Artifact Report

Chapter 7 Jin Xueli: Hunter is not a good job
The night in Blackmore City is also the night in the nest.

The wind blew down from the cracks in the sky and earth, ruffling her hair. If she squinted her eyes and peeked out vaguely through the shadows of her eyelashes, Jin Xueli could hardly tell whether this was the nest or Blackmore City.

A deserted and deserted Blackmore City with twisted shadows and details that became more and more frightening the deeper you looked. The green light at the traffic light at the intersection ahead went out, and a purple light came on, flickering. The road surface of the empty road was clenched and released by the purple light, clenched and released again.

Only sound is the most honest: she can't hear car engines, tires rolling, or horns honking; she can't hear people talking, no dogs barking, and no video anchors taking selfies and introducing themselves... At this moment, the only sound Jin Xueli heard was the sound of footsteps.

There was a soft "thump" as her left foot landed on the ground; before she could lift her right foot, she heard another "thump".

The footsteps behind her had been following her for several minutes.

The other party didn't look like a hunter; hunters who met by chance in the nest often kept a distance, looking at each other cautiously and distantly - the high danger that could come at any time made everyone's nerves very tense, and no one wanted to cause trouble.

Either a hunter or a resident.

Should I pretend not to know?
Jin Xueli turned on the camera on her mobile phone, put it close to her body, slightly leaned over her shoulder, and took a quick and stealthy photo.

She quickened her pace to create distance, glancing quickly at the screen.

In the photo, Kim Sulli's own distorted smile was looking back at her.

Her teeth were large, white, and so densely packed that her lips were almost too full to cover them. She seemed to be resting her face on someone's shoulder and making a "yeah" gesture.

Jin Xueli recognized it at a glance, that shoulder was her own.

What bad luck.

"Get out of here!" Jin Xueli growled without even turning back, slashing the hunting knife she'd already grasped behind her, trying to force the thing back a few steps. "Who are you looking down on? Do you think I won't live long?"

There was no sound behind her. After a few seconds of silence, she heard her own voice and chuckled softly.

...It seems that it is unwilling to go away on its own.

Although it was unlucky, her luck was not bad, and the things that got caught up with her were not very dangerous.

This kind of resident is very common in the nest. If they like someone, they will twist their face into the appearance of that person, but the appearance is always a little weird - for example, there is an extra eyeball in the right eye, there is only a black hole under the tip of the nose as a nostril, or like now, there is almost no room for teeth in the mouth.

They follow their target in their own image, causing no immediate harm except for a creepy discomfort.

Only when their target is in danger and dead will these inhabitants pounce on the corpse, writhing and sucking. When they raise their heads, their appearance is completely identical to the original owner. Some say that perhaps they long to return to the human world, so they disguise themselves as humans and return to Blackmore City in their original owners' place. However, these rumors are just rumors and should not be taken seriously.

In other words, they are like vultures in the desert, always circling over dying animals.

This resident probably smelled the alcohol coming from Jin Xueli and noticed that her steps were still a little shaky, so he thought she couldn't hold on much longer?

Its technology is not as good as its peers. Generally, when a "vulture" catches up, the hunters will not notice it at all; but this guy's big feet are clacking.

But no matter how harmless it was, knowing that this thing's face was always floating over my shoulder was annoying enough.

She listened attentively, measuring the distance between the footsteps with her attention, wondering if she could create an opportunity to shake it off - but a thought suddenly popped into her mind: No, there's a problem.

Jin Xueli's whole body trembled, and she stopped abruptly. Without waiting to see the road ahead clearly, she dodged to the side of the road, and her back hit the fence with a bang.

I wonder if this sound will attract other residents...

But now was no time to worry about the future—she had almost been tricked by the Vulture residents.

"Jin Xueli" was still standing a step or two away, looking at her, the lower half of her face all smiles and teeth, but her eyes were getting darker and darker, more and more like a pair of holes poked in dough by a child's fingers.

Jin Xueli tried not to look at it and glanced at the ground she had almost stepped on just now.

A long chalk drawing of a house stretched as far as the eye could see, covering the entire sidewalk.

The chalk has faded and is immersed in the dim light of the street lamps and the shadows cast by the trees on the roadside. If you don't look carefully, it is very difficult to detect its existence.

There are four squares drawn in the first row. The first three are blank, and only the last square on the edge has "right foot" written on it.

"Fuck you, wait for me here."

Jin Xueli wiped the sweat from her neck with her sleeve and cursed at her other self. "No wonder your footsteps are so clear, and you deliberately stepped between my steps just so I could hear them..."

It was intentional.

It wanted Jin Xueli to focus all her attention behind her and think about the question of "how to get rid of the vulture" - there are only a few ways to get rid of the person following closely behind her, and no matter which one, she would step into the chalk drawing house while speeding up.

If she hadn't stepped on the box that said "Right Foot" with her right foot, she would have been in big trouble.

"November 11th, Lair, Colorado Avenue. Chalk drawing of hopscotch appears here."

Jin Xueli opened the voice memo and briefly described the situation. She said, "Although the 'vulture' didn't do anything directly harmful to people, it showed signs of luring people into a trap... This is a new behavior that requires attention."

She hadn't joined a clan of hunters, so naturally, her collection and updating of nest intelligence couldn't match the systematic, planned clan hunters. But she had her own way of surviving: she would take the valuable information she gathered to the bar "Against the Light." The owner, who looked like a Shar-Pei, would reward her with another set of information—he was like a human information exchange, or a primitive version of LinkedIn.

Putting away her phone, she looked around and almost wanted to sigh.

On the right was a row of stone and brick houses; short staircases climbed up and stopped at the stone brick door. Between the staircases were patches of trees, and the fence she had just bumped into was just outside the clump of trees.

Not to mention that she was going to the Museum of Modern Art, even if she wasn't going, she couldn't just casually enter the nest house.

The road on the left is empty. You can avoid the chalk house by just walking off the sidewalk and following the road - normally, this is possible; but not at this moment, because the traffic light is still purple.

"If it weren't for these crappy things, fifteen kilometers wouldn't take two days to walk..."

Jin Xueli muttered, put away the knife and cell phone, adjusted the off-road backpack, tied it tightly around her waist, and stepped her right foot into the grid.

She stood on one leg in the grid, the drunkenness still not completely gone away, pushing and shaking her ankles like waves; Jin Xueli was covered in cold sweat, swaying, with one hand on the fence.

If only the right foot is written in the box, you must not add a left foot without permission.

Jin Xueli's smile remained frozen on her face, twisting slowly from her cheekbones. One cheekbone became increasingly prominent, while the other gradually slid downward.

Is he about to give up because he sees that she didn't fall for it?

Generally speaking, when a vulture sees that there is no hope of "replacing" its target, it will give up the appearance of its target and either transform into another person or retreat into the shadows and disappear.

Watching one's own features, one's own appearance, deform and melt off another's face like a summer ice cream cone was, according to the other hunters, an unexpectedly difficult experience.

"Get out of here quickly, and I won't kill you."

Jin Xueli left a hollow and harsh remark, turned around, switched to her left foot, and jumped onto the middle grid of the next row; as soon as her foot touched the ground, the off-road backpack fell heavily, as if someone had jumped onto her back.

She moved her hands around like windmills several times and finally stood firm. In her heart, she had already cursed the harasser Anthony ten times - of course, all the bad things were caused by him.

But if something good happens during this trip, like getting a precious fake, it will definitely be because of me.

As soon as the purple light on the road went out, she would find an opportunity to jump off the sidewalk.

The first four or five rows of grids were all reasonable: although it was very strenuous to carry a bag weighing more than ten kilograms, be drunk, and jump forward on one foot, at least she could do it.

I don’t know from which square it started, but the words in the square are no longer just left foot and right foot.

"Left Hand," one box read.

The boxes on either side of it were filled with punishments—"coma," "loss of red blood cells produced in the past year," and "visit to No. 87 Colorado Avenue."

Fortunately, there was a telephone pole next to the grid.

Jin Xueli held the backpack with one hand with great difficulty, put her feet on the telephone pole, stood upside down, and pressed her left hand on the grid - she felt like an acrobat, with one foot stretched out far away, and her whole body like a trembling, crooked "Y", and she finally stepped onto the next grid with great difficulty.

"Food in exchange for the right to stand," said another grid.

That’s nothing; there’s no shortage of food in the Golden Snow Pear bun, and it’s all delicious.

She stood in the position she had exchanged for beef sausages, rested for a while with trembling hands and feet, and when she looked up again, she was stunned.

In every box within sight, the same three words were densely written.

Copied Copied Copied Copied Copied Copied
...all punishment?
Being copied? What happens after stepping on it?

Jin Xueli shuddered. She slowly turned her head and saw a profile with plump cheeks over her shoulder.

I don't know when, but he followed me again quietly.

She was only about a hundred meters away from the traffic light, and the purple light was still flashing, as if it had no intention of leaving at all.

The road to the Museum of Modern Art had barely begun when it came to a standstill.

Kim Sulli thought of "Nest's Latest Hot Song No. 1".

It’s true, her mood at the moment can only be expressed and conveyed by that “song”; the words sung out are like long human howls.

　I've only been updating for six days and I've already revealed my true form. I couldn't keep up the pace and updated at 10:15 AM... Anyway, I posted it today! So what?
　　I finished typing with my head down, and now my neck hurts (when I'm at home, my computer sits on a stand, which is right at eye level, so my neck doesn't get strained).

　　I don’t have many necks to begin with, what will I do if I lose them after getting tired?

　　I feel a bit dizzy, let me go eat something first, then I'll sort out the list of all the grandmas...

　　(When will it be more appropriate to inform my mother that she has many more mothers?)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)