Artifact Report

Chapter 215 Brianna: Connection to the Present
"Kill me,"

Brianna raised her head, sat on the sofa that she and Morando had chosen together, and looked at the black muzzle of Morando's gun pointed at her.

"At least if you kill me, I won't be disintegrated by the nest and give birth to any inhabitants."

Morando lowered his gun a second time and raised it a third time.

She was a shooter known for her calmness, composure, and accuracy, and Brianna had never seen the gun in her hand tremble like this.

By then, their conversation, their arguments, their tears...had lasted for over an hour. The future was like the sky outside the window, dark and gloomy, with no sign of the morning light.

“I’m really Brianna,” she said, looking down.

"...Impossible," Morandao covered his face with his non-gun-holding hand and pleaded, "Tell me the truth. What did you do to her?"

There are a thousand pieces of evidence to prove that she is Brianna.

She could talk about their experiences together, talk about the private details between them, or use the password to unlock her phone...

There will always be omissions and flaws when disguising as another person; but when proving herself, every moment in her past life is her confession, which can be stabbed into Morando's body bit by bit.

A few minutes later, Morandao aimed the gun at her forehead and pulled the trigger.

It's an empty gun.

Brianna didn't know where in her story that Morando gently pulled out the bullet; she seemed so engrossed in her speech that she didn't notice.

Morando said that was because she knew she would shoot, because she couldn't stand it anymore and had long since stopped listening - but she also vaguely realized that the person in front of her was Brianna.

He couldn't really shoot her, but he was afraid of losing control of his impulse, so he took out the bullet while he still had his mind.

"It's not just his body..." Morandao said, looking at the floor, "even his personality and tone of voice are different."

Brianna was silent for a moment.

She pretended not to hear and changed the subject, "I was just holding up this man's body. Even if you shot me between the eyebrows, I wouldn't die again... After all, I was already dead. The bullet only pierced this man's brain."

"Really?" Morandao said softly, his eyes red and his expression lazy and dejected.

The red bloodshot does not suit the blue eyes, as if it pollutes their purity.

"After I came out of the lair, I looked down and couldn't see the shoulder blades on my legs. I don't know what happened to the body I left in the lair. It might still be next to the scaffolding, stretched out -"

Morando buried his face in his hands.

Ever since she believed that the man in front of her was Brianna, she seemed to have never looked Brianna in the eye again. At this moment, Morando interrupted her with a groan: "Please... stop talking."

Brianna clutched her pants tightly, feeling as if she were falling into an abyss of emptiness; she felt so disappointed that she almost wanted to cry.

She originally thought that everything would get better after seeing Morandao and proving her identity.

"If I gave birth to a Dweller, it would definitely hunt you," Brianna said desperately, unable to stop. "To keep you safe, I desperately crawled into this man..."

She hadn't wanted to say this out loud, she didn't want to use it to ask for mercy.

But she couldn't care less about that now. No matter what it was, any reason, any excuse, she just wanted Morandao to be gentle to her again.

"I'm sorry," Morando said slowly, "I'm sorry, I should have been by your side at that time, otherwise you wouldn't have become like this..."

Not the answer she wanted to hear, Brianna thought blankly.

"I'm still me, just in a new body," she said pleadingly, "right? You think so too, right?"

After half a minute, Morando said, "...Yeah."

That wasn't her being perfunctory.

To be honest, Morando tried hard.

She prepared a change of clothes for Brianna, ran a hot tub, and examined her to see if she was thirsty or hungry—finding that her physical needs were present. She also bought her favorite food. To help her recover from her fear, Morando accompanied her in breathing exercises, listening to music, and chatting about trivial matters.

For a few hours, unless she looked down, Brianna thought she was just dreaming.

"There are all sorts of strange things in the nest. Maybe one day in the future, an artifact will appear to help you recover."

As daylight began to rise, Morandao patted her on the back and said, "As long as there is a solution, I will help you get it, no matter what the cost."

Brianna felt that everything was indeed getting better.

Until Morandao said gently and naturally: "You go to sleep, you've been up all night. The bedroom is yours. I'll get the pillows and quilt, and I'll sleep on the sofa."

…She wants to sleep on the sofa?

It seems... I should sleep on the sofa.

Brianna sat on the bed in the bedroom with the lights off, staring blankly at the wall in the dark, with no desire to sleep.

She had just gone to the toilet because she drank a lot of water while eating - she didn't expect that this would become the first difficulty and torture.

Afterwards, Brianna scrubbed her hands furiously, even turning on the hot water until it was scalding, but she still couldn't wash away the feeling.

She didn't want to touch Morando's bedding with her hands, so she sat on the bed with her hands, not knowing what to do next.

Completely subconsciously, obeying muscle memory, she picked up her phone - people always reach for their phones unconsciously, and she was no exception - and the phone she picked up was not George Green's phone, but Brianna's phone.

The screen lit up, and she found that she had received two emergency notifications with yellow warning signs without knowing when.

She read the two notices over and over again countless times.

It turned out that shortly before her death, she was recruited by the "Nest Domination Game" as a living person - but that seemed to be the moment before she was in danger and died, and she had no time to pay attention to her mobile phone and didn't even hear it.

After death, it seemed that even the nest was muttering.

"Are you still a human being?"

The notice stated in a light tone, "Residents are not allowed to participate in the competition, but you're not considered a resident, are you? It's really hard to define the in-between-human-and-ghost situation, and it's going to cause trouble for others."

"How about this? You count as half a contestant, how about that? You can find another living person and form a team with them, and then you'll retain your eligibility. If that living person unfortunately dies in the future, your team will still be there, and you can continue under the team name... Hahahaha, isn't that the same as setting up a company, where the legal person dies but the company still exists? You really know how to take advantage of loopholes, Brianna."

She clutched the phone tightly, but finally couldn't help herself and threw it out, slamming it hard against the wall. "What's wrong?" Morando immediately rushed to the door, seemingly not having fallen asleep at all. "Are you okay?"

If she were to become a contestant on "Game of Domination"...

Even if one connection is broken, you can still keep her by relying on another relationship.

After a while, Brianna panted and said softly, "...No. Nothing happened."

Morando and she later tried to get along for two or three months, but it seemed like everything had gone wrong.

The initial factor that caused them to drift apart was actually very subtle and insignificant, not worth mentioning - once, Brianna habitually and intimately leaned into Morando's arms; she shuddered and dodged.

When she reacted and quickly grabbed Brianna, Brianna knew that she shouldn't force it anymore.

Because she said she didn't want the residents to kill Morando, Morando would never leave on his own initiative no matter what; she would only stay by her side loyally, tortured day by day by the guilt of not being able to continue loving her.

Brianna couldn't wait indefinitely, waiting for some unforeseen event to rescue her from this dire straits.

Only by seizing the right to rule can she hope to escape this half-human, half-ghost state - whether it is restoration to her original state or death, she welcomes it.

Speaking of teammates... her father is probably the most ideal and capable candidate.

Vesile would not refuse.

As expected, Vesile did not refuse.

Ironically, Vesile had hoped so much that she was a boy, but when she finally saw him as a man, Brianna discovered that the last biological father-daughter connection between them had vanished.

There are no genes of Vesile in this male body; without genes, the relationship is also gone - if there was any relationship left.

The second week after she became his secretary, Brianna's trust fund removed her as a beneficiary.

Vesile said that as his secretary, she was now well paid and didn't have to worry about her livelihood; but Brianna had better not think that she could continue to be his secretary if she made no progress in the "game of domination."

…Almost two years have passed since then.

Brianna hadn't revisited that memory in a long time.

It seemed that George Green's brain was turned into a mess by the bullet, causing her thoughts, mind and memories to be turned upside down and shattered, causing her to remember the past again.

Not only was his memory and mind messed up, but even his control over his body, his perception of time, his experience of hot and cold... everything was shattered to pieces by Chai Si's bullet.

She desperately tried to gather the dust from Green's body back together, trying to shape it into a form, like a child building a castle on the beach. Gradually, she finally blinked and could clearly see the graffiti sprayed on the concrete bridge pier.

She seemed to have been washed far away by the sea. This was no longer a cross-sea bridge. It seemed to be an elevated bridge on the edge of Blackmore City, close to the sea.

Brianna, lying motionless on the rocky beach, realized after a long time that she must have been lying here for at least a day after being washed up by the waves - because she remembered that it was raining heavily in Blackmore City on the night of the encounter with Chase; now the rain had stopped long ago and the ground was dry.

Is it the next night now? My phone is long gone, so I can't see the date.

The wallet was still there because it was in the inner pocket.

Black...

When her consciousness faded, the black square, like most artifacts, should have returned to its original state after losing its operator.

After it recovered, it must have been taken away by Chai Si. If his phone hadn't been washed away, he might have received a notification of important news from the nest.

Could it be that without Vesile, she would have nothing—

Do not think.

Never think about that thought.

Brianna climbed to her feet and touched the gunshot wound on her temple.

The white fragment that had pierced Green's face had disappeared at some point, leaving a small black hole on her face.

If she wanted, she could just stick a finger in, all the way down, and feel nothing—as if the tissues that originally made up her face had somehow disappeared, forming a deep, bottomless tunnel on her face.

Brianna shuddered and pulled her index finger out.

How to do?
Even though she had put makeup on Green's face before, dressed him up as a woman, and even tricked Chase once - how could she cover up the gunshot wound on the temple and the black hole on the face with makeup?

Will the flesh in the wound rot?

I'm afraid I'll never see Morando again.

Even if Green's face had a hole, she would never want Morando to see her now. Her disgust had to have a limit. Especially the girl who appeared next to Chase. I don't know if Morando recognizes her. She looks like...

"……who is it?"

A tiny voice interrupted Brianna's thoughts.

She sat dazed for a few seconds, wondering if she had finally gone mad.

Come to think of it, after enduring so much, she's only going crazy now. Maybe she's strong-willed.

Because...how is that possible?
"I saw...your finger...whose?"

How could that tiny woman's voice possibly come from the hole in her face?
Is that the thing called Han Liuyue?
No, it seems the sound is different.

"Who are you?" Brianna opened her mouth and asked.

She could clearly feel that when her facial muscles and tongue moved, they were slightly offset due to friction and compression with the black hole tunnel in her face, making her speech sound a little slurred.

"Why would you...see through my eyes..."

The woman seemed to be in a daze. After a moment, she murmured, "My name is Ashley Page. I'm a police officer."

　Sometimes when I'm writing, I really want to create a cinematic feel, so I'll make different choices in word choice and imagery. But since I'm still posting it online, there's always a sense of disconnect between writing and posting... It's hard to explain.

　　In short, Brianna's writing made me feel heartbroken. The author really doesn't have 100% control over the final product. When I was writing the outline, I really didn't expect that the expanded writing would be so cruel...

　　PS: You might not have expected that Chief Ashley would show up here! She’s not just a fleeting character!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)