Artifact Report

Chapter 37: Chase's Most Hated Thing

Time—he needed time.

In just twenty or thirty seconds, unexpected events occurred one after another, each one of which was unexpected and incomprehensible.

But Chai Si knew that if he was given a little time, he would be able to connect the "light spots" and make them form a clear and easy-to-understand picture.

Everything in the world may be chaotic and complicated, but Chai Si believes that it can always be understood in this way: first, grasp enough key information points from the chaos and noise, and then use points to lead to the whole, connect lines to draw shapes, and bring the entire framework of things to the surface.

However, time happened to be what he lacked most at the moment.

When Chai Si turned his head and his eyes fell on the black glass that arched high into the car, he knew that he had made an inevitable mistake - he couldn't help but look at the car window, no one could help but look; but as soon as he looked at the car window, he was distracted.

In the moment when he was distracted, the wire behind him that had just been turned on was bouncing up with sparks and swung towards the back of his head from mid-air.

Even the air was twisted and tense by the electricity; he seemed to be able to smell the smell of sparks and feel the blue flashing and burning on the skin on the back of his neck.

…No matter how skilled a person is, he can never be faster than electricity.

Chase closed his eyes.

The moment of waiting to be shocked seemed extremely long; the memory of enduring electric shock in search of a passage many years ago surfaced again, as if foreshadowing the impending piercing pain.

However, after just a breath, Chai Si opened his eyes again.

He heard the sound of the electric current hitting him, the groan of pain, the thud of a body falling to the ground... but he didn't feel the electric current itself at all.

Someone got electrocuted, and it wasn't him.

Chai Si turned his head and saw that the driver was lying on the floor behind him. His face was pale and ugly, and his body was bent and twitching, as if a tendon in his body was being tightly pulled by someone, and he could not stand up or escape. The electric wire had lost its previous excitement and hung limply on the ground not far away, motionless, as if it had made a mistake.

Chai Si looked at the car window that was getting bigger and bigger like a balloon, and then looked at the driver who was one step behind him; at that moment, he almost laughed.

"I forgot to tell you," he said, picking up the T-bar from the ground and weighing it in his hand. "I'm lucky because I suck the luck out of people around me."

The driver couldn't speak at all, and seemed to be unconscious.

"You followed my gaze and turned your head to see this window, right? I was distracted and let you go." Chai Si didn't expect the driver to answer; he needed to understand everything. He stared at the window and said, "When you saw the window like this, you got scared and took a step back, which happened to be the electric shock for me. Am I right?"

A series of low sounds rolled out of the driver's throat.

It seems that the "rumor" illusion cannot control the physical actions of its host, otherwise the driver would not have retreated to the power line out of fear.

"I have to thank you because you took the electric shock for me. Now I have a little time."

Chai Si, carrying the T-bar, walked step by step towards the curved window in front of him, which looked like it was nine months pregnant. When he was still two steps away, he swung the T-bar high, pressed down with all his strength, and hit it into the dark window. There was no sound of shattering glass, but the glass window sank inwards like a piece of rubber cloth, making all his strength go to waste.

Behind the window should be a resident who can enter the human world, so it is reasonable that the T-bar has no effect on it.

"What I'm going to say next isn't to you, but to the thing in your mouth... 'rumor', right? Can I call you that?"

The driver fell to the ground, half-conscious; the voice under his cheek also became quiet, as if in acquiescence.

"As an artifact, you possess a certain degree of intelligence and know how to protect yourself, which is truly precious. However, you lack self-awareness and your intelligence is not high enough. Otherwise, you would not be an artifact, but a resident."

From the car window that was bulging like air, the shape of a human hand emerged; after the human hand pressed against the car window glass, a shape with five fingers spread out emerged on the car window, slowly groping.

Wherever people's hands groped, Chai Si's eyes followed.

"If you were smarter, you would have realized that I threatened the driver and attacked him not to hurt him, but to get you. But this cause and effect relationship is too complicated for you. You don't understand... You only have intuitive instincts.

"When the driver you're staying with is threatened and plunged into a state of fear and stress, your self-preservation instinct is also triggered. I don't know what you look like, but it seems that you must rely on someone to exist. If this person dies, you'll be in big trouble, right?"

The driver stopped twitching and lay on the ground; he was still conscious, his eyelids half open and half closed, trembling slightly. From his slightly open lips, a small voice was saying quickly: "Help, help!" - as if calling for help on behalf of the driver.

Chai Si turned his gaze back to the window, and on the bulging black glass, he saw a distorted reflection of himself; as the corners of his mouth curled up, the reflection also revealed a half-twisted smile.

"Who are you calling for help?"

Chai Si didn't know whether the fate of others was the same as his own, which was always full of ironic black humor - if the person involved was not himself, he would almost laugh out loud.

You know, half of the reason why the driver was so scared was because of the "subway serial killer" rumor created by the false image, which made the driver believe that he had encountered a serial killer - this also indirectly proves that the "rumor" is not intelligent enough.

It is unaware of the impact that the rumors it randomly creates will have on its host.

"Looking at the 'subway killer' incident and the 'falling power line' incident, you can't just make something out of nothing and say it will happen.

"What you say must be based on some reality. If no one died in the subway, you couldn't create the rumor of the 'subway killer'; if there were no wires here, you couldn't make an extra wire appear here without any evidence.

"The wires couldn't kill me, so you called in a resident who could enter the human world... But you didn't really want to return to the lair, you just felt that you could hide from me in the lair."

The inky black waves surging in Chai Si's body gave him an instant impulse to grab the resident behind the window in his hands and crush it into powder and fragments.

Sometimes, he wished he could use these hands to tear his entire life into pieces.

As the words fell, the carriage fell into a brief silence.

The ghost image made no sound, and the driver's breathing was barely perspiration; the hand behind the window finally found the junction of the glass and the window frame, and began to tear the glass down bit by bit as if it were undoing needle and thread.

"I don't know how low your intelligence is. But if you can understand anything I say, you'd better send the residents back to their nests now..."

If this artifact really wanted to go home, it would have had no idea how many chances it would have had before today.

There must be hunters around Vesile. If there are hunters, there must be a way for it to get a ride back. Even if it cannot contact the hunters, why didn't it call this resident who can enter the human world earlier?

"Help……"

The pseudo-image spoke again, this time slowly. After hearing what Chai Si said, it seemed a little hesitant. When it called for help again, it added a question mark at the end of the sentence: "Help?"

"I'm asking you to send it back for two reasons," Chai Si said calmly. "First, once the residents come in, I can protect myself, but I can't guarantee your host's life."

A few grayish-white fingertips poked through the glass and the window frame. Chai Si looked at them and whispered, "Second... you're right. I really don't have a way to get into the nest."

For a moment, the residents and the illusion seemed to be waiting for him to continue.

“But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen residents.”

Chai Si looked at his reflection and slowly moved his shoulders and neck.

"What I hate most are the inhabitants that can enter the human world. When I see them, I can't help but get angry. Fortunately, they are rare, so I don't get angry very often.

"But you brought this kind of thing to me today."

Chase sighed.

"If you really want to protect yourself, it's better not to make me angry."

　After working so hard, I finally finished a chapter before the end of today!
　　As I slowly resume my daily routine, it’s time to consider adding more chapters for you all… Alas, if I take a month off from today, but all the updates within this month are counted as extra chapters, wouldn’t that be a bit too cunning, with cunning written all over my face?

　　PS: If nothing unexpected happens, updates will be in the evening. I'm still working during the day, and I have a lot of work that I haven't done yet.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)