Illusion Report

Mai Mingle was suddenly struck by a realization—the difference between a Hunter and an ordinary person was sometimes hidden in such a fleeting, subtle moment.

No matter how much they believed in breaking a stalemate with force, a Hunter would never give up on using their head.

After Suo Beihua’s words, "I’m not going out," had fallen, not a single person in the stairwell had immediately asked the most obvious, and laziest, response: "Why?"

In that instant, Mai Mingle could almost hear the faint whirring of everyone’s thoughts spinning at high speed.

With their interviews already confirmed failures, there was only one logical reason for Suo Beihua not to go out: she felt it wasn’t safe outside. That much was obvious without asking; there was no need to waste their breath.

The real question was, what had made her sense something was wrong?

’If she doesn’t say anything, can I figure out what’s off on my own?’

’Would asking her directly for the reason influence my own judgment?’

’If there really is something wrong outside, how do we explain the scene before us, especially Tian Xi by the side of the road?’

When the Hunters spoke, they were almost cautious.

"I was just thinking... the Kai Family seems to use this warehouse as an interview stage often,"

Li Stan said slowly, choosing his words with care. "The ones who warned us about the physical changes were the Kai Family Hunters themselves. So it’s perfectly normal for Tian Xi not to be surprised by our strange appearances... They probably even have surveillance to observe our performance, so it’s even less strange that they’d know who is who."

He added, "Ah, um, I’m not saying I’m right. That’s just what I was thinking."

"Tian Xi isn’t inside the trial area, so his perception wouldn’t necessarily be affected by this building. If you’re worried about that, we can ask him some indirect questions," Mai Mingle added after a moment of thought.

’Hey, haven’t I been using my brain this whole time? Am I starting to seem more and more like a Hunter?’

Suo Beihua’s eyelids were lowered, her thoughts unreadable.

"What exactly did you notice?"

Emily finally asked.

"While smashing a hole and crawling out does sound too simple, from another perspective, wouldn’t it be just like the Nest to place the real exit right in front of us, making us so suspicious and worried that we trap ourselves?"

Mai Mingle didn’t have much experience with this, but Li Stan and Robert both nodded several times in agreement.

"...So you all think this hole is the way out?" Suo Beihua finally spoke.

"No," Emily answered immediately. "I’m just voicing my own reasoning. It’s possible you could convince me otherwise—but you have to start talking first."

Suo Beihua pressed her lips together, silent, and glanced outside through the crack again. It looked like Tian Xi was searching for a better vantage point to throw the rope up.

"...There’s nothing I can do if you’re going to laugh at me." She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, and said, "Tian Xi’s braid is on the other side."

The stairwell fell silent for a few seconds before Robert let out a "Huh?"

"That’s it?" he asked, incredulous. "With hair that long, isn’t it perfectly normal to just flick it from one shoulder to the other? How is that a point of suspicion? And how do you know... you... didn’t..."

As Robert looked down to wind his clockwork again, Li Stan finished his unspoken thought: "You remember which side his braid was on? Even if you’re sure you remember correctly, this..."

"Neither of you has had long hair, have you," Suo Beihua said, a bit stiffly. "His braid isn’t tied from the center back of his head. To get it to hang over one side of his chest, he starts braiding it from behind his right ear. That way, the braid will always hang down over his right shoulder. From our perspective, the braid should be on our left."

"I’ve never had long hair, it’s true... so what if it’s tied from behind his ear?" Li Stan asked.

"If you tie it from behind your right ear and then flip the braid to the left side, the hair will be awkward and unruly, and it would pull the braid loose," Mai Mingle explained. "I was a preschool teacher when I was younger, so I’ve tied plenty of braids for little girls."

"Why do you talk like such an old lady—never mind. But couldn’t he have just retied it on the other side if it came loose? They were waiting outside for over an hour. It’s pretty normal to fix your hair, right?"

Li Stan paused, then said placatingly, "It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that the braid... isn’t really evidence. Sometimes a Hunter’s intuition is inexplicable. Are you just having one of those gut feelings you can’t explain?"

Suo Beihua opened her mouth—for an instant, she clearly wanted to argue, but she stopped herself in time and changed her tune. "Mm... right. It’s probably just my intuition."

Even if it couldn’t be called a solid point of suspicion, one person’s gut feeling that something was wrong was bound to make the others hesitate.

The group looked back and forth at each other’s misshapen faces, suddenly unsure of what to do next.

"Who wants to stick their head out and test the waters?" Li Stan said, as if half-joking.

A lot of truths are said in jest. No one paid him any mind.

"Or we could test him with a few questions," Emily said. She was standing at the edge of the crack. It was impossible to tell from her nutshell head, but she seemed to be staring down at Tian Xi, who was trying to figure out how to rescue them. "See if his answers match our experiences."

"Ask what?" Robert said, distractedly winding his clockwork.

His hands had rarely left the winding key since a little while ago. The sound of the spring tightening echoed in the stairwell. Every time Mai Mingle thought it was tight enough to last for a while, Robert would start winding it again just a few minutes later.

Everyone fell silent for a moment. Mai Mingle looked at the position of the crack.

The hole was quite high up; for someone of her height, it was just about level with her face. "Let’s ask him the color of the Kai Jiafa name tags," she suggested suddenly. "He shouldn’t be able to see the tags on our chests."

When they shouted the question down to him, Tian Xi seemed both amused and annoyed.

"Orange. Fluorescent orange," he said, one hand on his hip. "So while I’m down here trying to figure out how to save you, you’re all up there getting paranoid. Anything else you want to ask? It’s all the same to me."

"Is your braid on a different side?" Emily asked, getting straight to the point.

Tian Xi froze, subconsciously touching his hair.

"No, you’re definitely misremembering. My braid has always been on the left. When I was a kid, I went hunting with my father and brother once and fell down a slope, getting a nasty gash on the right side of my neck. You know how boys are, I thought having a scar was cool, so I deliberately started wearing my braid on the left to show off the scar on the right. The scar has faded now that I’m older, you can barely see it, but the habit stuck."

Everyone couldn’t help but turn and glance at Suo Beihua.

She just stared, unmoving, at Tian Xi and the road outside the hole. When Mai Mingle looked over, she saw an expression on Suo Beihua’s face that was almost pained—as if she desperately wished she was wrong but was terrified that she was right.

’It’s just a braid... Is she really that confident in her memory?’

"Do we look like our normal selves to you?" Emily asked again.

"Yeah. Are you guys not seeing each other normally yet? Didn’t you say you’d all left the trial area?"

"Then I’m..."

"Emily," Tian Xi said before she could finish. He raised a hand, pointing to each of them as if taking roll call, matching every name to every face. "Right, and you all failed the interview, you know that."

If he had said that coming out right now would open a path for negotiation to enter the Kai Family, that would have been suspicious. But Tian Xi didn’t seem to be in any hurry to force them out.

The group then asked Tian Xi a few more questions, picking details from their individual interviews, and his answers seemed to be flawless.

"What now? Does anyone still have doubts? No?" Li Stan took a step back and whispered, "I don’t think there’s a problem, either. So... who wants to go out first?"

Mai Mingle glanced at Suo Beihua again.

The hand hanging by her snake tail was clenched into a tight fist, her white knuckles looking as if they would burst through her skin.

"If you don’t want to come out, that’s fine," Tian Xi shouted. "Didn’t I tell you? The other two have already gone in to rescue you. I was originally going to have them come out, but I can also have them turn back and find you from inside the building. They can lead the way and climb out first. That should be okay, right?"

It was obvious that everyone breathed a sigh of relief; a few people’s backs and shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Alright, then," Li Stan said, his trembling antennae slowly growing still. "We’ll wait."

Even though the staircase was infinite, people spat out by the floors always seemed to end up near each other. Finding them in the endless stairwell wasn’t an impossible task.

’...So now, all we can do is wait to be rescued?’

Mai Mingle thought, a little lost, as she watched the small figure on the road outside.

Tian Xi took out a walkie-talkie—or at least, it looked like a walkie-talkie. Mai Mingle had no idea what kind of technology allowed it to be used in the Nest.

"...Can you hear me?"

Faintly, she heard Tian Xi’s voice carried over by a gust of wind. "...Yeah, keep going... Yes, they’re afraid to come out... Okay, when you and Connie go in for the rescue, be careful."

Mai Mingle froze.

’The people coming to rescue us... who are they?’