Chapter 541 - 482: Mai Mingle: Blood-Colored Hillock

Chapter 541: Chapter 482: Mai Mingle: Blood-Colored Hillock

Just as Jin Xueli slammed on the brakes, Mai Mingle was in the middle of discussing their available weapons with Chaisi. The car plunged from sixty miles per hour to zero, flinging the two injured passengers in the back seat straight into the seatbacks. The impact sent Mai Mingle’s world spinning, her vision exploding with fireworks.

"...Are you a Resident sent here on a mission?"

Chaisi pushed himself up using the seatback and hauled Mai Mingle, who was wedged between the seats, back to her feet. He was already in a foul mood, and when spoken in that raw, hoarse voice of his, his words sounded almost unbearably vicious.

The chemistry between people was a strange thing. This kid, Jin Xueli, didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all.

"Why weren’t you wearing your seatbelt?" she retorted.

Hearing Mai Mingle gasp in pain, Jin Xueli quickly added, "And why didn’t you remind Grandma to wear her seatbelt?"

The words ’Don’t call me Grandma’ were on the tip of Mai Mingle’s tongue, but before she could say them, Jin Xueli was already pointing at the road ahead. "We’re here. But look, there’s already a car... What’s going on?"

Chaisi looked up and glanced over.

He said nothing, simply drawing a gun from his waistband with a smooth motion and holding it ready.

When all those Jin Xuelis had vanished at once, all of their weapons had dropped to the ground. Despite their limited mobility, Mai Mingle and Chaisi had collected them all, hissing in pain the entire time.

"Is that Kai Luo—"

Mai Mingle didn’t finish her sentence. Her gaze fell on the car ahead, and the rest of her words turned into a low gasp. "It’s that taxi!"

The other two turned to look at her. "You know it?"

"Yes, that’s the taxi from the Nest."

The memory of being trapped in that taxi, her mind helplessly bashing against the high walls formed by just four thoughts, unable to even muster a single action, felt like being steeped in a nightmare.

She quickly explained the gist of it. "...Don’t be fooled because it looks like a taxi. The entire car, including the driver, makes up a single, complete Resident. It’s one of the Residents from the faction that wants to kill me. Why is it here?"

Jin Xueli said, "Oh."

"Well," she said hesitantly, "if it reversed and ran us over now, it could wipe out all three contestants in one go. That’d be convenient."

"Are you trying to be their strategist?" Chaisi couldn’t take it anymore. "Unlock the doors. I’m getting out. You two go hide somewhere."

"That’s a Resident, and one with the shell of a car," Mai Mingle said, grabbing his arm to stop him. "It’s not afraid of bullets. Are you not afraid of being hit by a car?"

"No, wait," Jin Xueli said, leaning over the steering wheel and squinting for a moment. "There’s no one in the car. The driver’s seat is empty."

’...Could it be there’s more than one taxi in the Nest?’

’Or after the human world and the Nest merged, did a taxi from Blackmoor City accidentally drive in?’

’If the driver is a normal person who got out to check their surroundings after sensing something was wrong, we’re in trouble...’

Although the yellow taxi seemed vaguely misshapen somehow—when you stared at it, it was just a perfectly ordinary, commonplace taxi. But you couldn’t look away. The moment you did, the car in your peripheral vision seemed about to crawl right out of the very concept of "automobile."

Sitting in the car wasn’t a solution. The Museum of Modern Art was right in front of them, and they had to get that radio.

After a brief discussion, they decided to head into the museum first and scope things out. As the three of them, armed and ready, got out of the car, Mai Mingle suddenly realized that the person with the most physical strength and combat prowess among them was, unbelievably, Jin Xueli.

’That was not a very comforting thought.’

As they walked past the taxi, they saw that it was indeed empty.

It wasn’t just that the driver was missing—the driver’s seat and the floor beneath it were gone too, leaving only a large, irregular hole that looked as if it had been torn open.

"Don’t tell me a Resident popped out from underground, did it? And the driver pulled over at the worst possible time?" Jin Xueli asked, not without worry. "Grandma, are you going to be okay? Maybe you should rest in the car?"

"You don’t have to call me Grandma," Mai Mingle said quietly. "We’ve actually met before..."

At the same time, Chaisi took it upon himself to declare on Mai Mingle’s behalf, "She’s fine. She gets into just as much trouble as you do."

’This guy has probably never had to worry about how to say things nicely, has he?’

"Offending two people with one sentence," Jin Xueli muttered as she pushed open the main doors of the Museum of Modern Art. "Truly a master of words..."

In the lobby, two Residents turned their heads in unison toward the three human contestants.

Time froze for a few seconds.

In the long, blank, and even somewhat awkward silence, four faces and one bun-adorned back-of-a-head stared at one another in dismay.

No one could mistake them for anything other than Residents—the one in the Ballet outfit didn’t even have a face. Its head was composed entirely of two backs-of-heads fused together, with a bun tied on both the front and the back.

The other Resident, despite its wooden, dazed expression, had the head, face, and torso of a normal man, but its lower body was a car seat.

"The driver is a Resident!"

Jin Xueli was the first to shout, though everyone had already guessed.

She swung her arm, sending the strange-looking hammer in her hand flying through the air. The hammer traced blurry afterimages as it hurtled toward the Ballet Resident with a fierce whistle.

’Our top fighter is pretty capable after all,’ Mai Mingle mused, drawing her pistol.

The Ballet Resident went up on its toes, arms outstretched. Its slender waist—you had to give it that, it was indeed a slender waist—bent ninety degrees to the side. The hammer scraped past, parting the air with a gust that made its tutu sway.

As the hammer hit the floor with a CLANG, Chaisi suddenly put a hand on Mai Mingle’s shoulder.

"Wait," he said in a low voice, stopping her from firing. "Look."

A moment ago, the two Residents had been huddled together, looking at something on the floor. The Ballet Resident’s dodge had just revealed what was on the ground behind it.

It was a small television—no, that wasn’t right.

’...Is that a surveillance monitor?’

The image quality was poor, and the colors seemed to be hanging on by a thread, as if one touch would make them crumble into black and white.

On the screen was a spacious hall, with the faint flicker of fire visible in the distance.

A thin, frail figure was sitting on the floor, back hunched, seemingly gasping for breath.

’...Fu Tailan.’

The person he was looking at was just a back shown on the screen.

Mai Mingle didn’t recognize the person’s back, but one glance at Chaisi’s expression told her exactly who it was.

"You guys..." Jin Xueli seemed to be struggling to process the scene before her. "What are you doing? What is going on?"

All this time had passed, and yet, surprisingly, the two Residents hadn’t lunged to attack.

They stood on either side of the monitor, guarding it. Incredibly, Mai Mingle felt like she could almost read a sense of desolate anxiety on the back of the Ballet Resident’s head.

"If you have business, state it, if not, get lost, can’t you see we’re busy?! Oh no, what do we do, what do we do, I told you he couldn’t handle it, now it’s hopeless, what are we going to do, what good is a kid, it’s over, it’s all over—huh?"

The Ballet Resident whipped its head toward them—not that it made much of a difference.

"You... You’re Jin Xueli?"

It raised a hand toward Jin Xueli, its long arm elegantly pointing at her nose, then moving on. "You’re Chaisi Monroe? Then you must be..."

Mai Mingle glanced at the screen and said, "Mai Mingle."

The next second, the taxi driver Resident let out a sudden roar, twisting its body to aim its car-seat half at the three of them. But before it could charge, the Ballet Resident impatiently smacked it across the face.

"What’s the use of killing Mai Mingle now?"

The taxi driver remained wooden and dazed, as if its mind was too slow to understand why it had been stopped.

"Kai Luonan is the one most likely to become the master of the Nest now," the Ballet Resident said, glancing at the three humans. "If you kill all the other contestants, are you going to stop Kai Luonan by yourself?"

As it spoke, it gestured toward the screen.

The surveillance monitor only showed images, no sound.

From the looks of it, Fu Tailan and Kai Luonan seemed to be talking. What were they saying? Was Fu Tailan on his side? If not, why wasn’t he running? Mai Mingle had no answers to any of these questions.

But from the looks of the boy, he seemed to be injured as well.

"Your showing up here can’t be a coincidence, can it?"

The Ballet Resident aimed its bun at Jin Xueli. "You hid the radio here, didn’t you?"

"Huh? I don’t understand—"

"Cut the crap,"

The Ballet Resident waved a dismissive hand and pointed at the screen. "If you don’t want Kai Luonan to be the final winner of the Nest Dominance Game either, then you’d better think of something, fast. Whether you want to kill people or snatch the radio, just get down there. If we let Kai Luonan continue his unstoppable advance, what are we going to do, what are we going to do, what what what what are we going to do—"

Amidst its escalating, uncontrollable shrieks, Chaisi suddenly lowered his head.

He put a crumpled cigarette between his lips, lit it, took one deep drag, then threw it on the ground and stamped it out.

It seemed he just needed something to do with his hands, something to steady his nerves.

"Aren’t those two having a nice chat?" Chaisi said, jerking his chin toward the monitor.

All emotion had been washed from his face. It was like a wasteland of shattered rock—hard, barren, and utterly devoid of life.

For some reason, the Ballet Resident suddenly seemed shy.

"No, Kai Luonan already attacked him once. The things that fell out of his body... they’re scattered all over the road... including me."

No one understood that last sentence, but the three humans had no intention of pressing for details, and the Resident had no intention of explaining.

"I don’t know what they’re talking about either, but—"

Jin Xueli suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.

Mai Mingle’s gaze flickered. On the screen, the boy who had been slumped on the ground moments ago suddenly sprang up and started running toward the back of the hall.

"Quick, raise the camera angle,"

As the Ballet Resident gave the urgent command, the camera’s view panned up—just in time for everyone to see Fu Tailan, his strength failing him, stumble and fall beside the Candle Tears.

Kai Luonan walked toward him.

"He’s bluffing," Chaisi said, his eyes glued to the screen, letting out a laugh devoid of any humor. "I know Fu Tailan very well—"

The furious sound of gunshots erupted from the floor below, crashing into the lobby like a tidal wave engulfing a building. It came in wave after wave, instantly filling the world, threatening to suffocate them all with its sheer volume.

Mai Mingle stared blankly at the screen.

She wanted to grab onto something for support. She wanted to sink slowly to the floor.

...The boy who had braved the Nest’s traps with her was simply erased from the world, reduced to a bloody little mound on a low-quality surveillance screen.