Artifact Report

Chapter 70 Rules, Clues, and Hints of Mai Minghe Restaurant

Pushing open the bathroom door, Mai Minghe entered a short corridor.

She looked around, a bit dazed, and walked forward step by step, following the lights, music, conversation, the aroma of food and the sound of clinking glasses, as if she had gradually emerged from a nightmare into the world.

Did the terrifying scene in the bathroom just now really happen? What's this about finding a face? How unrealistic.

Compared to the restaurant that feels so normal, familiar, and friendly——

Oh, she was in the lair.

...After all, most restaurants in Blackmore City probably wouldn't allow a customer to hold another customer's head in their mouth.

Mai Minghe stared blankly at the man and woman at a table against the wall in the distance - at least from their physical appearance, they should be a man and a woman - the one wearing a men's shirt stretched his neck to the other end of the table, his entire face and mouth bulging and bulging from the head inside, as if his head was pregnant.

A female neck with a pearl necklace extends from between lips, connected to a seated body in a sundress.

The body also raised a hand wearing a wedding ring and gently stroked the cheek of the man who was holding her (or was it?) head in his mouth; from the cheek, a woman's vague laughter came.

Is this how couples in the nest talk about their feelings?
The waiters walking around the restaurant and the guests sitting at other tables seemed to be accustomed to this. No one cast a glance at the couple - and no one looked at Mai Minghe.

According to the lengthy explanation given by the woman who was putting on makeup just now, in the first thirty minutes, since Mai Minghe had the highest priority, she could check and search anywhere at will; as long as she did not take the initiative to talk to anyone, no one would disturb her - of course, in the next thirty minutes, her treatment would start to get worse.

The first thing to do is to check if there is a computer or TV screen large enough in the restaurant.

This was her last resort, and she had to...

Thinking of this, Mai Minghe's thoughts were interrupted.

She watched as a waiter came over with a round tray with several wine glasses on it.

Each wine glass contained a small pile of flesh-colored, wrinkled objects, and it was impossible to tell what they were. In only one wine glass was a small, naked, swollen, human male desperately clinging to the edge of the glass, trying to climb out. As he crawled, he cried out intermittently, "Help, help! I'm a hunter from Blackmore City..."

"Wait," Mai Minghe stopped the waiter.

The face that the other person turned to look at made her regret opening her eyes today.

"Um...what's in those cups of yours? Are they living people?"

The two thick pink buds extending from the waiter's eye sockets are very expressive.

A piece of meat bud first swayed above the dinner plate and wine glass, as if "taking a look", then lifted up and pointed the tip at Mai Minghe.

"This is our new wine," the waiter said in a normal voice. "It's called... let me see the bottle. Oh, 'Andrew Cooper,' 42 years old. He died in the lair, and his body decomposed, resulting in several bottles of wine. The selling point is the silky, half-bald texture and the hint of bacon soaked in it."

As it spoke, it picked up the wine glass and shook it - the tiny man, who had not yet crawled out, immediately fell back into the glass, as if he had no strength left, and he stuck to the wall of the glass, forming a wrinkled ball of the same flesh-colored color.

Mai Minghe involuntarily shrank back, and the waiter strode away.

It seemed that the young guests at another table who were having a party saw it approaching with wine from afar and immediately cheered; compared to the waiter, they looked so normal that it seemed as if one could breathe with their eyes - the next moment, when they all reached out to pick up the wine glasses, Mai Minghe immediately turned his eyes away.

After someone died in the nest...something like this actually happened.

Mai Minghe could hardly describe the discomfort he felt at the moment.

The little man in the wine glass was no longer alive, and was even still crying for help.

She had never seen anyone die in the lair before - she had heard from "Jonah" that hunters who died in the lair would be dissolved; but she had always thought that it was no different from the decomposition of remains by insects and bacteria, just dust to dust, earth to earth.

Now it seems... even if she is in danger, even if Fu Tailan wants to take away the "Snake Belt", going to Morgan's house to ask for help for Jonah is still the most correct choice.

She had no regrets in the first place, and she regrets even less now.

Mai Minghe calmed himself down and looked around the restaurant carefully - it was a small restaurant with a simple and elegant decoration. There was no second floor. With just a few steps, he could take in all the dining areas.

But… no TV.

The glass door at the entrance was locked. She tried pushing it a few times, but it wouldn't open.

The clock on the wall struck one o'clock; outside the glass door, the Lair was also a bright afternoon, with mottled shadows of trees on the road—this made Mai Minghe slightly startled. Perhaps it was because of her preconceived notions, she always thought the Lair was a dark and gloomy place. She had never expected that it, like Blackmore City, also had daytime.

Well, it seems that she really can’t get out unless she finds the seven faces.

Mai Minghe sighed and walked back to the restaurant.

How about bringing a TV screen in next time? But to give her a sense of "access," it would have to be a large screen. Carrying a large screen around the lair wouldn't be very convenient...

As she thought about it, she walked around the restaurant, sorted out the entire terrain and the diners in her mind, and drew a map.

Entrance glass door
Long bar (waiters, no customers) - Table 1 (empty) - Table 2 (two tables joined together, with six young people sitting there, seemingly at a party)
Dining table No. 3 (including the first couple) - Central round table (empty, with a large vase of flowers and a newspaper clipping) - Dining table No. 4 (against the mirrored wall, with three female guests)
Table 5 (two men and one woman, seemingly a couple and a friend) - Table 6 (a male guest leaning against a mirrored wall, looking at a laptop)
Back kitchen (door won't open) - Decorative wall (covered with photos and magazine images) - Short corridor leading to the restroom - Restroom
Mai Minghe did not touch the menu or wine list in the restaurant for the time being, nor did he look at the newspaper clipping on the central round table which was obviously a clue or hint.

The first thirty minutes are the most precious.

Only during this time period would the residents of the restaurant reveal clues and hints to her in their conversations; once that time had passed, they would only tell her nonsense, lies, or set verbal traps - physical clues could wait a while, as they couldn't be escaped anyway, but the conversation had to proceed now.

There were a total of 17 guests and waiters in the restaurant, which was much more than Mai Minghe had imagined. She was afraid that minutes might not be enough; what's more, she had already spent two or three minutes observing the terrain and environment.

But how should she ask it? No one in the restaurant wants her to have all seven faces, right?

In his 86 years of life, this was the first time that Mai Minghe faced such a situation.

She walked to the large table where the party was held, ready to listen to the chattering of the group of young men and women - if she closed her eyes, she would never have guessed that the people talking were not human.

"...That tour group ticket is really good!" A young girl with golden collarbone hair patted her friend on the shoulder and said to the people at the table, "Xiao Wei and I booked it together. We shared a room for four days and three nights, and it was only $280..."

This must be nonsense, Mai Minghe thought uncertainly.

Judging from the conversation, this table seemed to be composed of college students who hadn't yet graduated, just chatting about their experiences during the holiday. After listening for a while, feeling it had little to do with the restaurant, Mai Minghe turned and walked over to the table of the couple holding their heads. The man had been sucking for several minutes, and now, reluctantly, he finally pulled his mouth off his wife's head.

My wife's head was covered with wet mucus, and her face was shining with a transparent wet luster, as if wrapped in a thin layer of jelly, and her long hair was stuck to her scalp and neck.

This time, Mai Minghe listened to a few words and took the initiative to talk.

"Is today your wedding anniversary?" She didn't know whether she needed to say hello or not, but considering the limited time, she suddenly interrupted.

The wife glanced at her husband, smiled and said to Mai Minghe, "Yes, we are having lunch here on our tenth anniversary."

It didn't sound like he was blaming her, but as soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly defended himself, "I'm only having lunch because I plan to go out to sea this afternoon. Don't be fooled by the small size of the restaurant we chose; it's a long-standing restaurant with excellent reviews. Many celebrities have dined here."

Mai Minghe turned his head to glance at the decorative wall not far away and asked, "Are those photos on the wall the celebrities who have come to dine here?"

The celebrities in the nest are obviously different from those in Blackmore City. From a distance, those who look like humans are not the majority.

Could they be clues too?
"That's right." His wife seemed very pleased with the anniversary, and she kept a wet smile on her face, as if her cheek muscles were nailed shut. "Douglas is really nice to me. He specially chose this restaurant and planned today's itinerary... Oh, and he even gave me an anniversary present."

It stroked the pearl necklace around its neck and continued to smile, saying, "This morning, before I even opened my eyes, I felt him quietly come up behind me, lift my hair, and wrap something around my neck. The tighter and tighter it got... Oh, I thought he was going to strangle me. I was wondering why it was so sudden this time."

The husband laughed. "After all, it's not the first time I've tried to strangle you!"

At this point, the couple burst into laughter that Mai Minghe could not understand.

"Oh, if there's anything wrong with it," the wife said, as if suddenly remembering something, "there's just one thing. This restaurant has no shortage of customers, so they do things their own way. Look, it's a nice place, but they're not letting anyone sit at that central table, but using it to commemorate a deceased person... Isn't it just that a famous person who used to visit this restaurant has died? And why is there a need to offer a vase of flowers? It's just bad luck."

This must be a clue, Mai Minghe thought - but she could look at the clipping later, as she still had a lot of conversations to carry on.

The woman putting on makeup said that resources could be used freely; Mai Minghe took a pen and paper from the waiter and wrote down what she thought might be the first rule.

1. No one is allowed to sit at the central round table (?)

　I have to catch a train this Saturday and there's a music festival on Sunday, so I should probably take Saturday off (I guess). After all, the music festival is in the afternoon, so maybe I can still finish an update in the morning.

　　Qidian doesn't allow spaces, so I can't use spaces to draw a seating chart in the text... Although it's not necessary, we pay attention to the feeling of being at home (?)
　　It would be great if Qidian could allow illustrations. My soul-themed paintings could appear from time to time and touch everyone's souls...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)