Artifact Report

Chapter 393 Dual Perspectives: Sinking to the Seabed
What happened next was like countless fragments of a dream, overlapping and swaying, blurring and distorting.

By then, I was mentally prepared to die; I closed my eyes tightly and covered my ears with my hands, so that the last sound I heard before I died would no longer be the gunman's footsteps approaching me, but my own low humming.

The original closing piece would also be a fitting closing piece for my life.

I am the sky gradually turning purple at dusk.

I am a dialogue without words.
Gazing at you in silence
The more I pressed, the tighter my hand became, and my ear was filled with air, which was pressing painfully.

Even though all I could hear was my own singing, I could still feel the weight of a human body on the stage floor—each footstep landing heavily on the floor, vibrating my body and my voice.

A loud bang interrupted my singing; the stage scenery was kicked open, and light suddenly shone on me. I turned around and saw the gunman's shadow standing behind me.

I let go of her hand.

“Singing your songs at a time like this? Go to hell!” he hissed like a snake, white spittle flying from his mouth. “Go sing yours to Satan!”

“I’m lucky,” I said, looking up and feeling tears welling up in my eyes, but I still managed a smile. “You’re backlit now… which means I’ll never see your face, even if I die.”

I couldn't see his expression, but he immediately raised his gun at me.

But a moment later, he suddenly changed his mind.

He came up to me, grabbed my hair, and yanked me over—the excruciating pain assaulted my vision. I thought I was fighting, I thought I was screaming, but as a gun slammed into my temple, the world shattered and broke apart, leaving a trail of broken pieces around me.

My ears and eyes were covered in blood, and I could only vaguely feel myself being dragged off the stage like a dead fish.

The stage was over a meter high; I love jumping from high places, but falling from that stage felt like plunging into a deep abyss, and I could never climb out again.

What is he going to do to me?
Why did he take me out? Isn't he afraid of getting arrested?

The area should be surrounded by enemy forces by now, right?
The man was dragging me outside, muttering incoherent curses under his breath as he went; he said he was going to publicly execute me, that he had heard God's guidance, and that he was cleansing the country of its poison and driving out evil...

It must have been my last sentence that angered him, which is why he changed his mind at the last minute—but even if a quick death turns into a long torment, I don't regret it.

I don't care if he gets angry; I just want to say what I have to say.

I don't care if they get angry; I just want to sing the songs I want to sing.

The road home is winding and silent
I swam in the torrential rain and floated on the waves.
I don't know if I actually sang out loud—maybe not.

Because my mind was already on the verge of collapse, I couldn't see anything clearly, and I could barely hear the gunman's voice.

It felt as if I had been placed in a cradle, my soul swaying between two ends, one of life and the other of death.

It wasn't until I was shoved into a car that I realized I seemed to have been taken to an underground parking lot.

I don't know how he broke through the encirclement and entered the underground parking lot; I was lying in the back seat, and I could see the windshield between the front seats.

That ray of light was like a path to survival that I could never reach.

I watched the car start up, speed away, crash through the toll gate barrier, and plunge into the daylight outside—countless people on the street, like a school of startled fish, screamed and scattered in all directions under the invisible waves created by the car.

There was only one person...

There was only one person standing still on the street, like a reef that waves could only break and detour over; she stood firmly in the fleeing crowd, raising her gun at the car driver.

In the brief moment that the car sped past her, she fired three shots in quick succession.

The gunman, however, was not hit—he lunged forward in time, cursing amidst a shower of shattered glass; he crouched low, gripping the steering wheel tightly, and the car swerved sharply, barely managing to avoid crashing into the tree trunks on the sidewalk.

In that brief moment, I don't know where the strength came from, but I suddenly rolled over and got up, slamming my body against the car door—I endured the dizziness and desperately pounded on the car window.

"Mercury!" I screamed. "I'm here!"

Unbelievable.

Mercury actually saw me.

Our eyes met through the car window; she seemed to be breathing heavily, staring at me with a dark glint in her eyes.

In that instant, it felt as if the sky and sea were about to collapse, as if I were about to fall into—

The next second, I was forcibly pulled out of the mercury eye along with the car and thrown into the unknown.

When someone awakens me, I will be submerged.
It sank to the bottom of the sea and never saw the light of day again.
***
“An old-fashioned gray pickup truck, Ford,”

Mercury yelled into her earpiece as she strode toward her motorcycle, which lay overturned on the side of the road. "The license plate starts with 3AOA, and it's heading toward 99th Street! The person is on it, stop it!"

“Understood,” the subordinate replied, but then seemed to remember something. “Mercury, if that gunman realizes he can’t escape…”

Yes.

The fact that the gunman didn't kill her but instead tied her to his car was already unexpected—it was said that the concert hall was already littered with corpses—he realized that if he couldn't escape, he would most likely kill her first.

Mercury got on the motorcycle and started the engine with a roar.

"When you see the car, use that illusion,"

Mercury roared as it sped into the traffic of Blackmore City, gritting its teeth as it said, "Once the illusion takes effect, don't worry about being in the city. Flip the whole car. I'll use that man's flesh and blood to cover the ground."

She once sat in the empty bar after it closed for the day and smiled at Mercury, saying, "...I don't believe it."

Mercury raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise: "You don't believe me? You don't even believe something so ordinary?"

She laughed, her voice soft, deep yet bright, like melted silver shrouded in mist. Such a voice, even when used to scold, was irresistible.

"If you can trap people inside, even if you fire rockets at them, the people inside won't get hurt. If you have something like that, why don't you sell it to the military? It must be worth a lot of money."

Mercury lowered his head, looked at his wine, and smiled slightly. "The army has no use for it."

Even if a buyer were found, it wouldn't be the military; because only one person can be protected at a time, and the protected person would feel trapped in the shadows, forgetting who they are, their memory hazy. Unless an external force removes the illusion, they cannot escape it on their own.

On the battlefield, it is useless; because it requires outsiders to get rid of the illusion, many important figures are wary of it and are not very enthusiastic about it.

Even if mercury were to explain, she wouldn't believe it.

No, it's less about "disbelief" and more about simply not caring—if you don't care about something, you can't really talk about believing or disbelieving it.

Mercury could tell that she had already dedicated herself entirely to music.

In this world, nothing but music could occupy even a fraction of her mind.

Nothing could stop her from going on stage to sing.

Whether it's a nest, an illusion, or even mercury itself, its importance is perhaps as irrelevant to her as the stories her upstairs neighbor tells her children at night.

After supporting her for two years, Mercury slowly gained a place in her world.

Later, they became very familiar with each other, and often after the bar lights were turned off and the doors were closed, they would sit at the bar together with a small lamp, drinking and chatting. When she was slightly tipsy, she always said that Mercury was her first true confidant in the world.

“I can tell you like my songs,” she said, her tongue slurring. “It’s not the kind of liking that you hear and think, ‘Oh, not bad,’ it’s… a genuine… love.”

Mercury remained silent.

Because language is too superficial.

She was reluctant to recall the first time she heard that song, the moment she looked up at the stage and saw her.

It is said that during the process of recalling memories, the brain will unconsciously process the memories, causing them to become distorted and changed.

Those were the memories that Mercury, born into this world, least wanted to have even the slightest error or alteration in.

Such talent, such ambition, so rare and beautiful...

She shouldn't be confined to being a resident singer in a bar; with that voice, if she had to say "thank you" to the tips she received, it would be an insult to her voice.

Mercury wanted her to know that there are still people in this world who can see beauty.

“I know how to make you famous,” Mercury whispered.

That was something a resident had told me.

Each resident has their own logic for seeing the world; what's amazing is that the world changes accordingly and follows its own natural course depending on how they apply that logic.

"Why do some people never get ahead in their entire lives, while others seem to have a natural 'star quality'? It's because the 'cover' has been removed."

The resident didn't want to sign a contract with Mercury, so he gave her a lot of information in exchange. "If you polish away a person's outer shell, even if what's underneath is just an ordinary stone, as long as you polish it hard enough, it can still shine a little. Once there's light, it automatically attracts attention... and fame will follow. How famous you are depends on how bright the person under the cover is."

Beneath her outer shell, it shimmered like a galaxy of starlight.

“But be careful,” the resident said, shaking his finger, “the shield is also a protective shield for humans, it’s dangerous without it… if we remove it completely…”

I'll be your shield.

Mercury forgot when he got the shoulder cannon—wait, did he take it with him when he got on his bike?
But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

Most importantly, Mercury finally spotted the old gray Ford pickup truck.

She was in the car, protected by illusions, enveloped by shadows like an underground river.

Therefore, Mercury could freely unleash bullets at that gray Ford pickup truck.

We must overturn it, see it ignite, let it tumble and roll, taking with it that person who deserves to die, to experience life's greatest and deepest fear.

Thalassa, the sea goddess in ancient Greek mythology—is the name she changed to after her debut.

"Sir Rakshasa!"

Mercury called out loudly, as if trying to call her back from this vast, dreamlike world—"Si Luocha, I'm here!"

***
2026年，12月5日，8：57PM
It was as if a cannonball had crashed into the sea; the flashes of light, the sounds of gunfire, and the tremors of a truck overturning tore and scorched countless white, billowing cracks in the impenetrable curtain of rain.

Mai Minghe suddenly gasped for breath and woke up from his dream.

what happened?

Why is she still standing, not asleep, but trapped in a dream?
My hands feel so heavy, my arms are trembling, and my shoulders are aching slightly...

She lowered her head and understood.

Mai Minghe looked at the heavy machine gun in his hand, then at the tanker truck in the distance that had lost control on the road, overturned but still unable to stop its momentum, sweeping across and crashing into the roadside building.

...not a truck.

She is neither mercury nor a demon.

She didn't shoot at the Pikachu who had kidnapped the singer; that wasn't her story, it was a dream.

She was Mai Minghe, but she didn't understand what had happened; why, when she regained consciousness, she was already holding a heavy machine gun and had knocked down a car.

A large oil tanker was knocked over.

A tanker truck that is on fire, with its tank damaged and black liquid gushing out.

Torrential rain, overflowing rivers, storms surging into the city... The floodwaters diluted the black liquid, turning it into an endless stream of black liquid.

The heavy rain, mixed with black liquid, rushed through the manhole cover, flowed down into the sewers, and into the river, spreading endlessly towards the corners of Blackmore City right before her eyes.

She had no idea where the tanker truck came from or what it was carrying.

Mai Minghe stood blankly in the rain, watching a figure slowly emerge from behind the tanker truck across the street.

She had never seen mercury before, but she recognized it at a glance; because in Siluocha's dream, mercury had long been the person she knew best.

Mercury looked almost dazed and confused. His face was as white as snow after being washed by the rain, and his hair, soaked through, was even darker than the night of the downpour.

Her long, pale neck was covered with countless names tattooed on it.

She glanced at Mai Minghe, seemingly showing no surprise or interest whatsoever at his appearance.

"Mercury?" Mai Minghe called softly. "What... what just happened?"

Mercury turned her head and looked at the oil tanker that was bleeding profusely; the flames that had not yet been extinguished by the torrential rain flickered weakly in her eyes.

“I don’t know why I’m here… I remember having a dream,” Mercury murmured. “I dreamt that… I saved her.”

She was carrying a heavy machine gun, seemingly unaware of her surroundings or who she was talking to.

This is often how people feel when they first wake up from a deep dream.

Mai Minghe had just woken up from the same dream and was still somewhat dazed.

"Dreamed about her? That Si Luocha..."

“Si Luocha died five years ago,” Mercury said. “A gunman broke into her small concert venue. She was shot on the spot.”

"It's said that dreams are human unfulfilled desires...is that true?"

Mercury said this with a smile.

“I dreamt she wasn’t dead. I dreamt the gunman tied her to a car and drove away. I dreamt I chased after him, overturned the pickup truck, and shouted her name…”

When I am awakened, I will sink to the bottom of the sea and never see the light of day again.

(End of this chapter)