Artifact Report

Chapter 237 Mai Minghe: Things Taken for granted
Where do so many Maiming Rivers come from?

The question I asked a few minutes ago now seems to have a very clear and simple answer, and there is no need to ask at all - all these Mai Ming Rivers, of course, came from Mai Ming River's lifetime.

She lived an ordinary life.

Perhaps it was precisely because of her ordinariness that most of her sharpest and most destructive aggression in her life was directed at herself.

It may sound strange to say this, but Mai Minghe had a vague feeling that being chased, besieged, whipped, and stabbed... all of this was not unfamiliar to him.

She no longer wanted to continue.

When Mai Minghe opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground, with nothing underneath him except a thin layer of dust and footprints.

Another Mai Minghe, who was in his forties, disappeared. I wonder if he went to kill the next Mai Minghe.

Did she just faint?
Mai Minghe lowered his eyes and looked at his hands.

The hands were still as plump, strong, clean and moist as they were in the prime of life; when I glanced at them not long ago, the outlines of the fingers were somehow blurred, as if it was indeed just an illusion caused by dizziness when I was seriously injured.

Did the other Mai Minghe mistakenly think she was dead and let her go?

Before he could finish his thought, he was hit hard on the back of his head by a heavy object again. At that moment, it was as if his thoughts, soul and vision were all smashed out of their shells.

Mai Minghe turned over with difficulty, and in the dim light, he could vaguely see a young Mai Minghe in front of him.

"Wait a moment……"

She cried hoarsely, raising a hand as if that could stop Mai Minghe. She crawled backward, whispering pleadingly, "I know, I know why you want to kill me. But listen to me...that wasn't your fault."

It was the first time she saw the expression on Mai Minghe's face.

But even though she had never seen it in the mirror before, she immediately understood what kind of mood it was that would cause her eyelids to half-droop and her lips to twist, as if she was trying hard to hold back the gastric juice that was about to be vomited at any time - after all, she had been tortured by it countless times in the dead of night.

"It's not your fault,"

Mai Minghe didn't know where he got the strength from, but he sat up and grabbed the hand that was not holding the stick.

"Being deceived when you're at your most vulnerable and confused, when you're still so young, is unfortunate, but not disgusting. You're not disgusting—"

Before she could finish her words, a black shadow suddenly appeared in her peripheral vision; the shadow circled and flew past her head, stirring up an unprecedented heavy wind sound - with a dull thud, a fire axe bit into the floor fiercely, and the air was like shattered and flying broken bones, rushing into the surroundings.

Mai Minghe stared at the fire axe in a daze, then turned his head and glanced at Mai Minghe who was standing in the audience in the distance.

If her aim hadn't been off by a bit, she would have died right here...

She didn't want to kill her past self, but if she didn't want to die, she had to end it all as soon as possible - how?

Mai Minghe subconsciously got up and stumbled to the other side of the theater. Every movement was a decision made by her body's survival instinct, but her mind was still in a mess.

Mai Minghe shook off the hand that she had held and then released, as if to get rid of some unpleasant touch, and chased after him with a stick in hand.

Mai Minghe kicked and swept away the chairs that were blocking his way, and rushed towards Mai Minghe from the other end of the theater.

Mai Minghe only took a glance at the theater, which used to be an old warehouse, and saw at least four or five Mai Minghes, all rushing towards her - the Mai Minghe who was in his forties and was tightly hugged by her was no longer in the theater or in Mai Minghe, and there was no trace of him.

...Why did it disappear? Where did it go?

Mai Minghe didn't even dare to look down at the injury on her lower abdomen. The fact that she was able to stand up and escape at this time was a miracle.

She stumbled forward, clutching onto the wall and chairs in waves of dizziness. She left wet, bloody handprints on the white walls and chairbacks, which somehow swelled in size.

and many more.

She had almost run over, but she abruptly stopped and turned her head. She looked at the wall, then at her palms.

It wasn't an illusion that she was seriously injured...

The right hand that had just grabbed Mai Minghe's was indeed blurry at this moment, as if two hands were overlapping each other imprecisely, causing her right hand to look a circle larger than usual.

what happened?

It was as if... as if my hands were stained by "another hand".

Mai Minghe turned around and saw that Mai Minghe, holding a stick, was only a few meters away from her.

She looked away and scanned the theater.

Mai Minghe, who was in his forties, disappeared.

The younger Mai Minghe was rushing towards her.

The nearest Mai Minghe raised his stick high in the air. His hand without the stick seemed blurry and unclear.

…Is that so?
Since the nest can make the past Mai Minghe fall down one by one, can it also allow them to return to "themselves" one by one?
She turned around and instead of running away or hiding, she went towards the young Mai Minghe.

Another blow to the head would have incapacitated her; her end would have been certain.

She knew she was crying, but she also knew that her tears were not because she might die.

Because she knew why Mai Minghe was so eager to crush and erase herself.

There might be women in the world who had never been toyed with or humiliated like objects in their entire lives, but Mai Minghe had never seen one.

Why so ignorant? Why so gullible? Why so stupid?
Why is it so disgusting?
"it's not your fault."

It was as if Mai Minghe had slipped through a miraculous crack, avoided the stick, and grabbed Mai Minghe's hand again.

The wound healed, becoming a thick, bumpy scar. It was like a frozen, wounded cry, and once it was released, the pain was like being repeatedly beaten with a stick.

But it was still part of her flesh and blood, a trace of her struggle to survive, proof of her survival. "Thank you," she whispered repeatedly, "thank you for holding on and becoming me."

When he heard footsteps behind him, Mai Minghe saw nothing in front of him.

...Sure enough, it can make every Mai Minghe return to where they should go.

She didn't have time to turn around to see what time it was that Mai Minghe was attacking her this time; Mai Minghe already had a vague idea.

Was this play told to her from the very beginning?
Did it bury its way out in a trap?
Maybe it was because of the hope, but she felt that her body didn't hurt as much anymore. Mai Minghe hurried through the audience, dodged the attack of another Mai Minghe, and rushed onto the stage from the steps at the side, taking two steps at a time.

As soon as she stepped onto the wooden floor of the stage, she looked back and found that several Mai Minghe were crowding onto the stairs, vying to climb up.

In the center of the stage, the supply bag and the orange sign were immersed in a beam of white light.

When Mai Minghe pounced on the bag of supplies, several Mai Minghes also pounced on her back and pressed her and the chair to the ground.

Will I die at this step?
For a moment, his vision flickered, filled with figures and limbs. It seemed as if his mind couldn't keep up with the changes in his vision. Mai Minghe grabbed the bag of supplies, curled up, and, pressed down by the weight of his past life, shouted, "I've got it!"

She didn't even dare to pause for a moment to react, and immediately shouted, "I'm the last one standing, aren't I?"

The attack that was expected to fall on him did not come for a while.

"Each of them is a past version of me. I've transformed from one Maiming River to another, step by step, to where I am today. Without their persistence in survival, there would be no me today. So, the me of today is the 'last' Maiming River... You lied to me. I didn't have to kill my past self, did I?"

After the voice fell, the surroundings were taken over by dead silence, and even the breathing of other Mai Minghe could not be heard.

She slowly opened her eyes - Mai Minghe didn't even realize that she had closed her eyes just now.

The stage was empty except for her, her bag of supplies, her sign, and an overturned chair.

Where is Mai Minghe?

She sat up suddenly and looked around blankly.

After sitting up straight, Mai Minghe suddenly realized that her movements were a little too agile and too easy; she looked down and found that there was a cut on her clothes.

But only the clothes were torn. When I reached in and touched, I could feel the intact skin of the lower abdomen between the "snake belts", as if it had never been stabbed.

The wound on the forehead disappeared, and there was no hematoma on the back of the head.

The black speaker hanging from the ceiling slowly stretched out and hung down to the floor. Suddenly, it used all four legs to crawl towards her with a rustling sound.

Speaker squatted in front of Mai Minghe and laughed.

"It's more than 'not necessary' to kill..."

"what?"

The speaker is holding the black panel in place, preventing it from sliding off. In other words, it is maintaining the speaker's shape.

"How did you solve the puzzle? Tell me your thinking? Did I reveal too many clues somewhere, allowing you to find a way out?"

Mai Minghe stared blankly at the speaker in front of him, which was constantly convincing himself with its appearance that it was a speaker.

"You are the 29th person to enter the theater, and the first to survive."

……what?
"Forget killing all my other selves. Even if I kill just one, I'll suffer a fatal injury that I can't see or feel at the time."

The speaker hummed, "If you inflict a wound on yourself, the wound will stay on you. Isn't that the simplest truth in the world? If you kill yourself, you'll be killed. It's so obvious, and the other 28 people didn't even think of it. It's really funny."

I see. She hadn't caused any harm to any of her selves... so she had no injuries at all.

“This is a trap,” Mai Minghe muttered.

"What else do you think?" the speaker said, "If you kill your past selves one by one just because you don't like them, will your present self still be able to survive?"

"So... everyone else is dead?" Mai Minghe asked.

"It depends on your definition of death, hahahaha"

"What do you mean?"

The speaker shifted, as if re-stitching the front half that was about to slip off. "If there's only one person left alive who looks exactly the same as before, who can move and speak, even if they're not dead, there are plenty of smart people like that. After all, isn't every game exactly the same?"

"……appearance?"

The speaker smiled broadly. "Because... they only look the same."

Mai Minghe hung the orange tag around his neck. He was not injured and knew he should get away from this thing that looked like a speaker as soon as possible, but he didn't have the strength to do it.

"Should I have said 'the last one'? Oh, how should I phrase it next time..."

Amid the speaker's mumbling, Mai Minghe lowered his head and slowly wiped his face.

"Perhaps I should thank you."

The speaker paused. "What? Shut up."

"No, I should thank you... I have never felt so peaceful and so eager for a new life as I do now."

　Speaking of which, anyone who has no sense of boundaries, who points fingers at others and criticizes them, always mentions how I was in the past. It is your duty to dedicate yourself to me. In my opinion, regardless of gender, age or status, everyone is called Lao Deng.

　　No matter how a person is praised, as long as he has the above qualities, I think he is great.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)