Illusion Report

Chapter 178: Chapter 146: Mai Mingle: Anything Can Explode

The Nest was a strange place, seemingly unbound by the law of conservation of mass.

Any spot that had been blown up would be restored to its pre-explosion state in just a few minutes... Even the microwave that had burned Mai Mingle in the initial blast was now sitting on the counter by the window again, waiting for its next chance to explode.

That’s right. Being restored to its original state meant it could explode all over again.

The third-floor apartment gave them no quarter; a godsend like "a place becomes a safe zone after something in it has blown up" was never going to happen. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

’What kind of person had to die to create such an insidious apartment in the Nest?’

’If a good person had died, why wouldn’t a paradise have appeared in the Nest?’

As her mind wandered, Mai Mingle limped along, tapping her heel with each step, heading toward where she thought Hai Luwei might be.

The apartments on the right side of the hallway, from 302 to 310, had all merged into one giant unit. Only the entrance doors for 302 and 310 remained, one at each end of the hall. The original doors in between were all sealed shut and wouldn’t budge.

Naturally, the same was true for apartments 301 to 309 on the left.

Mai Mingle was in the even-numbered apartments on the right side of the hall, but at some point, Hai Luwei seemed to have gone over to the odd-numbered apartments on the left.

To find him, she would have to cut through the even-numbered apartments, exit through the door of 302, cross the hall, enter through the door of 301, and then traverse the interior of the odd-numbered apartments...

’Wait a minute. Isn’t this the same logic that put the safe zone all the way up on the sixth floor?’

’It’s designed to expose people to the maximum possible risk.’

Mai Mingle lamented that she had been too old-fashioned and proper her whole life. The curses that came to mind now just weren’t satisfying enough, not vicious enough.

’I should get a move on.’ She glanced at the microwave that had already blown up on her once and hobbled quickly past it.

As long as an item up ahead didn’t happen to start its countdown, the faster she moved, the less likely she was to get hurt by another explosion.

Based on the apartment’s internal layout, she figured she was now in what used to be 304—the second unit on the right. She had to pass through one more apartment to reach the hallway, and in the process, there was no telling what she might run into—

A rumbling BOOM resounded from deep within the apartment complex.

It was a small explosion, and with some distance and a wall between them, it sounded muffled. The ground trembled for a moment, then went still.

She could tell it wasn’t on her side, in the even-numbered apartments, but had come from the odd-numbered ones across the hall.

’Don’t tell me it blew up right next to Hai Luwei again.’

At the thought, she quickened her pace.

Just as she was about to leave the kitchen, Mai Mingle glanced back.

The microwave was displaying the time. Even after being blown up and regenerating, its clock was still ticking forward accurately. She wasn’t wearing a watch, so she had to rely on the apartment’s appliances to tell the time.

The last time the microwave had exploded, it was 3:42 AM. They hadn’t been on the third floor for long and had only just figured out the rules. Mai Mingle had glanced at the time an instant before it blew up, so she remembered that moment with perfect clarity.

The time on the microwave now read 4:29 AM.

’I wonder how much longer we have to suffer on this floor before we can leave...’

Mai Mingle reached out and pushed open the kitchen door.

The instant the door swung open, her peripheral vision caught a thin, blood-red "2," stretched so far it had almost lost its shape. freewёbnoνel.com

’A 2? Where? Why did it start at 2—’

She had no time to think, no time to worry about her injured foot. She whirled around and dove for the kitchen floor behind her. An instant later, a scorching blast of wind, accompanied by a tremendous BANG and flying splinters of wood, set the very air ablaze.

’The tile floor won’t burn—’

Unable and with no time to stand, Mai Mingle scrambled on all fours across the tile floor, away from the fire spreading from the explosion. The kitchen quickly filled with thick smoke, and she began to cough uncontrollably.

’So treacherous,’ she thought, now understanding where the explosion had come from.

’Who would have thought the bomb this time would be a doorframe?’

And not even the visible outer frame, but the jamb—the part with the latch hole, that only became visible after the door was opened.

’Even if there was a countdown on a spot like that, who could possibly see it ahead of time?’

She didn’t know whether to call herself lucky or unlucky. She had opened the door just as the countdown hit 2. Unlucky, sure, but at least she’d had that one count to react and avoid the main blast. But if you called it lucky... well, she’d been right there for the explosion, hadn’t she?

’If I were truly lucky, I would have been nowhere near that doorframe...’

Huh?

Mai Mingle sat up in the smoke, pulling the hem of her shirt over her mouth and nose. As she waited for the smoke to clear, a thought suddenly occurred to her.

’Why have most of the explosions so far happened right next to someone?’

’Weren’t they supposed to be random?’

Mai Mingle filed that thought away for now. Before she could analyze it further, she had to find Hai Luwei.

Just as objects regenerated, the fires from the explosions didn’t last forever. Both the flames and smoke subsided after a few minutes, and the kitchen returned to its pre-explosion state once more.

This time, there was no unexploded bomb.

Her heart still pounding, Mai Mingle pushed the door open and shot a quick glance at the jamb—it was pure white, feigning innocence.

’...Yeah, screw you too.’

Outside the kitchen was the living room of what had been apartment 304. With the walls gone, it opened directly into the living room of 302.

Mai Mingle opened the front door of 302 and poked her head into the hallway. After a quick scan of her surroundings, she confirmed Hai Luwei was not there.

Her ears were filled with a buzzing ring, making it nearly impossible to hear anything unless it was very close or very loud. Fortunately, the lights on the third floor were all on, so at least she could rely on her sight.

Mai Mingle pushed open the door to 301 and quickly scanned the room.

The layout of the apartments on both sides of the hall was similar, so the living room of 301 also connected to the living room of 303. At first glance, it looked quite large and impressive—which made it convenient for finding people, as you could see everything at once.

She froze.

’How is Hai Luwei not here?’

When she’d pushed the door open, she had been almost certain Hai Luwei would be inside 301—and not just because they’d been talking past each other a moment ago. Seeing he wasn’t there, she was so taken aback that she stood frozen in place for several seconds.

’But I could have sworn he was in 301 just now...’

’Huh? That’s strange, why did I feel that?’

’I can’t hear a thing, I couldn’t see inside before I opened the door, and Hai Luwei never said he was in 301... It must have been my imagination, right?’

"Hey, Hai Luwei!"

She shouted, though it was useless. The fly-like buzzing in Hai Luwei’s ears couldn’t be any less severe than her own.

Between the two of them, their hearing was probably worse than her own would be at eighty-six.

Mai Mingle limped through the connected living rooms of 301 and 303. In a bedroom at the far end of what was once apartment 303, she found Hai Luwei—or to be more precise, she found Hai Luwei’s butt.

Sticking out from beneath his rear were two feet: one was fine, the other wrapped in bandages.

It was hard to tell if he was kneeling or prostrating; either way, the rest of his body was shoved under the bed.

Mai Mingle couldn’t get within a meter of him. She called out a couple of times, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

With no other choice, she looked around, grabbed a handful of soil from a potted plant in the hallway, and, standing just outside the door, tossed it at Hai Luwei.

There was a loud THUMP from under the bed. It sounded like a startled Hai Luwei had slammed his head against the bedframe.

"Oh, are you okay?"

Mai Mingle winced sympathetically, feeling a little guilty. ’This kid has really been through the wringer today.’ "Does it hurt?"

"What did you say?" Hai Luwei’s muffled voice called from under the bed.

He shouted as he reversed himself out, crawling from under the bed covered in dust and grime.

They were only a meter or two apart, but they had to shout at the top of their lungs, enunciating every word clearly. "What are you doing?" Mai Mingle asked from the hallway.

"Looking for an unexploded bomb. The wardrobe door just blew up," Hai Luwei replied, pointing at the closet.

He suddenly looked down at the soil scattered around him, slapped his pants a few times, and demanded, "Wait, what did you throw at me?"

"Ah, that’s not important," Mai Mingle said with a wave of her hand.

"Luckily, I saw the countdown. By then, it was too late to get out of the bedroom, so I just dove into a corner. That’s how I managed to avoid the shockwave and didn’t get hurt."

He wiped the grime from his face and frowned.

"The bedroom was filled with billowing smoke, and I was coughing so hard my eyes were streaming with tears. But I think I saw a round, dark shadow on the floor through the smoke... I thought, ’Could it finally be an unexploded bomb?’ Unfortunately, the fire was burning too strong for me to get a closer look. But after the room settled down, I looked again, and there was nothing on the floor. It was empty."

Mai Mingle understood and frowned as well. "So you thought the unexploded bomb rolled under the bed?"

"Yeah," Hai Luwei said, getting up in frustration. "But I looked everywhere. Nothing."

There had been nine explosions in total. By now, at least one should have produced an unexploded bomb. But the one time they got a hint of one, it might have just been a shadow misseen through smoke, fire, and tears.

If the odds of an unexploded bomb appearing were this low, how many explosions would it take to meet the conditions for opening the stairway?

At this rate, she and Hai Luwei would be blown to bits long before the stairway opened.

"Weren’t there two other explosions that happened where no one was?" Mai Mingle asked, a mix of anxiety and wishful thinking in her voice. "Do you know where they were? Maybe those two produced unexploded bombs."

Hai Luwei shook his head, his face grim.

"One of them was in the living room of 301. I went and looked, but there was nothing. The other one didn’t happen in an empty area... it was right next to me, too."

"You’ve been in five of them?" Mai Mingle asked, startled. She quickly looked him up and down. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Hai Luwei’s face contorted, so full of misery it looked like you could wring it out like a sponge.

"My hand got burned, and my back hurts like hell from getting hit by shrapnel... If this keeps up, I don’t know if I can even last until the first unexploded bomb shows up."

Mai Mingle bit her lip. Anxiety was like a seed sprouting inside her, about to tear through her chest.

’Nine explosions, and not a single unexploded bomb...’

"Let’s try to stick together—staying more than a meter apart, of course," she said. "You’re hurt worse than I am. If we find an unexploded bomb, you should take it. Just in case."

"Huh? Is that a good idea?" Hai Luwei asked, taken aback.

’He really was an earnest kid.’ It was just a promise—he hadn’t even gotten an unexploded bomb yet—but he was already full of gratitude. "But if I’m holding it, it won’t explode. It can’t help open the stairway..."

Mai Mingle waved her hand, about to tell him not to worry about it, when the hairs on her neck suddenly stood on end. A tiny, elongated sliver of red light had just flashed past her eyes, moving with her hand.

’What was that?’

By the time she looked down and saw the source of the red light, she realized she was too late.

On the fingernail of the hand she’d used to grab soil and toss it at Hai Luwei, a tiny speck of dirt remained, not fully shaken loose.

And at that very moment, on that tiny speck of dirt lodged under her nail, a minuscule, sesame-seed-sized "1" lit up.