Artifact Report

Chapter 164: Fu Tailan: The Trap That Existed From the Beginning

It seemed like this was the first time he had this indescribable feeling.

The "Snake Belt" returned to Mai Minghe, not because he had a change of heart, but because Mai Minghe seized the last chance and let Hai Luwei knock him down at the critical moment - since she recovered, Fu Tailan had developed this strange, weird and mixed feeling.

On the one hand, he hoped to do something for Mai Minghe to make her happy and temporarily forget the nine-month countdown; on the other hand, he felt a burning sense of uneasiness and was secretly wary of her - as if she would make him feel uncomfortable next and he had to be on guard.

But Mai Minghe didn't mention what had just happened, as if the person who tried to rob her was someone else.

"Fooled?" she asked calmly. "You're quick-witted. What did you discover?"

In a moment that was almost out of his mind, Fu Tailan seemed to be at a loss.

……that's all?

Didn't she almost die just now?

It's impossible that you don't mind at all, right?

It was extremely rare that Fu Tailan didn't know how to deal with her attitude.

"You all can now fully recall the apartment renovation notice, right?"

He had to suppress the strange, burning feeling and said, "I only read it once outside the door, but when I think about it after entering the building, every word is clear to me, as if I memorized it specifically. I think you should feel the same way."

The two people opposite nodded.

"Indeed..." Mai Minghe said thoughtfully, "When we found out that the apartment was being renovated and we couldn't get out, we thought it was strange. We moved in first, and then the renovations started, so we didn't even see the notice posted on the door you mentioned."

"Then how did you know the content of the notice?"

Hai Luwei touched his useless head. "It just popped into my head..."

Fu Tailan nodded and asked, "Didn't you hear the broadcast?"

"How could there be a radio?" Hai Luwei glanced at him. "How could a residential building have a radio? It's not a dormitory or a prison."

Being called stupid by someone who was obviously dumber than herself really made Fu Tailan furious.

"That's what I heard," he said coldly. "Or rather, I remember hearing it."

Mai Minghe said, "Hmm?"

“I initially thought that the reason the apartment complex engraved the notice into people’s memories was to ensure that everyone would follow the rules the following day and not forget them.

"But if it's just to remind us of the rules, couldn't they have posted a notice on every floor? They had to leave such a clear and lasting impression, but there aren't any notices inside the building. There must be something fishy going on."

"It's a scam?" Hai Luwei muttered, "You and the apartment are in the same business, so you can't cheat your colleagues?"

Mai Minghe laughed softly; Fu Tailan was about to open her mouth when she heard her laugh, glanced at her, and swallowed back the ten sarcastic remarks she had prepared for Hai Luwei.

He held his breath, kept a straight face, and asked Hai Luwei, "How many years have you been a hunter?"

"It's been... five or six years," Hai Luwei didn't understand why, but still answered.

"How many times have you been into the lair?"

"Sometimes I make money more frequently, and sometimes I make a big profit and then stop for a while. I also need to recover from injuries quite often. For example, my foot injury this time will take at least two or three months. Let's say it's an average of five to seven times a year... 30 to 40 times."

Fu Tailan hummed and raised his chin. "I went in one hundred and forty-six times."

If it weren't for his foot injury, Sea Reed could almost have catapulted himself.

"How is that possible? No one can bear it—how old are you? The physical burden, the mental pressure, and oh, there's also the nest dissociative disorder—"

Who doesn't know this nonsense? Fu Tailan is too lazy to listen.

"Alright, I'm not saying this to show off my qualifications. After so many times like me, I've seen countless nest traps. Even if I encounter a brand new one, my instincts can still come into play... I can confidently say that the notifications in our minds are designed to help us die better."

"Wait a minute," Mai Minghe couldn't help but say, "My understanding of the Nest was directly instilled into me by the Nest. I know one thing, that is, the Nest cannot lie about the 'rules'..."

Perhaps it’s because the nest is a human product, and one of the most basic demands of humans is “justice” - no matter how many flaws or imperfections there are, humans are constantly using technology, systems, and thinking to fight against the injustice of the world and of humans themselves.

Accordingly, even if every inch of the nest is used to take human lives, it has to give its opponents a relatively equal battlefield - "rules" are born for this reason.

In the hunter community, this is a common understanding.

"You're right," Fu Tailan said. "Every rule in the notice posted outside the apartment door is real. But what I just said was the 'notice in the mind.'"

"Our memories have been tampered with?" Mai Minghe immediately understood what he meant.

"Wait, that's fine with you, but isn't it unfair that the apartment building directly gave us a false, altered notice?" Hai Luwei objected. "How is that any different from lying directly about the rules?"

Mai Minghe frowned and thought about it.

"You have a point... but there is one exception."

She seemed to be reviewing every rule in the notice in her mind, and her speech was slow.

"For example... the apartment specifically left us clues. If, even with the clues, we still don't notice the lies mixed into the rules, it wouldn't be considered unfair on the part of the Nest."

"Yes, there are quite a few clues—"

Fu Tailan was about to continue speaking when Mai Minghe stopped her.

"Wait, let me think about it. If you can see that something's wrong, I should be able to do it too," she muttered. "Young people know so much more these days, I can't fall behind."

For some reason, even on such an unimportant detail, Fu Tailan hoped she would get what she wanted. "Then I'll tell you a hint?"

Mai Minghe thought about it and said, "Okay."

"Memory isn't altered, it's augmented."

Mai Minghe was stunned for a moment, then took a breath.

"Did you notice?"

"It seems so... But if that is a clue, it is too small and too difficult to detect, right?" Mai Minghe said hesitantly.

Since she could say this, it meant she had found the problem.

Hai Luwei was absolutely unwilling to bow her head and ask Fu Tailan for an answer. She just urged her: "What clue? Tell me, there's no need to be subtle."

"There's a detail in the first few paragraphs of the notice that, how should I put it...at first glance, it's just not written very rigorously, as if the logic wasn't clearly organized when it was written."

notification
第一段：出于住户需求，本公寓将从2026年11月19日凌晨1:30AM开始，进行内部改造整修。

Second paragraph: Renovation and renovation will cover floors 1-5, with floor 6 remaining unchanged for now. Third paragraph: During the renovation period, some items will inevitably become loose and free; dangerous areas of unknown nature will also be created on the renovated floors. This will not be very friendly to those who are not yet willing to die. Please understand this while you are still alive.

第四段：改造整修将持续至2026年11月20日1:30AM为止，整修范围不包括楼梯。

"If I tell you that there is a paragraph among these that is not in the actual notice, which one do you think it is?" Fu Tailan asked.

Hai Luwei thought blankly for a few seconds, then his brows suddenly relaxed and raised, revealing a look of realization and confusion.

"One of the second and fourth paragraphs?" he asked.

This guy who has no edges and no characteristics is finally not too stupid.

"I thought so too. After all, the second and fourth paragraphs both contain the same information: 'scope of renovations'."

Mai Minghe explained, "Assuming all the information is true, from a grammatical perspective, wouldn't it be more concise and clear to write 'The renovation covers floors 1-5, excluding the 6th floor and the staircase'? Splitting the same piece of information into two parts and presenting it in two different places feels a bit unnatural."

If one of the two was quietly added to the memory after the person entered the room, it would be much easier to explain. This was the case with Fu Tailan; in Mai Minghe's case, the false rule was added to the memory along with the real notice.

The net effect was the same; they accepted the entire notice.

"This is it?"

Hai Luwei was stunned and retorted, "You don't understand... Maybe people of your generation had very high standards for literary structure. But my generation is obsessed with social media and short videos every day. Forget grammar and logic, we don't even have the attention span to read long texts—no, forget attention span. If you use too much, your intelligence will decline. I just write whatever comes to mind. If I miss the second paragraph, I'll make up for it in the fourth. That's normal."

"What are you brushing?" Mai Minghe blinked a few times. "You can brush on social media? Like brushing shoes?"

"No... I'll help you register an account when we get back. You'll see. Oh, I'm addicted to it and can't quit. I don't know if I should register one for you."

"We've gotten off topic," Fu Tailan couldn't help but say, "I'm afraid our time on the third floor is limited, so let's get to the point."

"Limited?" Mai Minghe immediately became alert.

Deep in the garbage pipe, someone suddenly sighed faintly, as if very disappointed.

really……

After the twelve unexploded bombs exploded, if you didn’t go downstairs or upstairs, wouldn’t the third floor become the only safe zone?
Just like the corridor on the second floor - if a safe zone appeared as soon as you cleared the level, it would be too good to be true.

The most likely guess is that after a certain period of time, the traps on each floor will be reactivated; as to whether this guess is correct, Fu Tailan has no intention of testing it himself yet.

"All in all, Mai Minghe is right."

As Fu Tailan spoke, he gestured for the two to stand up and follow him.

There was no target illusion here, so he didn't need to say any more to the two of them. They could just leave by themselves. But not only did he patiently explain the apartment trap to them, while waiting for them to get up, he also reached out to help Mai Minghe... Why, he himself didn't know.

Could this be called "guilt"?
He doesn't want such unnecessary things.

Fu Tailan suppressed this thought and explained:
If both the sixth floor and the staircase were not under renovation, then even someone with the most inattentive and illogical mind wouldn't need to split them into two separate paragraphs, because they're already bundled together. But let's put that aside for now and assume what you're saying makes sense.

"The problem is, it wasn't a person who wrote the notice. It was the apartment building, and they deliberately wrote it to make it look a little unnatural."

He waved his hand, signaling Hai Luwei to keep quiet for the time being - the objections he would raise would be nothing new anyway.

"I told you there are quite a few clues, right? Another clue is the phrase 'the renovation covers floors 1-5.'"

"What kind of clue is this?"

Hai Luwei, holding onto the wall, followed Mai Minghe, one in front and one behind, as they followed Fu Tailan toward the second-floor stairs. As they walked, they glanced back several times at the garbage pipe—it lay quietly on the fourth-floor stairs, staring back at them like a square black hole.

"Renovation scope means danger. Floors 1-5 are all under renovation, so all floors 1-5 are dangerous." Fu Tailan asked, "But what danger did you encounter on the first floor?"

The two were stunned.

“No,” Mai Minghe replied, “As soon as we realized the sixth floor was a safe area, we immediately went up to the second floor…”

"I didn't encounter any danger on the first floor." Fu Tailan said, "Isn't that strange?"

Because the apartment is indeed under renovation, the second and fourth paragraphs in the notice cannot be false at the same time; either one is true and the other is false, or both are true.

Let’s not consider for the moment that both statements are true. If the second statement is true, then the first floor falls within the scope of renovation; if the fourth statement is true, the first floor still falls within the scope of renovation.

There is no doubt that there should be danger on the first floor.

"There's a parallel reality on the second floor, a bomb on the third floor, and the floors above that will surely have their own puzzles and levels."

As Fu Tailan walked, he explained, "Since we can logically determine that the first floor is also dangerous, the real question is, 'What is the danger on the first floor?'"

"Is it because we went upstairs too quickly and didn't get into danger yet..." Hai Luwei didn't finish his words. He felt that it was unlikely, so he shook his head and didn't say anything else.

Nonsense, who do you think you can outrun with that injured leg?

Fu Tailan complained inwardly.

"I understand." Mai Minghe finally murmured, "You kid... you're too thoughtful."

Fu Tailan felt both pleased and a little hot on his face.

"The danger of the first floor is that it can add non-existent memories into our minds."

Mai Minghe understood everything and sighed, "The first floor notification in our minds has an additional message: 'Renovations do not include the sixth floor.' This way, we'll foolishly run all the way up to the sixth floor and then all the way back down, and we won't know how many floors we can make before we lose our lives."

"I originally thought that setting the safe zone on the sixth floor was intended to maximize people's exposure to risk. However, if people think the safe zone is on the sixth floor, but it's actually just as dangerous—isn't this a better way to kill people?"

Fu Tailan nodded.

He should have noticed the contradiction.

When Mingming was on the first floor of the apartment, he found that the surroundings were dark and quiet; but when he went upstairs, he had memories of hearing the broadcast and the cry for help from Room 103.

The memory of feeling quiet and the memory of hearing various sounds exist in my mind at the same time, but are easily ignored and rationalized.

"When facing the outside world, people naturally become wary. But who would suddenly doubt their own memory?"

He chuckled softly, "But, from another perspective... if the first floor is just a place that constantly adds non-existent memories, wouldn't it also be the safest place in the entire apartment building?"

　When I saw this trap, I found that it was hidden for 19 chapters... The battle line is a bit long.

　　I know my grandmothers are all pretty smart (but they'd choose to be scammed by me), so writing clues is like burying a dog's bones or a cat's shit, you have to bury them as deep as possible.

　　I tried my best to make the broadcast that Fu Tailan heard and the voice behind the door very abrupt, wanting to create an effect of being in the middle of nowhere... I hope that when you watch it, you will also feel that it is a bit abrupt.

　　I've attached a screenshot of the clues from Chapter 139 to save you from having to go back and look for them. After all, I just figured out how to illustrate, and I'm so hooked now that I can't wait to add some to every chapter.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)