Illusion Report

"Han Liuyue" plunged into the curtain of rain and the dark alley, and vanished.

’I knew it. There’s something wrong here—I already warned Han Liuyue about the trap’s size and shape—three meters, a perfect square—’

Chaisi stared intently at the section of rainy alley before him, thoughts flashing through his mind as fast as lightning.

’The moment Han Liuyue fell in, she should have understood my hint. She’ll do whatever it takes to survive.’

’As long as Jin Xueli isn’t dead yet, she can seize this opportunity—’

The next second, it was as if a gear in his mind was suddenly forced to a halt. All his thoughts froze.

A line of text materialized in the empty, dark, and rainy alley.

The text faced him directly, as if formed from mist. It floated eerily in mid-air, just a shade darker than the night sky. The line of text vanished in the blink of an eye, but not before Chaisi caught every word.

"Character command input error; Reason: Not fully human."

’Wait, what does that mean?’

Before Chaisi had time to think, in the next second, a Han Liuyue suddenly reappeared in the empty alley—no, or rather, it was many pieces of Han Liuyue.

He was lucky to be so worldly; otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have immediately realized that the cluster of objects that had just reappeared was, in fact, Han Liuyue.

After all, that cluster of things couldn’t even be pieced together into a human shape.

The moment Chaisi looked up, the first thing he saw was a snow-white Noh mask floating by itself in mid-air.

It seemed to have truly become a mask, all on its own, unconnected to any head or body.

The head floated in the air several paces away and, like the body, had been deconstructed and encased by numerous grayish-white, cloud-like "frames." Text floated over these encased parts as well.

XX?

(Organs with transplant value) (Organs with no transplant value)

(Reproductive system resources)

(Body shell, contains spores, cannot be further dismantled)

(Head, contains black hole, cannot be further dismantled)

(Path, temporarily closed)

(Emotions: Surprise, anger, feeling of betrayal and being used, curiosity)

(Knowledge and skills)

(Desires)

There were even more "mist frames" layered on top of each other, all clustered tightly around the snow-white Noh mask. They all seemed to have been dismantled from Han Liuyue. There were so many that Chaisi couldn’t take them all in at a single glance.

He vaguely recalled seeing a straw sun hat, a phone, and her clothes and shoes also floating nearby.

Even though he didn’t fully comprehend the situation, in that fleeting moment, he had an inkling—deconstructing a person, especially an adult Hunter, into individual parts would result in a great many pieces.

He didn’t have a chance to look closely at each of the mist frames.

The large cluster of deconstructed parts appeared for only an instant, as if illuminated by a flash of lightning, before vanishing from mid-air. Accompanied by a faint tremor, a fully reassembled, neatly dressed, Noh-masked "Han Liuyue" slammed heavily into the brick wall on the other side of the alley.

’...Was she thrown out by the trap?’

"Han Liuyue" slid down the brick wall to the ground and pushed herself up with her hands and feet. From her Noh mask-like face, it was impossible to tell if she felt any pain.

She even casually picked up her phone and put her hat back on. She glanced first at the doorway where Chaisi stood, then turned to look toward the alley to Chaisi’s right—but Chaisi had no idea what it was that Han Liuyue saw.

Chaisi knew he should call out to her, but for a few seconds, all he could do was grip the doorframe, struggling to support his trembling, still-weak body.

’How to describe it?’

In the first moment after a sudden physical injury, the brain is actually blank and dazed. It hasn’t yet processed the "injury," hasn’t understood it, and doesn’t yet feel the pain.

As he stared at "Han Liuyue" across the alley, his mind was, like that of a newly injured person, a desolate expanse of confusion.

After a few seconds, Chaisi let go of the doorframe.

The alley was about three to four meters wide. In a three-meter square area right next to the door, the rain was falling slower than everywhere else.

It wasn’t a uniform slowness.

As the rain neared the three-meter mark above the ground, it would suddenly decelerate, as if entering an incredibly dense, invisible substance. That substance would "taste" the countless strands of rain, seem to find them unpalatable, and then spit them out onto the ground.

It was through the rain that he had first determined the trap’s range and shape.

But it wasn’t until Han Liuyue was thrown out that Chaisi suddenly realized something else.

’...Jin Xueli must be dead,’ he thought, almost in a daze.

"Han Liuyue" had been deconstructed into that state, yet she could be reassembled into a human form and ejected from the trap onto the opposite wall. There could be only one reason for this—she was not a completely, purely human being.

This trap, it seemed, only reacted to humans.

Jin Xueli was human—an extremely vibrant, warm human being.

Other than humans, this invisible object was uninterested in either the rain or the partially non-human Han Liuyue. Anyone who fell into its grasp would likely be deconstructed just as he had witnessed.

The line of text also indirectly confirmed his suspicion. "Character command input" must mean that only humans could be "input" into the trap.

Chaisi knew his luck had always been bought with the lives of others. It had been that way ever since the car accident in his childhood. No one had ever asked him if he wanted such "good fortune."

"Han Liuyue!"

The shout not only made Han Liuyue turn her head, but it startled him as well.

"Who do you see over there?" Chaisi roared. "Make your move!"

At this, Han Liuyue did more than just turn her head.

The invisible cube didn’t completely fill the alley, leaving about half a meter of space to the opposite brick wall.

Before Chaisi had shouted, Han Liuyue had already turned sideways and was carefully walking through the gap between the square trap and the wall. She seemed to say something toward the alley on the right, but her voice was too low for Chaisi to hear through the rainy night and the cubic trap.

’Someone’s there. And it has to be the person who came to assassinate me but accidentally killed Jin Xueli instead.’

’As expected, that person should be Brianna from the Westley Team, or one of her subordinates.’

’...The assassin seems to be talking to Han Liuyue.’

"Han Liuyue!" he shouted again.

Han Liuyue turned her head.

In the darkness, the snow-white Noh mask seemed to float in the shadow beneath the brim of her hat.

The face stared fixedly at Chaisi for a few seconds. Then, without any reaction, it turned away again and continued toward the alley on the right.

Soon, she walked out of Chaisi’s line of sight.

’She said before that if she saw the assassin, she wouldn’t mind killing them for me... Is Han Liuyue about to make her move now?’

Chaisi truly wished he could believe that was the answer.

But the Noh mask that had turned toward him just now was perfectly whole, snow-white and indifferent.

’If she were going to attack, why not send a fragment flying?’

He had been attacked by one of her fragments back in the bar. Although Han Liuyue hadn’t actually plunged it into his eyeball, Chaisi knew that kind of facial shard was incredibly hard to dodge—especially when the target had no idea what to dodge in the first place.

But Chaisi couldn’t step outside, and Between the Backlight had no other exit that would allow him to circle around to the back alley. He was once again trapped in the situation he hated most: rendered so powerless that he could only wait helplessly and pin his hopes on someone else.

’...Absolutely not.’

He stripped off his jacket, balled it up, and with a powerful swing of his arm, threw it into the alley.

The jacket flew through the air and stopped abruptly. For an instant, it was as if it had fallen into a liquid, its descent slowing. Then, the jacket was ejected from the trap. It flew to the opposite wall just like Han Liuyue had, slid to the ground, and gradually went limp as the rain beat dark spots into the fabric.

’Just as I thought. The trap is still active.’

He didn’t know why, but he feared Han Liuyue was at risk of switching sides.

Chaisi immediately ducked to one side of the doorway, at least temporarily preventing a direct attack from outside. He took out his phone and quickly sent a message to Tian Xi.

"Bring team. Back alley of Between the Backlight. Illusion trap. Caster at west alley entrance."

The one silver lining was that he had sent Tian Xi to lie in wait at Fu Tailan Apartment tonight. Tian Xi and his squad could come directly from there, which was much faster than assembling a team and dispatching them from the Kai Family estate.

’But no matter how fast they are, can they get here before the two people outside make their move?’

Chaisi suppressed the thought. Whether Tian Xi could make it in time or not, he couldn’t just do nothing.

Just as he was about to put his phone away, he suddenly paused.

’Jin Xueli called Han Liuyue here tonight... That means, whatever else she might have forgotten, she still remembers how to answer a phone.’

’In that instant Han Liuyue was deconstructed, I clearly saw a phone floating in mid-air.’

’In other words...’

The thought had barely formed before Chaisi acted. He quickly dialed Han Liuyue’s number.

The call rang, once, twice. Faintly, from the other side of the square trap, he heard the muffled sound of Han Liuyue’s ringtone.

After a few rings, Han Liuyue finally picked up.

No one spoke on the other end, only the rustle of the rain and the sound of cars on the distant road.

Chaisi could almost picture it: that puffy, snow-white face, like a giant moon rising over the horizon, pressed silently against the phone, waiting for him to speak first.

He knew he didn’t have many chances; he had to grab Han Liuyue’s attention with his very first sentence and keep her from hanging up.

And if possible, he also needed to find out what was happening.

That meant he had to consider what the other person could have possibly said to make Han Liuyue stand down. The answer wasn’t hard to guess.

"...What did they offer you?" Chaisi asked in a low voice.

"Oh, you figured it out. As expected of Brother Chaisi."

Han Liuyue said flatly, "...’The mayor is nothing. I can see him whenever I want. What kind of Illusion could I possibly not have? Don’t you worry.’ That’s what this person just told me."

’The assassin is much quicker on the uptake than I thought.’

"You want to get Brother Chaisi into your trap, right?"

Before Chaisi could figure out how to respond, he heard Han Liuyue speak again, clearly addressing the assassin. "Seeing as you seem so sincere, I might as well tell you. He’s very weak right now. Just get someone to push him from behind, and he’ll fall right into your trap."

’I really want to kill Han Liuyue.’

Chaisi licked his dry lips as the thought crossed his mind.