Artifact Report

Chapter 132 Han Liuyue: Can vultures read minds?
Late at night, heavy rain, the ground suddenly collapsed...

It was all such a coincidence.

Han Liuyue raised her head, put one hand over her eyebrows to block the rain, and squinted at the coffin that was overturned on the ground in the distance.

In the darkness, it is just a hazy and vague behemoth, as if it has dug out a coffin shape in the night sky, condensing an even deeper darkness.

The cell phone kept ringing, "beep-beep-beep", and other than that, the only sound around was the pouring rain.

She turned her head and looked at Jin Xueli's receding figure.

The girl said that when she went to check the coffin, she reached out and pulled the lid, but it didn't budge. So, if the coffin didn't fall open, the vulture should still be inside.

I'll go take another look when I feel a little better.

She was badly hurt by the fall just now. Sitting on the platform in the cemetery, she vaguely felt that her consciousness was like a fallen leaf on the water, spinning slowly around and around.

The first call was automatically disconnected because no one answered. Han Liuyue raised her phone and pressed the redial button.

"Beep——" The call tone rang again on the phone.

This time, the call was abruptly interrupted before the second ring; the moment the sound rang, Han Liuyue didn't even react to what happened.

"Hello? Hello, who is it?"

Jin Xueli's hurried and shallow voice was almost inaudible in the sound of the rain: "Are you - are you Han Liuyue?"

"...Jin Xueli?"

Han Liuyue was stunned and looked up at the figure in the distance.

Jin Xueli, who had just left, did not seem to have found her cell phone. Instead, she picked up a branch and swept it across the ground like a blind man exploring the road.

That is to say...

Han Liuyue raised her eyes and stared at the coffin, her body froze for a moment.

...The vultures came out.

The vulture now, after becoming the target, is exactly the same as the original owner in appearance, body, way of thinking, memory and emotions.

Jin Xueli also told her that it would even believe wholeheartedly that it was the real owner—

"It's really you,"

Jin Xueli on the phone was speaking anxiously, "The person with the phone is me, so you are the real Han Liuyue, right? Oh, my mind is a little confused now..."

"Where are you?" Han Liuyue looked around while enduring the dizziness.

"I'm behind the coffin."

Jin Xueli took a deep breath and said, "Just now, the ground suddenly collapsed and I was almost hit by the falling coffin. I jumped out to avoid it...but not only did I lose my flashlight, I also hit my head."

Why is everyone hitting their heads? Is this a trend?
"I seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. When I got up, I quickly checked the coffin and found that the lid had been thrown open and the vulture had escaped."

Jin Xueli said this and then interjected a tearful complaint: "Really? It's annoying enough to encounter a vulture once, but to encounter it twice in a row..."

After a pause, she composed herself and continued, "I was about to go over and call you when I saw two people approaching... I couldn't see clearly, but I guessed it was you and the vulture, so I hid first. Was it pretending to be me? Why did you call me? Did you realize it was a vulture?"

Han Liuyue stared at her phone and frowned slightly.

Vultures are such a nuisance...

The simplest way to deal with a problem is to destroy the problem itself, but this trick doesn't work in front of vultures.

"...Jin Xueli, when she was helping me out of the excavator, had her phone on the ground to provide light. But while it was on, it suddenly disappeared. I called her, and she went looking for it."

"I see..." Jin Xueli murmured, "This is the excuse the vultures made."

"How to say?"

"A vulture can replicate our appearance, but it can't replicate a cell phone. It's only explaining its lack of a cell phone by saying it's missing. That's the only explanation."

"But when she helped me out, the lights did suddenly go dark."

"Huh?" Jin Xueli was also surprised. "Is it true that the phone was hacked?"

Han Liuyue herself hesitated for a moment.

The lighting did suddenly go dark just now, but she didn't see at that time whether the lighting was a mobile phone or not.

Jin Xueli was responsible for clearing the way and always had a flashlight in her hand.

What if the thing that suddenly went dark was actually the missing flashlight?
The heavy rain made the ground soft and slippery. It was not difficult to insert a flashlight into the soil with the lamp head facing upwards. As long as you find the right opportunity and step on the light bulb, you can create the illusion that "the phone suddenly disappeared."

She looked around - the Jin Xueli who had just left had already walked quite far away, and she probably wouldn't come back for a while.

"I'm coming to find you now. Stay put," Han Liuyue whispered. "I'll check the coffin while I'm at it."

In order to avoid dizziness again due to rapid movement, she slowly stood up from the platform and walked towards the coffin step by step.

The vulture's purpose should be to transform into a human and sneak into the city of Blackmore. There is no mistake about this - as for what he will do after sneaking into the human world, that is another question.

But having said that, after escaping from the coffin, it did not take the opportunity to slip away. Instead, it stayed and transformed into Jin Xueli's appearance to muddy the waters... Why?

Are you afraid of being hunted down?
But after escaping from the cemetery, it randomly transformed into a stranger. Even if the Kai family wanted to catch it, they would have no way to do it in the vast crowd.

If you don't catch the vulture and ask it, you probably won't be able to figure out the answer to this question on your own.

"here,"

Sure enough, a man quietly stood up from the shadows behind the coffin and greeted Han Liuyue softly, "Did Vulture not notice you coming?"

It’s hard to say who the vulture is…

Well, I don’t know what the relationship between Chai Si-ge and Jin Xueli is like. If I use an axe to find out, will Chai Si-ge be angry?

She used the light from her mobile phone screen to carefully look at Jin Xueli in front of her.

"Vulture is really amazing! You two are exactly the same," Han Liuyue was really impressed, "Even the clothes are the same... Can Vulture still copy clothes now?" "The clothes are the same?"

Jin Xueli was stunned and thought about it.

"The last time we met the vulture, our clothes were different... Well, maybe it's because it was just me and it at the time, so whether or not I copied the clothes didn't affect my ability to attack it."

"But, isn't it true that vultures can't copy items?"

"I don't think this counts as copying an object," Jin Xueli said hesitantly. "The vulture was already wearing clothes. It simply made its own clothes look like the target's... It's like the vulture itself has a body, and it just made its body look like mine."

I see... That explanation does make sense.

Things that the vulture doesn't have, like a cell phone or a hunting knife, can't just appear out of thin air.

However, even if I become a vulture scientist, I still can’t tell who the real Jin Xueli is!
Han Liuyue sighed secretly and said, "Is the wound on your forehead serious? Let me take a look."

"Huh? Ah, okay..."

Holding the mobile phone in one hand, Han Liuyue quietly picked up some mud from the ground with the other hand.

She moved closer to Jin Xueli, and they could hear each other's breathing.

Do vultures need to breathe too?

Under the light of the mobile phone, there was indeed a shallow crack on Jin Xueli's forehead.

"Look up, I'll see if the wound is deep."

As Han Liuyue spoke, she lifted Jin Xueli's chin; her muddy index finger pressed just below her chin.

"Well, it looks quite shallow," she said, withdrawing her hand.

As she retracted her hand, she lightly wiped it with her fingers, leaving a trail of mud.

Jin Xueli didn't seem to realize she had been marked. "I didn't expect you to be so gentle."

The rain is so heavy that any marks we make elsewhere will be washed away in a moment.

After much thought, the only area most likely to leave a mark even if it gets wet is the inside of the chin - it's also the area that can be touched as naturally as possible.

"What should we do now?" Jin Xueli asked.

"Don't move, I'll go check the coffin."

Han Liuyue walked around to the front of the coffin and took a closer look using only the light from his cell phone screen.

A human head hung crookedly from the hole in the coffin lid.

Perhaps because he died not long ago and the embalming was done well, if you ignore the broken cervical vertebrae and collapsed forehead, he looks like just a pale, sleeping person - the real Vesile.

Just as Mark Jin Xueli said, the coffin lid was indeed open.

Han Liuyue stared at the gap in the lid, pondered for a while, suddenly put her cell phone in her pocket, walked up and grabbed the lid of the coffin - although she was strong, she was dizzy and nauseous after the collision, so it took her several attempts before she pushed the lid open.

However, even if I use all my strength, I still can't close it.

Han Liuyue took out her cell phone again and took a closer look at the place that was preventing the lid from closing. Only then did she realize that the bottom of the coffin lid was deformed, perhaps from falling or being soaked in water - once it was opened, it could not be closed.

She gasped, let go of her hand, and stood there thinking for a while.

If we take stock of what we already know...

First, the coffin lid was deformed and could not be closed after it was opened;
Second, Jin Xueli said the coffin lid was open, while the person who supported her said it was tightly closed.
Three, the real Vesile, lowered his head from the hole.

Now, the answer is clear—

Han Liuyue's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately walked around the coffin and rushed to where Jin Xueli was.

She rushed so fast that she felt a little dizzy. For a moment, her legs almost gave out and she fell to her knees.

Han Liuyue managed to support the coffin in time and steady herself. When she looked up, she was stunned.

The place where Jin Xueli was just now is now empty.

When did she leave quietly?
If it were an ordinary day, Han Liuyue would never have been unaware of the person slipping away from her.

However, the rainstorm, the darkness, and the fact that I hit my head on a falling excavator...

A sentence Jin Xueli had said suddenly echoed in my mind: "It's as if the surrounding environment is helping the vulture."

Han Liuyue took a deep breath, strode around the coffin, and walked towards the other Jin Xueli.

Despite feeling dizzy and uncomfortable, she tried to sort out two key questions in her mind.

The first is, why did the vulture run away?

After seeing the lid of the coffin, he had just come to a conclusion when he discovered that the vulture had already sensed something was wrong and had disappeared first.

It ran away quietly. Was it because of my previous inference?

But it can't read minds.

Since it can't read minds, it obviously shouldn't know that Han Liuyue became suspicious of it - so why did it run away?
The second question is, what will the vulture do next?
This question is not difficult to answer.

The vulture had just realized that Han Liuyue had discovered its identity, so it naturally couldn't stay where it was. It had to move to another place and pretend to be "Jin Xueli who went to look for her phone" in order to confuse Han Liuyue.

Unfortunately, she had long lost sight of the real Jin Xueli who was looking for her cell phone - in such an environment, if one walked a few steps further away, it would be as if one disappeared into the dark rainy night.

...It's almost as if the surrounding environment is helping the vulture.

Han Liuyue stopped.

...The Jin Xueli in front of me, who was bending over and leaning into the excavator, was she the Jin Xueli who was looking for her cell phone just now, or the vulture who had just arrived?
　I actually really enjoy analytical and reasoning plots, and I find them fun to write, but I’m not sure if they’ll be fun to read as well…

　　
　
(End of this chapter)