Illusion Report

Chaisi couldn't remember his own preferences in women, nor could he recall what most people considered a beauty.

But, he thought, the person crouching in the nearby darkness could not be called "good-looking" by anyone.

He had to recall it over and over, corralling the thought to keep it from escaping his body too—Suo Beihua had said something when she spoke of Han Liuyue earlier: "She used to be such a beautiful person."

At the time, Chaisi couldn't help but glance at the old woman crouching in the dark.

'Suo Beihua must have been describing someone else.'

'I have to remember this,' Chaisi thought, 'and the conclusion that follows: the person by my side doesn't seem to be Han Liuyue.'

...And was that person really by his side?

That woman, Mai Mingle, had said this place seemed to be a Black Abyss that separated the Nest from the human world.

Chaisi still remembered that "Han Liuyue" knew the Nest like the back of her hand and had been leading the way for him. But no matter how he walked, he could never get any closer to her.

'Is it because "Han Liuyue" isn't actually in the Black Abyss Belt?'

He had followed the real Han Liuyue into the Black Abyss Belt. If the old woman crouching on the ground was not, in fact, inside the Black Abyss Belt, then she certainly wasn't Han Liuyue.

As for why he could see and talk to her when she wasn't in the Black Abyss Belt, Chaisi now had a theory.

Not long after he'd first entered, he seemed to have still been very close to the human world.

From within the Black Abyss Belt, he had seen the Kai Family Mansion, had even reached out a hand and touched Mai Mingle's shoulder, had thrown a vase... He also remembered a man in a restaurant who seemed to have seen him, who was so frightened he'd knocked over his tableware.

Chaisi had indeed walked a very long way; it had been a long time since he had last seen the human world.

He seemed to be much closer to the Nest now.

"Han Liuyue" was probably in the Nest.

Chaisi repeatedly reminded himself that the person crouching in the darkness, wailing in a furious, shrill voice, was not "Han Liuyue"—it must be a resident.

It was in the Nest and couldn't get in, which was why he couldn't get through either.

Chaisi's thoughts drifted aimlessly, like ashes swept out to sea by waves of black water; yet he still struggled to cup his mind with his hands—sometimes, he had to repeat a single thought several times before he could move on to the next.

Thinking and analyzing, once as natural to him as breathing, now felt like slogging through a mire of quicksand. Every next step was a monumental effort.

Moreover, Chaisi had to repeat this memory and line of thought over and over again to tie them firmly to himself, lest they dissipate and float away—it was just like when one's mind wanders while reading, forcing one to reread the last sentence ten times before being able to move on to the next.

'Right... right, that resident had seen me for some reason and had laid out a "path" for me, telling me that if I just followed that path, I could eliminate Mai Mingle, the greatest threat to the Kai Family...'

"Han Liuyue" had said she could change the other person's form into a wooden door or a mirror, and even increase the difficulty of the traps to buy Chaisi an opportunity. Soon after, a pinprick of a hole suddenly broke through the infinite, incomprehensible darkness, letting in a single, hazy drop of color.

Chaisi remembered running toward it, the color growing brighter, leaping and expanding in the light, breathing and flickering, gradually dispelling the darkness before him. For a moment, he even forgot the real reason he was running toward it.

Perhaps this is what it's like for a soul at birth, thinking it's running toward hope, thinking the darkness will always be left behind.

Mai Mingle reacted quickly.

She fled from that patch of color and light, her figure shrinking until she vanished completely from the illuminated area. But what Chaisi hadn't expected was that after a while, not only had Mai Mingle returned, but she had also brought someone with her who was very familiar.

'A Kai Family Hunter. There's no mistaking it.'

'Suo... Suo Beihua?'

"You recognize her, don't you?" Mai Mingle's voice rang out from the gloomy darkness. "Don't attack just yet... Hear me out."

As she spoke with Suo Beihua, "Han Liuyue" began to shriek, as if trying to drown her out with the wails. "This is a golden opportunity! What are you gaping for? Hurry up! Charge out through her face! If you burst out, her head will shatter, and you can enter the Nest! Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

Why was it so obsessed with having him kill the person working with a Kai Family Hunter?

Mai Mingle said she might become his signpost, guiding him out of the "Black Abyss Belt"... and Suo Beihua seemed willing to trust her for the time being.

"...If we're stuck in this stairwell and can't get out, no one can be saved..."

On that small, misty screen, the two of them still seemed to be trapped in the same stairwell, imprisoned in a solid concrete gray.

He had to get Suo Beihua and Mai Mingle out of that place.

"If you won't do it, then there's no need to keep this stupid mirror," the resident muttered under its breath, turning its back to do who-knows-what. "I'll change Mai Mingle's form... change it..."

He had to warn them; this was his chance.

But Mai Mingle couldn't seem to make out the shape of his mouth. What could he do?

"...Hmm? Eh? What did you do?"

Chaisi was startled, realizing he seemed to have zoned out for a moment.

The resident was wailing repeatedly, "What did you do, you pathetic lump of future dregs whose brain, personality, body, and self are about to melt away, what on earth did you do to ruin my grand plan, what did you show her, what, what, what!"

Halfway through its tirade, it suddenly stopped.

It lowered its head, its hand sliding from its eyes to cover its mouth, its eyeballs fixed on Chaisi's hand.

"Your... your body should have almost completely melted away by now," it murmured, as if encountering an unsolvable problem. "What's going on? Where did you get a hand? Where did you get a phone?"

Chaisi looked down, but all he could see was an expanse of darkness.

He had long since been unable to see his own body, his own hands, let alone an external object like a phone.

In the Black Abyss Belt, it seemed that flesh and matter were the first things to dissipate and drift away. Once the material shell had more or less scattered, his memories and mind were next.

"A shirt, a belt, a ring, a watch, and a silver chain..."

"What?" the old woman asked.

"And a phone," Chaisi said softly.

It was an incredibly strenuous task for him to recall what he had been wearing when he came in.

It was only with the help of Suo Beihua's description that Chaisi remembered the scene of himself entering the humanoid black hole. Building on this, his repetitive thinking seemed to become a kind of summoning, slowly calling back his scattered memories.

"At the beginning, I was using my phone as a light..." Chaisi muttered.

As long as he kept thinking about them, he could summon back his lost thoughts and memories.

So what if he kept thinking about an object? Could he summon the object itself back?

He recalled his hand, the one that was too large for everyday objects. The length of his fingers, the width of his knuckles, the white scar on the back of his hand. With his mind, he called out to the darkness time and again, summoning his own flesh and blood and... his phone.

Chaisi didn't even know if he had actually managed to summon his hand and phone back.

He just imagined it, over and over: he raised his phone, typed on the screen, and showed it to Mai Mingle.

But that seemed like a long time ago.

He didn't know if Mai Mingle had seen his warning or not. That small patch of color and light had long since vanished, and he had been thrown back into the layered, churning darkness. When he came to his senses, he found that even the old woman was gone.

...It seemed to have decided Chaisi was useless and abandoned him.

He was once again standing alone in the darkness.

No, it was wrong to say alone, because there was one thing that would never dissipate, not even in the Black Abyss Belt: the guilt that had accompanied him his entire life.

What now?

After another round of recitation, silent repetition, and recollection, Chaisi clutched at the last remnants of his flesh and mind, standing blankly in the darkness.

Since everything seemed to have returned to its original state, he might as well continue.

"...Han Liuyue?" he called out. "Where are you?"

But that cry somehow summoned a fragment of memory. He thought for a moment and realized it seemed to be Mai Mingle's voice, a sentence she had said at some unknown point in time.

"Fate is truly unpredictable."

He could only remember Mai Mingle's voice, like a dream floating in the darkness of a half-asleep state. "...If Han Liuyue had, back then..."

'What about Han Liuyue back then?'

"If Han Liuyue hadn't decided to take that risk, she would never have entered the Black Abyss Belt. If she hadn't entered the Black Abyss Belt, Chaisi wouldn't have followed her in..."

Mai Mingle sighed to someone unknown. "Chaisi following her in is what turned him into my 'signpost'. Otherwise, I might have been trapped in that stairwell forever..."

'Han Liuyue's decision indirectly saved my life,' Mai Mingle's voice continued. 'So I want to save her and Chaisi too.'

Chaisi stood motionless in the darkness.

Was this his imagination? Or had it really happened?

He had come to save someone, but it seemed only now did he suddenly realize that he too had become someone who needed to be saved.

He had received aid, but it seemed he had never encountered salvation.

'How can I be saved?' Chaisi thought blankly. 'Is there any hope of being saved?'

'Where would salvation come from?'

He repeated this long stretch of memory to himself over and over, standing there in a daze for an unknown length of time, until a voice slowly rippled in from the darkness. The sound, carried on the waves of the dark sea, was distant, scattered, and indistinct. For a moment, Chaisi couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

It was just... so familiar. So familiar it made him want to cry.

He followed the sound and took another step forward.

"...I never would have thought back then that a chance trip to Luocheng would lead me to the son I've been most proud of in my entire life."

"You were only five years old the year I met you, crying your heart out in the middle of the night."

It was Uncle Kai.