Artifact Report

Chapter 112 Sea Reed Lucid Dream
...What's going on now?

Should he run?
The resident had long and thin hands and feet, and his clothes were much shorter than his limbs; his head was bald, and he wore a wig askew, as if he was just going through the motions.

After it changed its face to that of a sea reed, it didn't seem to have much interest in him. It continued to wipe Mai Minghe's face without even looking at him.

If you run now, there's a good chance you can escape.

But...what about Mai Minghe?
Her facial features, like stubborn but still completely erasable marker marks, gradually faded and disappeared with each wipe.

Just now, he was a man with bright features and a gentle smile, but when he looked up again, there was only a piece of white skin with slightly uneven skin on his face; countless pores seemed to replace the function of the nasal cavity, pulling the skin up and down slightly, as if breathing.

It's like this, can there be any hope? He looks more like a resident than any other resident.

Even if we repel this resident, how can we remove her face——

"Oh, all right."

The resident suddenly stopped and said slowly, "Well, now I'll start adding your appearance from eighty-six minutes ago."

what?
Sea Reed felt like he wasn't in danger anymore, so he quickly glanced down at his watch. It was still 12:20. It hadn't even been a minute since the residents showed up.

Eighty-six minutes ago...it was ten fifty-four, the moment when Mai Minghe just arrived at the library door and asked him the time.

Looking back, the resident just now did say, "Start over from the moment you first arrived at the library."

Is it the appearance that is being “restarted”? How different is a person’s appearance from 86 minutes ago to what it is now? What is the meaning of starting over?
He was completely confused; he had never heard of such residents before.

Hai Luwei felt as if he had turned into a statue without carved feet. He could neither rush forward to save people nor turn around and run away. For a moment, he could only stand still, looking at the resident who was pressing his face against his, and once again reached out his hand towards Mai Minghe's face.

Each of its movements was very fast. In just one breath, Mai Minghe's facial features had returned to normal - it looked exactly the same as before.

No, that's not right.

There are some differences, but it's not that the facial features have changed...

At this moment, Mai Minghe's forehead was lightly glistening with sweat. Her face was pale, her eyelids half-drooped, and she was panting softly, as if she were once again exhausted. The hour they had just sat on the steps, chatting and resting, seemed to have wiped all the sweat off her face.

...It's the same face from 86 minutes ago! So that's what it means!
Although it was inappropriate, Hai Luwei actually felt a bit of admiration.

These residents have come up with new and innovative ways to harm people, and it’s quite hard to think about it – his ex-girlfriend praised him, saying that he is a considerate person.

At this moment, Mai Minghe, who looked exhausted, seemed to be blind to the two "sea reeds" beside him and walked straight to the library door; his feet dragged heavily under him step by step.

"Wait, what's going on?"

The sea reed took courage, and when the resident turned and followed, he shouted to it, "What are you going to do with her?"

The face that he had seen in the mirror for twenty-seven years turned from his shoulder, and a pair of dark eyes were fixed on Hai Luwei.

"You're not my target, just get lost," it said calmly. "I'm only eliminating future contestants today, so be thankful."

What future contestant? What are you talking about?

However, the minds, thoughts and logic of the residents are like a broken kaleidoscope, filled with various colors and shapes, twisted together fragments, and are often incomprehensible to humans - it probably doesn't matter what it chooses to call a hunter.

Hai Luwei looked at the exit at the other end of the parking lot.

…If what it says is true, now is a perfect opportunity to escape.

He didn't know yet what the consequences would be if he served as a guide for less than twelve hours; but since Mai Minghe died at the hands of the residents, the consequences and responsibilities shouldn't fall on him, right?
Besides, he was far away from the realm of rules where he had failed; could those residents still come down from the sky and amputate his legs?
He turned his head again and saw Mai Minghe fall down on the steps not far away with a "gulp". He waved and greeted the resident who was facing his face above the steps.

...This is indeed what happened more than an hour ago.

Wait, does that mean that by restoring a person's appearance to what it was like some time ago, everything that person sees and thinks in his mind will all go back to the past?

No wonder the residents say “start over”… But what’s the point of repeating history?

When Sea Reed reacted, he found that he was already walking towards the Maiming River; another "Sea Reed" on the steps immediately raised his head towards him.

"Don't mind, I won't stop you," the sea reed said, raising its hands. "I just want to see what you are going to do and gain some experience so that I can be more experienced next time."

The resident stared at him with dark eyes, then turned his head away after a second or two.

It obviously didn't want Sea Reed to watch - he was very familiar with his own face, and he could recognize even the slightest trace of annoyance and anger.

However, although it was unwilling, it still held back and did not attack the sea reed. Perhaps it was because Mai Minghe had already started "history repeating itself" at this moment, and it had no time?

This speculation wasn't groundless; the resident turned around and immediately asked Mai Minghe, "...Did you two come together?" What did he mean by "two"? Hai Luwei was a little confused.

As soon as the words came out, the resident took two steps to the side - there were clearly at least five or six steps between them, but in the blink of an eye, it was standing behind Mai Minghe.

After it flashed several times at high speed, when Mai Minghe turned his head behind him, his eyes happened to fall on the face of a young girl with eyeliner.

After a few seconds, in the dead silence of the night, the young girl's eyes slowly drooped and the corners of her mouth curved high, as if a knife had cut her skin, leaving three deep, arched lines.

...What's wrong? Why is it so happy?
Unexpectedly, neither the residents nor Mai Minghe uttered a word afterwards.

I don't know when the wind stopped under the sky, the air was heavy and sticky, and every move I made seemed to have to resist squeezing jelly.

Mai Minghe remained half-turned, looking directly at the residents, his eyes unfocused and motionless.

At the same time, the residents on the other side are busy: its face sometimes turns into sea reed, sometimes into eyeliner girl, the stay time varies, and no one knows why it changes like this.

Sea Reed tentatively took a few steps towards the resident, not daring to attract the resident's attention.

...The Maiming River is not completely motionless.

The light on the steps just happened to illuminate her face: her pupils flickered and trembled, as if she was looking at something that had taken away all her attention; from time to time, Mai Minghe seemed to be trying to speak, her lips half open and slightly opening and closing - but no sound came out.

The person I thought I was talking to in my dream might look like this?

It felt like... Mai Minghe was clearly sinking into a dream.

What did she see?

If I call her, will she still hear me?
Sea Reed hesitated for a moment, then coughed a few times, the sound echoing into the night and far away; but the Mai Ming River was like a stone, still indifferent.

The resident suddenly laughed softly twice.

"You can't scare her awake. Is that your intention?" It continued to stare at Mai Minghe, now with Hai Luwei's face. "She's already trapped in a 'lucid dream' I created... Everything she sees and hears is carefully constructed for her. Since she's already awake, how can she wake up again?"

"That's really her name?" Hai Luwei was startled. "My sensitivity is really pretty good. I was just thinking, she looks like—"

"Shut up," the resident said, "Do you want me to drag you into a 'lucid dream' too?"

Hai Luwei kept his mouth shut and didn't say what was in his heart.

He kept silent, not because he was afraid, but because he didn't want to push the residents too far - he actually had a guess in his mind.

I'm afraid it's impossible for it to create two "lucid dreams" at once and control two people, right?
Just as he had explained to Mai Minghe, humans were a valuable resource for the residents, a tonic; if it were possible to control two people at once, this resident would have done it long ago.

For some unknown reason, it gave the spot to Mai Minghe instead of itself—perhaps she really was a contestant. Anyway, as long as Mai Minghe was still in the dream, he was safe.

Well, my luck today has turned from bad to good.

As Hai Luwei pondered this, he sat down on the steps, observing Mai Minghe. As if chatting, he asked, "Hey, big brother—are you the big brother? Or the big sister? I'm curious, what is your ultimate goal in controlling her with lucid dreams?"

The resident knitted his eyebrows sharply—for several minutes, they remained fixed on Sea Reed's face, looking eerily strange—as if both unhappy and yet somewhat complacent. He smiled sharply and said, "If telling you will shut you up, then there's no harm in telling you. If she keeps following the script I wrote, she'll soon be gradually assimilated by me."

"Then why did you become my face? She can't see or hear reality. Even if you don't have a head, she won't know. And you switch back and forth between the two faces..."

Hai Luwei spoke briskly until he suddenly slapped his forehead. "Could it be that in 'Lucid Dreams', they need both me and another character? Are you playing both roles?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, I'll kill you, kill you, kill you, but it'll take a while."

Well, the denizens are always like this. They can barely speak a few words normally, even without punctuation. Their fragmented, repetitive speech is like a punctured artery, hissing with blood. Hearing it too much makes my face hurt.

"What do you mean by assimilation?" Hai Luwei asked, looking at Mai Minghe's dazed, dreamlike expression. "Same as you? She still has a full head of hair, not bald..."

He originally thought that if he could provoke the resident into anger, perhaps it would accidentally reveal its true identity, and perhaps even cause the control to become unstable; however, before he could finish his sentence, Hai Luwei himself was suddenly startled, jumped up from the steps, and almost fell down without keeping his balance.

It was as if an invisible hand pinched the inner corners of Mai Minghe's eyes and pulled her eyes towards the middle - the bridge of her nose suddenly disappeared, and the two corners of her eyes were close to each other, separated by only a layer of skin, and were about to be connected.

Just like a dreamer, he will occasionally talk in his sleep; Mai Minghe's voice was vague and subtle, but it was still captured by the sea reed.

"So that's how it is, so ..."

Assimilation...does it mean being "inhabited"?
　Perhaps the most fragile thing in this world is my schedule...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)