Illusion Report

The strange thing was, no matter how he walked, step by step, deeper into the darkness, he could never get close to Han Liuyue.

"Why can’t I get over to you?" Chaisi asked.

Being unable to grab Han Liuyue’s arm with his own hands made him feel a little uneasy.

’She won’t get separated from me, will she? It’s nothing but endless blackness all around. If I can’t hold her hand, can she still follow me back safely?’

"Why can’t I get over to your side?" Chaisi asked.

Even as they moved, Liuyue remained squatting, her legs spinning like wheels to propel her forward. Hearing Chaisi’s question, she mumbled something indistinctly. She kept her mouth covered, and sometimes her voice was so quiet he couldn’t make out the words.

"What did you say?"

Han Liuyue raised her voice. "I said, you’ve already asked that a dozen times, and I’ve answered you several times. You’re just going to ask again, and I’m getting sick of it."

Chaisi froze. ’Is that right?’

It must be that the doubt—’Why can’t I reach her?’—had drifted back out of the darkness and bumped into him again. And every time that doubt bumped into him, he would ask the same question all over again.

But the memory of Han Liuyue’s answer hadn’t drifted back with it.

"Is that so," he said blankly. "...I’m sorry."

Han Liuyue sneered. "Of course you are. In every single way, you’ve wronged me. You need to remember that. Don’t you forget that you have a debt to me."

"...Okay. I won’t."

The guilt he felt toward Han Liuyue was something he always remembered. It had never floated away from him to seep into the darkness.

Taking another step forward, Chaisi asked in a low voice, "Why can’t I get to your side?"

Deep in the darkness, Han Liuyue shot to her feet.

"SO ANNOYING SO ANNOYING SO ANNOYING ASKING OVER AND OVER ENDLESSLY IS THAT DOUBT REALLY SO IMPORTANT TO YOU IF YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT LESS IT WOULDN’T KEEP SWIMMING BACK TO YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN SO ANNOYING"

She snapped her head around, her hands still covering her face, and charged toward Chaisi.

Even though countless things had been stripped from Chaisi, floating away from him, his animal instinct for survival remained, albeit much duller and slower. Just as he was startled and about to defend himself, he realized Han Liuyue’s target wasn’t him.

Han Liuyue held one hand horizontally across her face, obscuring the center.

Her other hand began to whirl at her shoulder like a windmill, as if she were desperately striking at and scattering the invisible thoughts in the darkness.

Still separated from Chaisi by a seemingly uncrossable distance, she shrieked, "GET LOST! NOW THAT YOU’VE FALLEN OFF HIM, JUST GET LOST GET LOST GET LOST GET LOST IF YOU COME BACK I WON’T BE SO NICE JUST DISSOCIATE ALREADY DISSOCIATE DISSOCIATE BREAK DOWN DISSIPATE DISSOCIATE I DON’T CARE IF YOU END UP DISSOLVING WITH YOUR MASTER IN THE END"

Han Liuyue’s way of speaking was certainly unique, like a torrent of pus spraying from a ruptured cyst.

Chaisi dearly wished he could remember if Han Liuyue had always spoken this way.

When Han Liuyue stopped, she stood motionless in the darkness for a moment, her face buried in her hands.

’What’s wrong?’

"Hmm... It just occurred to me, these things that are detaching from you... besides being annoying, they could also be useful..."

She turned her back to Chaisi, then lowered her hands.

’If I could just walk over, I could see her face and know for sure if she’s Han Liuyue—ah, but I forgot. The memory of her face has long since drifted away into the darkness.’

"Protecting the Kai Family. Think hard about it. Your resolve to protect the Kai Family... Yes, that memory is nearby. I just saw it... If you think about it hard enough, it will come back..."

Chaisi sucked in a sharp breath.

’That’s right...’

Right after he had followed Han Liuyue into the darkness, they hadn’t been separated at first.

Chaisi remembered running through the darkness, chasing the ever-retreating, ever-shrinking shadow. It didn’t matter what sort of place he had charged into; nor did it matter how, despite seeing only darkness, he still knew which way Han Liuyue had gone.

No matter what this place was or what was happening, he had to get Han Liuyue out of there.

Han Liuyue was the only thing that mattered in this endless darkness.

At the time, Chaisi hadn’t yet realized that the more violently he moved, the more of him would detach and float away.

He was like a cookie dipped in water; if stirred violently, it would dissolve into crumbs all the faster—and at the same time, the water would soak in even deeper.

As the darkness and Chaisi diffused into one another, he ran and ran, until he suddenly forgot what Han Liuyue looked like. The memory of her features had detached in the middle of his run and drifted away.

But that didn’t make Chaisi slow down.

What truly made him snap his head around and halt was a chaotic, tangled mass of darkness in another direction—and behind it, he "saw" a place he knew all too well.

He had seen many people in the darkness, some he recognized and some he didn’t. Every time, they always appeared dragging a piece of the mortal world along with them as a backdrop.

Even though it only appeared as a backdrop, Chaisi recognized the Kai Family Mansion at a glance.

Inside the Kai Family Mansion was a young woman. He felt as if he’d seen her before, but the memory of where, or even who she was, had long since scattered into the darkness.

He was only certain of one thing: she was definitely not a Kai Family Hunter.

The woman tiptoed into an empty hallway and listened intently for a moment, as if wary of the Kai Family. ’How did she get in?’

’What does she want with the Kai Family?’

Chaisi’s shout was pure muscle memory, a complete instinct. "Someone get to the first-floor library corridor! We have an intruder!"

But his voice fell into the darkness, becoming just another one of the countless drifting thoughts and memories, and it elicited no response. Naturally, no Kai Family Hunter came charging into the hallway to apprehend the intruder.

The woman remained furtive and light on her feet. She pulled a phone from her pocket and took several photos of the hallway—front, back, left, and right. She didn’t even spare the ceiling.

’...Is she trying to map out the layout of the Kai Family Mansion?’

In an instant, several possibilities flashed through Chaisi’s mind: planting a bomb, assassination, ambush, robbery... One or two of them detached the moment they formed, falling into the boundless darkness. But the ones that remained were enough to set his nerves on edge.

Acting purely on instinct, he stepped toward the young woman and reached for her phone. But it was as if he were merely an image formed from countless loose particles; he passed right through her shoulder, failing to grab the phone and only causing her to sway slightly.

He stared blankly at his empty, grasping hand.

If the sensation of touching someone was normally at one hundred percent, it now felt washed out, leaving only one percent behind.

’How am I supposed to catch that woman with so little influence? What is this dark place? Did Han Liuyue bring me here to—’

Han Liuyue.

Chaisi snapped his head up. From the distant depths of the darkness, he could still just barely make out Han Liuyue’s back. He hadn’t been delayed for too long. If he gave chase now, he could still catch up to her.

But...

He turned to look at the young woman beside him, the one who had infiltrated the Kai Family Mansion with unknown intentions.

She, in turn, seemed unable to comprehend how her shoulder had just been touched in a completely empty hallway. Her face was pale as she stood frozen to the spot.

Chaisi looked again at Han Liuyue, who was growing more distant.

The darkness was boundless, as if lost in thought.

There were no signposts in the darkness, no sense of direction. If he looked away for even a moment, he feared he might never... never find his way back to the path he was meant to be on.

The young woman stepped deeper into the corridors of the Kai Family Mansion. Han Liuyue grew smaller as she receded into the depths of the darkness.

"...You remember now, don’t you? See? To protect the Kai Family, you abandoned even me. If you weren’t so lucky, you never would have found me again."

Han Liuyue chuckled softly, tsking a few times. "You have to repay your debt to me. So whatever I tell you to do, you have to do it. Understand? Don’t overthink it. Oh, but then again, you can’t overthink things anyway. You’re nothing but a core now."

’So, getting separated from Han Liuyue was my own failure, too.’

Chaisi took a deep breath and said, "Okay."

"Besides, what I’m asking you to do is for your own good. You saw that memory fragment that just floated back, didn’t you? A woman broke into your Kai Family’s home, right? I know who she is, and I know where she is. Come on."

Han Liuyue turned and gestured for Chaisi to follow.

No matter how he quickened his pace, he just couldn’t get to Han Liuyue’s side. ’Without me to hold her hand, will she be able to get back safely on her own?’

He was just about to ask why he couldn’t reach her when Han Liuyue stopped.

She pulled one hand away from her face and pointed toward a hazy, red-brick building in the depths of the darkness.

"See it? She’s right there. She’s about to meet up with your Kai Family to start the Hunter interviews. We can’t let that happen! You have to kill her, right? Right?! I can teach you how to kill her when she’s busy with the trap in the warehouse, ohohohohohohoh!"