Free Web NovelChapter 179: Chapter 147: Mai Mingle: The Empty-Handed Fisherman
In that instant, reason and rational thought were useless.
Driven by instinct and fear, Mai Mingle moved without a second thought.
In the hair’s breadth of a gap between the number "1" vanishing and the explosion starting, she still managed to do one thing.
Mai Mingle had been standing by the door talking, resting her hand on the frame several times. The moment the red countdown numbers flashed into view, the hair on her arms stood on end. She subconsciously swiped her hand across the door—
And in what felt like the very next instant, the explosion began.
A sharp pain, like an awl, stabbed into her nerves. It was as if her fingers had been imbued with some kind of magic—everywhere they touched detonated. One after another, dazzling, fingernail-sized lights blossomed on the doorframe. Wood splinters flew as the lights merged into a long, thin flame that leaped and danced. freēwēbnovel.com
It wasn’t until her back hit the wall that Mai Mingle realized she had stumbled backward out of the room when her vision went black. Despite the ringing in her ears, she could hear her own pained cries, as if trying to release the agony in her fingers through her voice.
"Fire!" Hai Luwei’s shout sounded distant and disconnected, as if coming through some barrier. "Use your clothes to smother it, quick!"
Cold sweat, terror, trembling muscles, and that momentary, baffled confusion that comes with injury... it all pressed down on every nerve like a thick fog.
His shout snapped Mai Mingle back to her senses a little, and she realized her fingers were also on fire. She quickly grabbed the hem of her shirt and pressed it hard against them—eliciting another long, drawn-out wail of pain.
"Okay, okay, the fire’s out. It’s out, that’s what matters..."
Hai Luwei didn’t dare approach her. He could only crane his neck, his eyes scanning the ground from afar, searching for something.
Amidst the cold sweat, tears, and trembling, Mai Mingle released her shirt but couldn’t bring herself to look at the fingers underneath. They had become a source of infinite, excruciating pain, so much so that she couldn’t even feel their shape anymore.
"Ah, good, good," Hai Luwei suddenly said with a sigh of relief. "There’s only blood and a fingernail on the floor... You scared me to death. I was afraid I’d see half a finger blown off on the ground."
’...It wasn’t blown off?’
Only then did Mai Mingle finally muster the courage to peek at her fingertip.
It was a bloody mess. The entire nail was gone, leaving only torn, gaping flesh. The nerves were probably damaged too, but the one silver lining was that the injury ended there; her index finger was still intact.
"What was it that suddenly exploded?" Hai Luwei asked as he rummaged through his backpack for a first-aid kit.
’Oh, right. He couldn’t see the countdown that appeared on the dirt under my fingernail.’
Wincing in pain, Mai Mingle took a deep breath before explaining, "It was the last bit of dirt stuck to me..."
Hai Luwei’s mouth fell half-open. He glanced at the dirt scattered on the floor and instinctively took two steps back.
He placed the first-aid kit on the floor and gave it a hard shove, sending it sliding over to Mai Mingle’s side.
"That swipe of yours must have smeared the dirt that was about to turn into an explosive, spreading it thin. That’s probably why the blast was so small... It was only a tiny bit to begin with, right?" he asked, watching her start to treat the wound.
"Right," she said, her voice muffled as she held one end of a bandage between her teeth. "That’s why I didn’t see the countdown."
’A countdown appearing on something so small you’d practically need a magnifying glass to see it... that’s just cheating.’
With her right hand injured, she was left to clean, disinfect, and bandage the wound with only her left. It was an awkward process, and the final wrapping was far from perfect—she would just have to bear it for now and get proper treatment after leaving the Nest.
Fortunately, one’s tolerance for pain increases with age. She had endured suffering in the hospital before and had gotten through it.
"By the way, what about the unexploded bomb?" Hai Luwei asked. "Is there one in the hallway near you? Still nothing in the room."
Prompted by his question, Mai Mingle looked all around her—she even checked inside the potted plant, but there was still no unexploded bomb.
’Ten explosions, and both she and Hai Luwei were covered in wounds and barely able to move. And still not a single unexploded bomb had appeared?’
Hai Luwei seemed to deflate, all his energy draining away at once.
He sat on the bedroom floor, looking at Mai Mingle from a distance, and gave a bitter laugh. "Looks like those rules on the third floor were just a joke! I’ve never encountered a Nest trap that doesn’t leave any way out... I don’t know what to do anymore."
"Are there places like that?" Mai Mingle’s heart tightened. "Places where the rules don’t count, where they’re just designed to toy with and kill people? Are there many of those in Nests? I don’t have any information about traps like this."
"I honestly don’t know."
Hai Luwei stared blankly for a moment before saying, "At least, I’ve never encountered one myself, and I don’t think I’ve heard any other Hunters talk about it... Generally, if a place clearly states its rules, then those rules should be real and valid."
"The rules we’re dealing with now could also be real, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a way out," Mai Mingle said hesitantly.
After all, if you wanted to be pedantic, the phrase "a certain chance of an unexploded bomb appearing" had a lot of wiggle room. 90% was a chance, but so was 0.000001%.
"Technically, that’s true. But in practice, Nests are a lot like the real world. They tend to favor interpretations based on everyday common sense."
Hai Luwei shook his head. "When we say ’a certain chance,’ we’re usually not referring to an infinitesimally small probability that’s statistically meaningless, right? We’d just say ’an extremely small chance.’ Also, have you ever thought about this: if people can’t leave their personal belongings in a Nest, what about hair that falls out? What about dead skin cells? What about the carbon dioxide we exhale?"
Mai Mingle was taken aback. "I’ve never really thought about that..."
"Because in normal conversation, none of those things count as ’personal belongings,’ right? In the real world, when does a public announcement tell you to look after your personal belongings and then specifically add, ’This does not include hair, dead skin cells, or carbon dioxide’?"
"That’s true. Now that you put it that way, I think I get it..." Mai Mingle said. "The boundaries of a Nest’s rules are drawn by the common-sense understanding of the majority."
"Exactly. Language is an inherently ambiguous tool for communication. Trying to exploit loopholes or getting bogged down in trivial details is pointless." Hai Luwei seemed pleased, even praising her, "You catch on quick."
"If the rules are supposed to leave us a way out, then why haven’t we seen a single unexploded bomb yet?" Mai Mingle shot him a glance and asked, "What do we do now?"
Hai Luwei cleared his throat. "...I don’t know either. I was just explaining things. As for what to do, your guide needs to think about it."
At that, they both fell silent.
They had been shouting, their voices loud, but when the sounds retreated from Room 303, they weren’t replaced by dead silence. A buzzing hum still floated in their ears.
Mai Mingle couldn’t even hear her own soft sigh.
"The rules are so unfair," she said, feeling the nerves in her finger throb as she watched the bloodstain spread on her gauze bandage. "...This isn’t random at all. The explosions are happening right next to us every time."
This was also why she hadn’t gotten up to move: if the explosions would always happen right next to a person no matter where they went, it was better to just sit in one spot and save her strength.
Hai Luwei sighed as well.
"Yeah, sometimes the rules you see on the surface aren’t the whole story... You have to analyze the situation to figure out what’s hidden. Isn’t that how the real world is? There are rules, and then there are unwritten rules. There are written regulations, and then there are unwritten constraints. Sometimes, all the subtle, annoying parts of the world get magnified several times over inside a Nest."
Mai Mingle glanced at him.
’This kid is so young, yet he seems to have already accumulated so much weariness and bitterness. This generation’s world seems so much more complicated and baffling than when she was young, leaving people at a loss.’
’The rule "Any item may randomly explode" seems to be missing a modifier. "Any item *near a person* may randomly explode"—that must be the complete rule, right?’
’Wait, that’s not quite right either. After all, one explosion did happen in an empty area...’
Mai Mingle couldn’t figure it out. It was probably because her thoughts were already riddled with holes from the throbbing pain.
"Let’s stand up," Mai Mingle, soaked in exhaustion and pain, could only think of this one thing. "It’ll be easier to run or dodge if we’re on our feet."
Hai Luwei had also taken quite a beating. When he climbed to his feet, his movements were slow and weak.
"Let’s find an open space to wait. Otherwise, you’ll be trapped in the bedroom. It’s a small space, and you might not be able to dodge the next explosion."
As Mai Mingle said this, she paused mid-stride—she had been about to walk toward Room 305—and glanced back.
’An open space...’
’Come to think of it, ever since they read the rules, they seemed to have been subconsciously avoiding areas with objects, trying their best to walk through empty spaces.’
’Thinking about it, that was only natural.’
In the living room connecting Room 303 and Room 301, there were two sets of furniture in different styles but with repeated functions—it had been two apartments, so naturally, there were two of everything. However, both sets had their large pieces—sofas, coffee tables, TVs, bookshelves—placed against the wall on the right-hand side, opposite the main entrance.
This way, when someone entered through the main door, they could walk right down the empty half of the room.
Looking back now, it was as if a path had been cleared just for them. freēwēbnovel.com
"What are you looking at?"
Hai Luwei’s voice snapped Mai Mingle out of her daze. "You have to move away from the doorway so I can get out."
"Oh, right," Mai Mingle replied, pulling her gaze away.
She hadn’t yet figured out the significance of her realization that she had been instinctively walking through empty spaces.
"Wait a second, I’m going back to check something. Keep your distance and wait for me in 305."
After speaking, Mai Mingle turned and walked into the shared living room of 301 and 303. She was very careful to stay on the "empty path," not getting close to the furniture.
’If a large piece of furniture like the sofa were to explode at close range, the damage wouldn’t be something they could dodge with a roll or a dive... The entire apartment would be engulfed.’
But if the explosions always happened near a person, that meant she could, in turn, "choose" what would explode, thereby minimizing the possibility of something like the sofa detonating—she just had to stay away from large pieces of furniture.
’Thinking about it this way, the Nest’s rules seemed unfair, but they also contained a system of checks and balances...’
The phrase "checks and balances" turned over in her mind a few times before disappearing, like a fisherman who hadn’t caught anything and returned empty-handed.
Mai Mingle crouched down and gently ran her hand over the living room floor in the 303 section. It came away covered in dust.
But looking at the "empty path" she had walked on and the floor of the bedroom, there wasn’t nearly as much dust. It was as if the residents cleaned them regularly.
’What did this mean...?’
"What’s wrong?"
While she was thinking, Hai Luwei had already entered 305. He called out from a distance, "What are you looking at?"
"Coming, coming," Mai Mingle replied, turning to walk toward him.
The next moment, in a still-life painting hanging on the wall beside him, a red "3" lit up from within the bouquet of flowers.
"Jump left!" Mai Mingle barked—and at almost the same instant, a tinge of red suddenly appeared in the light fixture above her head.
