Illusion Report

Fu Tailan pressed play on the video again.

He had already watched the same clip twice, and the third time, naturally, nothing had changed:

Amidst gasps from the crowd, a tall figure tumbled out of the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling window. He barely managed to grab an outward-opening window, dangled for a few seconds, then plunged straight into a cushion on the sidewalk—the giant goat head on his neck leaving a white blur in the night.

"I swear, you couldn’t see a goat head with the naked eye,"

The phone’s camera panned to a young man’s face. He looked shocked and excited, stressing to the camera, "I looked at my screen just now and was totally dumbfounded. The guy who fell wasn’t wearing any goat head, so how did one show up on the screen? Is it some kind of signal interference or something—"

Fu Tailan turned off the video.

It was impossible to tell from the video that the person who fell was Chaisi.

Carter took back his phone, his expression unchanged.

"If I didn’t happen to know that Chaisi Monroe had an Illusion like that, we wouldn’t have realized right away that it was the Kai Family you had a run-in with."

"I didn’t realize you kept such a close watch on news about Illusions in our circle," Fu Tailan said in a low voice.

"Of course I do," Carter said with a laugh. "Illusions pay my bills. They’re my bread and butter."

’Is he just saying that to emphasize how important his position as Hunter Chief is?’

The Morgan Family got its start in the Hunter trade, but it had long since grown into a cross-industry conglomerate. The fact that the Morgan Family still maintained its Hunter branch was less for profit and more out of a refusal to withdraw from the world of Illusions.

If it was because they didn’t want to miss out on useful Illusions, then it made sense for Carter to be paying close attention...

Or rather, it was impossible to disprove.

"So the Kai Family plans to just let the video die down?"

Fu Tailan’s mind was sluggish right now, so he could only make small talk to buy himself some time to think.

"Yes," Carter said, showing great patience. "You know how it is. At worst, they’ll hire a few accounts to claim the vlogger faked the video for clicks. In a couple of days, the internet will forget all about it. After all, there’s no shortage of strange events and news online."

"Which hospital is Chaisi in?" Fu Tailan asked.

Carter just smiled.

"...I’ve said it before, the board doesn’t want to see a gang war. Where he’s being treated, I don’t know, and it’s not the Morgan Family’s business to know. What I want to know is, why did your conflict turn life-threatening?"

’So we’re back to this question again.’

The Kai Family operated on a traditional system similar to a criminal gang. On the surface, their methods were vastly different from the Morgan Family’s corporate-style Hunter Family Faction—but in the end, it was all about profit.

A Hunter’s profits aren’t gained by seizing territory, but by retrieving things from treacherous and unpredictable Nests.

Unless the reward was exceptionally enticing, bloody conflicts between Hunter Family Factions were rare.

But the real reward was something he couldn’t tell Carter. And casually inventing a story about an Illusion could leave loose ends or simply not be convincing enough.

Fu Tailan then realized that even though he had been eliminated from the Nest Dominance Game, he still didn’t want to tell Carter about it. ’Why is that?’

But this wasn’t the time to dwell on the reason.

"...It all goes back to my last trip into a Nest."

Carter didn’t have a Path, and Fu Tailan often operated alone in Nests, so his answer was equally impossible to disprove.

"He thought I took an Illusion the Kai Family was looking for, so when I entered a Nest again, a Kai Family Hunter came after me. I hadn’t actually taken anything, but they didn’t believe me, and we wasted a lot of time arguing. In the middle of that entanglement, the Kai Family Hunter was ambushed by a resident."

Fu Tailan had heard that the Kai Family had recently lost some people—he figured Chaisi wouldn’t have given Carter a detailed report on exactly who died and how.

"You’ve surely heard of Chaisi’s reputation. To ensure his men’s unwavering loyalty, he always acts like they’re his deeply cherished brothers. He came to my apartment saying he was going to teach me a lesson, to make sure I wouldn’t dare mess with the Kai Family again..."

Carter’s eyes remained fixed, his expression motionless.

He said nothing. Not until Fu Tailan finished his explanation did the hospital room fall silent again, leaving only the rhythmic BEEP... BEEP... of the monitor.

Carter shifted in his seat, the rustle of his clothes loud in the quiet room. From the equally silent hallway outside, a distant cough echoed from some other room.

’It’s almost midnight... Is this really within the hospital’s visiting hours?’

A sudden doubt surfaced in Fu Tailan’s mind.

But he didn’t voice the question; he just watched Carter silently.

Carter seemed to be pondering this. After a long moment, he suddenly asked, "A few months ago... did you have any results tracking down that key?"

Fu Tailan was actually grateful for the pain and medication in his system. They made his face feel heavy, not pliable enough to betray the shock that shot through him.

"The key Westley has, right?" Carter asked.

When Carter had signed Fu Tailan, he had made it very clear: the reason for the high price he was paying was that, in addition to regular Hunter Family Faction duties, he wanted Fu Tailan to find out what secret Westley knew.

So, ever since taking the job, Fu Tailan had been regularly reporting his progress to Carter—until November 15th, when he received the summons for the Nest Dominance Game.

From that moment on, every report Carter received was just a smokescreen of half-truths and evasions.

"Unfortunately... that lead ended up going nowhere," Fu Tailan said.

"Ah," Carter said, nodding as if he understood something. "So you still don’t know what secret Westley is holding on to?"

Fu Tailan didn’t like his position in this conversation, but for the moment, he had no other answer but to shake his head and deny it.

"In other words... you’re trying to tell me that the conflict between you and Chaisi, and the conflict between Chaisi and Westley’s people, are two completely separate incidents with no connection whatsoever?"

Fu Tailan couldn’t bring himself to nod.

He knew nothing about this. ’When did Chaisi get into a conflict with Westley’s side? Does that guy do nothing but stir up trouble all day? Doesn’t he ever sleep?’

’Wait, could it be that the second Illusion he had wasn’t originally obtained by his ally, but was snatched from Westley’s faction?’

He dredged through his groggy mind for a moment. ’Before all this, what Illusions did the Westley Team have again?’

But even if the drugs had turned Fu Tailan into an idiot, he could still hear the implication in Carter’s words.

Carter pulled his chair closer to the hospital bed.

He propped his elbows on the bed, pinning down the blanket over Fu Tailan. His face, which looked like it belonged in a production of *Animal Farm*, was now uncomfortably close.

"You see," Carter explained patiently, "your story is plausible, but the biggest problem is that Chaisi Monroe is not an impulsive fool."

Fu Tailan said nothing.

"Going after you for the sake of his subordinate certainly fits his reputation, and I can’t say he definitely wouldn’t do it. But the interesting part is, on the same night as his conflict with you, he immediately got into another one with Westley’s men."

’I really wish I could just open my eyes and find myself lying in my own bed at the apartment.’

"You don’t know about this because you were still unconscious. I instructed the Household Hunters not to bother you with these things when you woke up... Looks like they were quite considerate of you and kept their word. So, that’s strange, isn’t it? Why? Why would that Chaisi Monroe risk harming the Kai Family’s interests by fighting with other powers one after another?"

He narrowed his eyes. "It’s almost as if... all of you are fighting over something."

On the bedroom wall of Fu Tailan’s apartment, a mountain bike was hanging.

There was no trace in his bedroom to suggest it belonged to a seventeen-year-old boy. It was so devoid of personal character that it was more impersonal than a hotel room.

The only exception was the mountain bike on the wall.

"See? I didn’t forget."

That day, Fu Han, as if apologetically, had told him to sit with his back to the main door. A moment later, Fu Tailan felt a light tap on his shoulder.

He turned around and saw the brand-new mountain bike with a gift bow on it.

"I got you the best model," Fu Han said, patting it. "Unbelievably expensive—a bicycle, for over three thousand bucks."

Fu Tailan was stunned. He looked at his dad and asked, "The money..."

"Well, it’s spent now," Fu Han said, rubbing his nose. "Is it a little big? I bought the adult model. It’s fine, you’ll grow into it. It’ll be perfect."

Fu Tailan closed his eyes, then opened them again. Of course, what he saw was not the mountain bike, but Carter’s face.

He lowered his eyelids and let out a soft sigh.

He had once seen a documentary exposing the miserable conditions of privately kept elephants in Thailand. The elephants were passed down from generation to generation like family heirlooms, and until the day they died, their legs were bound by heavy, coarse chains they could never escape.

Fu Tailan shifted his legs slightly under the blanket—of course, just like always, he couldn’t possibly hear the rattling of chains.

That wasn’t because he wasn’t wearing any.

"...Where is Fu Han?"

Without looking at Carter, he asked in a low voice, "You should know, right?"