Artifact Report

Chapter 366 Jin Xueli: People really do need to go to school.
Is this really the human world?

Hiding behind the mechanical equipment layer, Jin Xueli squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the sudden shift in her vision amidst her heavy breathing.

My shoulder is burning with pain; I accidentally bumped into something while rolling to avoid it, and my clothes were torn, with pieces of cloth and pebbles pressed into the wound.

She rubbed her eyes a few times, and when she opened them again, her vision felt stable and clear again. Not daring to waste another second, she took off running.

As for the wound, let alone cleaning it, Jin Xueli can't even stay in one place for more than a few seconds now—because there are four human head balloons floating in the sky, and there is no blind spot on the entire rooftop where Jin Xueli can hide.

Those four things in the air, though called balloons, didn't look thin and light at all; instead, they looked more like four thick, heavy human heads that had been chopped off.

Where it should be the "neck," the fleshy skin was tightly bound together, and someone had even tied a bow with the rope. With each flutter of the human head balloon, the bow and the extra fleshy skin swayed gently in mid-air, as if they were a skirt that was very elegant.

They are several times larger than the average human head, with each head bulging like an inflated balloon and bearing a face with extremely distorted features—although the features on each person's head seem to be on the verge of a complete divorce, they are by no means so different as to be mistaken for one another.

The first thing I noticed was Kim Seol-ri's face; she was always smiling.

The eyes were just two arched black slits, and the red, smiling mouth stretched from one ear to the other.

Following closely behind was the second face-shaped balloon, which nearly pierced through Jin Xueli's chest. With its fierce brows, upturned eyes, and perpetually angry expression, it was the most destructive. After darting back and forth across the rooftop twice, the wind cracked the rooftop floor, creating two shallow, long grooves.

The third face has droopy eyebrows, lowered eyelids and corners of the mouth, looking sorrowful as if it's about to burst into tears; the last face is distorted and filled with hatred, as if the existence of Jin Xueli is its greatest hatred in the world.

Joy, anger, sorrow, hatred... without a doubt, these are all things found in the nest.

Is it an illusion?

No, illusions generally don't have such a clear sense of self; but surely, apart from vultures, residents can't come in either?

Now is not the time to conduct nest research; she needs to think of a solution quickly—

“How miserable!”

The sorrowful balloon caught her eye from afar, crying out loudly, "Jin Xueli is so unlucky! Once the door to the rooftop stairwell was closed, it couldn't be opened from the outside! She can't escape now!"

...Did it know its goal was to go downstairs?

Amidst the mournful cries of the sorrowful balloon, Kim Seol-ri rushed to the stairwell door.

This door was clearly open just now.

She glanced quickly at the angry-faced balloon rushing towards her from afar, suppressed her urge to escape, and hurriedly reached out to pull it open—as expected, it wouldn't open.

So that crying face could "predict" bad news?
At the last moment, Kim Seol-ri pulled her hand back in time and lunged to the side.

The wind stirred up by the angry-faced balloons cut her cheeks; drops of blood leaped into the gloomy sky, those few crimson spots splashing into the dark clouds, as if suspended in time.

A storm is brewing in Blackmore City, but no one knows when.

Can it break down the door?

Fragmented thoughts flashed through her mind; Jin Xueli fell to the ground, her chest tight from being squeezed by her backpack, yet she still didn't hear the loud bang of the door being slammed shut.

Jin Xueli reluctantly turned her head and saw the angry-faced balloon floating in front of the door. It had obviously stopped before it crashed into the door, and now it slowly turned half a circle, glaring at her again.

"Prepare to die! Prepare to die! Go to hell!"

Just as it was about to pounce again, Jin Xueli was lying on her back on the ground, not even having time to get up; in a moment of urgency, she couldn't help but call out, "Wait a minute, I have something to say!"

Nest creatures probably don't watch movies much.

This tactic, which is clearly a low-level trick to buy time in the eyes of humans, actually made the four balloons in the air pause and bow their faces to her.

"What did you say?" asked the sorrowful balloon. "Was it a last message? How tragic..."

“I know what you are!” Jin Xueli said, while secretly reaching for the backpack under her back. “I… I took a general education course in the nest.”

Luckily, it was a recent lesson, and I hadn't forgotten the content, so I could remember it at crucial moments.

"So what?" said the smiley balloon. "You want me to congratulate you on your extensive knowledge?"

"You're 'mercenaries,' aren't you?"

Jin Xueli recalled the content of her general education class and said, "There are some undefined, uh, creatures in the nest—you are creatures, right? Oh, sorry… In short, you are not residents, nor are you human. Sometimes, under certain conditions and with an agreement, you can be taken back to the human world by hunters to work as mercenaries for a few days…"

This was information that no ordinary hunter would know; even after being a hunter for so long, Jin Xueli had only heard about it for the first time in a general education class. Clearly, the Knight family's internal information was tightly controlled.

"Well said! Good news!" the smiley face balloon suddenly shrieked, "We're about to complete our mission, 'Kill—'"

Before it could utter its "good news" prediction, Jin Xueli had already drawn a pistol and fired two bullets at it.

She wasn't very good with a gun, but luckily the face balloon was big enough and close enough.

One bullet was locked in close combat with another, embedding itself deeply into the left cheek of the smiley face balloon; in that instant, its skin caved in dramatically, forming two small black holes.

The four balloons suddenly screamed together, the sound waves vibrating through the air and making the surrounding high-rise buildings appear distorted.

The one that got shot cried out in pain; the other three, however, were filled with indignation, resentment, or grief over the misfortune suffered by their companion... In any case, for a short while, all four balloons were quite busy, and none of them paid any attention to Jin Xueli.

Unexpectedly, their bond is so strong—Jin Xueli jumped up, grabbed her backpack, and ran off.

As she ran, she shouted, "Wait! I didn't mean to kill you!"

"You're kidding me! You already fired the gun, I'm definitely going to kill you."

Judging from the sound, they had caught up. The rooftop was empty except for a concrete building-like mechanical equipment floor. Jin Xueli had nowhere to hide and nowhere to run away—the only way out was the hundred meters above the railing.

She really didn't want to jump unless absolutely necessary.

"That's because it's cursing me to die! How could I not know that bullets can't kill you? The bullet is still in its face, isn't it?" Jin Xueli tried to dodge, escape, and shout, and almost bit her tongue several times.

"The Knight family hired you, didn't they? What did they offer? I'll give you double!"

Even in such a critical moment, she couldn't help but utter an untimely remark: So this is what it feels like to say those rich people's lines from movies and TV shows to yourself?

The resources she could access were naturally incomparable to those of a hunter's family, but since the other party wasn't human, she figured she might as well deceive them; all she needed to do was survive today.

"That's hilarious!"

The smiley face balloon still held the bullet in its face, seemingly constrained by its persona and unable to get angry, so it could only resort to a roundabout way of laughing: "That's hilarious, can you fire twice the number of Jin Xueli's lives?"

The conditions set by the Knight family, and the target they wanted to kill, were all related to her, Jin Xueli.

Is there really such a cheap thing in the world? Is this reasonable?
"Doesn't this mean they could kill me without spending anything?"

Jin Xueli was so angry she wanted to stop and reason with them, but as soon as she slowed down, she was almost hit by the angry-faced balloon again. She could only raise her gun to shoot back and repel the balloon while running for her life in a zigzag pattern on the rooftop, taking the time to retort: ​​"I'll give you the lives of two Knight family hunters, okay? I'll give you ten!"

The human head balloon was more reasonable than she thought.

The sorrowful balloon floated not far from her, not attacking for a moment, but saying mournfully, "Ten lives! How tragic, what a terrible tragedy! Tell me, what are the full names of those ten Knight family hunters you sent?"

Jin Xueli was immediately speechless.

“Uh, Peter-John-Jack-”

What's the most common name again?

"Anyway, the last name is Knight."

The next moment, she realized that it wouldn't matter even if she knew the Knight family hunters' names.

"That's all nonsense. None of it is right. Just tell us already, and we'll kill you first, then we'll go kill them."

no solution anymore.

With gritted teeth, Jin Xueli charged across the rooftop from the side once more. She raised her gun in the distance, aimed it at the lock on the rooftop stairwell door, and unleashed all the remaining bullets.

She didn't have time to check if the door lock was open. She tucked the gun into her waistband, pulled a hammer from her bag, and swung it around in the air a few times—the four human-shaped balloons suddenly stopped and floated a few steps away.

“That thing in your hand,” said the smiley face balloon.

"There's a disgusting and complicated smell that makes me so angry I want to kill you, but I don't want to get involved," said the angry-faced balloon.

It's fine if you don't want to get it on you.

Taking advantage of the moment, Jin Xueli turned around and lunged at the stairwell door again.

The door lock was completely broken, and the door panel was bent, revealing a gap. She grasped the cold handle and pulled, and sure enough, the door opened. A sudden gust of wind rushed in, making the wound on her face ache faintly.

It was like stepping on a grain of sand in her shoe; a small detail suddenly made her feel a slight discomfort.

Just as Jin Xueli was about to rush into the stairwell, she stopped in her tracks.

She looked down at the doorknob.

The door panel and lock were bent and damaged by bullets; the door handle, however, was not only intact, but also still ice-cold...

She glanced at the dimly lit stairwell in front of her.

...Why is the wind so strong inside the stairwell?

The angry-face balloon is the main attacker, while the smiling and sad-face balloons can each make predictions; so... what does the hate-face balloon do?

Jin Xueli hadn't had time to think about it before, but now she suddenly had a vague suspicion.

When the four balloons first appeared on the rooftop together, her vision was momentarily distorted by the flickering light and shadows, but it quickly returned to normal—Jin Xueli was too busy escaping to think about it.

But is the clear and stable view that emerges after the turmoil the "correct" view?
In other words, is what she is touching, seeing, and about to rush down really the stairwell?

They don't know that their path is "jumping off a high-rise building".

After she had dodged their physical and prophetic attacks, the only way to kill her—or rather, the way the balloons thought the most effective way to kill her—seemed to be to force her to jump off a building dozens of stories high.

If she discovers the problem and refuses to get off, then the balloons will definitely—

When Jin Xueli turned around, she indeed saw the hate-faced balloon rushing straight towards her, growing larger and larger in her field of vision.

"I hate you so much, my hatred can distort the world, distort you so much, I hate you like a twisted dough stick, I hate you so much."

Isn't that a coincidence?

If she hadn't seen the distorted illusion, Jin Xueli really wouldn't have dared to jump off the building; but now, there was only a stairwell behind her.

She neither dodged nor yielded, standing still and opening her arms towards the hate-faced balloon.

"Why are you hugging me?"

Even though the Hate-face Balloon wasn't as powerful as the Angry-face Balloon, the impact was still enough to make Jin Xueli's vision go black and she almost lost consciousness in mid-air—she was gripping the hammer tightly with one hand, her arm was firmly wrapped around the Hate-face Balloon, and her feet had already been knocked off the ground.

Jin Xueli flew high into the howling wind of the "stairwell" with it; in the distance, she seemed to hear exclamations from nearby high-rise buildings.

Grab it

all the way ↓
Down ↓
Falling ↓
____ Triggered a welcome surprise gift for new students____ Use it?____
(End of this chapter)