Illusion Report

Chapter 217: Chapter 180: Mai Mingle: A Precious Contestant

Human thoughts, when closely examined, are in fact mostly complex and chaotic constructs.

For instance, when you’re rushing home and think, "I haven’t fed the cat today, it must be hungry," that thought isn’t just those eleven words. It might also include the image of an empty bowl, an unhappy meow, and the memory of your cat weaving around your ankles when it’s hungry, nearly tripping you.

All these elements, and more, combine to form that single thought: I haven’t fed the cat today, it must be hungry.

Just as the Dream Screenwriter’s face had come to Mai Mingle’s mind with the first thought, the second thought also arrived with an accompanying image.

Two black dots for eyes and a red arc for a mouth, all inside a sloppy Coil—a face so simplistic it would be considered crude even in a kindergartener’s drawing, yet it was the candidate on a campaign poster in the library square.

That campaign poster was now floating, crystal clear, in Mai Mingle’s blank mind.

To protect the Nest’s independence, we must take the offensive!

Adopt a new, more cautious approach. Eradicate risks at their source. Face the problem with greater seriousness.

Vote for me.

’I see...’

The residents of the Nest were split into two factions. One had invited her to compete, and the other wanted to kill the contestants. The car radio was undoubtedly part of the former; the driver was part of the latter.

When translated into words, the second thought was neither long nor complex, but it offered no clue as to how she could use it to escape.

In fact, the second thought felt more like a deduction built upon the first. In other words, arriving at this single conclusion had used up her quota of two thoughts.

Of course, this wasn’t to say Mai Mingle was actively trying to figure out how to escape—she was completely incapable of such a thought.

The two thoughts—"Some residents want to kill the contestants" and "The car radio belongs to the other faction"—flashed and rolled in endless succession through her mind. She couldn’t think of anything else.

All Mai Mingle had left was the survival instinct of a wild animal caught in a trap, the desperate, terrified urge to escape. This instinct, like the blood flowing in her veins, could not and did not need to form a thought.

The taxi continued to glide smoothly through the darkness.

There were no streetlights, no headlights, and not even any moonlight... It was as if the taxi itself were a flowing part of the darkness.

It made a right turn at an intersection, the momentum pushing Mai Mingle gently against the door.

Her head pressed tighter against the glass. Hai Luwei’s phone slid deeper into her hand, and the movement caused the screen to light up.

Neither Mai Mingle nor the driver reacted in the slightest.

Mai Mingle couldn’t react. As for the driver, it was impossible to tell if it hadn’t seen or simply didn’t care. Soon, the screen went dark, and the car was plunged back into dimness.

’I shouldn’t be feeling pain!’

The sudden third thought struck with the force of a punch to the temple.

When her skin was scraped, it transmitted nerve signals to her brain, which is why she’d felt the pain of her leg dragging on the road. ’I shouldn’t feel pain. The fact that I do means my connection to my body hasn’t been completely severed.’

Along with this third thought came a flash of memory from moments before:

She had leaned toward the empty driver’s seat. The light from the phone screen had reflected off the window, and the driver had turned its head toward her. The photo of Hai Luwei and a big white dog had partially obscured the driver’s face.

But that was as far as the third thought went.

She hadn’t seen the driver’s full face. Her connection to her body wasn’t completely severed. The logical next step that should have naturally followed from these points was abruptly choked off.

How much of a connection was left? What did it mean? What could she do? All such lines of thought were walled off, kept out of her mind. Aside from the three thoughts flashing in alternation, Mai Mingle could only continue to stare blankly at the dark road ahead.

The taxi made another right turn.

This time, as the car straightened out, she felt the phone slide forward slightly.

Mai Mingle’s fingers, which she’d used to light up the screen earlier, had remained bent and were now fixed in that position.

Though her fingers couldn’t move, the phone’s sliding motion caused them to touch a different part of the screen this time.

A woman’s voice suddenly rang out inside the car, startling even Mai Mingle, who jumped as if she’d been pricked with a needle.

"...The Supreme Court just seated two young conservative justices, one forty-three and the other forty-nine, which means that for the next thirty years, we can only watch as the law continuously regresses and becomes more and more conservative..."

If Mai Mingle had been able to think, she would have wondered what part of the smartphone had been touched to make it play audio on its own. And besides, she was in the Nest, cut off from any signal from the Human World, so how could it sound like a radio broadcast?

Mai Mingle could not think.

She only sensed the driver beside her turn its head, glancing around a few times. It also seemed confused, letting out a sound. "Hmm?"

It let go of the steering wheel and, inch by inch, slowly leaned over toward Mai Mingle. Its head blocked part of her view.

Fortunately, the car was still dim. Even though Mai Mingle couldn’t close her eyes, she still couldn’t make out its face.

"What is this? Strange..."

The driver mumbled, searching her for the source of the sound.

The female host on the phone, utterly oblivious, was still discussing the long-term dangers of the new Supreme Court appointments. "Of course, I think calling it ’conservative’ is no longer appropriate. This is an extreme right-wing ideology..."

Meanwhile, the car continued to drive on steadily, even seeming to obey some invisible traffic law by stopping for a few seconds before proceeding.

"What are you saying?" the driver slurred. "Why can you still speak..."

It was at this exact moment that a fourth thought crashed into Mai Mingle’s mind.

’The driver can’t see.’

Or rather, it didn’t possess sight, because it wasn’t a driver at all.

The taxi and the driver were different parts of the same entity. It could only perceive Mai Mingle’s presence; it couldn’t see that the source of the sound was actually a phone.

’It wants to kill me.’

’The car radio belongs to the other faction.’

’My connection to my body isn’t completely severed.’

’The driver can’t see.’

A path to survival seemed to be hidden somewhere within those four thoughts, yet Mai Mingle couldn’t find her way out from among them.

"Why can you speak, why..." the driver mumbled. Though it hadn’t returned to the driver’s seat, the taxi screeched to a halt.

The phone slipped in her grasp, and Mai Mingle felt her finger touch the right side of the screen. The playback instantly seemed to fast-forward, not only jumping to a different sentence but also introducing a man’s voice.

"Hmm?"

The driver jerked its upper body up, searching around the cabin. "Is that the man from before? Where..."

The car’s doors, hood, and trunk suddenly began to fly open and slam shut, BANGING loudly. This frantic motion might not have mattered, but Mai Mingle was leaning on the passenger door. When it flew open, she lost her support and tumbled out of the car.

THUD. Mai Mingle’s upper body hit the road, but her legs were still inside the car.

The fall caused her fingers to touch the phone screen again, instantly changing what was playing.

The original woman’s voice now echoed cheerfully on the dead-silent, dark road: "Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any comments or thoughts, feel free to leave us a message..."

"Ah, I see."

The driver said in a low voice, perhaps realizing it was all just a farce caused by the phone.

Even without being able to form the clear thought, Mai Mingle’s heart sank subconsciously.

She kept replaying the thought: ’My connection to my body isn’t completely severed. My connection to my body isn’t completely severed...’ She didn’t know what use there was in repeating this thought, nor could she even contemplate it. It was her survival instinct, forcing her to repeat it again and again.

"It’s a broadcast," the driver said, as if it had finally found its answer. "She can’t speak. The broadcast turned on."

A pair of hands reached out from the passenger seat, grabbed Mai Mingle, and hauled her back into the car.

At the same time, the driver reached out and pressed a button on the car radio—as if to turn off a broadcast that had never been on in the first place.

Mai Mingle’s heart suddenly began to pound.

"...Found you."

A man’s voice drifted eerily from the car radio.

His voice was smooth and deep, like that of a man who had been a radio host for a very, very long time.

"So it was you... who captured my precious contestant."