Artifact Report

Chapter 19 Mai Minghe · Reproduction Unit

Now that I think about it, Jonah watched her pretty closely.

He kept turning his head to see if Mai Minghe was catching up; whenever she hesitated, he urged her to keep going. Even if this young man was kind, he seemed a little too responsible for her safety—not only did he not want the fake image, he was even willing to give up looking for his companions for her sake.

Of course, Mai Minghe's comments are all hindsight.

"Are you so sure?"

Jonah's voice was still very soft, although it was no longer breathy, as if he didn't want anything else to hear it.

"This is your first time entering the lair. How can you be sure that a resident will appear when you ring the bell? What if a resident doesn't show up, or if they do, they find they can't get in and simply don't enter?
"If I'm really just a hunter who was caught while escaping and thrown into the ward, why are you so suspicious? Aren't you throwing away a powerful ally in vain?"

"...Is that you?" Mai Minghe asked softly.

Jonah licked his dry lips, thought about it, and smiled.

"……no."

Before he finished speaking, Mai Minghe had already kicked the chair, causing it to crash straight into Jonah.

Without waiting to see if it hit anything, she immediately turned around and ran away - with a "bang", the chair seemed to hit something hard, making a heart-pounding echo in the empty and quiet waiting hall.

It didn't sound like she'd hit anyone, but Mai Minghe didn't have time to look back to see what was going on. She rushed out of the nurses' station, across the hall, and headed for the corridor they'd come from. She remembered there were several clinics with doors that weren't closed tightly. If she rushed into one and locked it, she might be able to resist Jonah.

A sharp whistle sounded behind him, and Jonah immediately shouted, "Come!"

What is he calling?
Mai Minghe forced himself to speed up the pace of his alternating feet again, turned around, and rushed into the quiet corridor - somehow, there was not even a sound of footsteps on the floor behind him, as if Jonah had not caught up at all.

She couldn't help but glance back over her shoulder in confusion.

The corridor was empty, and the pale light was immersed in the loneliness of no one.

Jonah actually didn't catch up.

Let’s not talk about why he didn’t chase me; I have already run so far, even if he chases me now, I probably won’t be able to catch up, right?
Do you still want to go into the clinic?

The question flashed through Mai Minghe's mind, and she immediately made a decision: go in.

She knew nothing about the St. Louis Hospital in her lair, and running around randomly might lead her into danger. When she passed by the clinic, she looked around the room; at least it wasn't a completely unfamiliar place.

The door of the first clinic was locked. She tried to turn the door handle but found that it would not turn. She immediately rushed to the next room with a half-open door - it was a heavy sliding door with a steel plate shell. As soon as Mai Minghe saw its appearance clearly, she cursed in her heart and hurried forward.

Fortunately, the next clinic was not far away and the door was not closed, leaving a gap. She pushed the door hurriedly, but found that the door could not be opened. There was only a gap as wide as a fist, as if it was stuck by something.

"Why don't you go into that room?" Jonah's voice asked.

Mai Minghe's heart skipped a beat.

She slowly raised her head and looked in the direction of the sound. In the angle between the ceiling and the wall, she saw a human face hanging down.

Yes... Jonah had indeed climbed up the wall. He had come over from the wall, so no wonder he hadn't heard any footsteps.

Jonah's abdomen was facing the ceiling, his hands and feet clinging tightly to the plaster wall, like a giant reptile. No one knew when it had circled over Mai Minghe's head, and no one knew how he had managed to stay put.

His neck was bent downward, his eyeballs drooped as he stared at Mai Minghe, revealing a large patch of white in his eyes. At this moment, Jonah reminded her of a doll whose eyes would flip open and close with gravity. Every time she held it in her hands, she felt as if it were a living creature pretending to be lifeless.

She also understood why the door couldn't be opened.

Jonah didn't hang on the ceiling with one hand, but instead reached into the crack of the door and firmly grasped a corner of the door panel, making it impossible for her to push or pull it.

"Don't be impatient, wait a little longer,"

Just as doubts were brewing in Mai Minghe's mind, Jonah opened his mouth, his upside-down upper teeth appearing and disappearing between his lips. "My child is coming soon. It depends on you to grow into a mature one."

What child?
Mai Minghe strode away from Jonah and then quickly glanced into the depths of the corridor.

A tiny shadow emerged from behind the corner. If it hadn't been rustling toward him, Mai Minghe probably wouldn't have thought it was a living thing.

At first glance, it looked like a ball, or a rolled-up plastic bag; but after a few seconds, she could see clearly - it was about the size of two fists, a flesh-pink, wrinkled mass of flesh, but on both sides of the flesh, several thin legs were moving forward rapidly and alternately, casting a shadow.

What the hell?

As the thought flashed through her mind, she suddenly felt a chill on both sides of her cheeks; two hands hung down from the ceiling, and their fingers were like iron claws, firmly grasping her head.

Mai Minghe was startled and struggled desperately, punching forward again and again, making dull "bang bang" sounds on the muscular arms, but it did not relieve the tight grip at all - the two men's hands dug deep into her cheeks, pinching her chin and forcing her mouth open.

The wrinkled pink ball seemed to become excited all of a sudden and crawled faster, with several tentacle-like thin feet climbing up the pajamas.

She had never wished so much as she did now that she had a weapon in her hand - anything would do, even a water pipe; but in the middle of the night tonight, she was just an old woman lying in bed, with nothing but a few clothes on her body.

"Don't be afraid," Jonah's voice comforted, "Look, I'm fine now, aren't I? As long as the memory remains, the person is not considered dead. After I entered Jonah, his memory as 'Jonah' is still continuing, which means that 'Jonah' is still alive... there is just one more symbiont." No wonder the round-headed man's blood had no effect on him; because the blood was smeared on Jonah, but not on the resident's body.

Mai Minghe desperately swung her hands across her body, trying to push the thing off, but the flesh ball was like a nimble cockroach, its tentacles crawling lightly and swiftly, repeatedly dodging the edge of her palms and continuing to move towards her head.

"You can try covering your mouth like Jonah did then," said Jonah above.

What kind of hypocritical advice are you giving?
When he said this, she really didn't know whether she should cover her mouth or not - or was it just to achieve this effect?

Mai Minghe now really regretted that she had pressed the bell four times; ever since she fell off the hospital bed, she had been in danger, and each situation was more terrible than the last.

While he was hesitating, the thing had already climbed onto his chest. The closer he looked, the more it looked like a mixture of a brain and a worm. A raw, fishy, ​​and cold breath rose from his chest. Five or six thin legs stepped over his collarbone, and an ugly thing with slippery wrinkles and folded skin appeared in Mai Minghe's sight.

Mai Minghe resisted the urge to raise her hands, turned her head away desperately, and quickly took off her pajamas - people become more afraid of the cold as they get older, and she was no exception. She also wore several layers of clothes when she slept, and the buttons of the outermost layer were not fastened and could be pulled off with one hand.

Two long and thin tentacles have already been stretched into the mouth, which is disgusting, painful and itchy.

Mai Minghe raised his eyes with an effort, aimed at the target, raised his arm and swung his pajamas, and with a "snap", he hit Jonah's eyes hard with all his strength.

Since it uses human flesh, it is inevitably limited by human physiological conditions, right?
After being hit in the eye, who can remain as calm as a rock and remain motionless?
Jonah couldn't help but scream, and his hands that were holding Mai Minghe loosened a little.

As soon as she felt the clamp loosen, she bent down and freed her head from Jonah's reach; at the same time, Mai Minghe wrapped her hands with her pajamas, grabbed the thing that was crawling into her mouth, and pulled it out.

Fortunately, the slender patient made her vomit no more, otherwise she would have vomited again looking at the flesh ball in front of her face with its claws and trembling limbs.

Mai Minghe wrapped it in his pajamas, held it in his hand despite his nausea, and ran away.

She couldn't be picky this time. When she realized that she had run back to the steel sliding door, Mai Minghe suddenly had an idea. She rushed in and immediately turned around at the door. Sure enough, she saw Jonah on the ceiling with his bloodshot eyes half-closed, crawling towards her quickly, his face distorted.

"You slippery old lady—"

Mai Minghe frowned and held the door with one hand.

These residents.

"I'm not an old lady anymore," she whispered, throwing the meatball to the ground, where it landed on the track. She tugged hard at the sliding door, and it slid down towards the meatball.

Jonah's howl seemed to tear his throat apart: "No, wait!"

The heavy sliding door, made of steel plates covered with lead, slammed down on the wrinkled flesh ball that had just landed and was still struggling to stand. It burst open without even a cry, blood and flesh splattering everywhere. In a blink of an eye, only the largest, flattened piece of flesh remained between the door and the wall, its thin legs still trembling.

Before she could kick the ball away and close the door, a hand with bulging veins suddenly pressed against the door.

Through the crack in the door, half of Jonah's face almost no longer looked like a human; his nostrils opened and closed, as if two new bellows had been opened on his face.

"My child!" he screamed.

Mai Minghe held the door tightly, not daring to let him open it and come in. At the same time, she quickly glanced around the dim room and then couldn't help but sigh.

As she expected, the room was a medical imaging suite.

The doors and walls of the room where X-ray scans are performed need to be treated with radiation protection. Few hospitals install windows in the X-ray room - not because there are no special protective windows, but because the cost is high and it is not cost-effective - in other words, once a person is chased into the X-ray room, he is like a turtle in a jar, with no way to escape.

This is also the reason why Mai Minghe did not enter the room the first time: if she went into a regular clinic and locked the door, she could still escape through the window, but that was impossible in the X-ray room.

"Is it necessary for something like you to pass on your legacy to future generations?" Mai Minghe said through gritted teeth as he pushed against the door. "Now that we've built a nest, there's no need for ecological reproduction, right?"

"When I kill you," Jonah's words hissed, as if they were glued together. "Your body will disintegrate in the lair, and from your building blocks I will rebuild my child..."

"You mean to use my flesh and blood to rebuild your child?"

Mai Minghe leaned against the wall, her hands and feet pressed against the door. Her muscles trembled, but she couldn't get the sliding door to close completely. She scanned the room, searching for something to use as a weapon, stalling for time with words: "I'm afraid my flesh and blood isn't disgusting enough to do this."

Jonah suddenly burst into laughter.

"Flesh and blood? I don't want your old, dry flesh and blood! As long as you have ever considered the matter of 'reproduction', your mind and body have already been marked. The you who once considered 'reproduction' is still a part of you. As long as I get that part -"

Mai Minghe was stunned.

She had never expected that memories from many years ago would be brought back here and now: the anxiety about her declining fertility, the confusion about what choices to make, the uneasiness about the prospects of old age...

Unconsciously, she loosened her grip a little.

Jonah caught it.

The sliding door was suddenly pushed hard. She was startled and saw a red-haired head poking out from the gap in the door.

　I dug out a saved chapter from my iPad and survived another day. It felt like pulling a thousand dollars out of my winter coat pocket!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)