Artifact Report

Chapter 244 Mai Minghe: Information on the Lair Following the Map
The nest's adherence to common sense is like the thing pretending to be a person in the dark corner when you open the closet.

Even though you and it both know it's not human—no one would squat in the shadow of a closet corner, slowly lowering their chin, the black hole on their face stretching longer and longer—when your eyes meet, it still imitates human habits and greets you: "Good evening, are you off work?"

In other words, the nest's adherence to common sense is persistent, yet inexplicable.

For example, a poster worker.

According to the nest information in Mai Minghe's mind, the nest clearly took the existence of this type of residents for granted:
Of course there needs to be a poster!

In a trap or script without residents to supervise or preside over it, shouldn't the rules be written out, printed, posted on the wall, projected onto a white screen, or played on a screen... so that those disgusting, self-righteous humans who would rather die earlier can see them?
Naturally, some residents would have to post the rules in advance, or replace the old rules, clean up the remains and blood left by previous people, erase the clues they left, optimize the traps, and reduce the chances of cracking... Isn't this a matter of course?
So naturally there were handymen, also called posters.

As for how the paper rules are printed?
That's pretty simple too.

Although the residents cannot build it, when the nest is born, expanded, and updated, there must be some buildings with built-in printers.

We are like the snake and the apple born in the Garden of Eden. We can take anything in the garden. Is that easy to understand?
Mai Minghe didn't think this analogy was easy to understand.

But the most crucial part finally emerged from her mind when she was desperately looking at the poster in the poster just now.

Posters, also known as handymen, can be called upon.

Especially when it comes to paper rules, the paper may encounter various accidents or be damaged; on the premise that the nest "tries" to ensure fairness, hunters have the right to know what the real rules that govern them are.

Not to mention, this cannot be done in many places in the world.

In short, in this case, the hunter can call the poster to provide him with the correct rules again - of course, if the hunter in question is not aware of the existence of the "handyman", then the nest cannot be blamed.

Another point, also for fairness reasons, is that hunters should not continue to be attacked when the poster reorganizes the rules.

Even if half of the body is stuck in the quicksand, as long as the poster worker has to "clean up the site", the hunter has to stop and cannot continue to sink - however, as the Maiming River is the primary hunting target for countless residents, it is unknown whether this default situation is still useful.

"open……"

Mai Minghe could hardly scream.

She just twisted her arm and fired all the last bullets in the gun into the old woman's body, but the tight grip on her neck did not loosen at all, let alone give her a chance to escape.

Why hasn’t the poster appeared yet?
Should I call a handyman?
Red shadows began to appear in the corners of his vision, as if bursting capillaries were gradually staining his eyes with blood.

Mai Minghe could barely still see her own reflection in the glass: her neck was squeezed so thin that the part sticking out from the old woman's mouth was only as wide as a milk tea straw.

Her throat, trachea, and cervical vertebrae should have been broken long ago...but she was still alive and her neck was intact.

The old woman's way of killing a person doesn't seem to be by destroying the target's body... After twisting and deforming a person's physiology and psychology, the person will be dead even if he doesn't die.

“Handyman…” Mai Minghe’s cry was actually formed entirely by air currents: “Come out… The rules are wrong…”

"Ugh."

A strange voice suddenly sounded from the sidewalk behind the corner.

It was the handyman—no doubt about it.

As soon as you hear its sound, you will immediately think of the "handyman" in the human world - its voice is like a bunch of keys swaying and bumping back and forth around the waist when a person walks.

"What did you ask me to do?"

Between the lines, one can even hear the wet sound of a mop sweeping across the tiled floor; its breathing is the faint hum of electricity passing through a light bulb.

"The rules you saw haven't taken effect yet, but they do have an effective date. If you didn't see them, how can you blame them for being unfair?"

The handyman had clearly shown up, but the old woman still didn't let go.

"No, there are no...real...rules..."

"Who said that?" The handyman snorted, a sound reminiscent of a hammer hitting a nail. "The real rules are right here. You've probably passed them several times."

What is it saying? Is there a set of text nearby?

Could it be that it’s not text, but something like a broadcast?
But no——why didn’t the old woman let go???
“As long as the ‘real rules’ exist and their content is real, it’s useless for you to call me. I have nothing else to do, and I don’t want to do it.”???
That is to say, there is still something that can be done, but the handyman is also a resident of the other side. I want to kill Mai Minghe, no, myself?
"You can't even find the true rules, yet you're called the most promising player to dominate the game. It's ridiculous! Have you become so unstable? I can even see the question marks in your head. It's useless to be unstable. I can't control other people—"

The sound stopped abruptly after turning the corner.

The handyman suddenly disappeared in the middle of his words.

What's going on? What do you mean by not being able to control the other residents?! Wait, wait, I think I get it! Is that right? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I'm dying of suffocation. I really want to kill the old woman. Why can't I kill the residents?! No, no, back to the moment—

The sound of Mai Minghe seemed to have turned into a wild beast constantly crashing into a cage. Just a little stimulation would make it go crazy in the mind.

She tried not to think about how much time she had left as her body slowly transformed.

It must be other residents who did something!!
Mai Minghe tried his best to calm himself down - it must be some other resident who did something.

There were other residents nearby, but why didn't that resident attack Mai Minghe directly, but instead "kept" her and waited for the old woman to arrive?
Residents don't necessarily have the ability to kill... Some can mimic human transformations, some are good at providing false information, and some can transform an area into a trap.

The residents who try to hide the real rules, one, are nearby, and two, have no hands-on skills.

Mai Minghe's consciousness was almost blurred.

It wasn't like she was about to lose consciousness, it was like the old woman was drilling into her skull.

When she finally realized that there was something wrong with her reflection in the glass, she was covering her face tightly with her hands, and in her ears she could hear her own "chuckles".

Mai Minghe pressed his hands down hard to suppress his laughter.

Come to think of it... come to think of it... the only time a resident actually appeared was when she walked nearby -

Aimeili's voice suddenly echoed in my mind.

"...I'm not lying. There was indeed a resident behind you, but when you turned around, he disappeared."

When she turned around, the road behind her was empty.

Wait, behind—behind—

Mai Minghe burst into laughter and desperately put his hands behind his back, scratching his back but finding nothing.

No, if the resident was on her back, Aimeili would definitely have seen it when she came to her senses. Aimeili is not blind - wait.

Mai Minghe stopped laughing.

The nest information that was poured into her mind was actually a bit like the search engine that Hai Luwei showed her: if there was no keyword trigger, her thoughts would only drift aimlessly in the vast information; but once the keyword appeared, she would think of the corresponding nest information.

Before setting off, when everyone looked at each other carefully, the focus was on the positive side - this is the natural thinking habit of human beings.

Even now, if Mai Minghe was asked to recall the backs of the heads and backs of several other interviewed hunters, she was not sure that she could remember them completely accurately.

In other words, when she turned around, what Aimeili saw as "Mai Minghe's back" was most likely not actually her back.

Aimeili thought the resident had "shrunk to somewhere," but the answer was simple: it was still on Mai Minghe's back. Like a dead leaf butterfly mimicking a dead leaf, it was a resident capable of camouflaging itself on a human's back—Maiminghe had seen it not long ago.

It has two characteristics:
1. Lying on the human's back, it vividly disguises the back of the head, behind the ears, neck, shoulders, back... all the way to the heels.

Of course, it can also choose to reveal its original appearance - such as letting vine-like black hair slowly flow down the street, and letting thick yellow toenails twist and stick out - or, only disguise part of it.

After all, residents are very flexible creatures.

Second, it can jump from one person to another; as long as B sees the "back resident" on A's back, it will naturally appear on B's back.

The resident on the back has jumped onto Ai Meili.

It chose not to disguise itself, which made Mai Minghe afraid to even get close to it after seeing it... Why?
Is it because the real rules have always been on Aimee Li's back?
if it is like this……

Mai Minghe listened to her own laughter, which was being tightly suppressed by her hands, and wondered if she had woken up too late.
　The holiday is coming soon.
　　Who is a happy resident? I am a happy resident.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)