Artifact Report

Chapter 282: Chasi: Things Hidden in Some Details
"Is it this one?"

Chai Si unscrewed a small round tube, and a lipstick paste with fine lines on it rose up and reached into the sight of the two people.

"That's it!" Mai Minghe stood up excitedly, causing the chair behind him to crash with a bang.

"I can't find the lid."

Even after drinking several glasses of water, Chase still felt like sandpaper scraping against his throat when he spoke. He had been lost in the abyss for five days; when he returned, his whole body felt like it had been run over by a truck: tired, hungry, exhausted, and sore.

"It's okay. I have the lid here. Look—it must have been separated when that artifact captured it."

Mai Minghe seemed to subconsciously want to prove that he was really the owner, and even took out the lipstick lid to show him.

Chai Si looked at the lipstick in her hand, then looked at the face that was shining with anticipation.

"I can return it to you, but you can't sell it to Fu Tailan." The words rushed to his throat, but he swallowed them back.

...He has no right to tell Mai Minghe who to sell his lipstick to or who not to sell it to.

Five days ago, before he entered the "Black Abyss Zone", Chai Si would definitely not return the lipstick so easily - he would estimate a suitable price and give her the money directly; only in this way would he not give Fu Tailan any chance to get the lipstick.

Since it’s going to be sold anyway, why not sell it to him?
But now, she couldn't say the words - even after Chase offered to buy lipstick and she gently shook her head.

He thought that Mai Minghe was not suitable to be a hunter.

When she could have escaped from the nest trap by herself, she found a way to bring Suo Beihua and another interviewed hunter named Ai Meili with her; she once told Suo Beihua that she was carrying a precious pseudo-image, but she still went into Kai's house alone to save Chai Si and Han Liuyue.

Chai Si would never believe that she had never thought that the Kai family might attack her and take away her fake image - Mai Minghe was not stupid.

But she still came.

It was as if she had an almost natural trust in the world and in people; it was as if she had made an agreement with the world to walk in the light in this life and the next.

……never mind.

If this lipstick falls into Fu Tailan's hands, then he will have to deal with Fu Tailan then.

Chai Si handed over the lipstick.

Mai Minghe gently took the lipstick and closed the lid with a "click". At that moment, he seemed to have finally put his mind at ease. The expression on his face was one of both joy and disbelief.

"Thank you... If you won't give it back to me, there's nothing I can do."

Perhaps he had heard of his reputation from the beginning and felt that there was little hope of returning, so he sneaked into Kai's house? Of course, Mai Minghe probably wouldn't say it directly -

"I've heard your reputation, and it's not very good."

Mai Minghe shook his head and sighed, "Given your reputation, even if I saved your life myself, you'd still be ungrateful, not to mention that I only provided Mr. Kai with some information. But now I see that you're quite reasonable, aren't you? I wonder what you did before..."

Chai Si glanced at her.

He had originally found it unbelievable, but now he felt that the young woman in front of him might really be eighty-six years old - it is said that when people get old, they will become like children and speak without any taboos.

Let’s change the topic.

"How did you know that you could bring me back in this way?" Chai Si asked.

Mai Minghe hesitated for a moment.

"I received help from a resident in the lair... I don't know what it was thinking or why it helped me. But so far, it seems to be a harmless resident. It's quite knowledgeable, and it was it that told me that I could be used to locate you so that Mr. Kai could call you back."

"How do I locate it?" Chai Si asked, "Can I find Han Liuyue this way?"

"You can try. I think there is hope."

Mai Minghe pondered and said, "Have you ever had any contact with Han Liuyue in the Black Abyss? Have you ever seen her? That resident told me that people will gradually disintegrate in the Black Abyss—"

"That's right," Chai Si added, "At that time, my mind, memory, and body seemed to have turned into countless particles and floated away."

"That's it."

Mai Minghe nodded. "It seems that when you disperse, if you interact or come into contact with someone, the dispersed 'particles' will also cling to them... But I didn't enter the Black Abyss at that time. The only connection between you and me was through the reflection behind our eyes... So I was always worried about whether I could become your position."

Chai Si remembered that when he first entered the human-shaped black hole, he had been chasing after Han Liuyue and calling her.

In this way, we can be considered to have some intersection, right?

There was a question Chai Si had to ask—"If you fail, aren't you afraid the Kai family will vent their anger on you? Or worse, they might even suspect you?"

Mai Minghe raised his eyes, his face calm, "There's nothing we can do about it."

……that's all?

The two looked at each other face to face. After several seconds, Mai Minghe felt that he seemed to need to explain a few more words.

"It would be fine if I didn't know, but now that you know, you can't just leave it alone, right? What kind of person would that make you? Besides, you guys indirectly helped me find the exit from that stairwell."

Chai Si still couldn't understand.

He thought for a while, and the words that came out of his mouth were: "I must rescue Han Liuyue." Mai Minghe just nodded, as if he knew that Chai Si still had something to say.

"Before accepting someone as a companion, I thoroughly dig into their background and understand what kind of person they are... This is my usual approach. I must understand a person before I can trust them. This time, the nest provides me with an opportunity to get to know a temporary ally more deeply... I'll leave it to Han Liuyue."

He didn't know why he said this.

Mai Minghe and he were almost two strangers - two strangers who, by chance, learned each other's deepest secrets.

As a guide, she sat quietly by the side as Uncle Kai recounted Chai Si's past. She heard everything he dared not let others know, what he was not afraid of being known, and what he did not want to think about again.

Perhaps the person in this world who is most suitable to listen to his confession is Mai Minghe.

"I didn't ask Han Liuyue to dig out that person's past regardless of the cost or risk, but I also didn't remind her to stop."

Chai Si wiped his face vigorously, chuckled softly, and said, "Forget it. These are useless words. They can't bring her back. In the end, it's me... it's because I can't enter the nest and can't rely on myself to discover information that others have suffered bad luck."

Mai Minghe clasped her hands together and placed them on her knees. After a moment, she whispered, "Everyone has things they can't do."

Chai Si gave a self-deprecating smile. There were so many things in this world that he was powerless to do anything about.

"Are you going now?" Mai Minghe asked.

"She's been in the Black Abyss for more than five days," Chai Si replied, "I haven't had time to recuperate. She's slowly coming back."

On the other hand, it was precisely because he had a deep understanding of every core hunter that he was able to try to call Han Liuyue.

Mai Minghe looked at him a few times—Chai Si knew how terrible he looked without her saying anything—but she said nothing. She just stood up and said, "Well, it's time for me to go, too."

"I owe you a favor."

Chai Si didn't move, still sitting on the sofa. "A very important favor. You can come to me anytime. Whatever you need me to do, whether it's killing someone or saving someone, I won't ask a single question."

Mai Minghe seemed surprised and waved his hands quickly.

"That's not the case! I didn't do anything, at most I just passed on a few words. The person who saved you was Mr. Kai."

"……I know."

Mai Minghe was about to turn around when she paused. With some hesitation, she glanced at Chai Si. "Well... if you don't mind, I do have a question for you. Do you know the mayor?"

Chase raised an eyebrow.

For a moment, he almost thought that Mai Minghe had somehow learned what he had done to the mayor—but Mai Minghe then explained: "I plan to sell this fake image to him, and I need someone to act as a middleman."

"No problem." Chai Si nodded, not letting his relief show. It didn't matter who got the lipstick, as long as it wasn't Fu Tailan—"I'll have someone arrange it for you right away."

The mayor, who had been completely eroded and occupied by the Noh mask, certainly would not bear any grudge against him - in fact, when he left the mayor's residence in the early morning of that day, the mayor behind him was stroking his new face with both hands, surprised and happy, and laughing non-stop.

Selling the fake image to the mayor itself is not a strange thing; what is really worth noting is that Mai Minghe seems to have no relationship with the mayor at all.

There's clearly no connection, but I have to sell it to the mayor, no one else can...

"It's just a small thing," Shibashi said, thinking, so that's it.

Selling the fake image to the mayor would most likely result in a "Fake Image Report" for Mai Minghe.

"It's just a matchmaking, nothing to worry about. What I owe you is still what I owe you. At any time, as long as you ask, as long as I can satisfy you, I will do my best to satisfy you."

It turns out that Mai Minghe is also one of the players in the "Nest Domination Game".

You can understand this if you just think about it.

The Black Square pseudo-image was originally in the hands of the Vesile team. The person who released the Black Square and trapped Mai Minghe that night was also Vesile's secretary Green.

But she didn't go to find Wei Xilai's secretary, but tried to get close to Kai's house the next day, as if she knew very well that the black party's fake image had fallen into Chai Si's hands...

Green was dead; there was only one reason why she would know Black's whereabouts.

That night, the "Nest Domination Game" sent information about the Black side's change of hands to every participant; now it seems that Mai Minghe was one of them. This was the only way she could know that the Black side was in Chai Si's hands.

So he had to pay off what he owed her before he could continue to compete with her.

After all, he owed the Kai family something, and he could only repay it by winning the "Nest Domination Game."

When Mai Minghe approached the door, she suddenly turned her head.

"There's something I'm curious about. You said this incident started because you wanted to dig up the past of a temporary ally... So, do you understand him now?"

Only five days had passed, but when I thought of Jin Xueli, it felt like many years had passed.

Chai Si whispered, "No."

After a few seconds, he added, "No reason, just intuition... She doesn't seem to be the type of person I need."

Jin Xueli will not turn into a hyena.

(End of this chapter)