Artifact Report

Chapter 259: Maiming River Cement Waterfall
Perhaps from a certain point in time, she had unknowingly gone crazy, suffering from one insane, hallucinatory fever after another in the grotesque reality of the nest - otherwise, why did Mai Minghe feel like she had "fallen out" from the depths of her head?
How could the head and the depths of consciousness "fall out" of the body?
Mai Minghe couldn't explain it.

If a person can be divided into "surface" and "deep", then when she first saw the face in the mirror, the "deep" was like a passenger who was sucked into the sky after the airplane door suddenly rolled away, and disappeared without a trace in an instant.

It seemed as if only a layer of "surface" remained of the entire person, but this "surface" had also turned into a trembling, crumbling plastic film; the transparent human face rushing at high speed was heading straight towards it.

Mai Minghe turned around and ran away.

She seemed to have turned into a paper man, and the points where her arms and legs touched space became narrow and thin.

Taking one stumbling step after another, she cut through the cold air of the bathroom and staggered down the corridor - the exit downstairs disappeared because she had to play hide-and-seek with Jones; now that Jones was found, would the exit downstairs reappear?

The fire door she had opened earlier was still wide open and leaning against the wall. Mai Minghe rushed to the door and saw a translucent human face floating on a handrail staircase that had just appeared.

No, wait, she didn't "see" it.

"Seeing" means that light is reflected from the objects in front of the eyes and enters the eyes through the cornea; but that translucent human face is not "in front of the eyes" - it is behind Mai Minghe's retina.

For some reason, the place where it was seemed to be connected to Mai Minghe's retina and brain.

The transparent face was rushing towards Mai Minghe's eyeballs and face again and again from behind her retina - nerves, bones, eyeballs... everything was swollen and painful, as if it was about to explode.

Even if he ran down the stairs, he couldn't escape the thing behind his retina, but Mai Minghe still rushed down the stairs; his speed was so fast and his momentum was so strong that it would not be surprising even if he fell and broke his neck.

凯家
These two words emerged from my mind for no reason, dragging a blood-black shadow.

If she had to die, Mai Minghe would rather break her neck by falling down the stairs than have her own face crushed by another person's face and squeezed out from the ruins of her facial bones.

She rushed down the stairs, went around a platform, rushed up the next flight of stairs, and went around another platform.

I don’t know if it’s a psychological effect, but it seems that the longer she runs and the deeper she goes down the stairs, the less pain behind her eyes she feels. Could it be that the transparent face connects with her on the third floor?
It seemed that as Mai Minghe ran down the stairs one step at a time, the face was getting farther and farther away from her.

but……

Are the stairs too long?
How many floors does this building have?
There is another staircase after another, and every time you go around a platform, there is always another staircase extending downwards.

Looking up, the stairs spiral and rise endlessly, dissolving into a sea of ​​lead-gray cement; looking down, the stairs descend step by step, continuing to fall into the blurred depths.

No matter where you look, you see the same lead-gray cement and lead-gray iron railing handles. The Mai Ming River is like running in a cement waterfall that flows continuously and monotonously. As he runs, even time becomes blurred and he doesn't know how long he has been running.

Panting, she walked down the stairs, stopped on a platform, and sat down on the ground with a plop.

The translucent face seemed to have disappeared, or perhaps it was temporarily out of reach of her.

Although she escaped from the third floor, she seemed to be trapped in a worse situation... Even if there was no translucent face on the third floor, she probably couldn't go back, right?
Mai Minghe looked up at the endless cement above him, and he didn't even know where the "third floor" was - no matter how he looked or which direction he looked, he had already far passed where the "third floor" should be.

There should be doors leading to other floors in the stairwell...

Mai Minghe rested for a few minutes, dragging his legs, which were almost as full of cement as the stairs, and knocked on the wall for a while - okay, there was no secret door. There was no secret door on the next floor either.

After walking up a few more floors, she took out her cell phone and checked the time.

There are only ten minutes left before the mission fails.

Difficulties came one after another, and the residents of the nest had completely torn off the cloth of "fairness"; now she didn't even know if there was any hope of getting out alive, let alone joining the Kai family?
If you fail the interview, you won’t get the lipstick back; if you don’t get the lipstick back, you won’t get the “artifact report”… One bad result follows another, falling like an avalanche.

Mai Minghe buried her face in her hands and gave herself a minute, letting all her anxiety, worry, fear, self-blame and regret surge up at once, letting her tear glands open without permission - but only for one minute.

In life, no one can avoid being threatened and tortured by the unknown, but you can only give it one minute at most.

Otherwise, it will think you welcome it and sit down and not move.

A minute later, she dried her face again and stood up.

Mai Minghe walked down step by step, this time not missing any corner or detail.

There are twelve steps in total, followed by a platform; after turning a circle, there are twelve more steps.

There were no floor numbers. The only white light was on the platform ceiling, along with a green light box with a man and an arrow on it that said "Emergency Exit."

Because the light box is flat on the wall and the arrow is pointing to the opposite wall; could the exit be inside the wall?
Mai Minghe banged her shoulder twice, but the wall didn't move at all. She herself felt pain in her shoulder bones because she used too much force, and she let out a low cry.

“…Did you hear that?”

Suddenly, a vague human voice floated up from the bottom of the stairs.

Mai Minghe was startled and immediately rushed to the handrail to look down; she was about to speak but stopped herself in time.

The person who spoke wasn't near the handrail, so she couldn't see him. Who knew if he was a resident? "It seems to be a woman..." Another voice rang out, much clearer this time, even a little familiar.

"It can't be a resident," said the first voice—a woman's, who seemed to be walking upstairs as she spoke, for the sound was gradually becoming clearer. "Wait a minute. In your condition, the less you move, the better. I'll go see what's going on."

Mai Minghe quickly walked down a few steps, then stretched his head to look, and sure enough, he saw the top of a person's head.

The woman had her upper hair tied in a bun and the lower hair shaved short. She was one of the hunters who was interviewing together - what was her name?

"Su...Su Beihua!" Mai Minghe shouted, "Is that you?"

Suo Beihua raised her head in response, revealing a narrow and thin face; in the endless circles of stairwells, their eyes met.

"who are you?"

Suo Beihua was startled and quickly pulled a gun from her waist, pointing it at Mai Minghe. Her movements were so fast that they almost made a shadow appear. "Don't move. Are you a resident?"

Suo Beihua's memory is too bad——

Before he could finish this thought, Mai Minghe suddenly understood.

She also didn't know why it was only now that she could see Su Beihua's lower body clearly - the other party did not walk up the stairs step by step; but "swam" up.

From the waist down, Suo Beihua's legs disappeared, leaving only a long, round, thick, green snake tail that extended all the way down, and the tip of the tail even turned over the next platform.

Yes, after entering, the form will be changed...

But Mai Minghe didn't expect that when people looked at each other face to face with their naked eyes, what they saw was actually each other's appearance changed by the nest.

In other words, what Su Beihua saw was a man with a wooden door mirror on his neck, so it's no wonder that his first reaction was to pull out a gun.

"Wait, I'm not a resident," she immediately raised her hands and said, "I'm Mai Minghe, and I came in for the interview with you. Look at my orange badge—and I have a gun on my waist."

Suo Beihua squinted her eyes and took a look, then hesitantly put down the gun.

"You haven't gone out yet?"

Obviously, he just met someone who was interviewing with him, not even a companion, and was far from escaping; but Mai Minghe seemed to have a feeling of being "saved".

"I thought I was the only one trapped in the stairwell, and I didn't know what to do." She couldn't help but get excited. She hurried downstairs and asked, "Do you know what's going on in this stairwell? How long have you been trapped here?"

When viewed up close, Sobeihua's snake tail is even more astonishing, and she looks like a mythical creature or a banshee from folk tales.

If it stood upright on the tip of its tail, the Suobei flower would have to be at least three meters tall, right?
They both have changed their forms, but why is the other one’s form so imposing?

"I came in about seven or eight minutes ago, after cracking the second-floor level. I imagine you're like me, constantly going down, but never seeing the end." Suo Beihua raised her pointed chin and gestured downstairs. "Besides me, Robert is also trapped here."

It turned out that the male voice was Robert.

"Is he injured?" Mai Minghe asked.

A very strange look appeared on Suo Beihua's face, and she seemed to want to say something but stopped herself.

"……No."

Mai Minghe's confusion stemmed more from her expression than Robert's inaction. "I heard you say, let him stay where he is..."

Suobeihua seemed to be fighting with a thought, trying not to let it slip out of her mouth.

"Well, I mean the less he moves the better."

Is there any difference?

"You'll know when you go down and take a look. Let's go."

Suo Beihua turned around, her tail rustling as if it had a life of its own, curling along the stairs, her scales gleaming a fine green. "Perfect, let's discuss how to get out of here."

"Oh, by the way," Suo Beihua suddenly turned her head and whispered, "When you see Robert, don't stare at him or smile. Don't smile, or he'll go crazy on the spot."

...Why is she laughing?

　My blood test results came back yesterday, and guess what? The sample was damaged (they didn't specify how), so the iron level wasn't detectable. All other parameters were normal, except for the most important one: iron. I got another pump today, and both my arms are bruised.

　　However, other iron-related markers are normal, and the possibility of iron deficiency seems to be smaller... So do I have Daiyu disease, or the romance heroine disease? But which romance heroine becomes weaker day by day like a leather bag slumped in a chair, and is even unable to pull with the hero.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)