Chapter 430 - 374: Mai Mingle: Black Rain, Raging Waves, and the Path

Chapter 430: Chapter 374: Mai Mingle: Black Rain, Raging Waves, and the Path

Mai Mingle had never imagined that things would devolve into such a baffling situation.

She’d finally steeled herself, telling herself ’He’s not human,’ trying her best not to think about the Time Illusion, and shoved Ivan into the sea with all her might—but that was twenty minutes ago.

He fell into the sea without so much as a cry, and an absurd nightmare began.

Twenty minutes later, Ivan was still like a marker buoy, bobbing up and down in the pitch-black storm and gloomy waves, sometimes far, sometimes near, haunting them like a persistent ghost.

Whenever a wave crashed over him, erasing him from sight for a moment, all three of them would think it was finally over. But a few seconds later, that face, bloated and white from the water, would rise from the dark tide like a cheap, counterfeit moon, staring directly at their small boat.

After this happened a few times, a chill crept over them. They kept glancing at the surrounding Black Sea, as if afraid more faces would come floating from the distance.

They ran out of bullets quickly, but it seemed not a single one had touched him.

"Why isn’t he being washed away?"

Hai Luwei had lost count of how many times he’d asked that question, but no one could answer him. "The waves are huge! How is he staying right next to the boat?!"

"We have eyes, you know," Emily snapped, gripping the handrail tightly.

"Next time he drifts closer, hit him a little harder," Hai Luwei suggested.

Emily, surprisingly, didn’t argue. Amid the boat’s violent rocking, she impatiently pinned the rolling baseball bat with her foot. "You don’t get it," she said. "It’s impossible to get any real force."

The wind and waves relentlessly shoved and rocked the small boat. Just standing steady required all their muscles to constantly fight the deck, which seemed determined to throw them off balance.

What’s more, there was some distance between the deck and the water, and Ivan’s skull would simply ’dent and rebound.’ It was like playing whack-a-mole on the waves; no matter how many times Emily swung the bat, Ivan would just pop back up.

"The storm is getting worse. If we delay any longer, I’m afraid we’re all done for."

Even in his raincoat, Hai Luwei’s lips were blue with cold, his tongue stiff. "He’s just one guy in the water. He has to sink sooner or later, right? Why don’t we just leave him and head back?"

"No," Mai Mingle said instinctively.

’Ivan really might never sink. What if someone who doesn’t know any better pulls him out? What would happen to them?’

The thought immediately brought Dr. Nate to her mind.

’To this day, I still don’t know what it was about Dr. Nate that felt so wrong. I just rushed Ivan to him for emergency treatment, and I have no idea how much that affected him. I’ll have to find time to go back and check on him... But that’s for later. I have to get through this first.’

"A normal human couldn’t possibly withstand a storm like this,"

Emily murmured, her voice shattered into faint fragments by the lashing rain and roaring waves. She was soaked to the bone. Next to Ivan, who sat bolt upright in the water and stared at them, *she* was the one who looked like she’d just been fished out of the sea.

"He’s definitely a Resident! Forget sinking, I’m afraid if we turn the boat around, he’ll just follow right behind us."

’Being followed all the way back to shore, with him keeping that same distance...’ The image rose in Mai Mingle’s mind, as irrepressible as Ivan’s head.

"Too bad there’s nothing heavy on the boat," Hai Luwei said. "Otherwise we could grab him, stuff some rocks or something on him—that would be better than this."

’Ivan’s hands are still cuffed behind his back, and we tied his feet before pushing him overboard. How on earth is he staying so close to the boat, not getting swept away by the waves?’

"He’s drifting over again," Emily snapped coldly, bending over to grab the baseball bat.

Sure enough, the face in the waves moved as if pulled on a string. No matter how the dark water battered and submerged him, he continued to bob along, slowly drawing closer to the boat.

"Wait until he drifts right up to the boat before you strike," Mai Mingle said, wiping the water from her eyes and mouth. "We have no other choice. We have to try again."

Emily glanced at her, then leaned over the gunwale, bat at the ready. "...You’d better prepare yourself," she said quietly. "If he’s a Resident, hitting him isn’t going to make him go away. We might be stuck with him for good."

’Of course I know that.’

’We can’t let him return to Blackmoor City, but we can’t make him sink into the sea, either. It seems he can’t be saved or returned to his human form.’

’Even if I escape now, I’ll never know when Ivan might ambush me from the shadows.’

"He’s here!" Hai Luwei shouted, the stark white beam of his flashlight landing on the water by the boat.

The light illuminated countless silver-white pillars of rain, and that expressionless face.

Mai Mingle watched, wide-eyed, as Ivan’s forehead preemptively indented just before the bat swung down, forming a shallow groove of the perfect width and depth. ’Has he been hit by the bat so many times he’s learned to do that?’

’To be able to fit it so perfectly...’

Just then, something in the deeps beneath them, like some enormous, resentful beast, suddenly rammed the hull.

Mai Mingle’s heart, soul, and feet were all thrown from the deck into the rain. After a moment of weightlessness, she slammed back down onto the planks, the pain so intense her vision swam.

But even before the world came back into focus, she knew something was terribly wrong.

"Emily!"

She scrambled to get up, but everything was slippery, and she tumbled and fell several times. "Emily! Where are you?"

Emily was no longer on the boat.

From not far behind her, Hai Luwei half-crawled, half-lunged, crashing into the side of the boat.

The flashlight beam was sinking fast beneath the churning black waves, as if swallowed into the belly of some great beast. As the white light was abruptly snuffed out, the image of Emily, arm outstretched in a desperate cry, was plunged into utter darkness.

"Don’t go in!" Mai Mingle grabbed Hai Luwei and shouted, "If you go in, you’re done for too!"

"In this weather, if we don’t get her out quickly—"

"Isn’t there rope on the boat?" Mai Mingle looked like a drowned specter, yet her throat and chest burned as if filled with hot coals. "I’ll get the lifebuoy ready! You start the engine!"

Hai Luwei seemed to remember then that the boat also had a searchlight. He answered with a cry in his voice and went stumbling and slipping toward the controls.

"Emily!" Mai Mingle yelled into the wind, rain, and waves, clutching the lifebuoy. "Where are you? Shout!"

She didn’t hear Emily’s voice, but she did hear someone give a soft laugh in the curtain of rain.

The sound was crystal clear, cutting through the rain and the waves, piercing her ears.

"Payback," Ivan said.

Mai Mingle slowly lowered her head.

Ivan was still floating by the boat. He looked up at her and smiled, but was slowly backing away.

"Well, who told her to try and murder me? I’m off to find her now... and when I do, she’s going to give me a proper apology... She’ll be so ashamed, so guilty. She won’t be able to show her face to anyone. Her face will crumple up into a ball and get sucked into her own nostrils, ears, mouth, and eye sockets..."

"Wait! Weren’t you after me? Come after me!"

Mai Mingle shouted in fury, but it drew no reaction from Ivan. A moment ago he’d been impossible to shake off, clinging to them like a disease, but now he bobbed a few times and quickly vanished among the waves.

Hai Luwei was in the driver’s seat. The engine roared to life, and the searchlight on the bow pierced the night-black, torrential downpour.

"Follow him, quickly!" Mai Mingle yelled immediately. "We can’t let him find Emily first!"

’Falling into this water, she’d barely have a chance of survival. If Ivan got to her first—’

She didn’t dare to think any further.

’Is this my fault? I shouldn’t have come out to sea today. I shouldn’t have dragged these two kids with me, should I?’

The boat started moving. On the violently rocking waves, she gripped the lifebuoy tightly, squinting her eyes, scanning the sea surface over and over, screaming Emily’s name until she was hoarse.

’I was terrified Ivan would find Emily, but also terrified that not even Ivan could find her. I didn’t dare even consider the possibility that Emily might sink into this sea forever.’

’Can she even swim? Can she hold on?’

Mai Mingle was wracked with anxiety. It took her several seconds to pick out Hai Luwei’s voice, shouting at the top of his lungs over the roar of the engine, the crashing waves, and the downpour. "And then what? What do we do when we find them?"

"Just find them first—"

Hai Luwei spun the boat around. His arm and the searchlight both pointed forward. "I... I found them..." he said.

As the searchlight bobbed, it once again illuminated Ivan on the pitch-black sea.

His back was to the two on the boat; between the crashing waves, they could vaguely make out that he seemed to be holding someone from behind.

A soaked ponytail was draped over Ivan’s shoulder. Mai Mingle recognized its owner at a glance.

"Emily!" she nearly tore her throat raw. "Emily, grab the lifebuoy! I’ll pull you up!"

The lifebuoy hit the water, splashing up white spray, but Emily was completely still, as if she had already passed out.

Ivan threaded his hands under Emily’s armpits and brought them up to press against the sides of her head. No matter how Mai Mingle raged, pleaded, or squinted to get a better look, she couldn’t make out what he was doing to her.

’He’s had a hold of Emily for several seconds now. We can’t delay any longer. But what can I do? Do I have to jump in again?’

"What do we do?" Hai Luwei was out of ideas, a sob in his voice. "Why now, of all times, isn’t he drifting toward the boat?"

’If only he would drift toward the boat, maybe we could still—’

Wait.

Mai Mingle abruptly stopped shouting, stunned.

’...Why *was* Ivan always drifting toward the boat?’

’We’d discussed that question quite a bit, but none of us had an answer. We just chalked it up to some Resident ability.’

’When I rescued Ivan, I jumped into the sea from this very boat...’

’And now he’s always nearby, floating around the boat, unable to be swept away even by the storm...’

Mai Mingle suddenly remembered that day at the Kai Family Mansion. When Chaisi’s adoptive father was calling to him, he had told the story of his life.

The reason he’d been able to repel the Resident that killed Chaisi’s mother and rescue Chaisi was because... because...

Kai Luonan had cut the "dog leash."

...and in doing so, severed the Resident’s Path into the human world.

Once it was severed, the creature fell back into its Nest.

In that case—

It was the first time Mai Mingle realized that in a moment of desperation, the body could move faster than the mind.

By the time her mind caught up, Hai Luwei’s cry was already fading in the air behind her.

The next instant, she plunged into the water. A great wave surged upward, drowning out every sound from the world above.

Terrified of being swept away, Mai Mingle desperately scrambled toward the stern and grabbed hold of the now-idle outboard motor. She fumbled in the gloom, her fingers banging against one another in the churning water.

She found it.

The leather belt, caught on the boat, was still firmly wedged in place days later.

’Is this the Path?’

Mai Mingle gritted her teeth, gripped it, and yanked it outward with all her might.