Chapter 390 - 340: Dual POV · Not a Clean Break, but a Split -

Chapter 390: Chapter 340: Dual POV · Not a Clean Break, but a Split Chapter

"The Nest is mine to use as I see fit."

The sentence was buried between lines of explanations and records. It wasn’t until Mai Mingle was in the car heading home that it surfaced from the roiling currents of her thoughts.

That was what An Lu had told Lan Jiesen the last time he appeared.

By that point, it had been several months since An Lu had won the Dominion Game.

Mai Mingle sat dazedly in the Mercedes, watching the highway outside stretch endlessly into the distance. Vaguely, she began to understand the source of Chaisi’s confidence.

The Illusions that Hunters risked their lives for again and again were, in fact, just a trivial part of the Nest.

The Nest also contained the power to create scripts, traps, and rules. It held creatures that defied classification as either residents or humans, and it possessed the means to alter reality, space, and even time...

When everything humans could imagine, and everything they couldn’t, was held in the grasp of one person, what was there to fear from a mutated mayor, a bizarre project, or a man who couldn’t eat?

"I’m not naive," Chaisi said, his expression consistently calm. "I know this process will most likely cause irreversible harm—the dead can’t be brought back to life, for instance. But if you’re too afraid to act for fear of collateral damage, you’ll gain nothing."

He was very frank with Mai Mingle—she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Think about it. If the Nest decided to make a move on the human world, what could we do?"

He spread his hands. In the library, as the daylight outside grew dim, his large hands were like two white birds unfurling their wings from the shadows.

"If we don’t cooperate, we don’t get the Illusion Report. Without the Illusion Report, no one can win the game. The Dominion Game will just continue, absorbing more contestants and causing even greater harm."

Chaisi sat up.

He rested his arms on his knees and leaned slowly toward Mai Mingle, like a massive predator silently slinking down a stone cliff.

"You want to protect the human world? Then help me."

Mai Mingle didn’t answer.

"The only way to minimize the Nest’s harm is to end the Dominion Game as quickly as possible. And you have no better candidate than me." Chaisi stared into her eyes without blinking and said, "Because my goal is to let the Kai Family—to let Uncle Kai—obtain the greatest power and wealth in the world. If this world falls into suffering, chaos, or even falls apart, then all that power and wealth becomes meaningless."

When he smiled, it didn’t look like a smile. It was like the prelude to a kill, just a baring of the jaws.

"Of all the contestants, I’m the only one who wants the human world to continue operating smoothly. I don’t even want to see war or the greenhouse effect in this world, because no matter how rich Uncle Kai and Aunt Hai are, there’s no guarantee they won’t be affected."

"I have strength, resources, and manpower. I’m one of the people with the most Illusions, and I’m holding the next Illusion Report. I know every contestant. I’ve allied with one, and I’ve killed another."

"I am the ideal candidate to win. You know this very well."

Mai Mingle truly couldn’t find any fault in his words. But—

"As long as you help me win the game, I’ll make it happen for you, even if you want eternal life."

Chaisi ended their conversation with that sentence, and Mai Mingle really couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The weather was bad today; it looked like another storm was about to hit. He ignored Mai Mingle’s protests and called a Kai Family driver to take her all the way back to Blackmoor City. Without the hassle of changing cars and finding rides, Mai Mingle had more time to think things over carefully.

She didn’t want eternal life. She just wanted to live again, to see the sights she never got to see in her last life.

Of course, she didn’t want to place the initiative in someone else’s hands, to rely on someone else to fulfill her wish.

But the other side of fulfilling her wish on her own was that by monopolizing the Time Illusion, she would prevent any other contestant from winning the Dominion Game, allowing the Nest to continue harming the human world step by step.

Everything Chaisi said actually made a lot of sense, and she also believed he was a man who would keep his promises.

But the current situation was tantamount to her and the other contestants being in a race against the Nest.

Could they outrun the Nest?

The Nest had already done so many things—

"Oh, right," Mai Mingle said, slapping her forehead, which made the driver in the front seat glance at her.

At the Kai Family’s estate, the explosive pieces of information had come one after another, and her brain had been too overwhelmed to process it all. She hadn’t even had a chance to tell Chaisi about Ivan.

It wasn’t too late to tell him now. She immediately gave Chaisi a call.

...It seemed the Kai Family people didn’t like answering their phones.

’Did he fall asleep again?’

Mai Mingle thought for a moment and decided to practice her newly learned typing skills by sending Chaisi a message. He would see it when he woke up.

Just pulling up the keyboard took her two minutes.

"Why is this keyboard so small..." Mai Mingle grumbled, holding the phone up to her face and tapping out the letters one by one with her index finger.

After she finally managed to spell out the first word, she and the phone screen stared blankly at each other for a moment, each waiting for the other to make the next move.

’What did Hai Luwei say again? What was I supposed to do? Oh, right, I have to tap to confirm, don’t I?’

’Where’s the confirmation button... I don’t see "confirm."’

’Huh? Why are there so many words automatically appearing after the one I typed? I didn’t type those.’

’Which one should I confirm?’

Mai Mingle fumbled and practiced, and after several accidents, she ended up sending Chaisi four or five messages. They read as follows:

I

I forgot

I forgot to tell you, Nescafe

Wrong word, sorr

I forgot to tell you, the Nest also had me saev a drowning person, he’s at my place, I suspect there’s something wrong with him

Mai Mingle had originally wanted to explain the whole incident in detail to see what Chaisi thought, but by the fifth message, she was utterly exhausted. Figuring she had explained enough, she simply put her phone away.

’...If he has any questions, he’ll call me, right?’

Riding in a private car was a completely different experience. It was so fast. It felt like she had only zoned out for a moment, but when she glanced out the window, she saw she was almost home.

The driver was very polite, taking her right to her door, opening it for her, and only driving away slowly after watching Mai Mingle enter the building.

But the truly dangerous thing, the thing she really didn’t want to face, was waiting inside her own home.

’No, maybe the young man is just like Jonah, his mind possessed by something from the Nest. I shouldn’t call him a "thing." If that’s the case, I have to figure out how to save him...’

Lost in thought, Mai Mingle gently turned the doorknob.

It was still deadbolted, just as she’d left it. It seemed Ivan hadn’t managed to magically open the lock again.

’Did I really forget to lock my bedroom door last night?’

Mai Mingle took out her key, unlocked the door, and went inside.

The lights were on in the apartment. The overhead light was weary, the table lamp warm and yellow.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen. Amid the clatter of pots and pans, she smelled the vibrant, invigorating aroma of onions hitting hot oil, which drifted thickly into the living room.

The television was on, a news anchor analyzing the aftermath of President Nixon’s resignation. The door to the baby’s room was ajar, and Mai Mingle could even hear the soft tinkling of a toy wind chime stirred by the gentle breeze outside.

"You’re back?"

Her husband’s face peeked out of the kitchen, and he flashed her a smile. His voice was clear and calm, his throat perfectly healthy. "I’m making dinner. We’re having beef and onion pasta tonight."

Mai Mingle stared blankly at him, at the apartment. In a daze, she placed the bag containing her gun on the small cabinet by the door.

****

After Mai Mingle left, the strength he had been maintaining finally gave out. Chaisi collapsed onto a small bed in the temporary rest area for the Kai Family Hunters. It was the first time he realized how much energy it took just to remain calm.

His body had completely disintegrated and then slowly reformed, like bones ground to dust and then solidified again. A single day of sleep was practically useless.

The moment he let his guard down, the fog returned to his mind.

’...Was what I said to Mai Mingle appropriate? It was persuasive, right?’

He had long harbored a faint suspicion about why the Nest had mutated the mayor, but he hadn’t actually thought about it as deeply as Mai Mingle had. The unexpected events and crises had come one after another, and later, when he was trapped in the Black Abyss Belt, he could barely maintain his sanity. Chaisi simply had no room to think.

But the moment Mai Mingle voiced her concerns, Chaisi, who had just woken up and was still groggy, immediately realized something.

He could use the human world as a bargaining chip to force Mai Mingle to his side.

He had to make her understand that the end point of the Dominion Game was indeed sovereignty over the Nest—a power that was practically omnipotent.

’If you want to protect the human world, let me win.’

’Who else is there besides me? Is she going to rely on herself, or go help Fu Tailan?’

’That guy, Fu Tailan... once he becomes the master of the Nest, he might be even more eager to change and distort the human world than the Nest itself...’

’I can’t... I can’t hold on anymore.’

’Everything can wait until I wake up. Even if I sleep for a long, long time, the human world and the Nest wouldn’t just disappear...’

’I think I left my phone in the other room... whatever, I can’t be bothered...’

Chaisi used his last bit of strength to kick off his pants; his shirt was a lost cause. He flopped onto the bed amidst the covers and pillows, his eyelids sinking heavily shut as he longed to fall back into the endless darkness.

He didn’t know how long he was out.

When he was repeatedly called awake, he was filled with confusion, bewilderment, annoyance, and even a hint of panic, as if his mind were being repeatedly struck. The only way to escape was to open his eyes.

Chaisi’s anger was half a step behind, but it still flared up the moment he opened his eyes.

’Who keeps calling me? What damn important thing could it be? Didn’t I tell them—’

"Chaisi," a familiar male voice called softly from the doorway, completely oblivious to his irritation. "Chaisi, are you in there? Chaisi? Chaisi?"

’So annoying.’

’Is it someone from the Family Faction?’

Chaisi’s body seemed to resist waking up. Moving his limbs felt as heavy as dragging stones.

"...Who is it?" he asked hoarsely.

The room was pitch-black. Outside, the night was starless and moonless. The residence was silent; he had specifically told the Kai Family Hunters they could go home for the night.

"It’s me, Chaisi," the person outside the door said. "It’s me, Dr. Nate."