Chapter 467 - 409: Mai Mingle: The Meeting

"...After we were pulled into the Nest Dominance Game, every single Illusion Report we received concealed one of the mastermind's objectives. Someone is treating us like puppets on a string, making us carry out his will step by step."

It was the same sentence, the same sentiment, and Mai Mingle could say it a thousand times—as long as it would make the other contestants understand the truth, let go of their own obsessions, and stand by her side.

She had said it twice tonight, and she knew this was only the beginning.

The first time, it was in the quiet of the car, finally sheltered from the battering wind and rain. Only the soft patter of rain outside and Mercury's heavy, pained breathing accompanied Mai Mingle's words.

"...You, me, Chaisi, Brianna, Fu Tailan—every single contestant has had their desires exploited, turning us into his pawns. Blackmoor City has suffered a great disaster tonight, and every single one of us is to blame."

Because they had a choice.

When the Illusion Report arrived, Mai Mingle could have chosen not to follow its instructions. She could have not sold the lipstick to the mayor, not pulled Ivan from the sea... As she completed the Illusion Report's demands one by one, could she honestly say she never had a single doubt?

Of course she had. And she had continued anyway.

Chaisi had too. And Chaisi had continued too. The other contestants were likely all the same—willingly blind, their eyes covered by their own desires.

A few seconds after she finished speaking, Mai Mingle almost thought Jin Xueli didn't believe her—because Jin Xueli remained silent.

She waited a moment, then couldn't help but say, "Xueli—"

"How did he choose?"

Just as Mai Mingle started to speak her name, Jin Xueli spoke at the same time. She lifted her eyes, meeting Mai Mingle's gaze in the rearview mirror, and asked, "Why did the mastermind choose me?"

Jin Xueli didn't seem to expect an answer from Mai Mingle. Her voice rose. "I don't have the backing of a Family Faction, and I'm no Genius Hunter. I just wanted to make money and live a good life—oh, is it because of money? Is it because he knew I didn't have any?"

Her voice began to tremble faintly. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Because I have no money, and no good way to make any. Even my aptitude for the Path is terrible. Something others can get with ease could cost me my life. So all he had to do was give me a little hope, a little promise, and I'd be the most useful tool, wouldn't I? For that bit of money, I'd do anything—"

Jin Xueli suddenly let out a self-deprecating laugh.

"No, that's not right. It wasn't 'a bit of money.' It was a lot. Even if I could do it all over again, I'd still be led by the nose, walking this path step by step, right up until tonight—"

She stopped abruptly, and silence returned to the car.

"What happened tonight?" Mai Mingle asked.

Jin Xueli said nothing. After a few seconds, she flipped on the turn signal and turned onto another street.

"...Just a little further ahead is Kaine Street," she said, her voice slightly hoarse.

Mai Mingle didn't want to pry, to see if she was crying. Mercury stared motionless at the road ahead. For a moment, no one in the car spoke.

"How are we going to find Brianna?" Jin Xueli asked after a while, her voice thick with emotion. "With this much rain, she can't possibly be standing motionless by the construction site all this time, can she?"

This was a problem that troubled Mai Mingle as well—she had never even met Brianna. Other than shouting her name in the street, she couldn't think of any other way to find her.

"Wait,"

Just as the car was about to turn the next corner, Mercury suddenly spoke up. She knocked on the rain-streaked window with her knuckles, tapping in the direction of another car with its hazard lights flashing not far away. "Those are my people, here to pick me up. Let me out."

Jin Xueli slowed the car as requested. Mai Mingle, worried, asked again, "Are you sure you don't want to go straight to the hospital?"

"No need," Mercury said, already pushing the door open. "It's a gunshot wound. It has to be treated privately."

She paused, then suddenly chuckled. "Then again, from the looks of it... it seems like when the sun rises tomorrow, there won't be any laws or police left, will there? From that perspective, the glass isn't half-empty, it's half-full, right?"

The two women in the car didn't know what to say.

"Oh, right. Your phone." Standing outside, Mercury pulled the phone from her pocket, bent down, and tossed it to Mai Mingle.

She gave Mai Mingle a long look, as if wanting to say something more, but in the end, she just smiled. "Thanks."

After the door was slammed shut, Mai Mingle leaned toward the window and watched Mercury get into the other car before letting out a silent sigh.

She looked down at her drenched phone. 'Such a precision instrument, and it's actually waterproof. Such a precision instrument, and it can also be tracked.'

Mai Mingle remembered Hai Luwei's warning. Although she didn't know why the police would be tracking and trying to intercept her, she turned it off again. 'It was only on for a little while. That should be fine, right?'

When they drove away, Mercury's car was still parked in the same spot.

"Down this intersection," Jin Xueli said as she drove, "the street crossing in front of us is Kaine Street. The construction site should be on the right—huh?"

Mai Mingle immediately leaned forward, growing tense. "What is it?"

"What is that?" Jin Xueli slammed on the brakes, pointing ahead. "Do you see that?"

Mai Mingle saw it.

She didn't know what she was seeing.

The streetlights on Kaine Street were still on, casting hazy, dim yellow orbs in the rainy night. It was as if the downpour was beating down on the lights so hard they could barely keep their eyes open. Their glow was faint, looking like it could be washed away at any moment, completely diluted into the pitch-black, empty street.

Lying on the road was a long, pale, rubbery-looking thing. One moment it was dimly lit by a streetlight, the next it sank back into a dark pool of water.

Flickering in and out of view, it snaked onward, long and winding, like a giant serpent crawling toward an abyss that would swallow even one's gaze.

When the car was only a few meters away from the long, pale thing, Jin Xueli stopped. The two of them leaned out, squinting to examine it in the beam of the headlights—until Jin Xueli suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.

"That indentation—" she cried in a low voice, "is that a... a spine?"

She didn't need to elaborate. Mai Mingle could see it too.

The slight depression formed by the spine, the dorsal muscles on either side, and the shape of the ribs beneath... the form was clear and unmistakable.

It was a section of a human torso.

But how could a human have such a long back? Looking forward, there was no chest or head. Looking back, there were no legs. As far as the eye could see, there was only a long, unending back, stretching infinitely into the rainy night, leading to who knows where.

"I... I think I've seen it before..."

Jin Xueli stammered, "When I was in the Nest, a woman with a long body saved me once... I asked for her name, but she wouldn't tell me."

She stared blankly for a few seconds, then said in a low voice, "Could that be Brianna? She... she's also a Nest Dominance Game contestant, but she saved me?"

'How is that possible? That was clearly just a resident.'

Mai Mingle opened her mouth, about to say, 'That can't be human,' but she suddenly remembered that during her own first conscription, she wasn't exactly human either. 'Does that mean that as long as certain conditions are met, residents can be conscripted too?'

If she had saved Jin Xueli, then perhaps Brianna wasn't a complete resident after all. As long as she still held some goodwill toward people, there might still be room to reason with her.

Jin Xueli subconsciously opened the car door, as if wanting to get a closer look.

"Wait," Mai Mingle said, grabbing her shoulder. "Don't get out."

"Why not?"

"It's too long. How do you know how long it would take to walk to the end?"

Mai Mingle glanced left and right. "You just said the construction site is on the right, correct? If this back is Brianna, then she came from the right. If you drive to the left, following the back, wouldn't that be faster than walking?"

The realization dawned on Jin Xueli. She grunted in agreement, closed the car door, and started the engine.

She had been dazed and lost all night, as if her soul had left her body. But now, upon seeing this long back, her spirits visibly lifted—as if she had finally found a piece of her familiar past in this strange, bewildering world.

Jin Xueli seemed to trust this resident... 'That's a good sign, right?'

Mai Mingle climbed into the passenger seat, opened the window, and squinted at the white back that remained parallel to them in the distance.

'...Is this really Brianna?'

'If it is, what kind of state of existence is she trapped in?'

'Is she doing this willingly?'

'Are her wishes and desires... related to this?'

As she watched, Mai Mingle unbuckled her seatbelt and suddenly leaned out of the window.

"Brianna!"

The strong wind carried rain that felt like needles of ice, striking her face and body so hard she could barely open her eyes—but ahead, she hadn't been mistaken. There was a person lying prone on the ground, dragging a long, long, long back behind them.

Brianna had her face buried in her arms, completely still.

If it weren't for the road beneath her, the storm raging above her, and the endless body stretching out behind her, she would have looked just like a student napping at their desk at school.

It was as if she'd be content just to lie here for a while, to sleep for a bit, because the world wouldn't give her anything more.

When the car slowed down beside her, she still didn't react.

"Brianna!" Mai Mingle called out. "Is that you, Brianna?"

The person with their head buried deep in their arms seemed to tremble slightly, but never lifted their face.

"You don't know me. My name is Mai Mingle. I'm a contestant in the Nest Dominance Game."

This was the second time tonight that Mai Mingle had explained the truth of the Nest Dominance Game.

She didn't know how much of the person on the ground was still human, nor did she know what effect, if any, her words would have.

"I mean you no harm. But there's a host in the Nest, and I suspect he's been manipulating the game and the Illusion Reports, using our wishes to bring the Nest into the human world step by step... Do you know what happened tonight?"

Brianna kept her face buried in her arms, not even lifting her head.

Mai Mingle, of course, wasn't about to give up. She used herself as an example and explained for a while longer, but still received no response.

"Brianna? You are Brianna, right? Did you hear me?"

Her voice was muffled. If Mai Mingle hadn't paused at just the right moment, she almost would have missed the single word: "Leave."

"Since we're the ones who brought the Nest here, we have a responsibility to drive it back out." Mai Mingle stood in the rain, not daring to get too close to Brianna. "Listen to me, no matter what's happened, you—"

"I told you to leave!"

Brianna suddenly snapped her head up. From her wide, black-hole-like mouth, a dizzying sonic wave exploded outward.

"I told you to leave, don't you understand I'll kill you kill kill kill you you saw me so just die I'll kill you rip out those eyes that saw my face and crush them kill me kill me yes it was me I brought the Nest kill here that's right the host kill used me up and then went to kill Chaisi and Monroe the more you struggle the deeper you sink you think you can fight it kill—"

Her voice stopped dead.

Facing the resident's fury head-on, Mai Mingle's heart was still pounding in her ears.

Still shaken, her muscles tensed, she waited a few seconds before slowly turning to follow Brianna's gaze.

At some point, Jin Xueli had also gotten out of the car. She was standing in the beam of the headlights, meeting Brianna's eyes.