head lowered between his legs, his eyes closed, curled up in a ball, and motionless.

The sea reed walked around the baby and said, "Don't worry, this resident is sleeping. He is harmless now."

"how do you know?"

"It's snoring."

Isn't this obvious?

Mai Minghe stared at him, his mouth half open, as if he had a hundred things he couldn't figure out that were about to burst out.

"Besides shadows, you have to be especially careful of human-shaped objects, or objects with human faces printed on them," Hai Luwei said, his flashlight illuminating a campaign advertisement on a telephone pole. "This... well... humans don't look like this, so it's actually less dangerous."

To maintain the independence of the nest, we must take the initiative!

Taking a different and more cautious approach than before, fundamentally eliminating the risk of extinction and taking the problem more seriously
Please vote for me

Mai Minghe leaned in to take a look, his expression also odd. "Hmm... humans certainly don't look like this. But... two black dots inside a coil, and a red line for a mouth... who can tell who the candidate is?"

Sea Reed shrugged. "What if the candidate is like this?"

Mai Minghe laughed again.

"What else?"

"There are quite a lot of them. Let me see..." Hai Luwei's flashlight swept across the car and said, "Oh, and this thing was obviously brought into the nest and has hiding space. You can't be too careful. The nest residents like things that smell like humans the most."

The two approached the car, shining their flashlights around inside and out, top to bottom. Hai Luwei even gave Mai Minghe a rehearsal on how to search and check for any signs of residents. When they stood up, Mai Minghe breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I didn't expect this to be such a strenuous job. We've been talking for so long, it's almost twelve o'clock, right?"

"It's 19:," Hai Luwei glanced at his watch, "It's already the th."

Something flickered in his peripheral vision, reminding him that there was another place he needed to pay close attention to. "Oh, yes, there are also mirrors! Look at these rearview mirrors—"

Hai Luwei bent down and looked at the rearview mirror of the car.

Mai Minghe's face was reflected in the rearview mirror, small and blurry.

After half a second, Hai Luwei realized that the reason her face was blurry was not because of dim light or because she was simply standing far away.

He turned his head away stiffly.

The trunk of the car, which I had just clearly checked and found to be harmless, now opened, its mouth wide open to the night behind.

There was an extra person beside Mai Minghe without him noticing when.

The place where the face should be is like an oval screen made of flesh skin, constantly switching and flashing various facial features - sometimes it is a man with square cheeks, sometimes it is a fat woman with a small nose and small eyes, sometimes it is a teenager who has not yet grown up, and sometimes it is a young girl with eyeliner.

It seemed unconcerned with its own flickering face, and raised one hand, holding a white cloth.

As if Mai Minghe's face was a glass window, it began to wipe it in circles with the white cloth in its hand. Every time it wiped, Mai Minghe's face became a little blurrier.

"Let's start over from the moment you first arrived at the library," the Flashing Face said softly, but before it finished its words, it suddenly fixed on a face.

The sea reed saw itself.

　Why is my schedule and update time drifting back again... Another chapter similar to Brianna's comes, and I'm getting tired of it (.

　　I didn't fall asleep until five yesterday, and I was almost dead sleepy during the day. Tomorrow night (oh, shouldn't I say tonight?) I have to go babysit for a friend's kid for a while...

　　I'm going to take them to the arcade, and I'm going to let them do whatever makes them happy.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)