Artifact Report

Chapter 447 Two-Eight Combination - ? ? ? with Mai Minghe
"That old lady only knows how to do unnecessary things!"

If she hadn't been seriously injured and weak, Fu Tai Lan would have almost sat up abruptly in anger. "What's wrong with letting the host kill Chai Si? Does she have to save someone else from killing a cockroach? I think Mai Ming He is just bored, and this has exposed her own shortcomings."

Several gunshots from Blackmore City still lingered in the air above the lair.

After complaining, he wanted to find someone to agree with him, so he turned to the coil and said, "You agree, right?"

The residents of the coil stared at the sky, saying nothing.

"Little coil?" Fu Tailan called out to it.

It's really strange...

Its head is just a messy, overlapping circle made of ballpoint pen ink; it's neither round nor shaped like a human head. Apart from two black dots for eyes and a red line for a mouth, there are no other details. What you can see, however, is a large patch of sidewalk paving stones.

However, Fu Tailan could discern subtle emotions from that face.

At this moment, the residents of the coil seemed to have a complicated and unwilling expression—how did he figure it out? Even Fu Tailan himself couldn't say for sure.

The residents of the coil finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"In the end, the host has led me to this point..." it said. "If a ruler does indeed emerge in the lair, I really wish I could kill Damian with my own hands. Unfortunately, I can't kill him. Hmm... maybe I should kill his mother, since she went to great lengths to get him in here."

The coil briefly explained the ins and outs of Damian's entry into the lair; Fu Tailan recalled the woman who hurriedly left the parking lot while wiping away tears.

It's strange that someone would let a mother walk away with her head down, completely unmoved.

It's astonishing that some people can casually throw away things that others could never obtain in their entire lives, like trash.

“…He doesn’t care about his mother either,” he swallowed hard, “Killing her won’t help. Where has Damian gone? Isn’t the Domination Game a natural disaster?”

"It's a natural disaster, so the only correct way to deal with it is to kill the players one by one."

Coil said calmly, “Damian has a unique idea: he thinks he can use the Domination Game to have the Nest invade the human world and take revenge on Chess. I don’t object to the invasion of the human world, but I strongly object to him tampering with the Domination Game and issuing the ‘Illusion Report’.”

"why?"

"If he hadn't come up with this unnecessary scheme, do you think your contestants could have found six of the seven artifacts so easily?"

Coil laughed and said, "In order to invade the human world, he used the 'Illusion Report' as bait to lure the contestants to prepare for him. Now the hive has invaded the human world, but six-sevenths of the target illusions have also been found... In other words, he only cares about revenge. As for how to protect the hive from being dominated, he only has a very frivolous contingency plan."

"What contingency plan?"

When Fu Tailan asked the question, he had a vague feeling that the coil might not answer him—sure enough, the coil resident changed the subject and said, "In short, I tried to stop him, but I couldn't, and he ended up like this. Now, we can only hope that his plan will succeed."

He knew perfectly well that the residents only wanted to take advantage of him, but Fu Tailan still couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.

The reason they refused to tell him that "very frivolous" contingency plan was perhaps because Coil was worried that he might destroy the plan to prevent the emergence of a ruler for various reasons—after all, even a very frivolous plan is better than nothing.

He changed the subject.

“Chai Si seems to be talking to Mai Minghe…” Fu Tailan said, holding up her binoculars, “It’s too far away, I can’t hear it.”

He only had a vague understanding of what happened in the parking lot, as if watching a poorly performed pantomime—Karonan showed off his gun, said something, and Damian attacked Chais; after Mai Minghe shot and saved him, Chais whispered to her for a while before going back.

Who can tell what happened from these actions?

They are residents, after all; don't they have any listening devices?

“Whether you listen or not is irrelevant,” the coil resident said. “It’s just some human grudges and feuds, nothing to do with you or me. I’m showing it to you so you can find clues to…”

Honestly, using it as a knife is way too blatant.

Fu Tailan endured the discomfort, but after looking at Chai Si for a few seconds, she couldn't take it anymore.

Looking at his dog owner's resolute, grateful, and loyal face, which made one's insides shrink, Damian was able to endure such torment, truly worthy of being a resident—so he turned his binoculars back to Blackmore City.

After Damian entered the world, he drove all the way to find Chess and Caronan without stopping.

He got on the bus empty-handed, but got off with an extra...? An illusion—isn't that strange? Where did it come from?
In other words, the key issue lies on the road...

Fu Tailan's gaze slowly followed Damian's route. The route followed the winding Haisen River, passing through the city, and led him all the way to the parking lot.

The key is on the road.

……what?

Wait, wait, wait—he's not wrong, is he? Impossible, right?
It really is—it's so similar. It seems like that's exactly how it is.

Besides, what other explanations are there?
"Hey, what happened to that old lady from before?"

Just as Fu Tai Lan was filled with shock and disbelief, a resident of the ballet school suddenly said something.

In his moment of bewilderment, he subconsciously turned his binoculars and his gaze returned to Mak Ming Ho.

***
She knows!

Mai Minghe quickly suppressed a scream—in her excitement, she had jumped up too fast, nearly knocking over the gun butt, decorations, and a tea table on the balcony. She hurriedly steadied her things, then stared blankly at the parking lot, catching her breath. Not far away, Damian was speaking to Kaironan with a grim expression.

Mai Minghe was truly afraid that he could hear the frantic pounding of his heart, and what if he could learn from the sound of his heartbeat—

Wait, did she really guess it?

Is she just daydreaming? That's impossible.

She had never heard of an illusion taking this form before…

Mai Minghe gripped the balcony railing tightly, trying to calm himself down.

“Impossible,” she murmured.

The form of ? ? ? is actually... is actually...

***
"She knows," Fu Tailan's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately sat up.

He was still somewhat incredulous, so he turned the binoculars to maximum magnification, almost pressing them against Mak Ming Ho's face, so he could see her expression clearly—including the shape of her mouth as she murmured after she jumped up.

“Impossible,” Mai Minghe seemed to repeat in a whisper, “Impossible.”

"What?" Coil sat up as well. "What does she know?"

In astonishment and disbelief, Fu Tailan subconsciously said, "She seems to know... what's going on."

He paused abruptly as soon as he spoke—he had responded too quickly.

"How do you know she knows?" the ballet dancer asked, her words sounding like a tongue twister.

While pondering, Fu Tailan said softly, "...It just feels...how can I explain it?"

Lies and performances are two sides of the same coin. He is good at lying, and naturally he is also good at concealing his emotions and disguising himself; even if the other party is a resident, he can put on a performance that he wants the other party to see.

Moreover, what he said wasn't entirely a lie; besides intuition, Fu Tailan had a little bit of evidence.

Mak Ming-ho's "Impossible" was his first reaction when he realized the truth.

Once the shape of ??? is discovered, the first reaction of anyone would probably be "impossible".

Like him, Mai Minghe followed Damian's trail to the parking lot, only to be suddenly taken aback—she probably guessed it too, right?
If she didn't guess, that's fine; but we must assume she did, so as not to underestimate or let any opponent slip through our fingers.

The coil turned past the face drawn with the ballpoint pen, and looked at him with a pair of black dots.

"So, do you know now?" it asked.

“Let me think about it some more,” Fu Tailan frowned, saying with some dissatisfaction, “If even the old lady can figure it out, give me a little more time, and I’ll definitely be able to figure it out.”

The ballet dancer clicked his tongue.

“Then think about it,” the coil resident suddenly stood up, almost angrily, “why did it have to be Mai Ming River of all people to find out!”

What happened to Mak Ming Ho?
The coil looked displeased—it hadn't even drawn on eyebrows, so how could it express its displeasure?—whether it was anxiety and annoyance, or lingering relief and relief, it suddenly let out a hum.

"From another perspective, it's fortunate that it was Mak Ming Ho."

"What do you mean?" Fu Tailan asked.

The coil didn't answer him. It studied Fu Tailan for a moment with its black dots, then suddenly smiled and said, "Do you know? As long as we kill Mai Minghe, we can steal her contestant status. Aren't you tempted?"

Fu Tailan almost burst out laughing.

"Just because I'm willing to cooperate with you doesn't mean I'm a brainless knife," he said lazily. "So, what's going on?"

The coil gave up quickly—it probably knew that this statement wouldn't fool Fu Tailan.

"Regarding this game of hive domination, the hive is divided into two factions: one faction supports Damian, and the other supports me. Those who support him believe that he has a way to prevent the hive from being dominated, while also taking the opportunity to invade the human world, which is why he has provided him with so many conveniences... I might as well tell you the truth: the key to his very frivolous contingency plan is the River Maming."

"What do you mean? With Mai Minghe around, the lair won't be ruled?" Fu Tailan was taken aback.

What is the logic?

“Yes,” Coil said, not intending to elaborate, “so in order to stop him, we have been planning to kill Maming River. Once his contingency plan is undermined by us, the residents who support him will naturally collapse and turn against him. Although we residents cannot kill each other, when the whole hive is besieging a resident, I assure you, he will not be able to step out of his nest, let alone become a host.”

“In other words…” Fu Tailan vaguely understood and looked up at Blackmore City in the sky.

"We had already laid the groundwork for a deadly move against Mak Ming-ho."

After saying this, the coil raised its hand and waved. The ballet dancer immediately understood and tiptoed away.

"Now is the time for them to come in handy. She has only herself to blame; she doesn't even have her last 24 hours left."

(End of this chapter)