Chapter 389 - 339: Mai Mingle: The Vanished Ruler and the Future Ruler

Chapter 389: Chapter 339: Mai Mingle: The Vanished Ruler and the Future Ruler

In most TV shows or novels, when the protagonist discovers a major clue in a dusty pile of old papers, they can usually follow the trail, tracking down leads and unearthing truths buried in history one by one.

But in real life, there is no guiding hand laying out the truth for you on the path ahead.

When Mai Mingle waited with anticipation for Chaisi to hand her the next box of books, the next record, she found him simply sitting as he was, hands folded, giving her a slight shrug.

"What next book? There isn’t one," he said. "Didn’t you just read to the end?"

Yes, but—

Mai Mingle opened her mouth, not even knowing where to begin with her questions.

She met Chaisi’s gaze for a few seconds and, seeing his utterly oblivious expression, she turned back to read the final notes one more time.

「...I was incredibly lucky to be alive. The only reason I survived such grievous injuries was entirely because of my Path. I knew from the start that this trip could be the end of my life, so I made sure that my encounter and battle with him were always confined to the area near the 13th telephone pole.

In the last moment before I lost consciousness, I finally managed to struggle and touch my forehead to the 13th telephone pole... In a near-death state, I fell unconscious back into Blackmoor City, where someone called an ambulance for me. I had a narrow escape from death, crawling back from the Ghost Gate.

I was once An Lu’s strongest opponent, and the only one to survive after a crushing defeat.」

Needless to say, he was hospitalized for several months; after that, Lan Jiesen never dared to enter the Nest again.

「The two target Illusions I had were snatched away... An Lu collected all six and won the Dominion Game.」

When Mai Mingle first read this, she assumed it was just Lan Jiesen’s speculation—perhaps this "An Lu" person had some accident later on and ultimately failed to rule the Nest.

Otherwise—otherwise—

’Could it be that the Nest they venture into time and again, the Nest from which they bring back Illusions, actually has an owner?’

That couldn’t be possible. The Nest Lan Jiesen described was stylistically quite similar to the Nest of today.

The residents were different, the scripts were different, but the Nest was still the Nest.

Anyone who ruled the Nest wouldn’t just leave it be, wouldn’t just leave the human world be—if so, what was the point of struggling to compete in the first place?

「While I was in the hospital, I kept a close eye on the news, but I never saw An Lu’s name appear anywhere. What did he plan to do after winning the Dominion Game?

Did he want to become a star? A magnate? A president? The master of the whole world?

But the human world I saw was no different than before.」

Filled with all sorts of doubts, Lan Jiesen was finally discharged from the hospital, leaning on a cane.

He hadn’t been home in months. His apartment mailbox was stuffed with letters, which spilled all over the floor the moment he opened the door. A months-long pile of newspapers was stacked by the entrance, so thick and messy that he couldn’t even get inside without moving them into the apartment first.

Cane in one hand, a clumsy armful of newspapers and letters in the other, he was flustered and awkward as he finally managed to get through his front door.

And so, for the first minute or two, Lan Jiesen didn’t notice the person sitting on his sofa.

"Need a hand?"

An Lu’s arms were spread comfortably across the back of the sofa. He looked back over his shoulder and asked, "It seems you were badly hurt."

Lan Jiesen stared at him blankly, then slowly set his things down on the floor.

An Lu shouldn’t have known his address; Lan Jiesen had never listed his name or phone number in any public directory and had always kept a low profile.

"You won, didn’t you?" he asked, his voice hoarse. "What are you doing here?"

"Yes, I won."

An Lu turned his head back around, leaving Lan Jiesen with a view of the back of his head. On the small television screen opposite him, the faint reflection of his crossed legs was visible. "Relax, I’m not here to kill you."

Lan Jiesen waited for a few seconds.

"I’m glad that at least one of my opponents survived. Victory needs an audience, doesn’t it? You’re the only person in the world who knows I won the Dominion Game, that I can use the Nest however I please... You’re not just a knowing spectator, but also a defeated contestant. Only in your presence does my victory become doubly sweet."

"So you came to show off," Lan Jiesen said with a hint of bitterness. "Can you really rule the Nest? What are you going to do next?"

"Don’t worry about it," An Lu said, finally standing up. He walked around the sofa and came to Lan Jiesen’s side.

According to Lan Jiesen’s description, he looked exactly the same as before, yet Lan Jiesen couldn’t shake a strange feeling—that An Lu had many, many more "layers," like a long line of dominoes standing in time and space, yet to fall.

What he was seeing was merely the surface layer.

"...What I’m going to do is none of your business."

That was the last thing An Lu said to him. After that, Lan Jiesen never saw or heard from him again.

「After the Dominion Game, I stopped being a Hunter. At first, it was because I didn’t know what the Nest would become and was afraid to go in. Later, around ’63 or ’64, by a stroke of luck, I ran into a Hunter I’d seen once before in the Nest.

She told me her Path had been closed for two or three years. No matter how she tried, she just couldn’t get into the Nest. She’d never heard of a Path just disappearing on its own, so she was very frustrated. The week after hearing her story, I worked up the courage to try, and I found that I couldn’t get in either.」

The next sentence was also the last sentence of Lan Jiesen’s notes.

「I did not tell her the truth; I believe it was not her Path that was closed at the time.」

Mai Mingle crossed her arms, staring intently at the notes before finally looking up.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Chaisi still wore an expression that suggested none of this had much to do with him; for some reason, just looking at him was exasperating.

"Could the dominion have a time limit?" Mai Mingle poured out her questions all at once. "This An Lu, I’ve never heard of him at all, and he left no mark on history, so clearly his goal wasn’t power or wealth in the human world. Did he close the Nest for the safety of our world?"

Chaisi glanced at her.

"Do you really believe people like that exist in this world?" he finally spoke, his words slow and measured. "It seems your past life was a very peaceful one."

’Utterly silent, slowly turning numb, drifting further and further from the world of the living... that was a kind of peace, I suppose.’

"I don’t believe there are such selfless people in the world, and neither are you, right?"

Chaisi lowered his eyelids, a mocking smile cracking the corner of his lips. "I don’t trust anyone with grand, noble goals. In the name of nobility, they often feel justified in using any means necessary during the process. And once they have power, they always discover they have this or that desire they can satisfy along the way. Since they’ve already achieved such a great deed, why shouldn’t they have a little reward for their nobility?"

He stretched out his long legs, settling comfortably. "People like that are even worse than scoundrels like me who live on a knife’s edge, driven only by profit."

An Lu’s actions certainly didn’t seem to reflect any great love for humanity.

"You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that. We can work on the bad parts," Mai Mingle said, giving him a piece of advice she knew was unnecessary before continuing, "So what do you think happened? If he successfully took control of the Nest, how could there be no trace of him at all?"

"I don’t know." Chaisi’s eyes remained downcast. "Something that happened sixty years ago is just too far back. Even the most long-standing Hunter Family Factions only have scattered records from that era. Considering that Family Factions generally only collect books and records with practical value, the odds of an incident like ’being unable to enter the Nest for a few years’ showing up in their collections are very slim."

What was certain, however, was that by the late 1960s, there were records of Hunters entering and exiting the Nest again.

"If I had to guess..." Chaisi tilted his head, thinking. "There are two points. They might be clues, or they might not be."

One: the Dominion Game started in November 1960 and ended in March 1961, lasting five months. But Lan Jiesen chose to write his notes in 1966.

Why?

What was the reason for waiting six years to put pen to paper?

Something must have happened that made him think of the Dominion Game, something that made him feel it had to be recorded.

"But Lan Jiesen didn’t write down all his thoughts," Mai Mingle said. "He was holding back when he wrote. He only recorded what actually happened but wrote almost none of his own opinions or speculations... Thinking about it, to do that in a memoir-like journal is clearly a deliberate choice."

One motive drove Lan Jiesen to write the notes, but at the same time, another reason made him hesitate, afraid to tell the whole story.

What those two things were, however, couldn’t be explained by two thin notebooks.

Chaisi nodded. "The second point is that at the end of his notes, Lan Jiesen says, ’it was not her Path that was closed at the time.’ The entire account is written in the past tense, yet he still made a point of using the phrase ’at the time’."

Mai Mingle understood immediately.

"By the time Lan Jiesen was writing the notes, he already knew he could re-enter the Nest?"

"I can’t think of any other explanation."

Mai Mingle fell silent, thinking carefully for a moment.

"Why did you show me Lan Jiesen’s notes?" She threw her hands up. "This piece of history is certainly strange, but we’re lacking information. We can’t figure out what happened just by sitting here and thinking about it, and I don’t see how it relates to this Dominion Game. Even if the Nest didn’t make a move on the human world through the game last time, that doesn’t mean it won’t this time."

"I believe that for the Nest, the Dominion Game is an unavoidable catastrophe," Chaisi said flatly. "The Nest loathes and despises humanity. It would never voluntarily give humans a chance to rule it..."

That was right. The host who had saved her life in the Nest had said something similar that night—

Mai Mingle couldn’t help but blurt out, "The Dominion Game is like a hurricane making landfall in Florida. It’s a natural disaster unique to the Nest."

Chaisi snapped his fingers.

"Exactly. That’s what I mean."

He seemed very pleased with Mai Mingle’s analogy, thinking she caught on fast. Before she could explain where the analogy came from, he continued, "Since the Nest can’t resist it, and historical records have already proven that the Dominion Game can indeed grant the winner control over the Nest, then does it really matter what moves the Nest wants to make against the human world?"

Mai Mingle was stunned.

Chaisi lifted his gaze. Behind the messy fringe of his hair, his eyes looked as if they were submerged at the bottom of a deep, dark Black Abyss.

"...As long as the person who ultimately wins the game can reverse the damage and stabilize the human world, isn’t that enough?"