Artifact Report

Chapter 187 Mai Minghe: Precious Contestant

If you look closely, most people's thoughts are actually complex and chaotic.

For example, when you’re rushing home and think, “I haven’t fed the cat today; it must be hungry,” the thought isn’t just those eleven words—it might also include an image of an empty bowl, an unhappy meow, and the memory of a hungry cat circling around your feet and nearly tripping you.

All these factors together led to the same thought: the cat has not been fed today, it must be hungry.

Just as when the first thought arose, Mai Minghe also remembered the face of the dream screenwriter, the second thought also came into her mind accompanied by an image.

Inside a scribbled circle, two black dots for eyes and a red arc for a mouth—a face that would be too simple even for a kindergarten child's drawing, but it was the candidate in a campaign advertisement displayed in the library square.

That campaign advertisement now floated clearly in Mai Minghe's blank mind.

To maintain the independence of the nest, we must take the initiative!

Taking a different and more cautious approach than before, fundamentally eliminating the risk of extinction and taking the problem more seriously
Please vote for me

I see……

The denizens were divided into two camps: one that invited her to compete, and another that wanted to kill the contestants—the car radio undoubtedly belonged to the former, and the driver to the latter.

The second thought, when translated into words, was also not long or complicated, but it still made it difficult to see how to escape from the situation.

Rather, the second thought is more like a further inference based on the first thought; that is to say, just to reach this conclusion, the share of two thoughts is consumed.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Mai Minghe was actively thinking about how to get out - she was simply unable to think about it.

The two thoughts, "Some residents want to kill the contestants" and "The car radio belongs to the other camp," flashed back and forth in her mind. Apart from that, she could not think of anything else.

All that was left of Mai Minghe was the survival instinct of a wild animal caught in a trap, wanting to escape in panic - this instinct, like flowing blood, could not form thoughts, nor did it need to form thoughts.

The taxi continued to move smoothly in the darkness.

Even without streetlights, headlights, or moonlight...it seemed as if it itself was a part of the flow in the darkness.

It turned right at the intersection, and the momentum slightly pushed Mai Minghe towards the door.

She pressed her head closer to the glass, and Hai Luwei's phone slid deeper into her hand, causing the screen to light up.

Neither Mai Minghe nor the driver reacted at all.

Mai Minghe was unable to react, but the driver didn't know whether he didn't see it or didn't care; soon, the screen light went out and the car became dark again.

She shouldn't feel pain!
The sudden third thought was so strong that it was like someone punching her in the temple.

She felt the pain of the road rubbing against her legs because friction on her skin sent nerve signals to her brain. She shouldn't have felt pain, but the fact that she felt pain meant her connection to her body wasn't completely severed.

Along with the third thought, the scene I just remembered came to mind:
She leaned over the empty driver's seat, the light from her phone screen shone on the window glass. The driver turned his head toward her. The photo of the sea reed and the big white dog obscured part of the driver's face.

But the third thought ends there.

Without looking at the driver's face, the connection with his body was not completely severed - the next logical reasoning that should have happened naturally was abruptly interrupted.

How much physical connection is left, what does this mean, what can she do... All these thoughts were isolated from her mind by a high wall; except for three thoughts that flashed back and forth, Mai Minghe could only stare blankly at the dark road ahead.

The taxi turned right again.

This time, as the car returned to forward motion, she felt her phone slide forward.

Mai Minghe's fingers had been bent to light up the screen and were fixed in this position.

Although my fingers couldn't move at this moment, the phone slid a little and this time touched a different place on the screen.

A female voice suddenly rang out in the car - even Mai Minghe was startled as if he had been pricked.

"...The Supreme Court has been replaced with two young conservative justices at once, one is forty-three and the other is forty-nine. This means that for the next thirty years, we will have no choice but to watch the law continue to regress and become increasingly conservative..."

If Mai Minghe could still think, she would definitely wonder what on earth she had touched on the smartphone that made it make a sound by itself - and why did it sound like a broadcast even though she was in the nest and couldn't receive any signals from the human world?
Mai Minghe couldn't think.

She just felt that the driver next to her turned his head and looked around several times, seemed to be very surprised, and uttered a "Huh?"

It released the steering wheel and slowly leaned towards the Mai Ming River; its head blocked part of her view.

Fortunately, it was still dark in the car, and even if Mai Minghe couldn't close his eyes, he couldn't see its face clearly.

"What, strange..." The driver mumbled, looking back and forth at her for the source of the sound.

The female host on the phone was completely oblivious and continued to discuss the long-term harm caused by the Supreme Court's leadership changes: "Of course, I think calling it 'conservative' is no longer appropriate. It's an extreme right-wing ideology..."

At the same time, the car was still moving forward steadily, and even seemed to have obeyed an invisible traffic rule, stopping for a few seconds before driving forward again.

"What are you talking about?" the driver said incoherently. "Why are you still able to speak..."

It was at this moment that the fourth thought popped into Mai Minghe's mind.

It turns out the driver couldn't see.

In other words, it has no vision because it is not a driver at all.

The taxi and the driver are different parts of the same thing. It can only sense the existence of Mai Minghe, but cannot see that the thing making the sound is actually a mobile phone.

“It wants to kill me”

"Car radio belongs in another camp"

“The connection with the body has not been completely severed.”

"The driver can't see it"

Obviously... obviously, there seemed to be a way out hidden behind these four thoughts, but Mai Minghe could not escape from them.

"Why can it talk? Why..." the driver mumbled. It clearly didn't sit back in the driver's seat, but the taxi came to a screeching halt.

The phone slipped from her hand, and Mai Minghe felt that her finger touched the right side of the screen this time - suddenly, the content played on the phone seemed to fast forward, not only jumping to another sentence, but also a male voice appeared.

"Ok?"

The driver suddenly raised his upper body and searched around the car, "Is that the man from before? Where is he..."

Every door, hood, and hatch on the car suddenly began to open and close, making banging noises. It didn't matter that it moved, but Mai Minghe was leaning on the door. As soon as the passenger door opened, she had no support and slid out of the car.

With a "bang", Mai Minghe's upper body fell on the road, but his legs remained in the car.

Because of this fall, her fingers touched the screen of her mobile phone again, and the content played immediately changed.

The first female voice echoed briskly in the dead, dark street: "Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. If you have any comments or feelings, please leave us a message..."

"Ah, that's it."

The driver said in a low voice, not knowing whether he realized that it was all just a cell phone farce.

Even though he couldn't come up with a clear idea, Mai Minghe still subconsciously felt a sinking feeling in his heart.

She kept thinking to herself, "The physical connection has not been completely severed," "The physical connection has not been completely severed"... She didn't know what the point of thinking about this thought over and over again was, and she couldn't think about it; it was her survival instinct that was forcing her to repeat it over and over again.

"It's the radio," the driver said, finally getting the answer. "She can't speak. The radio is on."

A pair of hands reached out from the passenger seat, grabbed Mai Minghe again, and pulled her into the car.

At the same time, the driver reached out and pressed a button on the car radio - as if to turn off the radio that had never been turned on.

Mai Minghe's heart suddenly started pounding.

"……found it."

A male voice sounded faintly from the car radio.

His voice was soothing and deep, as if he had been a radio host for a very long time.

"So it was you... who captured my precious contestant."

　Oh my god, I don’t know why I like to find myself in a dead end when writing, and always force myself into a dead end. It’s like this when I write about the end of the world... But at least in the past plots, whether it is the body or the mind, at least one thing is controllable.

　　Mai Minghe is in such a bad state. His mind can't work, his body can't move, he has no resources or means, and no way to escape. He is so stuck that I really thought I would give up here... That's why I've delayed the update until now. I'm sorry, everyone.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)