Chapter 527 - 468: Mai Mingle: Strolling, Grocery Shopping, Drag Racing

Chapter 527: Chapter 468: Mai Mingle: Strolling, Grocery Shopping, Drag Racing

Chaisi wasn’t quite right—there was no one outside the car "calling" her name.

Aside from the sound of the Haisen River’s waves, the road was dead silent.

However, Chaisi wasn’t just hallucinating from his severe injuries. He hadn’t been mistaken.

When Mai Mingle fell silent and listened intently, she faintly "heard" it too—but it wasn’t so much that sound waves were vibrating her eardrums to create the sensation of "hearing," but more like a feather was gently tickling her auditory nerve from inside her brain.

"Mai—Min—gle—"

The "auditory signal" calling her name was being generated directly inside her brain.

The air outside the car was cold and still, without the slightest ripple.

After "listening" with bated breath for a moment, neither she nor Chaisi could tell if the "voice" calling her name was old or young, male or female—because it wasn’t coming from a human throat to begin with.

"Mai—Min—gle—"

’...I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it’s definitely not good.’

’Wasn’t getting rammed into that bus trap by Ashley enough? Why does trouble keep coming, one thing after another? Is it ever going to end?’

’I don’t have much time left in this life, so why does everyone want a piece of it?’

Just as Mai Mingle was about to open the car door, Chaisi called out to her.

"Do you have a weapon?" His voice was hoarse and deep, as if a layer of his vocal cords had been ground away. "You’re just going to get out like that?"

’The baguette was long gone—not that it would be any use now.’

When she had thrown the baguette on the ground, Mercury had glanced at it but hadn’t asked where it came from. He had simply smiled faintly at Mai Mingle and said, "Go."

It hadn’t been a suggestion or a word of advice—it was a warning.

Mai Mingle knew she should’ve taken the hint and left while she still could. As she’d pulled onto the road and glanced in the rearview mirror, two figures were still visible in the distance, seemingly locked in a standoff, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

"I don’t have a weapon," she sighed. "What should we do? Do you have one?"

The unarmed pair, one old and one crippled, looked at each other for a few seconds. Finally, Chaisi said, "...Don’t get out yet. Roll down the window and take a look outside... How old are you right now?"

"Eighty—oh, you mean my body?"

Mai Mingle rolled down the window. "I feel like my body’s physical condition is about the same as when I was in my sixties. It’s still pretty decent. Taking walks, going grocery shopping, that’s all a piece of cake. I can even go hiking up a mountain."

Chaisi looked as if he wanted to say something, but held his tongue.

The road outside the window was deserted. Across the opposing lane, countless buildings stared back at Mai Mingle with dark faces and somber, gloomy gazes.

’...Blackmoor City has never been this quiet and dark before.’

In some places, it was perhaps just late and quiet, the buildings empty, and no one had noticed the Nest invasion. But in other areas, like the ones right before her eyes, every building was shrouded in a dim shell.

You couldn’t see it without looking closely. Under the cover of darkness, it was like an inner lining of the night itself, sealing the buildings shut so that no person or light could get through.

’The people inside... I can’t imagine what kind of fate they’ve met with.’

Mai Mingle carefully opened the car door a crack.

"It looks clear," she said, trying to reassure Chaisi as she stepped out of the car and onto the road. "There’s no one around..."

See Mai Mingle Mai Mingle Mai Mingle is here come quick Mai Mingle is here come quick found Mai Mingle

Mai Mingle froze.

’The "voice" calling me... it was trying to pinpoint my location?’

"Get back in, we have to go now!" Chaisi yelled hoarsely from inside the car. "That voice is from the residents—are the residents looking for you?"

Mai Mingle’s heart leaped into her throat. She scrambled back into the driver’s seat, yanked the door shut, and fumbled for her seatbelt.

"What are you doing putting on your seatbelt?!" Chaisi roared. "Just drive!"

Mai Mingle floored the accelerator, and the car shot forward at an angle. If she hadn’t reacted fast enough, it would’ve plowed straight into the guardrail. The sudden motion threw Chaisi hard against his seat, and he let out a muffled groan of pain.

"See? This is why you wear a seatbelt, in case of an accident," Mai Mingle said. "Besides, it won’t stop beeping if I don’t."

"Up ahead," Chaisi suddenly shouted. "Incoming car."

A pair of blinding headlights rushed straight toward Mai Mingle. The roar of an engine grew heavy as white light flooded the cabin, momentarily making it impossible to see.

Mai Mingle wrenched the steering wheel. On the slick, wet road, the car swerved sharply, barely scraping past the median barrier. With a loud CLANG, it sent a side-view mirror flying.

The moment the car’s nose pointed straight again, she slammed the accelerator to the floor, leaving the pair of headlights behind her.

"Sorry about that. Did you get hurt? Are you in pain?"

While feeling thankful that the road was empty, Mai Mingle asked, "You’re getting tossed around like a potato in a sack. That can’t be good for your injuries..."

Before she could finish, another pair of headlights flared to life up ahead.

Caught in a pincer attack between two cars, Mai Mingle couldn’t pull the same maneuver twice.

"Drive in a zig-zag, go around the oncoming car,"

Chaisi still sounded calm, though he was gritting his teeth as if forcing himself to endure the pain. "Once you’re past it, get onto a side street as quickly as you can. I’ll smash the headlights—"

He fell silent.

On the road ahead and the road behind, more headlights blinked into existence, one after another.

Car after car sped onto the same road. Now there were at least three or four cars in front and behind, boxing Mai Mingle in completely.

Not a single vehicle slowed down. It was as if their only goal was to smash her car into a pulp of flesh and steel.

’...There’s no other way.’

"Hold on tight,"

Mai Mingle said quickly, not daring to ease off the accelerator as she wrenched the steering wheel as far to the right as it would go.

In that instant, the entire car felt like a weight on the end of a rope being swung in a wide arc. It wasn’t the engine driving it, but centrifugal force flinging it sideways, sending it crashing heavily into the median barrier.

The thought ’I really should have buckled that seatbelt’ had barely formed in Mai Mingle’s mind before she could no longer fight the momentum and was thrown against the steering wheel.

Amid a deafening, grating roar, the car plowed into the median barrier, mangling it into a twisted wreck of steel. It dragged the wreckage a few more feet before finally shuddering to a halt in a cloud of billowing white smoke.

Chaisi had one hand clamped tightly around Mai Mingle’s neck. ’This kid’s hands are huge,’ she thought, ’they can almost wrap all the way around my throat.’ Yanked back by his grip, she was spared from cracking her head open on the steering wheel, but a gurgling sound escaped her throat as she struggled to breathe.

"Th... thanks,"

She felt the blood rush to her head. At her age, a stroke was no laughing matter. "You can... let... go..."

The moment Chaisi released his grip, a heavy CRUNCH echoed from the road behind them, loud enough to make the ground tremble.

The two cars that had been tailing them most closely couldn’t react in time after Mai Mingle plowed into the barrier. They slammed into each other with a deafening roar.

But the other cars were farther back and had enough time to react.

Amid the sharp screech of tires, several cars stopped, their headlights bathing the small patch of night in light as bright as day.

"Get down," Chaisi said in a low voice, shoving Mai Mingle down.

’The people in those cars better hurry up and kill me,’ she thought, ’or I’m going to die at Chaisi’s hands first.’ Mai Mingle’s old bones weren’t made to be bent like that. She heard a series of sickening POPS and her vision started to go black.

Chaisi ducked down as well.

His breathing grew ragged with pain. He fumbled around inside the car for a moment before his hand suddenly shot out and grabbed the seatbelt.

’What’s the use of putting that on now?’

Before Mai Mingle could question him, she saw him quickly gather up the seatbelt webbing, pull it taut, and then give it a powerful yank. She had no idea what his hands were made of, but with a few sharp tugs, he managed to rip the entire seatbelt out of its housing.

’Does he plan on strangling the residents?’

Not far away, car doors opened. The sound of more than one set of footsteps approached them, step by step.

"As long as we’re crouched down, they can’t get a clear shot. They’ll have to approach the car."

Chaisi gritted his teeth, his face contorted by cold sweat and pain. "You stay down and play dead. The second someone gets next to your door, kick it open as hard as you can to knock them over. Can you do that?"

"...I can," Mai Mingle said, her voice lacking any confidence. "Then what?"

"Then leave the rest to me."

As he spoke, Chaisi was already opening his door. Keeping low, he lunged out of the car. There was hardly an uninjured spot left on his body, yet when he landed, he moved like a leopard in complete control of its every muscle.

’He’s so badly injured. Can he even still fight?’

Just as Mai Mingle had that thought, it froze in her mind.

She hadn’t had time to close her window, so she heard everything with perfect clarity. A set of footsteps was approaching the driver’s side, now just a few paces away—

Mai Mingle’s hand silently closed around the door handle.

Worried she didn’t have enough strength in her arms, she also readied one of her feet, preparing to slam the door into their attacker.

But Chaisi ruined his own plan. Before the person even reached Mai Mingle’s side of the car, she heard Chaisi suck in a sharp breath from outside.

"...Jin Xueli?"

This time, Mai Mingle really couldn’t stop herself. She immediately looked up.

It was, in fact, Jin Xueli outside the car.

Not only was the person a few steps from Mai Mingle a Jin Xueli, but behind that Jin Xueli was another Jin Xueli.

Every single person getting out of the cars was Jin Xueli.

Groups of Jin Xuelis stood expressionlessly in the dazzling, overlapping beams of the headlights. The light and shadows crisscrossed their bodies, creating the illusion of subtle differences among them.

However, what made them unmistakable—aside from their identical faces and the weapons in their hands, which included guns, iron pipes, and long knives—was the mark on each of their faces.

It was as if someone had used a ballpoint pen to trace the edges of their faces. Along the facial contours of every Jin Xueli was a series of overlapping, sloppy Coils.