Chapter Thirteen: Mai Minghe · The Laws of Development of Things

“We’ve been through life and death together once. I saved you, and you saved me,” the red-haired man said, his entire body covered from head to toe by a white sheet, his voice muffled.

In the room filled with the smell of disinfectant, the old incandescent light bulb buzzed as it flickered on. Minghe Mai opened his eyes but could only see the white cloth covering his face, his vision blurred and dim.

“On that account, I won’t try to snatch the pseudo-image from you for now. But if any of my other hunters encounter you and decide to take action, I certainly won’t stop them. After all, this is our mission. When my people risk their lives to enter the nest, I have no right to ask them to give up.”

“…That’s understandable,” Minghe Mai spoke from beneath the sheet, a warm breath trapped between the fabric. “Why are we pretending to be corpses in the morgue?”

Just a few minutes ago, the two of them thought they had put enough distance between themselves and the residents underground. They jumped off the hospital bed and ran as fast as they could, desperate to get as far from the ward as possible, to shake off the residents completely.

But as Minghe Mai ran, she glanced back hastily and saw a shadow flicker at the ward door—someone seemed to be chasing them. The red-haired man sensed trouble too and whispered sharply, “Running isn’t the solution. We have to hide. Follow me!”

The slender patient was three or four meters long and could stretch out. If that thing chased them out, neither of them would escape.

What Minghe Mai didn’t expect was the red-haired man leading her straight into the stairwell. After rushing down to the B1 floor, he deftly pushed open a door labeled “Morgue.”

Seeing her hesitate, he shot her a sharp glance. “Keep up! What are you waiting for? Do you want the residents to catch you?”

Who would be eager to enter a place marked “morgue”?

But since her only living companion in this eerie place had already strode inside, Minghe Mai had no choice but to follow.

As she stepped in, a chill ran through her—inside the morgue, the temperature was at least three or four degrees lower than outside.

“Find an empty bed,” the red-haired man said as he turned on the morgue lights. He pulled back the sheet from one bed and lay down. “Do as I do. Cover yourself from head to toe and don’t move. Beds that already have someone lying on them—don’t worry about those.”

Minghe Mai stared at the corpse bed in the corner. The white sheet draped over it rose and fell, forming the shape of a human body. The room’s flickering lights made it hard to tell if the figure was breathing, or even whether it was a person, a corpse, or a resident.

At least that body hadn’t reacted to their entrance by attacking them, which she took as a good sign.

“Um…” She pointed at the corpse bed, barely managing two words before the red-haired man quickly covered himself and urged from beneath the sheet, “Hurry up.”

In this vast morgue, soon only Minghe Mai remained standing alive—two bodies lay covered under white sheets.

As she climbed onto the corpse bed, her mind felt somewhat dazed: an eighty-six-year-old woman, admitted first to the hospital ward, then to the hospital morgue—it all followed a certain logic.

Tonight’s experience felt like a metaphor; what exactly it meant, her wisdom wasn’t enough to grasp.

The red-haired man sighed beneath his sheet.

“First-timers in the nest are always troublesome. They know nothing,” he murmured. “One of the tasks I dislike most is training newcomers.”

“I don’t want to lie in a morgue either,” Minghe Mai replied. “But living means enduring things you don’t like.”

Including pretending to be dead.

“Don’t be unhappy. The morgue is the ‘gateway of life’ in this hospital. Sounds contradictory, right? A place for the dead, but also a gateway to life?”

Minghe Mai immediately nodded.

“The nest has countless locations, each with its unique terrain, dangers, and opportunities. Saint Louis Hospital is a site our faction is quite familiar with. This is my third time here. Within Saint Louis Hospital—”

“Wait, this is Saint Louis Hospital?” Minghe Mai interrupted. “You said this is a nest? Saint Louis Hospital is not far from my home.”

She had been to Saint Louis Hospital several times before, but never seen any of these specters.

“No, you’re thinking of Saint Louis Hospital in Blackmore City; what we’re in now is the Saint Louis Hospital within the nest.”

“The nest doesn’t exist in the human world.”

The red-haired man fell silent for a few seconds, as if wanting that statement to truly sink into Minghe Mai’s mind.

“Perhaps a rift formed in the universe, and the shadow of Blackmore City cast into that rift became this strange and perilous nest—a parallel world accessible only to a few. You can find place names from Blackmore City inside the nest, but they’re mostly twisted, dark versions.”

Seemingly afraid she might interrupt, he continued: “In short, when someone encounters relentless danger inside Saint Louis Hospital—like being hunted by residents—the morgue is a ‘reset’ point.”

“Reset?” Minghe Mai tried to digest this new concept, storing what she couldn’t understand firmly in her memory.

She wasn’t well-versed in young people’s jargon; even smart phones took her a while to understand.

“Yes. Simply put, if you cover your face in the morgue and lie still for a while, the hospital treats you as ‘dead.’ When the residents’ prey dies, they stop chasing you. When you walk out again, you’re a brand-new living person—nothing is after you anymore. It sounds childish at first, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? People who enter the hospital morgue are quickly forgotten by the hospital.”

“In life as well,” Minghe Mai murmured, “It’s not only the hospital that forgets you.”

“That’s why I brought you here,” the red-haired man concluded. “Consider yourself lucky. If you were a hunter from another faction, I wouldn’t have brought you along so easily.”

“Why?”

“Fellow hunters are enemies.”

Minghe Mai began to understand. These people called themselves hunters, and within hunters, there were many factions. They probably didn’t know if other factions were aware that the morgue was a reset point. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t want to reveal such a precious secret.

“But why do you come to the nest…?”

“Sister,” the red-haired man chuckled, “touch the pseudo-image on your stomach and think about why. Pseudo-images can do countless things—from raising your IQ by five points to defying fate. They can even realize humanity’s wildest fantasies. But pseudo-images exist only in the nest. In Blackmore City, many wealthy and powerful people pay handsomely for them. Where there’s demand, there’s supply. We’re all led into the nest by economic principles.”

After a pause, he added, “That’s why we’re called pseudo-image hunters.”

Pseudo-image hunters…

In a city like Blackmore, where she had lived all her life, there was such a group chasing and trading such fantastical, dreamlike things…

And now, she had accidentally entered another world beyond this world and gained a second life.

Minghe Mai lay on the corpse bed, her heart pounding.

She was surprised that she wasn’t afraid or thinking of running home; instead, she felt like a child who had accidentally wandered into a theme park at midnight—the darkness was another realm, the park unfamiliar and eerie, but irresistible and wondrous.

The nest… a playground in the pitch-black, shadowy night where she could ride a spinning blood horse and gallop toward strange lands.

“I never thought… I’d fall into such a place,” she whispered.

Compared to tonight, her entire previous life seemed suddenly shriveled and faded.

“You didn’t know about the nest before, that’s understandable. Without a veteran guiding you, it’s rare for someone to open a passage and enter the nest purely by chance—”

“Passage?” Minghe Mai seized the word and almost sat up from the bed. “I fell into the ward after crashing into a TV screen. Could that have been my ‘passage’?”

The red-haired man pondered and hummed.

“So that’s how you got in… You never crashed into a TV screen before, right?”

Of course not; no one would just ram into a TV for no reason.

“Hunters’ passages vary,” the red-haired man chuckled. “Only 1% of humanity is born with a passage to the nest. The conditions vary and are often strange and tricky. So among that 1%, many live an entire lifetime without ever opening their passage, never even knowing the nest exists…”

Isn’t that exactly her? Eighty-six years, until the thief broke into her house—

Minghe Mai shuddered.

…Right, that thief was a pseudo-image hunter too.

“Some people’s passages are ordinary,” the red-haired man continued. “I heard someone can enter the nest just by sitting in a bathtub full of water. Of course, luck isn’t always on their side. Imagine the first time bathing, young, naked, and empty-handed—what chance do they have of returning alive?”

“Others’ passages are trickier: standing in a toilet while flushing, opening a door in an abandoned building… all sorts of things. Just opening a passage is already so difficult, filtering out many people. Not to mention, there’s an important condition to enter the nest.”

“What condition?”

“You can only open a passage in a city with a population exceeding ten million. We don’t know exactly why, but…”

The red-haired man lowered his voice. “Hunters generally believe the nest is a byproduct of human society developing to a certain scale. So the densest population centers are where the nest connects.”

Minghe Mai lay quietly for a while.

Every word he said was like a puzzle piece forming a deep, unimaginable world in her mind. She wanted to touch her swollen forehead, struck by the TV screen, to confirm she wasn’t dreaming.

“All right,”

The fabric rustled nearby as the red-haired man lifted the sheet and sat up. “Time’s almost up. The reset should be complete. If you want to keep your pseudo-image, better avoid being seen by my comrades.”

This young man was surprisingly considerate.

“The pseudo-image on me—are you planning to hand it over to Wesley?” Minghe Mai asked.

“Yeah, he’s the one who hired us,” the red-haired man exclaimed, turning his head. “You even know that?”

“He’s already dead. He can’t buy the pseudo-image anymore.” Minghe Mai recalled the nonstop news on TV from a few days ago and asked, “Haven’t you heard? When did you enter the nest?”

The red-haired man gave her a suspicious look before turning away.

Obviously, he didn’t believe her.

It was too coincidental that the pseudo-image Wesley wanted ended up in her hands, and she immediately claimed he was dead and no longer interested… no wonder he was skeptical.

“Hah, he’s not dead. The pseudo-images he has are incredibly powerful—” The red-haired man stopped mid-sentence, rubbing his nose.

“Whether he’s dead or alive, I told you, I won’t try to take it from you. I suggest you head back to Blackmore City quickly.”

“How do I get back?”

Though the nest was terrifying and fascinating, to protect the pseudo-image, Minghe Mai knew it was best to leave now.

“Sigh,” the red-haired man shrugged, looking somewhat dispirited. “To send the Buddha to the West, I’ll take you to the exit. But one thing: if faction hunters see you, I can only join them in snatching the pseudo-image from you.”