Artifact Report

Chapter 379 Mai Minghe - She Doesn't Accept

“Miss Mai,” the male caregiver asked, “are you tired from walking? Why don’t you sit down? You’ve been walking for quite a while now.”

As he spoke, he gestured to the empty wheelchair he was pushing.

For some reason, Mai Minghe found that wheelchair extremely offensive today; just looking at it made him feel like a stone was pressing down on his stomach.

It seems like just yesterday she could run, jump, and eat heartily, but now after walking for ten minutes or so, her legs feel weak and shaky; once she takes a breath, no matter how hard she tries, she can't inhale the next one.

That shouldn't be the case.

Wasn't she a young person just now?
She hadn't even had a chance to run freely, to run until she was breathless, to run until she fell to the ground, to lie on the grass and fallen leaves, and to look at the sky that changed with the seasons.

Where is Yilian?

She refused to sit, as if sitting down would be an admission of something she didn't want to admit. Perhaps it was a case of disliking someone because of their family, but she also felt uncomfortable looking at the male caregiver and asked, "Where did she go?"

At the age of seventy-six, she finally began to receive care from home caregivers; however, the caregivers did not come often because she was still able to take care of herself.

The little girl named Elaine seemed to have a particular fondness for Mak Ming-ho. As soon as she entered the room, she started chattering away, lining up all the big and small events of the past week while doing her chores, trying to get them all out in the limited hour. Sometimes she wanted to talk about several things at the same time, so those things would cut in line and compete to take over her voice.

As she chattered on, Mak Ming-ho learned that Trader Joe's had launched some convenient and delicious frozen products, that her sister's child had broken an ankle, that her boss was particularly demanding, and that she could never find a suitable boyfriend...

For that entire hour, Mak Ming Ho felt as if he were also twenty-six years old.

She gave Elaine some advice and made her a knitted handbag for her birthday. Elaine would occasionally come over after get off work, and the two would watch movies together...

But starting in October, for some reason, Yilian suddenly stopped coming.

When she called her, Yilian comforted her gently, saying that she had some things to take care of and had taken leave, and told Mai Minghe to wait patiently for her to come back; this wait lasted for almost two months. She called a couple more times afterward, but no one answered.

Sometimes when Mak Ming-ho dreams, he sees Elaine opening the door to her apartment.

“She said she only took two weeks off,” Mak Ming-ho said, still refusing to sit in his wheelchair and standing by the roadside, his legs trembling. “...But it’s been two months already.”

December 2016, like her life, was already drawing to a close.

“It’s common for caregivers not to stay long, and I’ll take good care of you,” the male caregiver said. “Besides, I heard she got married last month.”

Mai Minghe was taken aback. Why hadn't Yilian said anything?
She clearly said that she couldn't find the right person, and that she would bring any man she met in the future to meet Mak Ming-ho because she trusted Mak Ming-ho's judgment... How did she suddenly get married without saying a word?

"Oh, that's just polite talk." The caregiver smiled, patted the wheelchair again, and said, "We take care of so many elderly people, they're not our own grandparents. How can we notify them all if something happens? Please sit down, Miss Mai, it would be terrible if you fell."

Mak Ming Ho was indeed starting to lose his footing.

She slowly sat down, holding onto the wheelchair, and felt her loose and weak muscles relax as the pressure subsided.

He was clearly a young man just now. Even when he was seventy-six, he wasn't that old—

Huh?
When was the last time you were 76?

The more absurd the idea, the more real and intense it becomes.

She was almost certain that she had already lived to be seventy-six once; it was as if she had forgotten something very important... what was it?
The male caregiver pushed her along the road slowly; Mai Minghe could not see his face unless he turned around.

She glanced back at him, then turned back to face forward, and forgot what the male caregiver looked like again.

...It seems that getting old or having a bad memory cannot be explained away.

Who is this person again? When did he become my caregiver?

"By the way, do you remember Elaine?" the male caregiver asked.

What are you talking about? Weren't we just talking about her?

"She quit her job after getting married and moved back to her hometown. But last month, she came to Blackmore City on business and made a special trip back to visit. I haven't heard her mention you, which I can understand. She was taking care of quite a few elderly people at the time, so how could she remember them all?"

Mai Minghe seemed to choke on his breath, and after a few seconds, he managed to swallow it with difficulty.

No—that's not right.

Just half a minute ago, he told himself that he had heard that Yilian had just gotten married—half a minute, only half a minute had passed, why did he say it was as if half a year had passed?

Mai Minghe gripped the handrail tightly. With no flesh left in his hands, the veins and joints bulged from under the thin, withered skin, which had become translucent.

Wasn't it December just now?

Why are the tree canopies on the street so big and lush, and the bricks are steaming hot?
On a sudden, bright summer day, the streets were deserted except for her wheelchair and the person pushing it from behind, moving forward step by step. The wheels rolled across the pavement, making a rhythmic thud that, after a while and under the sunlight, almost made one drowsy.

Mai Minghe pinched himself hard.

No, she couldn't just follow his timeline... She felt like everything happening now had already happened before, and she had to remember it... "Wow, she looks so tired and haggard," the male caregiver said. "Nobody would have guessed that her child is such a... extremely high-needs special needs child. He can't even speak properly, he's five or six years old, and all he can do when he wants something is scream. The way Elaine looks to me, it's like she could collapse at any moment, or faint at any moment."

Mai Minghe closed his eyes, and something hot slid down.

Those were her friends, her children, her Elaine... How could they have fallen to this state in such a short time?
Yes, yes, we can't forget, the time was too short, it's unreasonable.

She kept reminding herself that only a few minutes had passed.

For some reason, the male caregiver seemed to want to use this way of telling stories that spanned several years to make her believe that several years had actually passed as well—since she turned eighty, she had even lost the strength to raise her hand to cover her ears, so she kept recalling the past in her mind, ignoring what he was saying, and letting his story slip off her shoulders.

The last time she was 76, she wasn't so young that she needed someone to push her in a wheelchair to walk.

In a world where all life is destined to end and perish, where all meaning will vanish into nothingness, she once encountered a miracle… a miracle she had forgotten…

Mak Ming Ho did not accept it.

She refused to accept being 76 years old, refused to accept the wheelchair beneath her, refused to accept the caregiver pushing the wheelchair, and refused to accept the few minutes of Yilian's life.

She does not accept this merciless world.

She wanted to use all her strength to ask God to have mercy on and cherish every Yilian, Lanzhui, Chai Si, Ai Meili, and Fu Tailan in the world...

(Who are these people?)

...every bird soaring across the sky, every child leaving home, every confused and anxious girl...

Mai Minghe even knew where she should draw her power and achieve it. She just couldn't quite remember it for a moment.

“…That’s strange,”

The male caregiver's voice murmured close to Mai Minghe's cheek and ear: "What are you doing?"

She snapped back to reality with a start.

In that instant, as if caught in a nightmare, her mind became completely clear, and memories flooded back, taking her back to the ages of twenty-eight and eighty-six in 2026—but her body remained at the decaying age of seventy-six, too weak and unable to move.

"What did you do? What happened? Why hasn't any time been passed?"

...That's Ivan's voice.

She wasn't in a wheelchair because there weren't any.

Mak Ming-ho leaned against the coffee shop door, like a doll without its support; Ivan was squatting beside her, his eyes round and yellow, and he didn't blink for a long time.

"Last time, you remembered reality and were able to consume the time of your illusion. How come this time, when you were told to forget reality, the time of your illusion didn't move at all?"

Evan was much more articulate now. He squatted on the ground with his knees high up against his shoulders, looking like a hybrid of human and insect.

Mai Minghe barely lowered her eyelids—her bag containing the gun was now in Evan's hands.

“I can’t let you get the gun,” Evan said, seemingly noticing her gaze. “If I were shot by you, even if I didn’t die, wouldn’t it be troublesome to be a mangled mess?”

Is that why you ran away?
Mai Minghe wanted to ask, but he was too weak to open his mouth.

"What should we do?"

Evan seemed to want to make a worried expression, but he frowned in the wrong place. Instead of his eyebrows being squeezed together, his mouth was tightly tucked in, forming a wrinkled crease.

Mai Minghe barely opened his lips, and the air escaped between his lips and teeth, forming broken, shapeless syllables.

She remembered that Lan Zhui had also struggled to speak during his final days.

"What?" Evan's attention was indeed drawn to her.

“What exactly…” Every word Mai Minghe uttered trembled. “Come back…”

“I can’t hear you,” Ivan said expressionlessly, “but I won’t let you regain your strength just to hear what you’re saying. You humans are so cunning.”

"Why...why..."

Evan couldn't help but lean closer, as if trying to decipher her lip movements to understand what she was saying. He seemed to be learning too fast; just two days ago, he was still practicing chewing and speaking.

"Why...did you come back?" Mai Minghe finally asked. "What...thing do you want to accomplish...?"

“So that’s what you wanted to know,” Ivan straightened up again, his legs still bent beside him. “How could I—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the figure behind him swung a baseball bat down hard, smashing it into his temple.

(End of this chapter)