Artifact Report

Chapter 455 Mai Minghe - Pregnant Women's Seat

"seven--"

A suitable seat? The car radio says to sit in a "suitable seat," but what is the standard for "suitable"?
Mai Minghe glanced at the bus hurriedly for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

"six--"

She was so engrossed in listening to the radio that she didn't notice until now.

Most of the seats on the bus remained the same, but as Mai Minghe looked around, at least five or six seats had changed—they now had icons and text added.

One of the seats has a drawing of a little person wearing a skirt and with a big belly sitting on it.

Clearly, this is a newly allocated seat for pregnant women.

"five--"

Ashley had already sprinted to the last row of the bus and pounced on the seat she had just boarded.

Mai Minghe understood this logic: since the standard of "suitable" was unknown, the seats they had just sat in were logically the safest choice.

But are nest traps really that simple?

However, from another perspective, perhaps the bus trap is designed to make people suspicious, hesitant, and indecisive, wasting their precious time—no, we can't keep going back and forth like this.

"Four--"

Besides the seats designated for pregnant women, there are also seats for the sick and infirm, children, those who haven't slept well, and those for menstruating women. The children's seats are also marked with icons, but the others seem difficult to represent with icons, so they are all marked with text—one seat even has "Reserved Seat for the Mentally Ill" written on its back.

It seems like I can't sit on any of them, right?
"three--"

Mai Minghe didn't have much time left to think; she gritted her teeth and rushed back to her seat.

If we exclude the reserved seats, then only the regular seats without special markings are left.

If you're going to sit in a regular seat anyway, it's definitely safer to sit in a seat you've already sat in, right?

"two--"

As Mai Minghe slumped into his unmarked, ordinary seat, his heart pounding, he glanced at the bus's screen out of the corner of his eye.

That advertisement is still running.

It turned out she had misunderstood; Sausage wasn't pregnant, she just had a tumor in her stomach—as Mak Ming-ho glanced over, he happened to see a line of text: "Thanks to Blue Shield Medical Insurance, we are able to face the future in peace."

The person speaking was a man with a full beard, and for some reason, he was wearing a maternity dress.

……and many more.

Is this station called "The Pregnant Woman Under the Spell of Antonyms"?
"one!"

Before Mai Minghe could react, everything in front of him was plunged into absolute darkness.

She remained motionless in her seat, unable to stand up and change seats even though she suspected she had ultimately sat in the wrong place.

All sounds ceased—the engine, the tires, Ashley's breathing… all dissolved into a darkness that seemed as if his eyes had been removed.

In the deathly silence and pitch blackness where no light or color existed, time stretched out for an eternity.

It seemed like several hours before she finally heard the car door slowly open, so faintly that it sounded like a hallucination heard by a sleeping person in their dream, only scratching at the very edge of her senses.

The sound was too soft, so she wasn't sure if she had actually heard someone get on the bus.

"This vehicle will resume its journey."

As the bus radio rang again, light gradually seeped back into view, and the sounds of the engine, noise, and smells... returned to the bus one by one.

"The vehicle may be unstable after starting. Please do not get up and move around until the ride becomes stable. New passengers, please take your seats as soon as possible."

...There were several more people on the bus.

An elderly man who looked to be in his sixties had a loose, wrinkled face and a neck that was bunched up at his collar. Over his shirt, he wore a pale pinkish-yellow vest dress; although his belly was quite protruding, Mai Minghe suspected it was just a beer belly.

Another man in his prime, with a fit physique, was different.

His lower abdomen was flat, and even when he put one hand on his lower back and stuck his belly forward, he still couldn't push up his maternity dress.

"Antonyms, is that what you mean?" Ashley said blankly. "The people getting on the bus are the antonyms of 'pregnant women'? So the 'pregnant women' getting on the bus are actually men?"

What antonym?

When Mai Minghe looked up at the sound, he discovered that there was someone sitting in the middle of the bus—it was clearly an ordinary person, perhaps just an ordinary citizen of Blackmore City; he was still wearing pajamas, his eyes still sleepy, as if he had just been dragged from his bed and thrown into the bus.

"How did I get here?" he murmured, seemingly asking no one. "Did I sleepwalk away from home? Where is this car heading?"

He seemed to have fallen asleep to all the strange things happening in Blackmore City that night.

Even if Mak Ming-ho wanted to explain, he didn't know where to begin.

Does this bus trap randomly grab people and put them on the bus wherever it goes?

The third person wearing a maternity dress is a "teenage mother"—or "teenage father"? Wait, she's not pregnant, so she shouldn't count as either, right?

As the high school boy walked past the ordinary man, the latter stared blankly at the boy for a long while.

No wonder he kept staring, because the high school boy was carefully protecting his thin belly under his maternity dress with his hands folded together.

The three men, all posing as pregnant women, looked around the bus, but none of them sat down. They huddled together in the middle of the bus, resembling a cluster of plump mushrooms dressed in maternity dresses.

Three mushroom-shaped faces swayed as the car moved, but their gazes remained fixed on the other three passengers.

A new passenger boarded, but nothing happened except for his strange appearance... Does this mean I'm in the right seat?

Just as Mai Minghe had this thought, he saw the old man and pregnant woman suddenly move; he leaned against his lower back, sticking out his beer belly, and walked up to the man in pajamas, almost putting his belly on the other man's face.

"What are you doing?" The man in pajamas shrank back. "Get back somewhere else!"

The old man and pregnant woman not only didn't back down, but instead took another step forward, sticking one leg into the gap in front of the seat; this time, what was presented to the man in pajamas was not just his belly.

"Get out of my way," the man in pajamas leaned back, seemingly wanting to push the old man and pregnant woman, but then worried about being associated with a mentally ill person. "What are you doing—"

The old man and the pregnant woman had stern faces, and their mouths were almost completely closed as they spoke. "Get up and give up your seat."

"There are still so many empty seats—"

"You've taken the priority seat for pregnant women," the old man said, stepping back into the aisle but still pressing his belly against the seat.

Is that seat reserved for pregnant women? I don't think so.

Mai Minghe's heart tightened, and he was about to speak up to remind him when he heard Ashley in the back row decisively order, "Don't get up!"

She somehow ended up in this world with the bus trap, yet she still remembers to remind citizens about safety...

It's almost like a natural instinct; no matter how contradictory the situation, the instinct remains.

"Didn't you hear me? The announcement said not to move around, so just sit still and follow the rules!" Ashley shouted.

Her order made the man in pajamas unhappy, and he muttered, "A whole carload of lunatics?"

He twisted his body slightly, as if trying to see if he had sat in the priority seat for pregnant women, but he couldn't see clearly without getting up.

The man in pajamas looked around, clearly not wanting to escalate the situation, then raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, as if to say, "Alright, alright. I'll give up my seat, and I won't get up. Are you all satisfied?"

Why didn't you get up even though I offered you my seat?

"Wait, you-"

Before Mai Minghe could finish speaking, the man in pajamas had already lifted his buttocks, slid sideways to the next seat, and sat down.

The old man and the pregnant woman slowly smiled, their lips sinking into layers of loose skin.

"What a load of rubbish about 'pregnant women's priority seats'," the man in pajamas muttered, turning to look at the seat he'd just been sitting in. "You don't want to—"

He didn't finish the second half of his sentence.

The elderly man and pregnant woman, who had been moving slowly, suddenly became absurdly fast; their pale yellow shadows flashed between the two seats, past the first seat, and sat down completely on the man in pajamas, as if he were just a cushion.

……what happens?

If it weren't for the pajamas man's screams tearing his vocal cords, if he hadn't struggled and thrashed repeatedly but couldn't escape from under the old man and pregnant woman's buttocks, if he hadn't been visibly thinning, shrinking, and gradually sliding down towards the old man and pregnant woman...

That scene was almost hilarious.

Mai Minghe covered his mouth tightly, afraid that he would vomit if he let go.

She gripped the front seat tightly with one hand, desperately suppressing the urge to get up and rush to save the person.

The man in pajamas was like an ice pop that fell on the street in summer, getting shorter and shorter, from existence to non-existence, and finally disappearing completely under the old man and pregnant woman.

Mai Minghe was a little dazed. Antonyms... is this the antonym method?
"Congratulations!" said the burly pregnant man. "Congratulations! Look at that belly, how many months pregnant are you? Is it a boy or a girl?"

The old man and the pregnant woman slowly grasped the handrail, stood up, and their faces were radiant.

His belly was more than twice as big as before.

"Thank you, it's a boy," the elderly man said happily, then walked past two colleagues and sat down in a seat that was definitely reserved for pregnant women at the Mai Ming He restaurant.

The two remaining pregnant men remained standing in place, glancing back and forth between Maming River and Ashley.

...If they force themselves to sit on him, Mak Ming-ho will find it difficult to resist; especially if he cannot get up.

However, the two pregnant men did not come over.

Is it because you can only sit on people who break the rules?

They seemed to know that Mak Ming-ho and his companion were not ordinary citizens and would never break the rules under any circumstances—especially after witnessing the fate of the man in the pajamas. The two whispered to each other and then found seats.

Strange... the seats they sat in were all regular seats, not the seats designated for pregnant women.

Is it because she is "not pregnant" yet?
Is it true that pregnant women, whose names are synonymous with "pregnant women," are not allowed to sit in the designated pregnant women's
Wait, does that mean she was right just now, and that priority seating for pregnant women is the safest?

But the regular seats probably weren't the "wrong answer" either, otherwise those two pregnant men would have already sat there.

There was something wrong with this place... Mak Ming-ho frowned, but couldn't figure it out for a moment.

"The vehicle has resumed stable operation."

The person had died, and then the bus's loudspeaker blared. "Passengers who need to move around may now do so safely. However, please pay attention to the announcements. The next stop is—"

(End of this chapter)