Artifact Report

Chapter 75 Mai Minghe: Bomb or Hint?
Under the deadly gaze, Mai Minghe walked into the dining area step by step.

All eyes were focused on her, as if the air was thick and sticky; the air flow was thick and heavy, as if every step had to break through the pressure before it could be taken.

But the frozen silence didn't last. No matter how long it felt, it was actually less than a minute. Suddenly, without warning, the restaurant's chatter and laughter broke out, like a sonic bomb exploding, sending Mai Minghe's heart trembling.

...Bomb, yes, from this hour on, diners can set "bombs" and "death traps" for her.

Dead ends have warnings, so you can ignore them for now; but if you want to avoid the "bomb", there is only one way, which is to find all the rules - she only has four rules in her hand, can she completely avoid the bomb?
Are there some deeply hidden rules waiting to blow her to death, just like killing Xia Tian?
But she didn't have unlimited time; once the third and a half hours passed, the risk of her death would rise sharply again, and Mai Minghe would now have to choose between finding a face and finding the rules.

The answer is obvious.

"I've never done anything so exciting in my life," she muttered. Standing beside the Hantou couple's dining table, she muttered to herself, "It's like making someone risk their life to find something. I wonder who came up with this idea..."

The couple looked up at her and exchanged a glance.

"You're looking for someone's face, right?" the wife asked suddenly.

If the previous conversation was more like the couple reciting lines to Mai Minghe, now the tone is like they are having a truly independent conversation.

Mai Minghe looked at it for a second or two without answering.

"I know where the face is hidden. We all know it." The wife's words were not unexpected, but her next words were. "I want to make a deal with you."

Simply talking to diners is not considered a violation.

It was important to note that one shouldn't say anything that shouldn't be said. Considering that the four rules she had might not be comprehensive, Mai Minghe didn't know what not to say, so she could only answer with the fewest, most ambiguous syllables: "...Hmm?"

"The two pieces of face you just found are the easiest and safest." His wife glanced in the direction of the bathroom and said with a smile, "As for the remaining pieces, if you rashly try to take them without knowing the situation, you'll die on the spot."

"I still don't agree with you making a deal with her," her husband suddenly interjected, glancing at Mai Minghe. "We don't know what others think. What if they try to stop you? If you cause any problems, I'll be the one to deal with them."

The wife patted its hand and said soothingly, "Let me talk to her. Besides, if the deal goes through, everyone will have a chance to get a piece of the action, and there's no reason for them to stop it."

Although he didn't understand what they were talking about, Mai Minghe still looked around.

At least on the surface, the other diners seemed not to have heard the conversation at their table. They continued to eat, drink, chat and laugh, like a group of competent background actors.

...This is a lie, right?

However, "verbal traps" were only used in the previous thirty minutes. In these thirty minutes, diners can use more direct and more lethal methods.

Mai Minghe didn't understand the other party's purpose, and tentatively said "Oh?" again.

Even if God himself came, it cannot be said that her interjection was "saying something she shouldn't have said."

"I can do my best to protect you and tell you about all the risks, including those set up by other diners, so you can survive," the wife said. "I can also tell you where to hide your face so you can get out of the restaurant safely."

How can such a good thing happen for free in this world?
This time, Mai Minghe didn't even dare to say any interjections. She could only look at it, tilting her head, hoping that the expression on her face could accurately express her doubts.

"You must be wondering why I should help you and what benefits I will get, right?" The wife was quite understanding. "I just want you to buy time."

why?
"Did the woman who asked you to find her face tell you that this restaurant was originally her residence? Her face is actually a tool she uses to maintain her residence.

"Before the restaurant's rules were enforced, it could repeatedly reinforce its dominance over the restaurant through the act of 'eating.' Only when the rules were enforced was it forced to retreat to a corner, waiting for you to either die or gather its tools and take them back."

These words supplement the information revealed by the woman who was putting on makeup, but the overall information is basically consistent and there is no contradiction.

"So what about us diners? We'd love to get a piece of the 'restaurant' pie, too. When the face-seeking woman temporarily lost control, we took the opportunity to eat some of the 'restaurant's' food... Oh, no, I'm not talking about the food on the dining table. Normally, you can't see what we eat. There are a few things on other tables that are our normal food, transformed into food."

The wife waved her hand across the table. The dishes on the table looked normal and even quite fragrant. They certainly didn't seem like something the residents would enjoy.

Mai Minghe remembered what a female guest had said about the "smell of the bedroom".

"Do you understand what I'm saying? As long as you're alive and haven't found Qi Lian, it's the ideal situation for us—because this is an opportunity for us to take advantage of the face-seeking woman's absence and encroach on her territory as much as possible. By the time she returns, the Black Heart Restaurant might be gone. The rules don't last long, so if you die in vain, or if Qi Lian completes the mission early, wouldn't that be a waste of a great opportunity?"

It narrowed its eyes and smiled, saying, "As long as you cooperate, I can even give you a reward."

That sounds reasonable...but if that's the case, then her husband shouldn't worry about other diners disagreeing.

Mai Minghe looked at the others, then turned to look at his wife.

"They have reservations and dare not offend a woman who seeks favor."

The wife understood what she meant. She brushed her long hair behind her shoulders and said, "To show my sincerity, I'm willing to give you a clue right now so you can find the next face. I can't tell you the location directly because of the rules. But believe me, this clue is very difficult to find. If I don't tell you, you might not find it even after another hour."

In other words, whether she agrees to cooperate with the wife or not, she can get a piece of face now?

"You say," Mai Minghe began; these two words should not be against the rules.

Regardless of whether the wife was lying to her or not, it never hurt to listen first.

Unexpectedly, the wife did not say anything. Instead, she pulled out a chair, let Mai Minghe pass, and fixed her hair facing the mirror wall on the other side of the restaurant. The husband sighed, seeming helpless and irritated.

"What a mess on a perfect anniversary," it grumbled.

Mai Minghe barely took his words in; she followed her wife's gaze, her eyes fixed on its reflection in the mirror. ...Could one of the clues be in the mirror?
So, from the moment I fell into the bathroom, I was constantly dealing with the concept of "mirror image"; if the clue of one of the faces was in the mirror, it would indeed be reasonable.

Seeing that she understood, his wife smiled at Mai Minghe and said, "Go ahead."

Mai Minghe nodded and walked away without saying a word.

She started from where the six young people were partying and carefully looked at the reflections on the mirror wall: the ceiling, the floor, the central round table, the three tables not against the mirror wall... The other side of the restaurant was far away from the mirror, as if there was another layer of space hidden inside the mirror; but it seemed that there was nothing unusual.

While she was observing her reflection in the mirror, Xiao Wei's group of six also fell into silence.

Wherever Mai Minghe went, the eyes in the mirror followed her; when her eyes fell on a person's face in the mirror, she would undoubtedly meet the eyes of the diner in the mirror - but they did not move, but only smiled at her.

The man paid no attention to what Mai Minghe was doing—at least on the surface, he didn't. He just stared at the screen. Her eyes swept from the back of his head in the mirror, his back, and the exposed edge of the computer screen, then to the next table.

When he was four or five steps away from the next table, Mai Minghe stopped.

At the moment, it seemed that as long as she walked around the tables and didn't make eye contact with them, the diners wouldn't take the initiative to greet her; if she happened to meet the eyes of the three female guests and was invited to eat, she would be in trouble. Even if she encountered them in the mirror, the risk was not small...

Mai Minghe kept his head turned, keeping his eyes fixed on the other end of the restaurant.

In her peripheral vision, the blurry faces of the three female guests seemed to be looking at her motionlessly - two of them were sitting facing her, their eyes fixed on her; the one sitting with her back to her seemed to be staring at herself in the mirror.

You have to observe their reflections in the mirror, but you can't look directly into the mirror...

How to do?
Take another mirror and look behind you in it?
But, not to mention the risk of eye contact, Mai Minghe didn't have a suitable mirror. She went back to the bathroom to search the makeup bag of the woman who was applying makeup, but all she found was a small mirror, no bigger than a palm, making it difficult to find the right angle to see the reflection behind her.

When she came back from the bathroom, Mai Minghe suddenly had an idea.

"Hey, you take so many celebrity photos in your restaurant, you must have a camera, right?" She asked, hoping for a lucky break, "Can you lend me one?"

"No cameras," the waiter replied.

"That's deceptive. Without a camera, how can you take pictures?"

One pointed at her fleshy bud and flinched slightly, as if expressing surprise. "Use your phone. Who would buy a camera just for this?"

...Isn't this a trap?

Mai Minghe blinked a few times.

She remembered her first cell phone, a flip-top Motorola with a small, blue screen. She vaguely remembered that the Motorola seemed to have a camera, but the photos were small and blurry.

She had only ever used it to make calls; at first she'd also used it to send text messages, but that hadn't happened because the keyboard was too small for her to see the keys—let alone take pictures.

But the smartphones young people use these days are different. The entire side of the phone is a screen; I didn't expect it to be so clear when used to take pictures, just like a still camera. Perhaps because she had never used one before, she had actually forgotten that a phone could take pictures.

Speaking of mobile phones, there is actually one...

Is it a "bomb"? The rules don't mention cell phones or anything...

Mai Minghe walked back to the dining area in a daze, thought for a while, and looked at the clock again.

She couldn't delay, she had to make a decision - when the information was incomplete, no amount of deliberation would help.

When the man took the phone off the table, he just looked up at her and said nothing.

It seems that after entering the third and a half hour, the mission operation conditions remain unchanged, and Mai Minghe can still access all resources in the restaurant.

She had seen young people using smartphones, so she followed their example and swiped the screen a few times; she didn't know what she pressed, but the crying face on the screen suddenly disappeared and turned into many small squares with pictures on them.

What does this mean?
There was a small square with a picture of what looked like a camera, and Mai Minghe tried to click it.

When the screen suddenly went black and then lit up again with the interior of the restaurant, she was startled; with a somewhat inappropriate curiosity, Mai Minghe tried to click around on the screen, taking several pictures of the floor, her thumb, and her shoes.

After she finally figured it out, Mai Minghe still turned his head away, not looking at the female guests at that table, and stood far away.

She only took a photo in front of the mirror behind them - in the photo, the female guest wearing glasses seemed not to have expected that she had this trick, and the surprise when she raised one black eyebrow was just captured.

Mai Minghe lowered his head and studied the photo for a while.

She raised her head and glanced at the wife; the resident smiled at her as if he had expected it.

In the mirror... there is indeed a hint.

But Mai Minghe didn't know whether it was a clue to a face or to death.

If she really followed the hint and looked for the next piece of face... wouldn't that be breaking the rules?
So the wife really set a "bomb" for herself with her words, right?

　Oh my god, this chapter is much longer than I expected. I managed to finish it after rushing around. Fortunately, I had a complete outline. If it had been less than 500 words, I would not have been able to update it today.

　　Come to think of it, who said last time that he wanted to go to a music festival to be a sasaeng fan (
　　This time, I booked the tickets and hotel through a friend's plan. I was only responsible for giving her my bank card number. As a result, I didn't know the name of the music festival I was going to until I arrived at the place. Then the more I thought about it, the more familiar it sounded...

　　This morning I suddenly realized, oh my god! Didn’t a lady ask me if I was going to this music festival? At that time, I didn’t even know which one I was going to and thought it had nothing to do with me! Now I think about it, I’ve been exposed! (bushi
　　Maybe I just passed you by at the music festival?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)