Chapter 395 - 344: Mai Mingle: Action Straight to the Core

Chapter 395: Chapter 344: Mai Mingle: Action Straight to the Core

When Mai Mingle finished her story, the two kids could only stare, their mouths half-open and their faces pale, unsure of what to say.

"You don’t have to console me," she said, breaking the brief silence. "I’m fine."

"Fine?" Emily murmured. "But you only have..."

She didn’t finish her sentence.

After becoming entangled with the "Extracellular Telomeres," having it removed just twice had made one fact clear to Mai Mingle: the next time the "Extracellular Telomeres" left her, it would likely be her last day.

Having lived in a young body for so long, she sometimes almost forgot that her time was borrowed. Death had always been waiting patiently for her, no matter how far she managed to push it away.

Mai Mingle was an ordinary person. She didn’t want to die; she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this world. But—

"I don’t regret it," she whispered.

Even knowing everything, if she could do it all over again, she would still sit down beside Lan Zhui, chat with him about the movie he saw over the weekend, watch him worry about how to file his taxes, and listen to him describe his colleague’s child’s wedding.

Even if that wasn’t the real Lan Zhui.

The real Lan Zhui had fallen silent long before his death. In all that long time, he had barely been able to say a single word to her.

That was why she needed to hear him talk, to know if he was doing well.

"...I know how stupid this sounds."

Mai Mingle kept her head down, speaking in fits and starts. "I know... I know the Nest meant me harm. I get all that. But... I can’t help but feel like the Nest was comforting me, as if it was telling me that it’s okay, that in another timeline, he’s living a good life. I don’t need to feel guilty or have any regrets. I just need to pay a small price at the end of my life."

"No, that’s not happening," Hai Luwei said abruptly. "We’re not paying that price. Are we going to let the Nest strong-arm us into a deal? There’s still time, isn’t there? We’ll all help you find another Illusion with a similar function, right, Emily?"

Emily sized him up, seeming to see him in a new light for a rare moment, then turned to Mai Mingle and said, "Of course."

Mai Mingle shook her head.

’She was grateful for the two kids’ good intentions, but if there was another Illusion in the Nest that could restore youth and could be easily found by a Hunter, wouldn’t the Nest’s entire scheme today have been a waste of effort?’

’No matter how she thought about it, this was a trap set for her by the Nest Dominance Game...’

’It’s probably impossible to find a "second Snake Belt" now. There’s no need to let the two kids risk their lives for me for nothing.’

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Emily grew agitated at her refusal. "You saved my life. You absolutely cannot die before I do."

"What kind of logic is that?" Mai Mingle couldn’t help but laugh. "How old are you? If I have to wait for you to go first, how many years would that take?"

Emily’s face fell, and she didn’t find the comment funny at all.

"Ivan said I discovered it a step too soon. If I hadn’t noticed, he was planning to stop in a few minutes anyway... This means his goal wasn’t to kill me, but to shorten the Snake Belt’s countdown to a specific day."

Mai Mingle thought for a moment and said, "He and the Nest probably want to force me to do something."

She glanced at her phone. She was gradually getting used to checking the time on it now. A single tap was so much more convenient than flipping through a calendar.

After coming home, she’d encountered the illusion concocted by Ivan, then called the two kids over for a long talk. Only now did Mai Mingle realize how late it had gotten. The date had just rolled over. It was now December 4th, 1:13 AM.

"Counting from December 4th, that’s 26 days left... Because of my interference, the Snake Belt’s countdown now ends on December 30th." Mai Mingle gathered her thoughts and said, "In other words, the Nest originally wanted to force me to do something, or take some kind of action, before December 30th."

"What do you think it could be?" Hai Luwei asked, taking the opportunity to steer the conversation.

"That, I don’t know," Mai Mingle sighed.

’In any case, it must be related to the "Nest Dominance Game." Who knows what evil the Nest is plotting for the human world this time.’

’Twenty-six days left... Right up until the last day of 2026, she would still have control over her body and time.’

’As long as it’s not the absolute end, there’s hope.’

Mai Mingle had to constantly remind herself that there was still hope.

’Even if it really is death, a sudden death is better than languishing in a sickbed, wasting away day by day, right?’

She had to find some way to comfort herself. Otherwise, the fear of that vast, silent, pitch-black nothingness crushing down on her, day by day, was almost unbearable.

"Luckily, I discovered it a step ahead. That should have bought me a few more days to react."

She tried to lighten the mood, remarking, "It’s strange, though. I only participated in an illusion, but it shortened the Snake Belt’s countdown... How did that happen?"

"I have a theory about that." Hai Luwei crossed his arms and thought for a moment before saying, "Have you guys ever heard of the theory that ’time doesn’t exist’?"

Emily asked, "Are you talking about that quote from Einstein? I think he said something like, ’The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,’ right?"

Hai Luwei glanced at her, also looking somewhat impressed. "You read books in your spare time?"

Mai Mingle had to cough loudly several times before the two stopped the jabs they were about to launch at each other and returned to the topic at hand.

"Einstein said that time is different for different observers. I don’t get the really deep stuff, but to put it simply, time doesn’t have a... uh, it doesn’t have a component, or an equivalent substance."

"A lot of people believe that time is just a concept we invented. When we see flowers bloom and wither, cars move, children grow up, and adults grow old... it’s all really just the expression of physical laws, like the movement of matter and energy decay."

Mai Mingle understood. "Come to think of it, when the Snake Belt restored my youth, it didn’t turn back the clock on my body. It just restored my physical functions."

"Exactly, you catch on quick."

Hai Luwei even clapped for her a couple of times. It was unnecessary, but Mai Mingle could feel his desire to cheer her up.

"If time is just a concept invented in our minds, one that’s so deeply ingrained we can’t think about things without it... then the standard for measuring an ’Illusion’s usage period’ must also be a product of the human mind."

Hai Luwei was getting animated as he spoke.

"My guess is, the Nest can’t directly alter your concept of time, nor can it just shorten the Snake Belt’s duration. So it settled for the next best thing: it compressed thirty years into thirty minutes and submerged you in it."

"And you weren’t just an observer; you spent those ’thirty years’ with a loved one. You were immersed in it, so your concept of time must have gotten scrambled, which in turn sped up the Snake Belt’s countdown. Man, it’s a good thing the ratio wasn’t one-to-one."

Mai Mingle recalled that at the time, it really had felt like she’d lived half a lifetime with Lan Zhui.

’And the effect of that delusion was transmitted to the "Snake Belt," making it burn through more than eight months of its duration?’

"So that’s the simple conclusion," Emily said. "You started off with Einstein. I thought it was going to be something profound."

"You were the one who brought up Einstein first," Hai Luwei mumbled, looking down.

"That’s a very interesting theory," Mai Mingle quickly interjected, drawing their attention back to her. "But if time doesn’t exist, what kind of thing would a ’Time’ Illusion be?"

Though she didn’t regret the thirty minutes spent with Lan Zhui, Mai Mingle still had to save herself now.

The closest thing to a solution right now was the target Illusion, "Time," that the *Illusion Report* would grant her after she completed her action point.

"I can’t imagine. But I don’t think any theories or guesses are meaningful," Emily said, glancing at Hai Luwei. "What’s most important is action. Once we get the next Illusion Report and get the Time Illusion—won’t everything become clear?"

The girl was good at cutting through the noise and getting straight to the heart of the problem.

She was right. But the problem was, Ivan was now gone, and Mai Mingle hadn’t received a notification for her next action point. Heaven knew if she had even completed the second action point or not.

The second action point required her to save Ivan and help him "get back on track." She had saved him, but from the looks of it, Ivan hadn’t been on any "track" for a long time. What was there to get back to?

She didn’t even know what kind of being Ivan was.

He said he wasn’t a resident, so what was he? He was far too different from a human.

"Where did Ivan run off to? He’s neither human nor ghost. What kind of impact will he have, running around out there like that?" The thought weighed heavily on Mai Mingle. ’He probably wouldn’t attack ordinary people, would he? There’s no benefit to it.’

Thinking deeper, Ivan had the entire night before to create the illusion and shorten the Snake Belt’s countdown. Mai Mingle was asleep then. He could have shortened it by as much as he wanted without any fear of her discovering it early.

But he had specifically waited until Mai Mingle got home today to make his move. What was the reason for that?

The more they thought, the more questions they had, but the three of them couldn’t come up with many answers.

After discussing it for a while, it was Mai Mingle who finally made a decision.

"Whether it’s to get the prompt for the third action point, or to get Ivan under control and stop him from causing trouble, my first step should be to capture him. By then, many of these questions might answer themselves."

As she spoke, she couldn’t help but glance at the storage room. "Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of him. I can only rely on my own two eyes, which will make him hard to find..."

"That’s no problem. I can just use an AI to generate a photo," Hai Luwei said. "I’ve seen him. I can get it at least seventy or eighty percent accurate."

"AI? What’s that?"

The two kids exchanged a look, both of their faces showing an expression that said ’this is too hard to explain’.

"There’s no way to explain that right now," Hai Luwei said with a wave of his hand. "By the time I finished explaining it to you, the sun would be up."

’...Back in the seventies, an ordinary person’s life didn’t have so many things that took all night to explain. Things were simple. Wasn’t that nice?’

After a moment of nostalgia, Mai Mingle turned her gaze back to the future.

"Then it’s settled," she said with a nod. "You go work on that... AI thing. Once I have the photo, I’ll use it to look for him. Oh, and I can also file a police report. They’re more professional than I am and have more manpower."

Mai Mingle thought for a moment.

"The Blackmoor City Central Police Station isn’t far from here. I’ll go there tomorrow and file a report directly."