Chapter 431 - 375: Mai Mingle: The Sea’s Dream

Chapter 431: Chapter 375: Mai Mingle: The Sea’s Dream

Just as she finally pulled the belt off, she felt someone grab the other end.

Mai Mingle was horrified. She twisted around sharply, but the belt had already been ripped from her grasp by a wave. She thrashed in the water for a moment before grabbing the bottom of the engine. Her scalp was still tingling, but she finally let out a breath of relief. ’So it wasn’t someone else in the sea after all. I just lost my grip on the belt.’

She struggled back onto the boat with great effort, just in time to see Hai Luwei slowly pulling in a rope. At the other end was the lifebuoy she had thrown in earlier.

In the lifebuoy, Emily looked like a soaked rag doll. Her arms and head hung limply, as if all her strength had been drained away.

In that instant, Mai Mingle’s heart finally settled back into her chest. She almost collapsed to the deck in relief.

’Thank goodness... thank goodness.’

"Ivan is gone,"

Hai Luwei yelled back at Mai Mingle as he pulled the lifebuoy toward the boat. "Did you do something? A wave just crashed over them, and it looked like Ivan lost his grip on Emily. He was suddenly swept away..."

’Could the belt really have been Ivan’s Path? Was he swept back into a Nest?’

According to Hai Luwei, he hadn’t been in any mood to watch where Ivan went. He just desperately shouted Emily’s name, telling her to grab the lifebuoy. At that moment, she was like a gradually melting block of ice, the part of her visible above the surface shrinking until, after a few more waves, Emily vanished.

In that instant, not just Emily and Ivan, but Mai Mingle too had disappeared from view.

For about ten seconds, caught between the gloomy sky, the torrential rain, and the Black Sea, Hai Luwei was utterly alone.

"You have no idea how agonizing that was... I didn’t dare move the boat because you were still at the stern, and I was afraid if I moved, you’d be pushed further away by the waves. When I finally saw a hand suddenly pop up next to the lifebuoy, I thought to myself, ’Given my luck so far, I just knew the person coming up had to be Ivan.’"

Hai Luwei said, panting as he pulled the rope, "I never would have guessed... Thankfully, she still had a little consciousness left and managed to grab the lifebuoy."

Working together, the two of them slowly hauled Emily out of the sea.

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness in the water. Once she was on the boat, it was as if a sense of relief allowed her to pass out completely.

Externally, Emily seemed fine. There were no contortions or injuries on her head or face, but the seawater had chilled her until she was deathly pale. ’If this keeps up, she’ll get hypothermia.’

Mai Mingle quickly wrapped her in a dry towel from the storage box, then covered that layer with a waterproof plastic tarp.

Her own teeth were chattering from the cold. After checking Emily’s pulse, she couldn’t take it anymore. Hai Luwei had already turned the boat around and was speeding toward the pier, causing the wind and rain to lash at them even harder. Shivering violently, she crawled under the plastic tarp, using it as a meager shield against the wind.

Emily lay beside her, almost like a corpse.

Whenever the boat rocked and pitched, Emily’s body would roll back and forth. Afraid she might hit something, Mai Mingle had no choice but to hold her down firmly with her arm.

"Just hang on a little longer!" Hai Luwei shouted through the wind and rain. "We’ll be back on shore in another ten minutes! Seriously, how is this damn rain getting heavier? Did the sky spring a leak?"

It was no longer just a matter of heavy rain.

For a while now, the gales battering the boat had grown heavier and more violent. For several brief moments, the small vessel was lifted completely out of the water. When it slammed back down onto the sea, walls of water roared upwards like furious, snow-white waterfalls surging toward the iron-gray sky. Amidst the terror, there was an indescribable, terrible beauty.

It was a complete miracle they hadn’t capsized.

From the depths where sea met sky, countless storms surged forth, battering the world like giant beasts. The yacht was like a blade of grass swaying in the wind, a tiny fish trying to outrace the tempest, desperately fighting to reach the shore before being overturned.

Mai Mingle pressed half her body onto Emily, terrified she would be thrown overboard. Her other hand gripped a rope on the boat so tightly that it had long gone numb, curled stiffly like a chicken’s foot, as if it would never straighten again.

’She wanted to laugh out loud.’

’Years from now, long after I’m dead, Hai Luwei and Emily will still remember me clearly.’

’Hai Luwei will complain to his future children about a troublesome old lady he once met. Emily will scold the residents and criticize the Nest’s incompetence, lamenting that it doesn’t even have an Illusion that can bring someone back from the dead.’

’The world is so vast, so wondrous. And when I look back, there are still people by my side.’

’What is there to regret?’

"Damn it," Hai Luwei suddenly cried out.

The small boat had been racing along, but just when they should have reached the shore, both the coastline and the pier had vanished into a world of iron-gray water and sky.

Whether the storm had driven surging waves into Blackmoor City or several swollen rivers had flooded the city as they rushed to the sea, the boat was thrown by the heavy waves over what used to be dry land.

The boat, which had been lucky the entire way, finally gave out. It slid, rolled, and capsized, tossing the three of them into the water. The silver lining to this disaster was that the water here was much shallower. It wasn’t deep enough to drown them and instead cushioned their fall, saving them from being slammed into the hard ground.

"Are you okay?" Hai Luwei sputtered, wading awkwardly and strenuously toward them. "Are you hurt?"

Mai Mingle struggled to her feet in the water. Before she could answer, she shouted over the storm, "Did you see that just now?"

"See what?" Hai Luwei asked, startled. "Emily? She’s up ahead, I see her—"

"No," Mai Mingle cut him off, but then she hesitated. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she changed her mind. "Never mind. Let’s go get Emily first."

This wasn’t the time to chat. The area around the pier was bearing the brunt of the flood, and if they delayed any longer, they could be swept back out to sea at any moment.

’The sea...’

Mai Mingle couldn’t help but look back at the roaring, iron-gray surface of the distant sea.

’...Did I see it wrong?’

The two of them supported the semiconscious Emily, half-dragging, half-carrying her as they trudged forward, one deep step after another. The flooding wasn’t too severe yet, and the resistance from the vast expanse of water soon lessened. Finding where Hai Luwei had parked his car, however, was now pure wishful thinking.

"My phone is still on me," Mai Mingle said, surprised herself as she felt her pocket. "I’ll call an ambulance for us right away..."

Even if she suspected her phone was being monitored, this was no time to worry about the police chief.

"I... I’m fine..." Emily mumbled. "I’m already much better..."

"You may be fine, but I’m not!" Hai Luwei immediately complained. "I took a hard fall! Besides, we can’t just keep walking in this rain. Mai Mingle, don’t listen to her, hurry up and call— Mai Mingle? What’s wrong?"

The furious roaring of the storm and the sea already made conversation difficult, and it drowned out all other sounds.

For example, the buzz of a vibrating phone.

The moment Mai Mingle turned her phone on, a "Nest Dominance Game Notification" eagerly pushed its way through, as if it had been waiting for this very second.

Beloved contestant Mai Mingle,

We regret to inform you that your second action point, which would have obtained the Illusion Report for you, has officially failed.

Honestly, it was an action point to save someone, so how did you end up pushing someone back into the water instead?

Oh, what a poor young man. He had such a bright future in Blackmoor City, and you ruined it with your own hands.

Is this still the same contestant Mai Mingle who values human life above all and holds compassion in her heart? Do you feel no shame?

The corrupting influence of one’s environment is truly not to be underestimated.

’...All just unsurprising nonsense.’

Mai Mingle couldn’t help but snort. She had already anticipated this; she wouldn’t let the Nest manipulate her emotions.

She closed the message and tried to call for an ambulance, but the wet touchscreen was slippery and unresponsive. Between the three of them, there wasn’t a dry inch of cloth to wipe it with. Just as she was getting anxious, her phone buzzed again.

It was an Amber Alert.

’Why is this here again?’

Beloved contestant Mai Mingle, congratulations, your luck isn’t half bad!

Although your second action point failed, your third action point has succeeded. You didn’t expect that, did you?

’...What?’

’I haven’t even received a notification about the third action point!’

Your decisive and swift action, while completing the third action point, also made the Nest aware of a contradiction between the second and third action points.

Simply put, it was impossible to complete both; one had to be chosen. Congratulations, your choice has led to the successful conclusion of the third action point!

However, this was truly a major oversight on the part of the Nest Dominance Game.

Please ensure your phone remains fully charged and proceed with caution. As a token of apology, the Nest will be sending you information on the

"Time" Illusion within the next 72 hours.

Mai Mingle stared blankly at her phone. For a brief moment, she forgot the wind and rain, forgot the danger, and forgot the two young people beside her.

She had countless questions but knew the Nest would give her no answers.

’I had already mentally prepared myself to give up on the "Time" Illusion...’

’But now it’s telling me I completed the third action point? How could I have completed it when I don’t even know what it was?’

"Mai Mingle?" Hai Luwei called out to her again—for what felt like the dozenth time—finally snapping her back to her senses.

She stared dazedly at Hai Luwei’s pale, exhausted face for a few seconds before asking, "You... you didn’t see it just now? Before we were thrown onto the shore..."

"See what?" Hai Luwei raised his eyebrows.

"In the waves... I think I saw a..."

The words that followed were like something spoken in a dream. Forget making someone else understand—Mai Mingle didn’t even understand it herself. But she had no choice but to voice the impression that had flashed through her mind in that instant.

"Back then, I saw... a dream, wrapped in the waves."