Artifact Report

Chapter 365 Jin Xueli - The Sequel to Taking the Original Liquid and the Balloon Smile

After leaving their dens, hunters would sleep for a long, deep sleep, oblivious to the passage of time.

Jin Xueli thought she was used to it; however, this time, when she finally opened her eyes from her long sleep and groggily touched her phone screen, she vaguely realized how long she had slept.

My phone died and shut down?
She dragged her empty shell, her steps unsteady, like a drunken headless fly, and did everything she was supposed to do after her trip to the nest: called room service, then ate, ate, and ate some more; she bit her tongue and called out four or five times because she ate too fast; she took a shower, brushed her teeth, changed clothes, and combed her hair—at this point, the person in the mirror finally seemed like a person again and could go out.

The phone, which was charging, lit up when Jin Xueli touched it, telling her that today was December 3rd, 11:32 AM.

"What number?" Jin Xueli exclaimed involuntarily, even suspecting that there was something wrong with the phone's time zone—had it switched to UTC+8 when it was restarted?
September 12th?
Did someone steal her time?
She clearly remembered receiving the serum on the evening of November 28th and enrolling in night school; after finishing her general education classes, she hid until dawn, only to find that the community college had changed locations and she no longer had to worry about being chased by the store clerks, so she left the school... She returned to Blackmore City on the afternoon of November 29th.

She slept for four days straight, no wonder she felt weak all over and her vision was blurry when she woke up—she was starving.

Is it because this time when you entered the nest, you suffered a lot of fright and torment, and experienced many ups and downs?

Looking back now, despite the many twists and turns of the trip, she really had nothing to complain about.

The ultimate goal was achieved unexpectedly smoothly... Jin Xueli stroked the cold water bottle, still somewhat dazed.

The heavy, gurgling liquid in the bottle signifies shares worth nine million.

This means 100 million in cash.

It also meant the death of another woman—

No, don't overthink it. It's something that's uncertain, so there's no need to torture yourself with it. Stop thinking about it.

Jin Xueli gripped the water bottle tightly with both hands, her knuckles turning white.

She took a deep breath and looked up just as Scott's secretary hung up the phone.

“Please come with me,” the secretary said hastily, standing up. “Mr. Scott has been waiting for you…”

As she approached the company's core, she was clearly aware of NuLife's recent crisis, and a hint of panic seemed to linger on her face—which was understandable, since Jin Xueli had entered NuLife, she had seen more than one employee looking flustered; she had even seen someone secretly flipping through job postings.

"Where are we going?" Kim Seol-ri asked after walking a few steps with the secretary and noticing that they were heading out of the company.

The secretary gave a wry smile.

“Mr. Scott has recently claimed to be on a business trip, not coming to the company or receiving guests. When he needs to handle work, he stays in the private meeting room upstairs, and even the employees don’t know he’s upstairs. If you hadn’t just said that he’s been waiting for you, I would have used that excuse to send you away as well.”

This is almost like he's hiding from debt collectors—no, considering the orders placed by distributors that can't be produced now, Scott might actually be hiding from debt collectors.

“This is it,” the secretary said, seemingly aware that Kim Seol-ri had brought company secrets, and stopped tactfully at the door of the meeting room. “I won’t go in; he’s waiting for you.”

Jin Xueli nodded her thanks and knocked on the door.

Scott didn't hear anything, and no one answered the door. He wondered if the reception room was particularly large.

Jin Xueli searched around, but the building's interior design was too simple and too modern, and she couldn't find the doorbell; looking back, she saw that the secretary had long since left.

Let's knock on the door a few more times, is there any other way?
Jin Xueli raised her hand, about to strike the door, when she suddenly paused.

...That's strange. The secretary just said that Scott doesn't receive visitors, right?
I think I just heard someone talking inside. Were they on the phone?
You probably couldn't find a hunter in Blackmore City who wouldn't secretly prick up his ears and eavesdrop on other people's conversations—if someone is very polite and has a strong sense of boundaries, and doesn't listen to or watch what others are doing, then he can't be a hunter at all.

Without even a moment's internal struggle, Jin Xueli immediately pressed her ear against the door.

"Not enough... I'm not thinking big enough." It was Scott's voice, but it sounded a little muffled.

The other person was either far from the door or spoke in a low voice, making their words even more indistinct.

But somehow, the faint, indistinct voice felt somewhat familiar to Jin Xueli. The words were indistinct; only the soft, deep male voice gradually spread and permeated behind the door, as if seeping into a dark night.

“This is a waste of its potential,” Scott muttered. “The current version is far too underpowered…”

Another male voice said something.

Scott quieted down.

“…Jin Xueli?” he suddenly spoke.

Jin Xueli was so startled that she almost dropped the water bottle in her hand; she quickly took a step back, remained silent, and waited a few seconds before knocking on the door.

This time, Scott immediately opened the door; clearly, he had walked towards the door as soon as he finished speaking.

Scott, whom I hadn't seen for almost a week, looked like a completely different person compared to last time—his eyes were yellow and bloodshot; his hair was noticeably thinner and more unkempt without styling products; and even his clothes had old coffee stains on them.

"You found it?" Scott didn't even have time to greet her before his eyes were glued to the water bottle in Jin Xueli's hand. "Is...this is it?"

"Take a look and see if it's right," Jin Xueli quickly handed over the bottle, afraid that if she was too late, Scott would bite her hand.

Scott turned around, grabbed his water bottle, and strode back to the reception room; Shirley followed him into the room and glanced around—the reception room was empty except for her and Scott.

...Were you really on the phone just now? Did you use speakerphone?

Scott put his phone on the sofa, and as soon as he sat down, he hurriedly unscrewed the bottle cap and took a deep breath.

“This is it!” His face lit up. “This is it, great, this is it, you finally found it! How much is in this bottle?” “One liter,” Jin Xueli remembered that he had said last time that one liter would be enough to restart the production line.

“Okay, okay,” Scott said, his face flushed with joy. He looked up expectantly and asked, “What about the others?”

What else?

"You still have some in your bag, right?" Scott looked at her backpack and urged, "Take it out."

"Isn't one liter enough?" Jin Xueli was a little dumbfounded. "I risked my life to get this bottle."

Scott's face visibly contorted.

"One liter isn't enough."

He had just raised his voice when, as if realizing that Jin Xueli was his lifeline, he forced himself to lower his voice and explained, "Oh, oh, you don't know. You weren't here... I've been racking my brains these past few days, hoping to avoid the same problem from happening again in the future. The pressure is already immense, isn't it? But if the production line shutdown had happened after we secured venture capital, the pressure I would have felt then would be incomparable to what I'm feeling now."

He stroked the mouth of the water bottle and said, “I tested it on myself, and the results were very good. Very good. I’ve also figured it out. The original solution is diluted too much now, and the effect is only a tiny bit... That’s why I’m under pressure from all sides... Essentially, it’s because I need them more than they need me.”

"so what?"

"So you did a great job!"

Scott slammed his hand on the table, accidentally shaking the water bottle. "I need to increase the dosage and decrease the dilution. I need to make 'Brain Hacker' achieve effects far beyond what ordinary people expect, leaving the entire market, no, the entire era, far behind, so that the whole world will be begging me for it. I'll supply whenever I say I will. They'll only take their money back if I refuse to invest. Only then—"

He finally realized that the bottle was too full and some of the concentrate had spilled out. He quickly wiped the concentrate off the bottle opening with his finger, then put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it twice.

Jin Xueli was stunned.

"In short, I need you to go back, and take as much raw material as you can. Don't even mention three percent of the shares, I can give you thirty percent. No, no, I'm not making empty promises... How about this, the company will pay you, so you won't go for nothing, how about that?"

Jin Xueli looked at the bottle, then at Scott.

Morando once said that after the Knight family hunters drank something that looked like a serum, their eyes grew larger and larger, almost completely obscuring the whites of their eyes...

This, however, did not happen to Scott.

Scott just stared at her, fixedly at her.
Looking at her, looking at her, looking and looking and looking, he's talking. He's looking at him, he's talking. He's right. Looking and talking.
That's perfect. She can get 500,000 yuan for each bottle of serum she brings back. All she wants from beginning to end is money. The company goes public, and she has more than 100 million yuan in cash. That's perfect. She says the money is beyond imagination.
She's even seen such an incredible world as a nest.
She still couldn't enter the world of the wealthy.
Looking at it, he said it makes a lot of sense, he said it makes a lot of sense. Even the richest woman in the world isn't looking at her dream.

When the phone rang suddenly, shattering Jin Xueli's daze and fantasy, it took her several seconds to finally regain her composure from her shaky consciousness.

……what?

When did she come out of Scott's meeting room?

Jin Xueli then realized that she was standing on the rooftop of an office building, the wind howling. Looking down through the railing, she could see the bustling streets of Blackmore City.

So many cars, so many people, coming and going tirelessly... It's like watching ants unaware of the impending flood.

Jin Xueli was positioned so high that no one in the dense crowd on the ground noticed that she had already stepped onto the rooftop railing and was preparing to jump.

The phone was still ringing, so I took her hand and looked down at it.

In one hand she held her constantly vibrating and ringing cell phone, and in the other hand she held a check from NuLife.

Her fear of heights seemed to awaken suddenly, tightening her heart. Jin Xueli quickly climbed down from the edge of the rooftop, hurriedly pocketed the check, and was still somewhat dazed.

……what happened?

Was I so happy just now that I was in a daze and didn't even notice when I left the office building?
Jin Xueli looked at her phone screen and discovered that the caller was Amber, whom she hadn't contacted in a while.

"Hello?" Amber called out urgently on the phone. "Jin Xueli, you finally answered the phone?"

“Amber?” she said hoarsely. “I just came back from the nest, and I just woke up…”

“I know,” Amber interrupted her. “I not only know you just came back from the lair, but I also know you did something incredible.”

"what?"

"I don't know exactly what you did this time, but I do know one thing," Amber said, lowering her voice. "You've thoroughly offended the Knight family. These past few days, Knight family hunters have been searching for you, and I heard they even found out your apartment address. You didn't go home, did you?"

...that's right.

After returning to Blackmore City, Jin Xueli was so exhausted that she looked like a drowned ghost who had just come ashore. In addition, she knew that her first need after waking up would be to eat, so she went straight to a nearby hotel and didn't go home at all.

“I’ve asked around for you as much as I can,” Amber said. “While you were in the lair, did you take something from the Knight family’s territory? They found out, and now they seem to be really serious, hunting you all over Blackmore City. Whatever you do, don’t go home—”

Jin Xueli didn't hear what Amber said next.

She watched as the smiling face, puffed up like a balloon, slowly rose from the edge of the rooftop, and then slowly put down her phone.

"Found you!" the balloon said with a smile.

(End of this chapter)