Artifact Report

Chapter 2 Mai Minghe: Rescued from Illusion?

"You live alone,"

The social worker showed her a small brochure and said, "If you fall, no one will know. That's too dangerous. It would be better to wear one to hang around your neck. It won't get in the way. What do you think?"

That was several years ago.

Mai Minghe still remembers the promotional poster. The product name was straightforward: "Life Alarm Device."

In the picture, a white-haired woman fell to the ground, with two lines of small words: "Help me! I fell and can't get up!"

When her cousin was in her eighties, she broke her pelvis and never got out of bed again; once a person becomes bedridden, they don't have much time left.

Mai Minghe couldn't remember what year he died.

The legs that once supported her jumping onto the roof and running and playing, now, she has to be wary of them betraying her even when she gets out of bed and walks.

The body that had been with her all her life gradually became a stranger to her; she was like a stiff wheel, turning slower and slower, unable to turn the situation around.

"The emergency support system is available 24 hours a day, days a year," the social worker explained to her, worried she couldn't read the brochure. "No matter what the emergency is, just press the button and someone will come... Let me see. Oh, it's guaranteed to be within half an hour. There's a participating hospital nearby."

Mai Minghe took the brochure and looked at the pictures for a while.

She had saved money all her life, but now, money suddenly lost its weight and its price was just a squiggly symbol.

"This one, then," she said, pointing to the third model. "This one looks the best. It looks like a necklace pendant."

The social worker chuckled. "Sure, it'll look good on you."

Although it looked different, she wore it as a necklace; she wore it like this for several years until a thief came into the living room to make a phone call, and she pressed the life alarm for the first time.

The thief probably didn't expect that the "necklace" on her chest was an alarm - young people and old people live in two almost isolated worlds; if there is no need to deal with the elderly frequently, few people know what the life of the elderly is like, let alone the things they usually see and use.

From the moment she asked the thief to find the poem... she tried every possible way, but it dragged on for more than ten minutes.

No one has come yet, but she can't hold on any longer.

Somehow, the cold tube defied gravity, standing upright on her chest without anyone holding it. The machine hummed, the sound of poetry reading faded away, and she sank deeper and deeper into a dizzying darkness.

From the depths of darkness, fragments of dreamlike illusions emerged.

It was strange. People said that when a person is dying, he will see his life memories; but Mai Minghe only saw another self, with a tube connected to his chest, walking towards the TV step by step, and suddenly jumped up and hit the TV screen.

She was startled by her own action and vaguely heard a muffled sound in her chest.

With eyes half open and half closed, illusion and reality overlap; the self in the illusion bumps into the old TV in the corner of the room again and again, and spider-web cracks appear on the screen again and again.

The illusion was finally broken by a shout—a strange, deep voice yelled, "What are you doing? Who are you?"

Mai Minghe shuddered and opened his eyes slightly.

In her blurred vision, she saw a jet-black tube standing on her chest, as if it was more vital than her, pressing her down heavily on the bed.

The next moment, the tube disappeared.

The thief clutched the pipe behind his back. In his panic, he had quick wits and asked the two men who had just broken into the bedroom, "Who are you? Why did you suddenly break into my grandmother's house?"

Two people walked quickly into the doorway, turned on the light, and drove away the night. The room was brightly lit, revealing a bedroom filled with decay, the smell of medicine, cracked walls, and the whirring sound of an oxygen machine.

They were all wearing blue and white uniforms - they were care workers.

"Your grandmother?"

The male nurse looked at Mai Minghe, then looked at the thief suspiciously. "She? Is she your grandmother?"

"I'm a mixed race of two generations, so it's not obvious." The thief seemed to realize the difference in skin color and race between the two men. He reacted quickly and said, "Look, I have black hair. Who are you?"

"We're emergency responders. We came after receiving an alert and thought she had an emergency," another female voice explained. "According to our records, she lives alone."

The thief had completely calmed down.

"Yes," he said to the nurse, patting Mai Minghe's arm gently as if to comfort her. "You responded very promptly and came so quickly. Thank you. But there was a misunderstanding. I came to Blackmore City on a business trip and temporarily stayed at my grandmother's house. My grandmother is old and her mind is not clear. She forgot I was here and may have mistaken me for a stranger, so she warned me. She's fine."

The nurse approached the bedside, opened Mai Minghe's eyelids, checked her eyes, and asked softly, "Old lady, are you okay?"

Mai Minghe opened her mouth, trying to say something, but only a breath escaped her lips. The nurse, having seen this many times before, wasn't surprised by her speechlessness and began to listen to her heartbeat.

"Would you like to show me your ID?" the male nurse asked the thief hesitantly.

"No problem," the thief said. In front of the caregiver, he openly kicked the black machine with the hose under Mai Minghe's bed, muttering, "Why is the vacuum cleaner in this place? Wait a minute, I'll go to the next room to get my wallet. My driver's license is in my wallet."

She was now lying on a hospital nursing bed with four wheels. There was space under the bed, perfect for storing things.

"Oh, a cell phone," the thief took two steps before turning back and smiling at the nurse who was still examining Mai Minghe. "I forgot all about that. My grandmother sometimes gets scared for no reason, and I have to play some poetry and music to calm her down."

The female nurse's gaze passed over Mai Minghe and moved around the phone screen. Her expression relaxed and softened.

Mai Minghe thought, who would believe a thief who broke into a house and killed someone playing poetry for the owner? He was clearly more like a good son and grandson.

Since she is not dead yet, it means that the thief has not succeeded in taking the contents of her body, right?
Yes, otherwise he wouldn't still be here pretending to be a grandson.

But if the caregivers had arrived a few minutes later, he would have succeeded.

No one knew that Death had just been sitting beside her, leaning over and gazing at her; she had never been so close to death before, and it was the first time she had a dying hallucination...

Oh, right, TV!
Even Mai Minghe herself hadn't expected that, recalling the hallucination, she suddenly felt an urge to roll out of bed and touch the TV. She had to go over there, she had to hurry and check...

Pushed by waves of urgency in his heart, Mai Minghe was so anxious that he almost cried out.

The pitch-black TV screen became the only weighty thing in the world at that moment, weighing heavily on her field of vision and attracting her to it; the room, the caregiver and the thief were like pieces of paper, as if they were about to float up.

Mai Minghe raised his hand hard towards the TV.

"Old lady, what's wrong? What do you want?" The nurse followed her raised hand, looked back, and asked, "Do you want to watch TV?"

The door to the utility room next door was opened and then closed, as if a thief had actually gone in and taken something. When the female nurse questioned him, he happened to have just returned and handed his ID to the male nurse; the latter looked at the ID, and when he spoke again, his tone and posture relaxed.

Mai Minghe uttered a negative syllable through his nose, his hand still pointing at the TV.

"I'll turn it on for you," the female nurse was puzzled but kind enough to turn on the TV without waiting for Mai Minghe to answer.

The daytime news commentary program was being replayed on TV, and the host was talking over and over again about the sudden death of Blackmore tycoon Wesley yesterday, recounting his business miracles and philanthropic works.

"No...no." Mai Minghe finally made a sound again, which made her secretly relieved - fortunately, he could speak again, and it seemed that his strength was recovering.

The thief gave her a quick glance.

He then turned to the male nurse and continued what he had just said: "...My grandmother is getting older, and the more confused she is, the more stubborn she becomes. There is no family in Blackmore City who can take care of her..."

He's so young, but he keeps telling lies one after another.

Telling them that this man wasn't his grandson probably wouldn't help. A thief wouldn't typically stay at the scene to negotiate. From the caregiver's perspective, he looked more like someone with Alzheimer's than a thief.

Forget it, TV is more important and urgent than him now.

"Help...help me over there." Mai Minghe pointed at the TV and whispered to the nurse, "Please."

The thief glanced at her again and then looked at the TV.

Before he could open his mouth, the male nurse's question grabbed his attention: "When we came, you were bending over to hold a tube. What were you doing?"

"You don't have to go there. You can watch TV here." The female nurse was a little embarrassed.

The thief was explaining: "My grandmother screamed in the middle of the night, so I woke up and came to check. I found that the vacuum cleaner hose had fallen onto the bed."

"Please," Mai Minghe grabbed the nurse's hand tightly, staring into her brown eyes, begging, "Help me over there, please. I...I want to sit over there for a while."

She was acting more like a confused old woman.

"Okay, I'll help you." The female nurse surrendered. "Can you get up?"

"Yes, yes."

The thief glanced at Mai Minghe again, looking worried. He took the initiative to help her, thus escaping the male nurse's questioning. "Grandma, what are you doing over there? Just take a look, then you have to come back to sleep, okay?"

Mai Minghe ignored him. He looked like a good kid, but what had he done?

With the support of the two men, she staggered to the TV. Her pale, ghost-like half-reflection floated on the screen and disappeared as the TV screen switched to the Wei family manor.

She got it.

Mai Minghe thought that there must be a reason for the hallucination.

No wonder I was so anxious to come here. Well, I should have thought of it earlier. At this age, my brain is not as good as before.

"I'll get a chair," said the female nurse, letting go of Mai Minghe.

Only the thief was left supporting her. He held Mai Minghe's dry arm loosely, as if he didn't dare to exert any strength.

"If everything is alright, we'll leave." The male nurse stood at the door and asked the thief, "Can you help her back to bed later?"

The thief breathed a sigh of relief. He nodded repeatedly and said, "Of course, thank you for your trouble..."

While he was talking, Mai Minghe suddenly pulled out his arm, fell backwards, and fell towards the TV screen.

She should have thought of it earlier. Her hallucination was reminding her how to save herself.

In front of the nurse, she fell on the TV. They had to take her to the hospital anyway, no matter who the thief claimed to be, right? In the hospital, where there were many people and eyes, she would be safe.

The thief turned his head sharply out of her peripheral vision, but was a step too late; Mai Minghe heard the heavy thud of a skull hitting the TV, followed by screams and footsteps in the room.

The female social worker seemed to shout something from far away, but Mai Minghe didn't understand.

"What about her?"

　I posted the first chapter yesterday, which was a great start (?), and all my family members came to support me, I was really happy!

　　But I didn’t expect that I would owe a debt to a new boss in the first chapter of the book. Little cat, please leave a claw, boss, you have left too many claws, it would be a bit conscienceless if I don’t add more chapters... Who would have thought that I would owe a debt just after opening the book!

　　There are only two chapters left, so there's no need to rush to lend money. Let's wait and see. If the rest of the chapters aren't good, Qidian can't refund the reward, right?

　　I need to tell the same thing to everyone like 95, Qiushuiburanchen, Xiangshengfujin, Wanjin, Yingyou, Xixiayoumumingli, 039 Chasing Nuwa?, Kafka, and so on: Are you all angel investors? I'm so panicked...

　　To be honest, the book will be published on the 12th, and I have to go on a long trip on the 14th... The few manuscripts I have in reserve will definitely not be able to withstand the bumpy journey plus the rewards and extra chapters, so I have to type away on the plane again.

　　PS: I saw some friends asking why we're posting a male-focused section, and a special section on female protagonists. Actually, the editors have their reasons for this: the male-focused section has a large female readership, and they don't go to the female-focused section, so the special section on female protagonists in the male-focused section is intended to attract this female readership; it's like trying to attract traffic to the female-focused section (?).

　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)