Illusion Report

"...Han Liuyue?"

Never in his life had he been so cautious.

He remembered crossing the border ever so lightly, leaving his feet behind, outside this darkness. He didn’t know what he was using to move forward.

But that didn’t matter. People with disabilities, without legs, could still get around. Wasn’t that a common thing?

In the pitch-black, there was no light, and no reply.

Chaisi waited for a moment, motionless.

He felt he should try calling out Han Liuyue’s name.

After all, since entering, he hadn’t yet tried this simplest method of finding someone.

"Han Liuyue?" Chaisi called out softly. "Can you hear me? Where are you?"

While waiting for a response, he continued walking deeper into the darkness.

Never in his life had he been so cautious.

He remembered crossing the border ever so lightly, leaving his feet behind, outside the darkness.

Chaisi felt he should try calling Han Liuyue’s name.

After all, since he had followed Han Liuyue in here, he hadn’t called out to her.

"Han Liuyue?"

Perhaps sound could travel in the darkness. Perhaps Han Liuyue could hear him.

He should call out to her, just to see. After all, he hadn’t made a sound for the past several minutes...

’Wait, how long have I been in here?’

Chaisi couldn’t remember, but he felt it couldn’t have been too long. He remembered being very sensitive to the passage of time, able to gauge it with perfect accuracy...

’A little strange.’

It was his own trait, yet thinking about it now was like recalling a movie character’s feature—distant from him, as if written for him by a screenwriter.

’Whatever, it’s not important.’

To be more precise, he was currently unable to summon the necessary tension that comes with deeming something important.

In short, Chaisi’s sense of time was precise. Since he felt it hadn’t been long, he must have just come in.

There was no point in looking down anyway. In the endless darkness, he couldn’t see the watch on his wrist.

Though he couldn’t see the watch on his wrist, Chaisi could occasionally see people behind the darkness.

The figures would flash by. Sometimes he knew them, sometimes he didn’t. Occasionally, they would drag a sliver of their background or environment with them, appearing hazily in the darkness.

Whenever this happened, Chaisi would hurry closer to carefully inspect each face and setting.

One time, he saw a small, unfamiliar diner. A fat man sat in a booth, his eyes vacant and dazed, lost in thought.

Chaisi walked over slowly, planning to first approach the fat man and then move past him into the diner to search for Han Liuyue. The fat man’s table was at the very front; the diner seemed to begin with him, existing only as his backdrop.

It wasn’t until Chaisi drew near the table that he suddenly realized there was a mirror on the wall next to the booth.

The fat man turned his head just then, his eyes falling upon the mirror and locking with Chaisi’s gaze.

The man’s face changed drastically. He sucked in a sharp breath and leaped to his feet. His stomach knocked against the plates, fork, and coffee cup on the table, sending them rattling and CLANGING. The fat man opened his mouth, as if about to scream, but just then, everything around him was abruptly sucked away, plunging back into darkness in the blink of an eye.

’...Why was he so afraid of me?’

Chaisi stood blankly in the darkness, unable to figure out where the fat man and the diner had gone.

If he remembered correctly, people could stand up and move to a different place, yes. But buildings couldn’t... They shouldn’t be able to, right?

’Right, buildings can’t just up and leave, can’t just retreat into the darkness... That should be right.’

But that didn’t matter. None of it was important.

The important thing was to find Han Liuyue.

Han Liuyue was nearby... He couldn’t let go of any glimmer of hope of finding her.

Although Chaisi didn’t know what "here" was, he was certain Han Liuyue was here. After all, he had come in with her.

The only continuous thought Chaisi could hold onto seemed to be "find Han Liuyue." It was less a thought and more of a fixation. Driven by this obsession, Chaisi walked step by step, deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Besides that, all of Chaisi’s other thoughts and reflections were like particles steeped in liquid, constantly diffusing and drifting further and further away from him.

The memory of the fat man and the diner, as if softened by the soaking, gently detached from him and floated away into the depths of the darkness.

Chaisi remembered that besides the fat man and the diner, he seemed to have seen other people, to have entered a place he knew well, and walked for a long time... ’Was it the Kai Family Mansion?’

He couldn’t remember clearly. But in any case, that building, which resembled the Kai Family Mansion, had also eventually stood up, stared at him, and disappeared into the darkness with small, retreating steps.

All that remained was the darkness, which seemed to contain nothing, but in reality was filled with countless thoughts.

But, just as diffusing particles float and drift about, one or two of Chaisi’s own memories or thoughts would occasionally drift back to him. Like a fish, they would nudge him gently a few times, as if wanting to see if he would open a slit and let them come home.

’...He should call out to Han Liuyue. Maybe she could hear him.’

After all, since coming in, he still hadn’t called Han Liuyue’s name even once.

"Han Liu—"

This time, Chaisi suddenly stopped.

He stopped in his tracks—this was just a figure of speech, of course; he didn’t remember bringing his feet in with him, and probably hadn’t—and stared fixedly into the darkness ahead.

Beyond the layers and clumps of chaotic, tangled, churning darkness, someone was crouching.

He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them.

"...Han Liuyue?" Chaisi could only softly call out the one name left in his mind. "Is that you?"

Though they were just on the other side of the darkness, it felt as if they were a great, great distance away. The person was quiet for a moment, then answered, "...It’s me."

Chaisi hoped to retrieve Han Liuyue’s voice from his memory to compare it with the one he was hearing now, but he failed. The memory containing her voice had long since drifted away, like a speck of dust in water.

He remembered Han Liuyue was a woman, and the voice that answered him was also female—that seemed to be a good sign.

"What are you doing here?" Chaisi asked tentatively. "Are you alright?"

"...I was about to ask you the same thing. Where did you come from?"

Chaisi considered this for a moment.

’That’s right, where did I come from?’ He still remembered following Han Liuyue in; that part of his memory hadn’t dissolved yet. But before he came in...

"Blackmoor City," Chaisi said. "I can’t remember where exactly, but it was definitely Blackmoor City."

The person in the darkness took a small breath, sounding somehow impressed.

"You’ve come a long way, then."

’Have I?’ Chaisi wasn’t sure how far he had walked, but it didn’t seem like much time had passed.

Chaisi’s sense of time was precise.

Since he felt it hadn’t been long, he must have just come in.

"Lower your hands," he said. "You keep covering your face with them. I can’t see who you are."

The word "see" wasn’t quite accurate, of course. At this moment, every sight—like the image of the other person perpetually crouching on the ground, hands covering their face—was also like a particle, slowly drifting into the darkness and seeping into his mind from there.

But human language is always stretched thin when faced with unprecedented things. You have to make do with old words.

The person in the darkness laughed and said, "Alright, I’ll let you see my eyes. But you can’t see my mouth."

He felt like he should ask why she wouldn’t let him see her mouth, but at the same time, Chaisi immediately realized that even if he saw it, it would be meaningless.

’...What did Han Liuyue’s eyes look like again?’

’Were her eyelids heavy and thick, layered one on top of the other, hiding half of her murky eyeballs?’

He couldn’t remember.

"Chaisi... Chaisi Monroe," the person in the darkness suddenly called out.

’Right, that’s my name.’

’Since she knows my name, then... is she really Han Liuyue?’

Otherwise, in this darkness where the human world seemed to have ceased to exist, who else besides Han Liuyue could possibly know him?

’No matter what, I have to get her out of here first.’

"Come with me," Chaisi said. "I’ll take you home. Don’t worry, the thing that was possessing your body... that thing..."

What exactly had once possessed her body had also become a small patch of white, constantly receding and seeping into the darkness, now out of sight.

"Anyway, it’s gone now. You’re safe," Chaisi said softly, almost deliriously. "I’m sorry... Thank God you held on this long."

The person in the darkness covered their mouth, still crouching on the ground, and chuckled a few times.

"Oh, I can’t go with you," the person said.

"Why not?"

"Weren’t you just looking after the Kai Family?"

’Was that something that happened? How did she know?’ Chaisi himself had to wait for those memories, thoughts, and ideas to swim back and bump into him before he could remember.

"Do you want to keep looking after the Kai Family?"

Of course he did.

It was the only mission he had in this world, a burden he carried for his sins.

"Eliminate the threat... I’ll take you there, to eliminate the Kai Family’s greatest threat... The moment you see it, you’ll remember everything. Trust me."

Crouching on the ground, Han Liuyue chuckled again.