Artifact Report

Chapter 188 Mai Minghe's Answer Under the Brilliant Starry Night

Even though he couldn't clearly form the thought of "being saved", hope was an instinctive fuel that made Mai Minghe's blood flow faster - but the next second, the driver did something unexpected but reasonable.

It reached out its hand again and turned off the radio with a "click".

Mai Minghe sat in his seat in a daze.

Her mind was still playing ping-pong between four high walls.

After being pulled back into the car, she was no longer leaning against the window. Instead, she leaned towards the driver's seat, and the car radio was in her field of vision - close at hand, yet far away in the horizon.

The driver mumbled, "I'm in the car. I can just drive away... You keep looking. By the time you find me, she'll have melted in my seat. I wonder what kind of residents will be born..."

It was a man of action. The taxi immediately restarted and drove silently into the darkness ahead.

The car radio didn't sound again.

She didn't know how long they had been driving - Mai Minghe couldn't sense or guess how fast time flowed, so it could be a few minutes, or it could be a few hours - suddenly a dark shadow came over, and it was the driver leaning towards her.

"Hmm? Why hasn't your body started to melt yet?"

It reached out its hand, as if trying to touch Mai Minghe, but stopped mid-air. "The time has already come... Do humans have shells? Is it because the shell is too hard..."

“I haven’t completely severed my connection with my body.”

“I haven’t completely severed my connection with my body.”

Mai Minghe thought over and over again.

The driver seemed to have made up his mind. "How annoying! You're so stubborn, sitting in my car like a lump, refusing to thaw for ages. You have no shame. I can't wait for you. Since you won't thaw, then I'll have to—"

Its sound suddenly became prolonged and slowed down, as if calling, and plunged into the vast darkness outside the car; at the same time, the speed of the car increased.

"car……"

The taxi pulled into an intersection and slammed to a stop in the middle. Mai Minghe was pushed forward by inertia and hit the control panel.

Was it luck? Was it the car's inability to stop? Or was it the will to survive that finally triggered the last bit of bodily function left?

She could think of nothing; except that as the driver drew out the next word, she knew two things had happened.

"disaster……"

From the road to the right of Mai Minghe, two dazzling white lights penetrated the darkness; another car that appeared out of nowhere was rapidly crashing into the passenger seat of the taxi - in an instant, the strong light had illuminated everything in her vision, and she seemed to hear the sound of metal colliding, deforming, and crushing bones.

But she didn't really hear it.

What Mai Minghe actually heard was the low sound of radio current coming from inside the car.

The radio was on again.

"Car accident, car accident, car accident, car accident, car accident"

The driver suddenly raised his voice and shouted; the word "car accident" echoed repeatedly in the car, drowning out the sound of electricity.

The next second, everything came to a sudden stop.

The driver's shouting stopped.

The car that was rushing towards the passenger seat suddenly stopped just a few feet away, like a movie scene that was suddenly paused.

The headlights of the car were like a strong white torrent pouring in from a floodgate, washing away the night and making everything in the darkness clearly visible.

In the corner of Mai Minghe's vision, a figure was standing in the torrent of white light between two cars, the shadowy figure was unclear.

The driver turned his head to the right.

The figure walked closer and closer to the passenger seat, covering the car window.

Mai Minghe's forehead was still resting on the control panel. He could only barely catch a glimpse of the other person's figure with his peripheral vision, but he couldn't make out any details. The passenger door was suddenly opened, and the cool night and strong light outside the car rushed in at once, making Mai Minghe shudder.

"here you go,"

A low, gentle male voice spoke from outside the door. "I didn't expect you'd still refuse to give up even after falling into this situation." The driver hesitated and said, "...Thank you?"

The male voice that had just been on the radio and seemed to be at ease paused when he heard this - as if he didn't know how to react for a moment.

“…I’m talking about her.”

"Oh."

The driver seemed to turn his head to look at Mai Minghe, and suddenly asked, "Why didn't she melt? If she had melted long ago, it would have been too late for you to find her. Is there something special about her that makes you value her so much?"

"Shut up."

The man outside the car said, almost amusedly, "You ignorant, clueless creatures... you only know how to wander around in your lair based on desire and instinct. You're actually quite naive and cute."

Mai Minghe felt that someone grabbed her shoulders and was pulling her out of the car - but the position where the male voice came from did not change, and he sounded like he had not moved at all.

The driver seemed to be watching intently, and for some reason, he didn't reach out to stop it. Perhaps he knew that trying to stop it now would be a pointless struggle.

"Not killing her this time doesn't mean anything."

It mumbled, "As long as she enters the lair again... all of us will hunt her down with all our might... No, even if she doesn't enter the lair, we will do everything we can to kill her first..."

Mai Minghe was half-carried and half-supported by someone and laid down beside the road.

She was unable to see the man talking outside the car the whole time, and her eyes could only stare at the starry night sky of the nest.

…The night sky over the nest is terrifyingly beautiful.

"You don't want the nest to be ruled, and she is the only candidate who has no interest in ruling the nest...yet you have identified her as your biggest target, and you want to kill her first at all costs."

The man outside the car said this with a smile on his face: "It's so stupid that it actually makes a smart move."

"That's because we know! As soon as she died, you—"

With a bang, the taxi door was slammed shut, cutting off the driver from finishing his words.

The male voice on the radio seemed unwilling to let the driver finish his words; no one knew what he did, but after closing the door, the taxi fell silent, as if it had been abandoned.

Mai Minghe heard footsteps coming towards her.

The footsteps sounded exactly like those of humans: one step at a time, steady and calm. She could even hear the unique sound of heels hitting the ground - this proved that the person had a pair of feet, which was something worth mentioning in the nest.

"Thanks for your hard work,"

The male voice on the radio was standing next to Mai Minghe, but she couldn't see him. "Now that you've returned to being human, do you still want to join the 'Nest Domination Game'?"

She had no way to answer, Mai Minghe thought. She only had four thoughts:

Huh?
Aren’t there more than four thoughts now?

When did she learn to think?

"Still can't talk? Then let's continue looking at the night sky for a while... Such a brilliant and vast universe, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

The male voice came closer, rustling, as if he had taken a seat beside her. "The night sky over the Lair, like that over Blackmoor City, is starless."

What? But before her eyes, there was a sky full of stars—

"The stars you see are my childhood memories. I have rearranged the stars in my memory. If you look at them for a while, they will gradually return to their original order."

The Milky Way tilted and was reflected in Mai Minghe's pupils, like a reflection of another brilliant and vast universe.

"…I'll join you."

After an unknown amount of time, Mai Minghe heard himself answer in a hoarse voice.

　Well, it's time to update again. Um, I was going to say something... I forgot, damn.

　　But the main storyline is progressing smoothly, which is good news. Maybe this way, I can finish the story sooner.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)