Chapter 59: Chapter 44: Mai Mingle: Difficult to Return Home (2)

All they knew was that an old lady had been in the room one moment and had vanished the next. How were they supposed to deal with a situation like that?

Thinking about it, it was actually quite fascinating: so many Illusion Hunters, so many of their clients, yet they managed to keep the existence of Nests and Illusions so tightly under wraps, not letting a single whisper reach the wider world.

Countless ordinary people bustled through their daily lives, struggling to survive, completely unaware that a world straight out of a dark fantasy existed just beyond their perception.

"I get it, I get it. Mrs. Smith, right? You can go home. This was all a misunderstanding. No one was trying to steal from you."

The police officer finally managed to break free from the crowd, pulled open his car door, and turned to the male caregiver. "The family member already said he won’t press charges, so see how he wants to handle things from here. A living, breathing person doesn’t just vanish. I’m guessing the old lady was confused and wandered off somewhere. We’ve filed a report and will send more people to search the area... Alright, alright, everyone break it up."

’The family member... He must mean the thief, right?’

Mai Mingle thought of the young man who had posed as her grandson, but after craning her neck to look around, she couldn’t spot a trace of the thief.

She watched the police officer get into his car, and the rest of the crowd dispersed. In the blink of an eye, Mai Mingle was the only one left on the roadside.

The police car drove past her. The officer inside glanced her way, and Mai Mingle’s heart skipped a beat, as if she were the one with a guilty conscience. But the officer quickly looked away, picked up his phone, and pressed it to his ear.

Mai Mingle let out a sigh of relief.

’Right. They’d never guess that this young woman who looks to be in her twenties is the same old lady they’re searching high and low for...’

As she passed Mrs. Smith’s front door, she moved cautiously, making no sound as she turned and went up the stairs.

Mai Mingle’s only thought was to get home quickly, wash her feet, and change her clothes. To save Jonah, she’d have to wait until morning to ask for help and make inquiries; it was the middle of the night, and the library wasn’t even open.

But her path home came to a halt just a few steps from her own front door.

The door, which had been pried open, was now ajar, not fully closed.

Through the crack in the door, she heard footsteps. They occasionally stepped on the wooden floor in front of the kitchen, letting out a CREAK. Amidst the sound, the thief’s voice could be heard clearly, letting out a soft "Mm."

Mai Mingle froze, caught in a dilemma.

"Is she gone?"

The thief’s voice came from behind the door, crystal clear in the dead of night. "The caregivers went back too? What did you tell them?"

’Who is he on the phone with?’

The room was silent for a few seconds before the thief exhaled. "Thanks for cleaning this up so quickly. Yeah, right. I was mainly worried about those two caregivers..."

Her curiosity piqued, Mai Mingle quietly took a step forward.

The person on the other end of the line must have said something to reassure the thief, because his voice relaxed a bit. "You’re right. If that woman downstairs hadn’t insisted on calling the police, I think the caregivers would’ve preferred to let it go. They probably wouldn’t have dug any deeper. Yes, your cleanup work is really professional... just like the real thing. If I hadn’t been the one to make the call, I would’ve been worried myself."

Goosebumps erupted on Mai Mingle’s skin. She suddenly realized who was on the other end of the line—just moments ago, she had seen that very person making a call.

"Yes, just send the bill to our Family Faction..."

The thief seemed to have been asked a difficult question. He paused before continuing, "Huh? No, I don’t know how the old lady suddenly found the Path..."

He was lying.

The moment he placed that tube on someone, it made them see an illusion of themselves opening their own Path.

Mai Mingle recalled the scene, and everything became clear: the thief wanted to use that "vacuum cleaner" to steal her Path, but when the device was active, it had also shown her, for the very first time, how to open her Path.

As if summoned, she had been called by the Path to the television set, then stumbled into the Nest.

As she was thinking, the thief’s next words pierced through her thoughts a half-second late, registering in her mind.

"...Wait, there’s someone outside my door."

Mai Mingle was startled. She instinctively glanced down and saw that the hallway light was casting her faint shadow right in front of the door.

’I have to get out of here—’

But before she could turn, the thief yanked the door open. She looked up and met his gaze.

Aside from the faint sound of traffic from his phone, there was only silence between them.

In that split second, it felt as if another version of herself had taken over. She stared at him blankly for a moment, then, as if collecting herself, gave the thief a small smile.

"I was just taking out the trash," she said in a low voice. "Did you just move in?"

The thief frowned slightly, his eyes scanning her face a couple of times.

Without giving him a chance to think, Mai Mingle started walking away as if her apartment was further down the hall.

Even though she looked decades younger and had taken off her pajama jacket, she didn’t dare let the thief’s gaze linger on her for too long. As she passed her own doorway, she could almost physically feel his eyes flick down to her filthy, ash-covered feet.

After taking two steps, Mai Mingle still hadn’t heard the thief go back inside. She glanced back and, sure enough, met his eyes again.

"What’s wrong?" She frowned as well. "By the way, you left your door open."

"Huh? Oh, thanks."

The thief was taken aback for a moment, likely realizing how inappropriate it was to be staring at a young woman in the hallway in the middle of the night. Though a flicker of suspicion remained on his face, under Mai Mingle’s unflinching gaze, he finally retreated inside. This time, he closed the door.

The moment the door clicked shut, Mai Mingle spun around and bolted.

She didn’t care if her footsteps would wake Mrs. Smith. She thundered down the stairs. Just as she reached the first-floor landing, she heard a door upstairs being thrown open, hitting the wall with a BANG.

Immediately after, a second set of footsteps echoed in the hallway.

’The thief might not have guessed that I’ve become young again, but he definitely noticed enough clues to be suspicious. It seems I can’t go home for now.’

Mai Mingle burst out of the building’s entrance but didn’t keep running down the street. She ducked into the alley behind the building and crouched behind a waist-high dumpster.

About ten seconds later, she heard footsteps as expected. Peeking out from behind the dumpster, she saw the thief’s back as he looked up and down the street before picking a direction and walking away.

Several minutes passed, and the street was empty again.

Mai Mingle didn’t dare make a sound. She rose slowly, staying low, and backed away step by step, using the dumpsters for cover. She was worried the thief was still nearby. When she occasionally stepped on a piece of sharp, broken plastic, the pain made her bite her lip hard, but she managed to stay silent.

Following the alley behind her building, she finally put some distance between herself and her home.

As the sky turned a fish-belly white, Mai Mingle stood dazedly on the street corner, unsure where to go.

If she just waited patiently, the thief would give up sooner or later; he couldn’t possibly decide to live in her apartment. But in the meantime, where could she go?

The goal of finding the Morgan Family now seemed even more distant.

The most pressing matter at hand, it seemed, was to find a pair of shoes.

Thinking about it, there was one place that was perfect. Not only could she find shoes there, but she could also get some clothes and a few slices of bread. Near Brooklyn Community College, there was a charity station where the homeless often went to get supplies.

’Aren’t I basically a homeless person right now?’

The station wasn’t close, but Mai Mingle had no other choice but to urge her bare feet forward.

She didn’t have a watch and had no idea what time it was. By the time she finally neared her destination, the sun was already high in the sky. The morning rush hour traffic had thinned out and was flowing freely again.

Mai Mingle didn’t see the moment the black Mercedes’s door suddenly flew open.

By the time she realized a tall figure had leaped out onto the road and was striding toward the subway station across the street, the driverless black Mercedes was already out of control. It careened onto the sidewalk and, with a deafening CRASH, slammed head-on into a tree just a few steps in front of her.

Inside the car, a woman with purple dreadlocks seemed to have been badly shaken up. As she struggled to open her door, she muttered resentfully to herself, "...When I get back to the Family Faction, I’m definitely renegotiating my contract!"