Artifact Report

Chapter 253 Mai Minghe: The Inescapable Clue
When I touch my face with my hands, it still feels normal: skin, nose, eyebrows... everything is there.

But when Mai Minghe opened her eyes and looked into the mirror, the young face that had returned to her life after more than 60 years was nowhere to be found.

The girl in the mirror still had a human body, and up to the neck, she was still the original Mai Minghe.

...Only the head and face disappeared, and it turned into a wooden carved door the size of a human head.

Is this a toy or a decoration?
The door frame had a peaked top, and the eyes had been replaced with brass carvings. The ears had disappeared, replaced by two black decorative doorposts. Taking up two-thirds of the face was a pair of double doors inlaid with ivory, with thumb-sized handles.

Mai Minghe raised his hand to the mirror as if he was sleepwalking, and following the image in the mirror, he found the round handle that was not originally on his face.

There was clearly only air in her fingers; but looking in the mirror, she could see that she had gently pinched the round handle between her thumb and index finger.

Next, she pulled the door on one side of the mirror almost naturally, and it opened.

...Mai Minghe opened the side door on his face.

Is this still human language?

As this thought flashed through her mind, a mirror appeared in the small door she opened.

The doors on both sides of her face can be opened, and when opened, two-thirds of her face becomes a mirror.

Mirrors facing each other formed a long mirror corridor made up of countless identical slices; countless Mai Ming Rivers, pushing against countless wooden door mirrors, were looking into the bathroom mirror.

...The face turned into a wooden door toy with a mirror inside. What does this mean?
After taking a few glances, Mai Minghe really didn't want to look in the mirror anymore.

There was no head of her in the mirror, but only countless wooden doors, and countless mirrors within mirrors within mirrors within mirrors - just a few more glances and she would be caught up in a feeling of weightlessness and dislocation, as if she couldn't control her body, and she almost stumbled and hit the sink.

Let’s go out first... Since we are going downstairs, it’s always a good idea to find where the stairs are first.

Mai Minghe endured the dizziness and closed the "door on her face" again; she walked out of the bathroom and took a deep breath - when she exhaled, the image that emerged in her mind was a mirror gradually covered with a layer of white steam.

She had a toy-like wooden double door on her neck, which was a very strange feeling. Looking for stairs was a good way to help her distract herself.

It took Mai Minghe two or three minutes to walk around the entire floor; after completing the walk, she stood there in a daze for a while.

...Isn't it possible?

Mai Minghe took another step and walked the second and third laps, each time slower and more meticulous than the last.

When she started her fourth search, Mai Minghe was conducting a true "carpet search": she found a utility knife in the office, cut and pulled up all the carpets in the workshop, and in the endless dust and debris, she coughed and covered her non-existent mouth in the mirror, and groped the bare floor underneath.

No.

This floor seemed to be sealed off by cement bricks: there was no elevator, no stairs, no secret door, and no passage leading downstairs.

She had originally thought that the door led to the fire escape, but when she opened it, it was still a wall.

...What about the window? Can I go through it?
Mai Minghe didn't care about the dirt on her body and rushed to the end of the corridor she had first entered. She couldn't suppress her panic and quickened her pace, stirring up a gust of wind around her. The wind hit the window at the end of the corridor, causing the roof outside the window to flutter.

Huh?
She stopped in a daze, still not daring to believe her eyes.

Mai Minghe reached out and picked up a corner of the "window".

The window, as well as the sky and roof outside the window, were originally photos printed on a piece of paper. Because they were made to the size of a real window, they looked exactly like windows from a distance.

It's just that the photo was a little unglued, and when the wind blew, a corner of it was lifted up, revealing the thick white wall behind it without even a crack.

When she returned to the office, she opened the blinds with hope and luck, and found that there were only photos pasted on the back of the blinds; some of the photos were of the parking lot downstairs, and some were of the road outside the wall.

When the blinds were closed and I looked through the gaps in the slats, I couldn't imagine that the scene outside the window was all fake.

Ventilation ducts...Are there ventilation ducts?

Two minutes later, Mai Minghe, standing on his desk and removing a ventilation duct fan plate, looked at the same large piece of solid cement and felt that he really shouldn't be surprised and disappointed anymore.

If we were to say what Mai Minghe gained from this search, it was only one thing - the numbers on the room doors started with 3, from 301 to 303, there were two large open rooms and a private office; that is to say, she should be on the third floor now.

The third floor. If each floor was a sealed concrete block, even if she hammered down each floor one by one, it would take more than an hour for her to break through the floor and fall into the first floor. Even if she could break through the reinforced concrete, where would she get a hammer in the toy company's office?

There are quite a few toy samples.

Several plush dolls, puzzles, assembly dolls, remote control cars and other miscellaneous toy samples were crowded on a long table against the wall, staring at Mai Minghe quietly with their plastic eyes, as if they were all quietly waiting to see whether the vague fear in her heart would develop into claustrophobia.

She was trapped in a cement block... In the worst-case scenario, if she couldn't get out, the air should be enough for her to consume for an hour.

But even if an hour is up and the Kai family launches a rescue, where should they come in?

Wait, since this is the interview stage chosen by the Kai family, it can't be a dead end...

Could it be that the carved wooden door and mirror have some meaning for going downstairs?

Is his own image some kind of clue, so Chi Baili emphasizes it so much?
But Mai Minghe really didn't want to go back to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

Standing in front of the mirror and tilting your head slightly, the layers of images in the mirror that extend infinitely will rotate like a kaleidoscope; one Mai Ming River is smaller than the other, and a wooden door is hidden within a wooden door. The deeper you look, the bigger your eyeballs will swell, as if they are about to fall out of your skull, and roll all the way into the deep corridor formed by countless wooden doors in the mirror.

Mai Minghe was afraid that when she turned away from the mirror, she would have fallen into an unreachable depth, and only a "Mai Minghe" would walk out of the bathroom.

Of course, this fear was irrational and unfounded—after all, there were no clues suggesting that she was in danger of falling into the mirror.

Eh?
Since mobile phones can take pictures, can we also take pictures of ourselves?
Just turn the phone around, point the camera at yourself, and use your finger to find the camera button on the screen, then you can take a picture of yourself, right?
She seemed to have the impression that she had seen tourists taking photos of themselves on the street; perhaps they used this method?
Even at this time, Mai Minghe still felt a little inappropriate pride: Hai Luwei had never taught her, but she had figured it out on her own.

After turning the phone over, it was not easy to find the camera button on the screen. Mai Minghe tried two or three times and finally heard a "click". He quickly turned the phone over again - in the photo, a carved wooden door was facing the camera, and the double doors were tightly closed, so the mirror was not visible.

...forgot to open the door.

Mai Minghe's fingers floated in the air above his cheek, and his hairs could feel the slight warmth of his fingertips.

She couldn't find the door switch, so she could only rely on the location of the handle in her memory, and randomly made an "open the door" gesture on her face, and then tried to take a selfie - after trying this several times, she finally took a clear photo of the door open.

Although the photo of myself with a wooden door mirror on my neck looked uncomfortable, it was much better than looking in the mirror directly; the feeling of weightlessness as if I was about to fall into it was completely gone when I was looking at the photo.

Mai Minghe enlarged the photo and carefully looked at the wooden door and mirror around his neck.

Naturally, she did not miss the image in the mirror - the back of the phone, the camera, and the arm holding the phone were all reflected in the mirror; but apart from what she had already seen and what should be there, she did not see any clues.

……what to do?
In a daze, Mai Minghe once again walked into the large open office and fell into an office chair with a thud.

Only when she sat down did she feel that her tired body muscles were as heavy as if they were filled with cement, and the wound on her foot was burning with pain.

Let's take a break for a few minutes. The more difficult the situation, the more important it is to adjust your state of mind; panicking like a headless chicken will easily lead to mistakes, right?

Mai Minghe found a reason to sit for a while longer; his eyes wandered around the office aimlessly.

She had cut the carpet, leaving it in piles and tucked away, but other than that, it looked like a normal office—or a little too normal.

It was so normal that it was as if the employees suddenly disappeared in the middle of their workday.

Next to the computer in front of her was a cup of unfinished coffee with dried-up husks. Mai Minghe accidentally touched the mouse, and the computer screen lit up, asking her to enter a password she didn't know.

...There's a computer in the lair? Was it generated along with the building?
Although she had decided to rest, she stood up unconsciously.

Some office chairs still had coats and bags on them; she found half a pack of biscuits in a drawer; on a table was a photo of a child who looked like—Mai Minghe thought, one shouldn't say anything bad.

The real gain came when Mai Minghe was passing by the printer and suddenly had an idea and bent down to discover it.

She reached in and picked up the stack of papers that hadn't been touched since they were printed.

Work Summary Minutes for the First Week of February 2025 (for weekly meetings)

This week's weekly meeting discussion topic: Where is Miss Jones hiding?
(Also, how much time do we have left to find Miss Jones? If we can't find her, who will be next? And so on. Reserve 30 minutes for free discussion.)
　Thank you all for your concern. I was really unwell yesterday and didn't reply to you all... I feel guilty about that. I'm feeling a little better today, so I don't think I have a cold. But I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've finished the remaining half of the chapter.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)