Illusion Report

Fu Tailan heard himself call out in a low voice, "Dad..."

He couldn’t find his body; his soul had long since boarded a ship sailing far away. What was left of him felt as though it had dissolved into the dark ocean waves, surging and receding in endless cycles. Though he couldn’t see the moon, he was still forever in its thrall.

Yet even in this state, he could still hear Fu Han’s reply.

"Yeah, I’m here."

"Will you always be here?"

’...So familiar.’

It was as if this conversation had happened once before. For example, he knew that after a brief pause, Fu Han would ask—

"Do you want me to always be here?"

He also knew his own answer. And just as he expected, he heard himself say:

"I don’t know... It feels like it would be reassuring, but also painful. Sometimes I think it would be better if you were dead, but I’m also afraid of you dying."

Silence fell once more in the darkness.

’Huh, that’s a little strange.’

’Why isn’t Dad angry?’

A dazed Fu Tailan grew confused.

’There’s no way he wouldn’t get angry hearing something like that.’

Fu Tailan remembered his third time coming out of a Nest. He was only twelve, and it was the last summer vacation of elementary school. While his classmates went with their parents to escape the heat, travel, or attend summer camp, he had finally succeeded in bringing back the first Illusion of his life.

After a series of incredible, bewildering, curious, and experimental steps that culminated in elation, Fu Han quickly found a buyer. He had a real talent for it, perhaps well-practiced from constantly selling things. Fu Tailan didn’t know the specific price it sold for.

"This is great," Fu Han said, ecstatic. "Haven’t you always wanted a mountain bike? No problem, we’ll buy it! And where was it you wanted to go? Dad will take you. I’ll buy the tickets right now."

They never went.

Fu Han suddenly disappeared for nearly three weeks.

His best clothes, his phone, his wallet, and his keys all vanished along with him.

To this day, Fu Tailan couldn’t say for sure that he fully understood where his father had gone. He only knew that when Fu Han finally returned, he had dark circles under his eyes and a weary expression. He was shrouded in a thick, complex, and unpleasant smell—like cigarettes, alcohol, sweat, and perfume mixed with vomit. But the clothes he wore were brand new.

Faced with Fu Tailan’s tearful protests, Fu Han stormed into the kitchen in a few large strides, grabbed a cookie jar, and slammed the lid off. "What are you making a fuss about?" he roared. "Look! Didn’t I leave you money? Is this not enough for you to eat?"

Hidden in the cookie jar were three hundred and seventy-two dollars. For a child, that was perhaps a huge sum. You couldn’t say it wasn’t enough to eat for three weeks.

But for three straight weeks, Fu Tailan had only dared to survive on water, bread, and jam, only occasionally buying a single hamburger. He didn’t know when Fu Han would be back, or if he would come back at all. He had no idea how long he would have to make those three hundred and seventy-two dollars last.

One night during that period, Fu Tailan sat alone in front of the TV, licking Nutella off a spoon, and thought with an almost chilling calm: ’Giving the Illusion or the money to Dad was probably a mistake.’

"How could I not come back? You’re my son. Could I really just abandon you?"

Fu Han looked at his son’s red, swollen eyes and softened his tone. He massaged Fu Tailan’s shoulder with one hand and said, "...Besides, if you’re worried about the money running out, you can just go into a Nest again."

He looked up at Fu Han.

Before his father actually said the words, Fu Tailan had already heard Fu Han’s next sentence.

"That’s right," Fu Han said. "Isn’t it about time you went into a Nest again?"

According to him, the last Illusion hadn’t sold for a good price. The money hadn’t gone far and was already gone.

"All you know is how to send me. Why don’t you go?"

During that time, Fu Tailan’s nights were filled with dreams of chaotic fragments from his Nest experiences. He started crying again at some point, his palms slick with cold sweat, and shouted, "Don’t tell me you can’t get in! Even if you could, you’d definitely die in there right away—"

Fu Han’s slap came without any warning.

"Is that how much you want your dad to die?" Fu Han’s face was beet red, filled with a furious rage that seemed to come from nowhere. "Would you be happy if I died? Is my being alive an eyesore to you?"

Fu Tailan froze.

He was still young then, and his first instinct was to defend himself. "No, that’s not what I meant..."

Fu Tailan opened his eyes. The dark ocean waves gradually receded, and the tide did not surge back in.

The blurry lights and shapes in his vision slowly solidified and sharpened, allowing him to make out a ceiling, an IV bag, white bedsheets, and a person slumped over the corner of the bed, asleep.

The person was still holding a phone, their back rising and falling gently with each breath. A jacket was draped over their shoulders.

Following the rhythmic "BEEP... BEEP..." sound, Fu Tailan turned his head and saw he was connected by a tangle of wires to a vital signs monitor.

He’d said he sometimes wanted Fu Han to die.

The Fu Han who heard it had no reaction at all. It wasn’t because Fu Tailan was severely injured and on the verge of unconsciousness at the time. It was because that wasn’t Fu Han.

Fu Tailan stared silently at the ceiling.

Back then, lying on the floor, delirious and disoriented, he had said a lot. But it seemed it was all directed at the non-existent "Fuhan Noodles."

’...Which means, Fu Han shouldn’t know about the Nest Dominance Game, right?’

’He also didn’t hear my nonsense about how I could set everyone free.’

For some reason, Fu Tailan suddenly seemed to calm down from the fervor of the Nest Dominance Game.

’The finish line is distant and illusory. Dying now while we’re all killing each other hardly counts as freedom.’

’...When did the person I was talking to change from "Fuhan Noodles" to the real Fu Han?’

He knew very well that before he completely lost consciousness, Fu Han had indeed returned to the apartment to find him.

Fu Tailan remembered the vibrations of the floor shaking him out of his stupor. He remembered someone gently lifting the back of his head, urgently and repeatedly saying, "I’ve called for help," "The Morgan Family has sent people," "The ambulance will be here any second."

At that moment, "Fuhan Noodles" had vanished... The person beside him then was Fu Han.

’Which means...’

On the very edge of losing consciousness, Fu Tailan had struggled to tell Fu Han.

"The kitchen... on the wall, the little cat picture. Take it. Don’t let anyone find it..."

’What was Fu Han’s reaction?’

’Did he ask me what it was? Did he ask why it was so important?’

But Fu Tailan couldn’t remember at all.

On the nightstand beside him was a vase of flowers, but not his phone, and certainly not the hanging cat picture. That was to be expected; Fu Han wasn’t so clueless as to misjudge priorities.

’What time is it? What’s the date?’

Fu Tailan slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. He could hardly tell where he was injured, because his entire upper body felt like it was about to split open, making his vision periodically go black.

He pulled the oxygen tube from his nose and, panting, stretched out his arm to tap the screen of the phone being held by the person at the corner of the bed. The screen lit up, telling him it was November 23rd, 11:15 PM.

The touch also startled Remy awake.

"Director?"

She sat up, her eyes still hazy with sleep. The jacket on her shoulders slipped, and she quickly caught it. She looked at the phone in her hand, then at Fu Tailan.

"You’re finally awake? If you didn’t wake up soon, the doctors were going to start thinking something was wrong."

"...Am I okay?"

Remy clicked her tongue. "Depends on your definition of ’okay’... but none of your vital organs were ruptured."

’Then I’m okay.’

"Where’s my dad?"

The moment the words left his mouth, Fu Tailan felt a pang of regret. ’I shouldn’t have said ’my dad,’ I should have said ’Fu Han’.’

"I don’t know." Remy rubbed her eyes; perhaps from sleeping on her front, her eyeliner was slightly smudged. "He disappeared after you were admitted to the hospital. We’ve been trying to contact him for over a day. His phone is off, he hasn’t replied to any messages, and no one’s answering the door at home."

Fu Tailan sat on the hospital bed, staring at her blankly. "Has anyone seen him?"

"Yes, I saw him once when he told me to come to the hospital." Remy wore an indescribable expression, as if unsure whether she should be sympathetic. "He said he was stepping out for a cigarette and just left... That was a little after eleven at night on the 21st. We haven’t been able to reach him since."

"Did he give you any instructions, or give you anything to hold onto?"

Before Remy could answer, Fu Tailan had already heard her next words.

"No."

Fu Tailan lowered his head, looking at his own pale fingers, which lay curled and limp on the white sheets.

"...What about the Family Faction?"

He had meant to ask if the Family Faction had seen Fu Han and when they had last seen him, but Remy misunderstood. "Ah, you reminded me," she said immediately. "Mr. Carter Morgan said that as soon as you woke up, I was to notify him right away. He wants to ask you personally what happened... Something about a conflict with the Kai Family?"

She shot Fu Tailan a look full of apprehension. "This isn’t a small matter... Wait here, I’ll go make a call."

Remy wasn’t his person; she belonged to the Morgan Family. Although the thought of dealing with Carter was exhausting, he couldn’t tell Remy not to notify him.

’I’ll just have to deal with it when it comes.’

Before she stood up to make the call, Fu Tailan managed to squeeze in a question. "Where are my things? My phone?"

Remy pressed her phone to her ear with one hand and opened the nightstand drawer with the other.

"We also found that black-chip Illusion of yours in the apartment, but no one dared to touch it, so it’s still there. Don’t worry, someone’s been watching the place for the past two days. It’s not lost."

Fu Tailan desperately wanted to ask if the little cat picture was still hanging on the kitchen wall, but he held his tongue.

He found the backpack he’d been wearing when he came home in the nightstand, along with a change of clothes for his discharge and, most importantly, his phone and charger.

When Fu Tailan turned on his phone, he didn’t really have any expectations of what he might see. He had just woken up from a severe injury, every cell in his body was screaming in pain, and his mind was a blank.

It was just a vague, mechanical instinct, a hollow hope, that made him feel he should check his messages and see if he had any voicemails.

When he first recognized the Nest notification, Fu Tailan subconsciously assumed it was a notice of Chaisi’s death. ’Poisoned and then fell off a building, he has to be dead, right?’

But there were three consecutive Nest notifications stacked at the bottom of his screen. No matter how lucky Chaisi was, he couldn’t have died three times in a row.

The reality turned out to be worse than he’d expected.

From the first two notifications, it seemed that for some reason, not only was Chaisi not dead, but he had also taken another target Illusion from a player named Jin Xueli. His progress was now an incredible 2/7.

’He actually found an ally in the Nest Dominance Game?’

Fu Tailan took a deep breath and tapped open the third notification.

—

To the oh-so-naive young player, Fu Tailan:

Oh my, how did you end up in such a state?

Almost dying at just seventeen, it’s truly heartbreaking and frightening.

You originally had zero target Illusions and didn’t quite meet the recruitment criteria. The only reason you were able to enter the Nest Dominance Game and compete was entirely thanks to a "Special Nest Invitation."

A special invitee’s status depends on the target Illusions in your possession!

If you keep failing to obtain a target Illusion, or if you get one and then lose it, did you really think you could hold on to your special invitee status forever?

What, did I not mention that before?

Whatever, it’s not too late to say it now. And if I didn’t say it, it’s not the Nest’s fault. The Nest is never at fault.

Yes, this notification is just to tell you the ugly truth straight to your face.

Your player status has been revoked, awww what a pity, so heartbreaking, tsk tsk, truly an unexpected development, but no matter how you look at it, for a veteran Hunter with five years of experience to let someone take away your target Illusion, in the end it just proves you’re not good enough, right? You can’t blame the Nest for that. So in short: you’re free now, oh! You don’t have to collect target Illusions anymore, oh! You’re not a member of the game anymore, bye!