Artifact Report

Chapter 420 Chai Si - Residents, Residents, Arms and Arms

...Fu Tailan escaped from his grasp once again.

Gunfire continued to pierce the darkness, shaking the rain curtain; Chai Si poured all his strength into the trigger.

He knew the direction the SUV sped away in, knew that Fu Tailan had stopped once along the way, and even guessed that Carter was not dead—he knew everything, yet could do nothing.

All he could do was ultimately futile.

His entire life seems to have been condensed into this one sentence.

The bullets were all fired, but Chai Si was still unwilling to give up and pulled the trigger several more times; the pistol only produced an empty, dull echo, and naturally, it could not spit out another bullet.

He flung it away violently into the distance, the pistol crashing onto the road surface, splashing up a spray of white water—countless bright white droplets leaping high into the headlights, shimmering, as if they would hang forever in mid-air amidst the curtain of rain.

If only time could stand still at this moment.

Of course that's impossible.

The water splashed down and sank back into the dark depths, shattering into pieces.

Chai Si slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on the two human bodies in front of him.

Even after emptying all the bullets in one go, all the residents did was shake their arms a few times and slip on their feet a few times in the rain.

When I turned my gaze again, its chest, with its crisscrossing bones, was almost touching me.

Chai Si stared at it, his feet not moving an inch.

Even knowing they are no match for the opponent, even knowing they can do nothing, they still don't want to back down.

"Brother Chai," Han Liuyue called out urgently from behind, "What are you doing? Get away from it!"

After dodging, what happens? Do you get in the car and escape?
If he escapes, will the residents suddenly repent and return to their lair?

The resident took another step toward the fire station—his thigh, which was stuck in his chest, swayed and sank down, splashing into the rain.

From any perspective, the SUV driver in front of us can no longer be considered a human being.

The driver's original head was replaced by a cloud of black mist, from which another body emerged that seemed to be a random patchwork of countless human parts—one hand had twenty or thirty fingers attached; the other hand had four or five palms stacked thickly on top of each other.

The resident's chest was riddled with bones, densely packed and crisscrossing, protruding in countless twisted shapes from beneath his dark brown, oily skin. On his legs, which were now approaching the caravan, were countless knees of varying sizes, pressed tightly together, like a large bouquet of blooming flesh and bone flowers.

There are already two bodies, but no heads.

The resident's entire body disappeared into the human world, except for his head, which remained trapped in the black mist.

As it dragged itself along, braving the bullets, step by step toward the driver's seat, the driver's body was also pulled and staggered, following along with it—it was as if someone had used two headless bodies to form a compass.

A bullet grazed past the resident's chest, striking him squarely in the sternum and causing him to stagger backward, taking two steps back from the resident's side. The bullet embedded itself slightly between the bone and skin, but could not penetrate any further, quickly becoming yet another futile attempt to fall into the rain.

"Brother Chai!"

Han Liuyue grabbed Chai Si's arm, pulling him back to his senses. "That's my last bullet. We have to leave immediately."

Chai Si was still somewhat dazed when he glanced behind her.

The driver who got out of the other SUV didn't drag a resident's body with him.

Perhaps he knew that shooting only residents wouldn't be effective; Han Liuyue had just fired countless shots into the driver's chest, and now his chest was a bloody mess, so much so that one could almost see the road behind him through the bloody hole.

Even though he had been shot so many times and was undoubtedly dead, the second SUV driver was still standing straight in the road.

He too was headless, and his neck was also shrouded in a black mist.

If there's anything different, it's that the black mist around the second driver's neck is gradually dissipating, and it's almost completely gone now—leaving only a smooth, grayish-white brain sitting upright on the stubble of his neck.

At this moment, the brain was slowly turning towards the two of them, as if something was peering into the world through the gaps and grooves of the brain.

“The Black Abyss,” Chai Si suddenly said. “The black mist above their heads must be from the Black Abyss.” Han Liuyue, who had also once escaped death from the Black Abyss, quickly glanced at it and clearly came to the same conclusion.

“They didn’t dissipate,” she said, her face pale but still relatively calm. “This means… the Black Abyss in the human world has lost its effect of dissipating people?”

She tossed her head and said, "That's not important," then used all her strength to grab Chai Si's arm, like an old ox, and tried to drag him out.

"Who cares what they like to put on their necks, Brother Chai, let's hurry up and get going! They're all coming... Why are you so heavy?"

Chai Si was being pulled by her, just like being bitten on the trouser leg by a dog, yet he remained completely still.

“You can go now. Take Uncle Kai to the safe house.” He grabbed Han Liuyue’s hand and pulled it off. “Leave these two residents to me, I’ll clean up the mess for you.”

Han Liuyue stared at him blankly. "Clean up the mess? How do you clean up the mess?"

Chai Si tossed her the keys and gestured towards the car with his chin. "Let's go now, don't make me tell you a second time."

Han Liuyue pursed her lips tightly, took the key, but didn't move an inch.

"I'm not trying to kill myself,"

Chai Si sighed inwardly and looked at the headless, two-bodied inhabitants who had walked back to him. "I have a way to hold them off and give you some time."

The headless, two-bodied resident waved a finger at him, as if to say, "You're no good."

Chai Si bent down, stretched out his arm, and grabbed the deformed car door that he had forcibly broken off and thrown on the ground; he suddenly exerted force and lifted the entire car door into the air—without even saying "get out of the way," Han Liuyue quickly dodged to the back.

The next second, the deformed and twisted heavy car door was flung sideways and slammed right onto the resident's supporting leg.

Dozens of knees, large and small, of various shapes, were hit squarely by the car door; some bent backward, some flew around, and some slid onto the calves—even if the residents were not seriously injured, they could no longer maintain their balance and fell heavily into the rain.

Without pausing for a moment, Chai Si spun around and kicked the driver behind him hard in the knee.

The driver was still a human body and couldn't resist the power of the car; when the kneecap broke, the muffled "crack" sound, even though it was hidden under flesh and skin, could still make anyone's face twitch.

The driver, having lost a supporting joint, staggered, half of his body collapsing while the other half remained upright, like a Lego figure whose body had been smashed to pieces. Taking advantage of the fact that the two residents were still unable to stand up, Chai Si angrily shouted at Han Liuyue, "Hurry up and leave!"

"Ah, yes," Han Liuyue exclaimed in surprise, seemingly finally remembering her usual obedience. She took a few steps back, turned around, and ran towards the car.

As Chai Si, panting, turned his gaze away from her back, he was displeased to find that both residents had already stood up again.

It's still a human body... yet it can stand up with a broken knee.

Is it because the person is already dead and doesn't feel any pain, so even if a broken bone is embedded in their thigh, they can still stand upright?
There's not much to say about the other resident's body—it grabbed the car door, flung it aside, and when it stood up, the large patch of flesh and bone that had formed on its knees had returned to normal.

"Neither of the two ghostly things can speak."

Chai Si chuckled softly, raising his hand to brush his damp hair behind his head. "I thought I was going to have to endure the residents' noise again today... Luckily, I'm in luck."

He heard Han Liuyue start the car engine, but he had no time to look at her. Two residents, one on his left and one on his right, were still slowly approaching him.

“Come on,” Chai Si said, casually taking off his soaking wet coat and tossing it aside. “I haven’t even moved an inch yet. Let’s see who can get me to move first.”

The headless, two-bodied resident suddenly raised one arm high—joint after joint opened in mid-air, like an endless worm's limb; as its arm swept across the night sky toward Chai Si, it left behind countless layers of illusory arms in the air.

Arms with watches, arms with bracelets, arms with tattoos, arms with body hair, thin arms, white arms, thick arms, arms, arms, arms, arms, arms, arms, arms.

Whose arms are these? So many people have forgotten about arms, lost them. Collect them, collect them! That's the right way for arms to exist, because like attracts like. Arms should stay with other arms, and your own arms should be included too—

A sharp, long blast of a horn, pressed down firmly, jolted Chai Si awake from his intense and absolute logic as a resident.

He quickly twisted his body backward, and at the last moment before the resident's fingers were about to sweep across his arm, he narrowly pulled his arm away and avoided the resident's twenty or thirty fingertips. However, just as he was about to escape the resident's reach, before Chai Si could even breathe a sigh of relief, a joint suddenly stretched out on the resident's arm, and a new arm began to unfold.

The resident grabbed Chai Si's arm.

Arms, arms, arms—they want to return these two incongruous, companionless, outsider-like arms to their brethren right now.

(End of this chapter)