Illusion Report

’...It would’ve been better if I hadn’t woken up.’

Fu Tailan was calmer than he expected—no, perhaps "calm" wasn’t the right word.

He was more like a piece of paper that had been repeatedly crumpled, folded, and rolled up. Its very fibers had been torn apart, and it lacked the strength to smooth itself out again. All it could do was lie spread out on the hospital bed in the rough shape of a person.

He lay motionless on the bed, watching the doctors and nurses come and go, running tests and asking questions. He felt it was exhausting to even open his mouth.

"Do you remember what happened before you came to the hospital?"

"Yeah."

"How are you feeling? Can you feel the pressure on your limbs?"

"Yes."

"Is the pain severe? Do you need more pain—"

"It hurts," Fu Tailan said immediately. "Give me more. I need it."

After the medical staff left, he lay alone in bed, his eyes shut tight. He tried to hypnotize his own brain, to will it back into unconsciousness. If he could just pass out, the outside world would have nothing to do with him. He wouldn’t have to think about anything.

Unfortunately, he was still awake when Remy returned to the room. He could even feel his own eyelids twitching. ’Since I can’t keep up the act, I might as well open my eyes,’ he thought.

"Mr. Morgan is on his way," Remy said, glancing at him.

Even though the age, setting, and circumstances were all wrong, Fu Tailan was reminded of something: when a classmate got into trouble and was summoned to the principal’s office, the other kids would wear similar expressions.

He was in no condition to deal with his boss right now.

"Do you have the energy to talk?"

Remy paused, then suddenly shook her head with a smile, her dark brown lips curling. "Well, even if you don’t have the energy, you’ll have to find some. No way around it. Do you need anything? I was about to go grab a coffee."

Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten in over forty-eight hours, but Fu Tailan didn’t feel hungry.

He was about to shake his head, but the word "coffee" suddenly struck a nerve.

"Why haven’t you gone home? I’m awake now."

"Because of the friction between you and the Kai Family," Remy said with a shrug. "To be safe, I’ve had to keep an eye on you here, and I’ve also had people stationed at your apartment."

She had mentioned that before...

Fu Tailan felt like he was overlooking something.

But he was so exhausted right now, his mind a numb blank. If he was overlooking something, it might as well not exist. He didn’t have the energy to think about it.

He could only latch onto the idea that had just surfaced. "Who’s watching the apartment? Have them video call me."

"What’s wrong?"

"I want to see the situation in the apartment."

Remy didn’t ask any more questions. A few minutes later, Fu Tailan was hanging up the video call. He’d had the stationed Hunter hold up their phone and walk through the apartment for him. He hadn’t given any specific directions, but in the camera’s quick pans and sweeps, he had already seen it: the kitten painting on the kitchen wall was gone.

Fu Han had followed his instructions and taken the kitten painting.

Suddenly, Fu Tailan wanted to know every single detail of that night. It was just like when he was twelve, when he had turned the house upside down, searching for any clue that could tell him where his father had gone and how long he planned to be away.

"What time on the 21st was I brought to the hospital?"

Remy thought for a moment. "Around 10 p.m., I think? No later than ten-thirty."

Judging by the time, Fu Han had acted fast. He must have called for an ambulance the moment he returned to the apartment to get Fu Tailan to the hospital so quickly.

"When Fu Han called for help, who did he call?"

Remy scratched her head. "Me," she said.

"What did he say?"

"He sounded rushed. He said you’d been seriously injured at home and that he’d already called an ambulance. He said he had a leg injury himself and was losing blood, so he was going to ride with the ambulance. He told me to get to the hospital immediately and to send someone to watch the apartment, saying it was your last instruction before you passed out."

Fu Tailan didn’t even remember giving that instruction—but thinking about it, having Fu Han take the kitten painting first, then having someone guard an apartment that no longer had anything worth guarding, that did sound like his style.

Apparently, the ambulance arrived before the Household Hunter did. Fu Han must have brought the kitten painting with him to the hospital.

"After you got to the hospital, what did you and Fu Han talk about?"

Remy shrugged. "After I got here, I didn’t see either of you for a good while. You were in surgery, and Mr. Fu Han was getting his injuries treated."

After his injuries were treated, Fu Han told her to keep waiting outside the operating room for Fu Tailan. He said he wanted a smoke, ignored the nurse’s objections, and left on crutches. No one saw him after that.

When he disappeared, the clock had just struck midnight, turning the date to the 22nd.

Fu Tailan closed his eyes.

His mind was a muddled, exhausted haze. It wouldn’t turn, yet it couldn’t simply slip into unconsciousness either.

Asking was pointless. Back then, he’d dug up a pile of receipts, business cards, and internet history, but in the end, all he could do was sit at home and wait, lost.

Fu Tailan took out his phone and stared at the notification of his dismissal for nearly ten minutes.

’...Is that it?’

’They’re treating me like a clown.’

’They give you hope and a goal, only to snatch it away, telling you that you were never worthy of it to begin with. That it’s your own fault it was taken away.’

’All because Fu Han took the key—’

Fu Tailan squeezed his eyes shut, cutting off the thought. But more thoughts sprouted like weeds.

In the early morning of the 22nd, while he was still unconscious, Chaisi had acquired a target Illusion, and yet he was the one dismissed for doing nothing—

"Supervisor?"

Remy called his name softly, and Fu Tailan opened his eyes.

"Mr. Morgan is here."

He pretended not to hear the footsteps approaching from outside the door.

As Remy said, "I’ll go get that coffee. You two talk," Fu Tailan just stared at the ceiling, taking a few breaths to give himself a moment. He only turned his head when someone sat down beside him.

Carter Morgan caught his gaze and, in the silence, gave him a wide, toothy smile.

Fu Tailan’s stomach suddenly clenched.

Carter Morgan wasn’t one for tanning. His skin was pale and pinkish, like he’d just had a good night’s sleep followed by an idle afternoon of cocktails.

Although his features were regular and his figure well-maintained, with no real physical resemblance, he always reminded Fu Tailan of a friendly, amiable, and well-kept pig.

Fu Tailan had never seen a real pig; his deepest impression of them came from a book on his school’s reading list: George Orwell’s *Animal Farm*.

Right now, Carter’s smile was benevolent, his eyes gleaming faintly.

"Tailan,"

he said warmly. "The doctors tell me you’re stable?"

"I’m still very weak," Fu Tailan said.

Carter Morgan nodded, acknowledging the words, but gave no indication that he would be leaving anytime soon to let Fu Tailan rest.

With the pleasantries out of the way, he stopped beating around the bush.

"You’re a renowned Genius Hunter in our circles... Hunting Illusions is a business. I thought you understood that."

Carter Morgan glanced at the vital signs monitor.

"The name may contain the words ’Family Faction,’ but we are fundamentally a modern commercial organization that pursues profit and efficiency. Starting some kind of gang war with another Hunter Family Faction... that’s not what the board hired you for."

"War may be the most profitable business, but this kind of gang war only leads to a loss of profit for us." Carter chuckled as if he’d just told a very funny joke.

’Gang war?’

Fu Tailan felt like he was about to grasp something, but under the stupefying influence of the painkillers, his brain seemed to refuse to turn.

"So, tell me," Carter sighed, as if indulging a teenager’s whim. "What exactly happened? Why did it come to this?"

"It was just a misunderstanding," Fu Tailan lied instinctively.

Lies were one of the few safe havens in the world that he could completely control.

"A misunderstanding?"

"Yes. It all goes back to a trip I took into a Nest. He thought I took something the Kai Family was—"

Fu Tailan didn’t finish his sentence. He suddenly stopped.

’The Kai Family?’

He turned his head and looked into Carter Morgan’s faintly gleaming eyes.

Every muscle, every line on the man’s face seemed to have been steeped in his environment for years, allowing him to easily freeze it into an expression that was at once friendly and benevolent, yet actually blank.

Fu Tailan didn’t know why he was only thinking of this question now.

"How did you... How did you know it was the Kai Family I had friction with?"

When the Morgan Family’s Hunters arrived, Chaisi was long gone from the apartment.

According to what Remy had just said, neither on the phone nor at the hospital had Fu Han told her that the person who seriously injured Fu Tailan was Chaisi.

Besides, he knew Fu Han.

Fu Han wasn’t stupid, especially when profit was involved.

He must have realized that the Illusion Chaisi and Fu Tailan had fought to the death over was bound to be extremely valuable—and that it was most likely the kitten painting he was holding.

Leaking the name "Chaisi" would inevitably lead to questions about why they were fighting to the death. And if the reason came up, a sharp-eyed Hunter might start to notice that Fu Han had a decorative painting hidden on him when he entered the hospital.

Carter cleared his throat and smiled faintly.

"You may not know this, but the sounds of gunfire and fighting from your apartment on the night of the 21st attracted a lot of attention. A passerby recorded a video of Chaisi falling from the window and uploaded it... It was only after seeing that video that we realized the person you clashed with that night was Chaisi of the Kai Family."

’So that’s how it was.’

A crowd really had gathered on the street outside his window that night... If they hadn’t called the police, Chaisi wouldn’t have landed right on the inflatable cushion.

The explanation was plausible.

But Fu Tailan was a Hunter.

A good Hunter always digs one level deeper, never stopping until they’ve secured a prize that’s completely to their satisfaction.

"Where is this video? I want to see it."

Carter paused. His face and smile suddenly fell. He reached out and brushed away a nonexistent piece of dust from his trousers.