Artifact Report

Chapter 186 Mai Minghe: A Ping Pong Ball in the Four Walls
The cold, hard and rough road surface pressed against Mai Minghe's cheeks.

She fell sideways on the side of the road, her eyes wide open, unable to move.

Hai Luwei's phone screen hadn't gone dark yet. In the dim light, she could see the tire on the other side of the taxi, the road surface, and the dark white dividing line...

The screen light went out.

Even though it was dark in front of her eyes, even though she heard the back door of the taxi being gently opened, her eyes were still fixed on the same scene.

Because "not moving at all" meant that even the eyeballs were frozen. The fingers holding the phone remained bent in the same position, and in fact, they were holding the phone and not dropping it.

The back door of the taxi opened, and it passed close to her body, brushing against her shoulder, causing her to sway slightly.

A pair of hands—or maybe hands?—reached out from the back seat of the taxi, which should have been empty, grabbed Mai Minghe by the collar, lifted her upper body, and yanked her toward the trunk.

Her 1.72-meter body seemed not much heavier than a doll under those hands. With just one throw, she was easily thrown over half the car body and slid to the rear wheel.

"...Mai Minghe?"

A muffled shout echoed from across the street. "Where are you? Speak? What's that...what's that on the ground?"

If Mai Minghe still had the ability to think at this moment, she would have remembered that when she accidentally saw part of the driver's face just now, she happened to be bent over and was blocked by the car - so Hai Luwei on the other side of the road didn't know that she had been hit and fell to the ground.

After the light from the mobile phone disappeared, he had no way of judging whether the black shadow that suddenly emerged from the ground behind the car was actually Mai Minghe.

"wheat--"

The taxi's trunk popped open.

Hai Luwei had just started to speak the next sentence when he swallowed it back immediately, as if he was startled.

In the dark, breathless night, for a moment, only a rustling sound was heard:

A pair of hands reached out from the trunk of the car, groped for Mai Minghe's collar, grabbed her, and threw her away - she was thrown to the back seat on the other side of the car like a rag doll.

Mai Minghe could feel the burning pain of her legs being scraped by the road surface through the fabric, but the pain only affected her skin and could not produce any response in her blank and stubborn mind.

In other words, her skin felt the pain, but her mind was indifferent to it.

"Mai Minghe...?"

Hai Luwei seemed to stand up, holding the flashlight high, but across the road, he still seemed vague and dared not confirm anything - as the back door opened, he immediately moved the flashlight away, as if he did not dare to look at what was inside the back door.

In the empty back seat of the taxi, a pair of hands reached out again and threw Mai Minghe towards the front passenger door.

They moved her around the car, door by door, as if with one purpose: to get the passenger door open so that the last pair of hands could reach out, pull Mai Minghe into the car, and sit her in the passenger seat.

"Mai Minghe!"

The car door slammed shut, blocking out the cries of the sea reeds across the street.

Mai Minghe leaned softly in the passenger seat with her head resting on the glass; the taxi driver sat on her left, with no obstruction or distance between them.

It seemed to slowly turn its head towards the Maimin River.

Fortunately, she didn't have to worry about seeing its complete face; because her eyes were still unable to move, she could only look at the windshield, glove box, and a yellow sticker on the glove box.

Although her thinking ability was completely frozen, her language center still helped her to understand the meaning of the words on the paper.

——Ouch!

If you see this warning,
This means that you have violated the third rule in the riding instructions, "sitting in the back row", and have moved to the front row.

puff.

There's no way out now. There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way out.

Seeing this, you must have discovered that you have lost the ability to think and act - no, that's not right. This seems to be a paradox. If you lose the ability to think, you won't be able to discover anything.

In short, this is the punishment for violating any of the riding rules.

As a last token of my appreciation for your departure,

You can have four thoughts again.

Each thought, if converted into words, would only have about fifty words.

Of course, even if you have an idea to "count how many words there are in the thought", you can't count them - after all, having an idea and having the ability to implement this idea are two different things.

I wonder what the four thoughts that come to mind are? I'm so excited and curious.
Apart from these four thoughts, you can't think of anything else.
Four thoughts are four walls, your weak, poor, futile mind,

It had to bounce back and forth between the four walls like a ping-pong ball.

Until it finally dies, disintegrates, and becomes nutrients for the growth of the nest.

There is no way out. There is no way out. There is no way out. There is no way out. I can't get away. I can't get away. I can't get away. I can't get away. I'll stay here forever. Hahahahaha
-

Although I could understand the warning, I could only make out the meaning of the words.

Mai Minghe still couldn't think about the content of the warning - the warning looked to her like a slide projector projecting text onto a white wall.

If there is a difference, it is that deep down in the slide projector's heart, there is probably no vague fear as if he were locked up in a narrow cell - that is the fear of having his body pressed tightly by the stone walls of the cell, with no gaps and no light.

The engine started at some point.

Amidst the faint smell of gasoline and the low roar of the engine, the taxi started, but without turning on the headlights, it simply drove straight into the darkness ahead that seemed impossible to tear apart.

On the road outside the window, a figure seemed to be limping towards him with a flashlight in hand; but before he could get close, the taxi had already sped past him, and the figure became a rapidly shrinking dot of light in the rearview mirror.

"Hey! Let her go!"

The faint cries of the sea reed were also left behind by the taxi in the darkness, disappearing without a trace as if it were an illusion.

Mai Minghe couldn't move at all - if she could be said to still have the concept of "waiting", then she was waiting for the first thought to rise from her dry and blank mind.

Amid the almost imperceptible shaking of the car body, her forehead was still tapping gently against the window glass.

She didn't know how many times she knocked when an idea suddenly came to her mind.

The car she drove didn't disappear by chance, nor did the taxi appear by chance; the Dream Writer wasn't the only resident who wanted to kill the contestants...

And the taxi driver next to me.

　Today's chapter is very short, not because I'm sleepy, but because I'm stuck...

　　Look at this plot, how can it not be laggy?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)