Artifact Report

Chapter 32: Chase Across the Underground

It was only after Huang Li hung up the phone that he thought of the key issue - at this time, Chai Si was still rampaging in Blackmore City with a suicidal momentum, as if he was in an empty place.

You can’t blame Huang Li for his slow reaction: people who can calm down and think immediately after seeing a truck rumbling towards them only exist in novels.

"Wait, you've already designated the area for them," she said, sitting up with a start. "Then when we arrive at our destination, won't that mean we're trapped by the police?"

The range given by Chai Si was not small in order to disperse the police force and make them unsure of which direction they were going; but overall, Huang Li's understanding was accurate.

"You have to be careful," he said, turning sharply from the main road into a dark, narrow alley. "You speak like a criminal."

Huang Li quickly regained his composure and came to his senses. "Oh, yes, you 'kidnapped' me into the car..."

"Yes, remember that. After a while, this will be the only fact."

The other rearview mirror also failed to be saved and was knocked off by the wall of the alley; the Mercedes-Benz, which had already been dented, ignored the trash cans blocking the road and crashed straight into them - with a "bang", the trash cans rolled over the windshield, darkening the interior of the car.

The garbage bag burst, and the car rushed through the rain of garbage, getting drenched in filth. The windshield wiper knocked off a banana peel, but it left a sticky streak of dirty liquid on the windshield.

Anyway, I can't keep this car anymore.

"What are your plans?" asked Huang Li.

"Open the glove box in front," Chai Si instructed, "There's a cable tie inside. Take it out and tie your hands."

Huang Li raised his eyes, looked at the sky hopelessly for a few seconds, and finally accepted his fate.

She found the cable tie, put it in her mouth, and finally managed to wrap it halfway around her wrists, but she couldn't tie it up, so she had to ask him for help - Chai Si reached out and tightened the cable tie while driving.

When he retracted his hand, he couldn't help but frown because the cable tie was wet with saliva; Chai Si looked at her coldly, and wiped the shoulder of her denim jacket hard with his backhand.

The royal carp chuckled.

"This goes against my principles of survival," she muttered, holding her hands in front of her face like a bouquet of flowers.

"You don't need to survive." This is not a nest.

"Okay, then what should I do next? You surrender and let me be gloriously rescued?"

"Don't say stupid things."

Chai Si drove back onto a side road, the pursuing police car no longer visible behind him; but he knew that this was only temporary. There must have been a police car patrolling the area for a long time, and it might appear in the rearview mirror at any time, firmly biting him again.

"We're almost there," he said, his eyes fixed on the road. "I'll slow down, but I won't stop. Time's almost up, so be ready. I need to detect artifacts at any moment—do you want minor or major injuries?"

Huang Li glared at him. "I want to stay unharmed."

"If you think you're innocent and can convince the police with just your mouth, go ahead. But if you don't want to get hurt, it depends on how fast you react."

"What do you mean?"

The next moment, Huang Li understood what Chai Si meant.

When the Bruin Community College subway station sign came into view, Chase immediately slowed down the car; he unbuckled his seat belt, pushed open the car door, jumped out, rolled off the road, and strode towards the subway station - the car, which had lost its driver, immediately deviated from its direction on the road and slid to the center of the road.

"Just wait, I'll ask for a change in the contract when I get back!" Huang Li cursed and shouted loudly in the car behind him.

After a pause, her cry rang out again: "It's coming, it's really coming!"

The artifact had indeed entered the detection range of the Royal Carp, on the next subway train that was about to arrive at the station.

Chai Si didn't look back, but as he rushed down the subway station two steps at a time, he vaguely heard a muffled thud coming from the distant street.

The collision didn't sound serious, much better than he thought. It seemed that even with his hands tied, Huang Li still managed to control the car in time.

Chai Si supported himself on the subway gate with one hand, jumped over the barrier in mid-air, and landed on the ground like a Jaguar; his 1.98-meter-tall body made only a slight sound when his feet landed.

A few idle young men who were originally whispering to each other, passing something around, were caught by his attention. They laughed and cheered, "Dude, you're really good at fighting! But why can't someone in a suit afford a ticket?"

Chai Si turned a deaf ear to him and rushed down the platform in a few breaths. He immediately slowed down his pace, looked around, and blended into the crowd waiting for the train as if nothing had happened.

Look at the time, 10:33.

His self-destructive driving made him arrive three minutes earlier than the subway.

There must have been many witnesses to the scene of him jumping off the car and rushing into the subway station. When the police car arrived at the scene, it would immediately realize that the target suspect had entered the subway station. The next step would naturally be to block the entrances and exits and send people down to search for him. Now all they could do was wait and see which would arrive first, the subway or the police.

He took a deep breath and went over every next step carefully in his mind.

If he makes the slightest mistake, he will be trapped.

First things first…

Chai Si looked up at the camera hanging in the corner of the platform.

The subway system in Blackmore was completed and put into use around 1905, and most of the platforms still retain their appearance from the beginning of the last century; the newly installed surveillance equipment in recent years always seems a bit out of place with the old platforms.

If it is recorded, even if you can successfully escape the pursuit for a while, it will cause trouble in the future.

He took out a remote control from his pocket that was only the length of his index finger.

There is a small plastic display on the remote control, and at this moment a line of words is lit up - [Countdown: 127 days, 21 hours and 36 minutes].

Below the display, there was a button labeled "Replace" and a button labeled "Cancel." Besides looking cheaply made, it was unclear what they were for. Chai Si raised the remote, held it to his throat, gently pressed "Replace," and then slipped it back into his pocket.

None of the people waiting for the train around him raised their heads to look at him; most people had their eyes glued to their mobile phone screens, while some wore earphones and stared blankly at the subway tracks in front of them, and the platform on the other side of the tracks - the platform on the opposite side was empty, without a single person.

In fact, even if someone had been staring at Chai Si, they would not understand what he had just done.

When Chai Si first took the small remote control from the family hunter, he actually didn't take it seriously.

Oddly enough, artifacts from the nest, no matter how bizarre their appearance, seem to follow similar rules to the real world: the more exquisite, expensive, and heavy something looks, the greater its value and function; if an artifact feels like it is made of thin plastic, its function must be very limited.

But the hunter said with a confident smile, "You'll know if you try it. It's indeed limited in function, but it's very practical."

She took out her phone, turned on the video mode, handed it to Chai Si, and stood opposite the phone camera.

Chai Si stared at the screen of his mobile phone, watching the hunter slowly pick up the remote control, point it at his throat, and press the "replace" button.

The next moment on the screen, her entire head turned into a huge snow-white goat head; the goat head was wearing a black robe that reached the ground, as if it was a demonic creature that had just walked out of a medieval horror legend.

Looking at the hunter outside the screen, she is still the same: with half-curled hair tied behind her head, wearing outdated tight jeans and a pair of sneakers - no matter how you look at it, she looks like the mother of a junior high school student.

The most surprising thing is that even before she pressed "replace", in the first few seconds of the video, the hunter's head and face were replaced with a goat.

"Isn't it amazing?" The goat head on the screen said, "Press the button, and your true appearance won't be recorded. From any device, you'll look like a giant goat head. And the effect can be traced back to the minute before you pressed the button - if you forget to replace it, you'll still have a minute to do it! Such a thoughtful artifact is rare in the lair."

For Chai Si, this is exactly what he wants.

After some simple testing, he quickly made a decision: "The family wants it, twenty thousand dollars."

The only pity is that this artifact can only exist for six months after leaving the nest - this is why Chai Si only valued it at 20,000: no matter what standard is used to measure it, a six-month validity period is really too short.

"Don't feel bad," the middle school student's mother said with a smile as she prepared to leave. "Thankfully, after leaving their nest, the artifacts eventually expire and disappear in the human world. That's how we hunters can continue our work."

indeed.

Chai Si didn't know how many years the nest had existed, but its history must not be too short; generation after generation of hunters brought countless artifacts back to the human world. If they could exist forever, the human world would have become a messy science fiction movie by now.

If someone later watched the surveillance footage, they would have noticed that at 10:33 a.m., there was a goat head in a black robe on the departure platform. It stood at the stairwell, occasionally glancing upstairs, then lowering its head and resting its face on one of its large hooves, like a goat in deep thought, heavy on its mind.

That was Chai Si monitoring the movements in the subway station - as for Goat Hoof, he raised his hands to cover his face.

After all, others see him with their naked eyes, and his true appearance is revealed, so naturally the less he exposes, the better.

At 10:34, there was a faint commotion coming from the subway station.

Footsteps hurried past the stairs; someone asked, "What's going on outside?", and someone else asked, "Is the subway still running?"

It seems the police car has arrived.

Chai Si glanced at the platform screen and saw that the departing train would arrive at the station at 10:36.

He took a deep breath - the departing and returning trains arrived at the station at the same time, which meant that a difference of one or two seconds could mean the difference between his life and death.

10: 35.

Suddenly, several people rushed down the stairs, shouting and yelling. When they jumped to the ground, they startled the passengers nearby. They were the young people who had just stood at the subway entrance, whispering to each other and praising Chai Si. One of them looked back and cursed, "Why are there so many blue bags?"

Chase walked to the back of the stairs and stopped at the edge of the platform near the tracks. Blue cloth bags is a common name because the police uniforms are blue; some people also simply call them "bags."

He heard several footsteps, moving in the same trained, urgent, heavy rhythm, mixed with the rubbing of bulletproof vests and holsters, rushing towards the stairs together.

There are at most thirty seconds left until 10:36.

Wait one more second, he thought through gritted teeth, one more second...

A faint rumbling sound finally echoed from the distant subway tunnel. Because it was still far away, it almost sounded like an illusion, vibrating on the nerve endings.

"Everyone on the platform," a voice suddenly shouted, "Stand still! We're catching a dangerous driver!"

Chai Si smiled.

At the moment when everyone's attention was drawn to the person who was shouting, Chai Si jumped off the platform and landed gently beside the tracks, like a big cat sliding silently down the eaves.

When a passenger finally noticed and let out a low cry of surprise, he had already sprinted across the subway tracks and rushed to the opposite platform -

"Stop!" someone shouted from behind, "or I'll shoot!"

But the subway didn't give them a chance to shoot.

The subway train carrying the fake image arrived at the station at 10:36, roaring out of the tunnel and rushing towards Chase; the strong light from the front of the train illuminated half of his body and the platform just a few feet in front of him.

　I've discovered that Shanghai has a certain power, which I'd like to call Shanghai's gravity. How does it manifest itself? It's easy to get in, but hard to get out. It sounds good, like an American university; it sounds bad, like a legendary...

　　Oh, I have to go there later, so I’ll shut my mouth first.

　　Anyway, I arrived at the airport at 11: yesterday, and the flight didn't take off until : in the afternoon.

　　At first, I used my points to redeem a VIP lounge, thinking that it would be a luxury to wait for only an hour and sit in the VIP lounge. But it turned out that I have never spent money/points so worthwhile in my life, and I earned every point back three times.

　　I sat there, complaining to others, "Why are the chairs in the VIP lounge so uncomfortable? They're so bumpy and sagging. Sitting in them feels like torture. Is this even VIP?" Later, when I went to the restroom, I realized this was indeed a VIP lounge. Why? The toilets all had bowel cleansing mode... I looked at the sign on the wall encouraging everyone to hold back their urination, and at that moment, I felt a little dazed.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)