Artifact Report

Chapter 271 Mai Minghe: Helping Yourself Is the Only Reliable Way
"...Mai Ming River? Mai Ming River!"

She came back to her senses with a start and realized that Su Beihua seemed to have been calling her for a long time, but she had not heard it.

Suo Beihua was staring at her, her expression filled with shock and suspicion, so strange that it made people unsure how to interpret it. "What's wrong with you? What did you do?"

...What did I do?
Mai Minghe said in a daze: "Ah? I didn't do anything... Chai Si just disappeared on his own."

The translucent face that had been floating behind her eyes now completely disappeared from her sight.

"Brother Chai Si is missing?" Suo Beihua was obviously filled with a new layer of doubt. "Where did he go? How did you recover?"

Recover what?
How come it seemed like I was distracted for just a few seconds and even the conversation became a mess?

"Wait, I'm feeling a bit confused right now."

Mai Minghe raised a hand, closed his eyes, and tried to recall for a moment. "Why...why do I feel a little confused? What happened just now?"

"How would I know?"

Suo Beihua took a breath, as if she understood that asking me and me asking you questions like this would not help her understand the situation at all - as expected of a hunter from the Kai family, her logic immediately took control of her emotions.

"If you're confused, let me start from a few minutes ago. You suddenly got nervous and said Chase-kun seemed to be trying to warn you, but you couldn't see his lips clearly and didn't know what he wanted to say. Do you remember this? Do you need me to go back further?"

Mai Minghe frowned, then suddenly remembered: "Yes—yes, I remember."

It was strange, the memory was clearly still there, but the past memories seemed to be cut off and isolated from the present; Su Beihua's reminder was like building a bridge, and with the bridge, she could reach the other side of the river a few minutes ago.

"Then you said Chai Si-ge took out his phone and was typing something for you. I was surprised at the time and asked you why there was a phone in the 'Black Abyss Belt'?"

The more she spoke, the more Mai Minghe remembered.

"Yes, that's right, he showed me the phone screen..."

Since Chai Si had half of his body stuck into the black hole, the things on his body should have also entered the "black abyss" with him - thinking about it this way, it doesn't seem strange that he had a cell phone.

However, the phone was also translucent, and the lines he typed out were like a group of hesitant shadows, making it difficult to decipher.

"Next, I'll ask you to wait because I need to concentrate on interpreting the message he showed me." Mai Minghe recalled another detail.

She still needs to think carefully about what was written in the message...?
"But just now, you suddenly seemed to lose your mind, staring blankly into space. No matter how I called you, you didn't respond."

Mai Minghe was still half-focused on Chai Si's warning, and nodded subconsciously, but paused halfway through.

its not right?
"How do you know I'm distracted? Why am I still staring blankly into space?" She looked at Su Beihua and gradually came to an understanding: "You just asked me..."

At the same time she raised her hand to touch her face, Su Beihua's answer came.

"Because your appearance has returned to normal." She looked at Mai Minghe and said, "To me, you are no longer a mirror on a wooden door."

For a moment, Mai Minghe could only utter: "Huh?"

After two seconds, she finally reacted and said, "Huh?"

After touching her face a few times, she immediately took out her cell phone and took a photo of herself. In the photo, a slightly tired but young and plump face was looking back at her.

It’s myself; it’s myself in my twenties, with unlimited energy and a future.

"Really?" Mai Minghe was surprised and delighted. "I thought something bad was going to happen again... It's strange. I didn't do anything. How did I recover all of a sudden?"

"You're so obviously happy, stop dancing around."

Suo Beihua looked very unhappy.

Come to think of it, Chai Si was gone, and she herself was still in a half-dead state, and still couldn't find a way out of the stairwell; in the end, only Mai Minghe suddenly recovered, with happiness written all over her face, and it would be difficult for anyone else to be happy with her.

"I understand. I'm afraid that Chai Si disappeared because I recovered."

Mai Minghe shouldn't deliberately add fuel to the fire. "My mirror originally formed a kind of channel, allowing him to make contact with me. Now that I've restored my human face, he's disappeared... Ah, don't worry. I just can't see him anymore, but isn't he still there? He should still be able to see me. The method I mentioned earlier is still worth trying."

"The biggest beneficiary is your own method. You're really thinking about it."

Suo Beihua let out a long breath anxiously, waved her hand, and said, "Forget it. No matter what, we have to leave here first. But I have no idea how to get out. There is no way out of this stairwell."

The sound of the clockwork downstairs never stopped, turning round and round very quickly. They just listened upstairs, and it seemed as if there was a dull pain in their eardrums from the spinning and grinding.

...As if he was demonstrating to them the consequences of falling.

"I have a transmitter on me. Tianxi and the others should know my location. If they could get in, they would have come to rescue me long ago." Su Beihua said with a stern face, looking downstairs, "But no one has come yet... I'm afraid they can't access this stairwell at all. We've interviewed hunters here at least four or five times, but we've never been trapped in the stairwell. We didn't even know such a thing existed."

She turned to look at Mai Minghe and asked, "What warning did Brother Chai Si give you? Does it have anything to do with our escape? Clearly, it wasn't a personal warning directed at you personally. You've recovered quite thoroughly."

Mai Minghe was silent for a few seconds - not because Su Beihua's tone was a little sour.

That group of ghostly words floated in the gap between light and shadow from a translucent mobile phone screen... How can a person try hard to see what is deep in the eyeballs?
"Your form", "retention", "complete immersion", "solidification", "after separation", "solidification".

"Here", "memories are scattered", "I", "will forget".

This is all the information that Mai Minghe recognized and remembered.

Let’s not talk about the second row of text for now; from their experience, it is true that the longer you stay in the stairwell, the more solidified your form will become - the transformed appearance will gradually become more real and extreme, until it completely replaces your original form.

Chai Si had been watching them and seemed to have noticed this, so it was not surprising that he issued a warning.

But it's a good thing that she's back to normal. No matter how you think about it, she shouldn't be warned...

Mai Minghe felt a chill all over his body.

That extremely unwelcome thought came suddenly, like a splinter suddenly piercing under the fingernail, causing her to break out in cold sweats.

When she swung her arms unintentionally just now, did she... did she feel like something was missing?
Something seems empty...?
Mai Minghe raised his hand and slowly touched his lower abdomen through his clothes.

No.

She reached down.

still none.

The "telomeres" wrapped around the body disappeared, and there was emptiness between the waist and abdomen.

Mai Minghe's legs went weak and she almost sat down on the ground. She hurriedly touched her face again and looked carefully at her hands, feet and body - yes, even though her "telomeres" were gone, she was still her young self.

……What does it mean?
Could she maintain peak physical condition without the need for a snake belt? Was her second life finally past its nine-month limit?
Is the nest so kind-hearted?

Or...or...

"Mai Ming River."

Su Beihua called her softly.

Mai Minghe's mind was still wandering in the distant horizon, but she subconsciously looked up at Su Beihua according to her name.

"We have guests." Su Beihua said almost calmly.

Mai Minghe turned his eyes away mechanically.

On the stairs leading to the upper floor and the stairs leading to the lower floor, countless people were standing silently, densely packed, shoulder to shoulder, on each floor.

There are many versions of Robert, Aimee Li, Tianxi, Li Sidan... The eight hunters who have entered the warehouse, in countless forms and appearances, are crowded together on the stairs, their bodies intertwined, filling the gaps.

Aimee fell on the stairs to the next floor, like a huge, disproportionate pine cone that had fallen into a forest of human flesh.

I don’t know if she didn’t notice it at all, or if she still firmly believed that she could handle it and she was not afraid.

"Come on," a creature with a snake's head and a woman's body called out to Suo Beihua. "Don't worry, I've been through everything you've experienced today."

"We are also trapped in the stairwell and can't get out." Ai Meili, with ripples on her face, said in a trance.

Mai Minghe, who was pregnant with a big belly and seemed to be about to give birth, smiled at Mai Minghe.

"There's no way out of the stairwell. But if you accept this, you can live happily in the world of the 'stairwell'... Many of us before you have experienced this firsthand."

"We are extending a helping hand to you, who are also us, because you are our own."

Every mouth opened, and the black holes shrank, expanded, and shrank again... It seemed as if the eyes and minds were sinking into them together.

　Troubled times! Troubled times!

　　After watching the animals migrate, I'm about to migrate myself. I'm going to be forced to move. Why? Because renters have no human rights. Oh my god, I just want to fall asleep and never wake up.

　　PS: Although the Wild Deer extra chapter is not finished, I have to write a thank you chapter tomorrow. I have been unfilial for too long, but for the sake of balance, I may only thank a small number of grandmas tomorrow, for example, thank about two pounds.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)