Artifact Report

Chapter 72: Mai Minghe Cowboy Shanchas Company
To verify his guess, Mai Minghe looked at the clock and called out softly, "Xiao Wei?"

Xiao Wei turned his head, his face expressionless, his cheeks heaving and surging. It must be that the piece of broccoli was still struggling in his mouth.

"What?" It looked unhappy.

"You...you don't like painful meat?"

"No, painful flesh is good."

"So you particularly like broccoli?"

"Broccoli?" Xiao Wei said, "Oh, you mean that green thing I just ate? It's not broccoli. It's steamed human face with edible dye."

Mai Minghe really wanted to rub his ears hard with his hands - his ears seemed to feel uncomfortable after being touched by these words.

"...So you really like eating that rice noodle, steamed rice noodle or something like that?"

"No." Xiao Wei pointed at its face and said, "It's very hard to chew. The tendons are too thick. Look, it's still struggling in my mouth."

The possibility of taste preference has been ruled out; the next question will begin to directly verify her guess.

"Is it possible to refuse to eat when invited to eat?" Mai Minghe asked softly.

Xiao Wei swallowed the food in her mouth with a "gulp" and smiled.

"...That's up to you," it replied. "You can be rude if you're willing to pay the price."

"What price?"

Mai Minghe quickly pressed the issue. But she had momentarily overlooked the fact that in the first half-hour, everything the diners told her was either "nonsense" or "hints." But the makeup woman never mentioned that as long as she asked, she would definitely have an answer.

Xiao Wei had just opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the other two young men called out to her, laughing, "Hey, it's your turn! Which celebrity do you most want to devour and replace?"

Its attention was immediately diverted, and it began to ponder with great interest: "Hmm... Can I choose two at the same time? I want to put together Robbie's eyes, and..."

Next, the topic of conversation among the young people returned to celebrities and stars. Mai Minghe tried to interrupt several times, but to no avail.

She only had five or six minutes left, and she couldn't waste them all on Xiao Wei - what's more, Mai Minghe already had a general grasp of the second rule.

Next, who should I ask?
A burst of laughter suddenly came from behind, which scared Mai Minghe a little.

She turned her head and saw that at the table where the Hantou couple were sitting, only the husband's laughter was left, but it was twice as loud as the two of them just now - the wife had her hands tightly clasped around her neck, as if she was exerting a lot of strength, her face was purple, veins were bulging, and her eyeballs were bulging high, almost exceeding her brow bones.

"Yes, yes, that's it," the husband said with great pleasure, "it's exactly the same face as when you received the gift this morning, but your eyeballs should be more protruding and out of your eyelids."

The wife finally put down her hand, straightened her long hair, and said, "You're the one who tied it properly. If I tied it myself, my eyeballs wouldn't bulge out that high."

Without even bothering to lament the ill health of the den's inhabitants, Mai Minghe was now doubly sensitive to any word related to "face." She hurried over a few steps and discreetly examined the wife's eyes—but no matter how she looked at them, she felt as if those eyes were her own, and she couldn't take them away.

There are clearly seven faces, how come I can't find even one?
Mai Minghe couldn't help but sigh. She complained in her heart about the strange activities in the nest. When she was about to move to the next table, her wife suddenly glanced at her from the corner of her eye.

Then it took another quick look at the clock on the wall.

When the couple resumed their conversation with a smile, the hairs on Mai Minghe's back stood up.

…It turns out that I’m not the only one who has been paying attention to time.

Are all the diners in the restaurant quietly waiting for the first hour and a half to end?
The makeup woman said that they cannot attack themselves directly... Setting up "bombs" and "dead ends" and other means will have to wait an hour before they can begin.

In other words, for the next thirty minutes, as long as she stopped listening to the diners and focused on discovering the rules and hints, she would be safe for the time being.

Where are those seven faces?

Even if you know there are clues in the diners' conversations, it is still difficult to find the seven faces.

Take this moment for example, Mai Minghe was walking slowly in the restaurant. Except for the male guest who was looking at his laptop alone, the guests at every table around were chatting, and the buzz of conversation came one after another.

Choosing to listen to one table means she will miss the conversations at the other four tables - what if she has already missed the key clues?
Suppressing his faint anxiety, Mai Minghe stood in the middle of the restaurant, his eyes slowly turning around.

The plates of food on the table, the sounds of conversation, the faces of the diners, her own reflection in the mirror, the expressionless waiter at the bar... She suddenly felt like she was trapped in the depths of a well, surrounded by incomprehensible walls.

"I met a hunter last time. He was so handsome," the dark-skinned woman said with a smile. "It would be a shame if he didn't die in his lair..."

"...When we go out to sea later, I plan to go fishing. Maybe I can catch something good," the husband suggested. "Didn't a man fall into the bay in the center of Blackmore recently? If we can pull the body into the nest, we'll win a jackpot."

"Are you following the entertainment news in Blackmore City?" a young man asked at the party table. "I've been very interested in human celebrities lately... I heard there was a singer who had an accident and almost opened the passage, but ultimately didn't make it. Many residents were waiting for her to arrive..."

"I'm so sorry for her fans in the nest!" Xiao Wei said with a smile.

Mai Minghe turned around and saw the clock on the wall read exactly one twenty-nine. She was already feeling dizzy from what she had heard, and the conversation at the gay couple's table barely registered.

"...I'm risk-averse," the woman at the gay couple's table was saying. "The more people know about this, the greater the risk, right? Why bother recruiting more hunters to compete? We should just eliminate the first one."

"If there's no competition, then the first person to know will likely collect all seven items." The man with the earrings disagreed. "Think about it, what if the person who knows doesn't enter the nest themselves, but only uses other hunters to find the items? We can't kill every hunter who enters the nest. Let him keep searching, and sooner or later he will collect all the items."

"Then we can send a resident who can go to the human world to kill the man in Blackmoor City. Anyway, I hate anything risky..."

When the female guest said this, she suddenly stopped; all the sounds in the restaurant stopped at the same moment.

The fragments of conversation that were buzzing in all directions just now and made me dizzy, at this moment, fell into dead silence.

Mai Minghe looked at the clock.

...It's half past one.

The second thirty minutes began.

A moment later, the sound of knives and forks clashing, and the sounds of conversation and laughter in the restaurant resumed their ups and downs - as if they had never stopped.

There was no need to listen to their conversation anymore, but just as Mai Minghe was about to walk towards the central round table, he suddenly had an idea and stood still, listening for a while.

The party table was still talking about the singer who almost got into the lair; the couple continued to discuss sea fishing; the gay couple at the table began to analyze what "necessary risks" were; and the three women at the table were still talking about the handsome hunter needing to die in the lair...

After 1:30, the conversations at every table continued on the same topic.

In other words... there were no clues in the last few minutes of conversation before 1:30.

This is a simple logical reasoning: in the first thirty minutes, diners only say "nonsense" and "tips"; starting from the second thirty minutes, "tips" no longer exist.

Since they are still continuing the previous topic, it means that the previous topic is not a "hint".

Mai Minghe couldn't help but sigh.

If the topic just now is not a hint, then what is?
She had picked up the clipping hoping it would give her some clue about the face; but after reading a few lines she was so startled that she temporarily forgot even the clue.

She didn't expect that the deceased celebrity, the owner of the sweet smiling face in the photo, was actually a human being.

"...The last time she visited the lair was when she was eight years old. While there were many children who accidentally fell into the lair, and we were tired of killing them, Xia Tian, ​​with her unique personality and endearing appearance, quickly gained popularity and admiration among the lair residents. Overnight, she became a household name as the 'Lair Daughter.' Sadly, after returning to Blackmoor City, Xia Tian never returned to the lair for the next twenty years...

"After twenty years, Xia Tian's second visit to the Nest caused a sensation you can imagine. It's no exaggeration to say that the streets were completely deserted. Ah, he's just an ordinary person in Blackmoor City, but he's captured the hearts of the residents of the Nest and even received a special lunch invitation from the 'Black Heart Restaurant'..."

Wait, Black Heart Restaurant?

Mai Minghe looked at the menu on the empty table number one. Wasn't that the restaurant he was in?

"Xia Tian's mission was to successfully finish lunch at the Black Heart Restaurant—simple, right? Unexpectedly, it was this simple thing that killed our 'Nest Dweller's Daughter.' She didn't find all the clues and hints in time, and thus didn't discover the hidden rule that ultimately killed her..."

Mai Minghe's gaze stopped on that line of words.

"Anyone who comes into contact with any of Cowboy Sanchas' products will die instantly."

The third rule... turns out to be that you can't touch any Cowboy Sanchas products.

No wonder the man said when he asked the waiter to serve the food, "We are not afraid of that" - if "Cowboy Sanchas" products only kill humans, they, as nest residents, are naturally not afraid.

After reading the clipping, Mai Minghe put it back where it belonged.

When the little girl named Xia Tian entered the restaurant, this rule must have been hidden very deeply, which is why it eventually killed her.

After her death, the Nest Restaurant turned around and wrote this hidden rule boldly on a newspaper clipping, making it the most obvious rule in the next mission...

It seemed as if to mock summer's worthless death.

At this moment, Mai Minghe didn't want to approach any resident to look for clues.

The nest deliberately wants to kill everyone who comes in, even their "nest daughters".

What about yourself?
In this mission of finding seven faces, is there a trap hidden, waiting to kill me?
Yes... The makeup woman only said that starting from the third and a half hour, diners can set up "bombs", "dead ends" and agents.

But it didn't say what would happen in the restaurant starting from the fourth and a half hour if it hadn't found all seven faces.

At that time, could the diners attack her directly?
　I've actually already completely planned Mai Minghe's mission to find the face: where is the face, how to find it, what are the clues and rules, what happened... Well, even if I've thought of everything perfectly, there's only one problem, which I'm too lazy to write...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)