Free Web NovelChapter 176: Chapter 144: Fu Tailan - The Oriole on the Third Floor
In the final moment before entering the screen, Fu Tailan heard a distant, exasperated female voice.
The figure from Room 201, the one responsible for the explanations, seemed to have returned at some point. He didn’t know how long she’d been back, but she finally couldn’t stop herself from cursing, "What the hell? Another one got—"
The rest of the sentence was cut off by the screen.
Fu Tailan’s body merged into the screen, numb and unfeeling. His vision blurred, and he once again found himself inside Apartment 208—this time, in the reality behind the television screen.
The apartment was steeped in a darkness so thick it seemed to be caked in dust, swallowing all light. The television that had been by the door was gone.
He switched on his flashlight and swept its beam around the narrow living room. There was no television here, either.
Fu Tailan silently opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
In the dim, silent hallway, every apartment door was shut tight, including Room 201’s. There were no televisions, no lights, and no sounds.
Guided by the beam of his flashlight, Fu Tailan stepped out of Room 208 and walked, step by step, toward the stairwell at the far end of the hall.
A few steps ahead was the tightly shut door of Room 209.
’Even if I open the door to Room 209 now, there won’t be a television inside. There won’t be a reality where Mom exists on its screen.’
After all, the "reality that could lead to other realities" was no longer the one he was in. ’That sounds a little convoluted,’ he thought, ’but long story short, I’m back.’
Fu Tailan didn’t touch the door to 209.
He walked straight on, passing Room 210 without breaking stride. Fu Tailan raised his flashlight, its beam landing just before the stairwell. Between Room 210 and the stairs stood one last apartment door.
It was Room 211—a room that hadn’t existed in the previous "second-floor apartment hallway."
Fu Tailan wanted to snort. But his nose was still stuffy from crying, and he just ended up sniffling hard instead.
’The second floor of this apartment really went to great lengths to deceive people.’
’After breaking the illusion, resisting the "welcome," and finally making it through the entire hallway, wouldn’t anyone’s first instinct be to rush up the stairs and get off the second floor as quickly as possible?’
But the trap had been the "staircase" itself.
His head was still throbbing from crying, but Fu Tailan hadn’t lost his Hunter’s intuition. If there was one suspicious thing about the entire process of crossing the hallway, it was undoubtedly a single detail.
The hands that came out of the television to "receive" people.
’The whole "receiving" setup felt slightly unnatural. It’s not that it couldn’t exist, but it had to have a purpose.’
At first, Fu Tailan thought its purpose was to forcibly drag people into the television. But on second thought, that didn’t seem right.
’If a person isn’t tempted by the reality on the TV, they won’t fall for the illusion. And someone who hasn’t fallen for the illusion would be careful not to stand directly in front of the television, so there’d be no opportunity to "receive" them.’
’On the other hand, if someone *did* fall for the illusion, or lost their guard and became distracted like I was, they might accidentally linger for thirty seconds, giving the hands a chance to appear. But even then, they were repelled far too easily, weren’t they?’
Fu Tailan wasn’t even sure if his bullets had hit the television, yet the hands had already released his neck, giving him a chance to break free.
’It finally gets a chance with prey that lingered for more than thirty seconds, only to let go that easily?’
The sense of unnaturalness had been growing ever since he broke free, becoming impossible to ignore.
Thinking it through, what would a Hunter do after nearly being dragged into a television by a pair of hands?
’Logically, still shaken by the experience, they would quicken their pace and hurry toward that "staircase to the third floor."’
’Preventing people from lingering in front of the TVs probably also served as a subtle suggestion: it’s nerve-wracking to stop and start between the apartment doors (the illusions). What if you stop in the wrong place? Of course, it’s better to just get upstairs as quickly as possible.’
The moment he realized this, Fu Tailan stopped in his tracks.
’Speaking of which... it was a good thing I took pictures of all the residents’ mailboxes when I first entered the building.’
When he’d seen that the last room at the end of the hall was 210, he had felt a vague sense of unease. After pulling up the photos on his phone, Fu Tailan finally understood the source of that strange feeling—in the row for the second-floor residents, there were distinctly eleven mailboxes.
Eleven mailboxes meant eleven apartments. So where had the last one gone?
Fu Tailan had two theories about this.
First, a giant screen had been stretched in front of Room 211. The staircase he had seen was actually a projection, one he could probably enter, just like the television screens.
Second, ever since he’d set foot on the second floor, he had been in an alternate parallel reality where Room 211 didn’t exist.
Either way, the conclusion was the same: he could not take the staircase in front of him.
To walk up them would be to choose a parallel reality completely different from his original life.
Ever since he had begun regularly entering Nests at the age of twelve, Fu Tailan had seen countless domains with their own rules, scripts, traps, and other nebulous zones that Hunters had yet to name...
And though there were occasional exceptions, a general principle held true: the rules given to Hunters might contain omissions and hidden traps, but they rarely involved outright, blatant lies.
The woman in Room 201 had told him clearly from the very beginning that real parallel realities lay behind the televisions.
’In that case, isn’t the reality I came from also real?’
’And compared to all the others, isn’t my own reality also a "parallel reality"?’
’Of all the options presented by the televisions on the second floor, the only one that matched my own original reality—a reality where the second floor has a normal staircase for going up and down—was the one in Room 208.’
’Such a clever deception. The real exit isn’t where the exit should be; it’s hidden inside a room.’
’If the trap on the second floor wasn’t about "luring people into other realities," but about "preventing people from ever returning to their original reality"—then everything made perfect sense.’
’Even what Mom said made sense now. Because even if I had gone back then, it wouldn’t have been to my original reality.’
At the thought of her, Fu Tailan paused.
He took a breath, then let it out.
’...Everything that happened on the second-floor hallway is in the past now.’
’Since I didn’t choose that reality, I don’t need to think about it anymore.’
Before entering the hallway and after leaving it, Fu Tailan’s life remained unchanged. What he had to do had never changed, either.
’Only to take the Nest into my hands...’
When Fu Tailan reached the stairwell, he glanced to his left. There was only a blank wall.
He looked away, gripped his gun, and started up the stairs in a low crouch, one step at a time.
The woman from Room 201 had only managed half a sentence, but judging from those three words—"Another one got—"—he probably wasn’t the first person to see through the second floor’s trap. Mai Mingle had to be upstairs.
’She saw through the trap. Guess she’s not slow on the uptake.’
Fu Tailan, however, was not only cautious but also quick. It had been just over half an hour since he’d entered the building. Considering Mai Mingle was saddled with someone with an injured ankle, the two of them were probably still stuck on the third floor.
To avoid falling for the same trick, he’d counted the mailboxes in his photos. The third floor did, in fact, have only ten apartments.
Just as he was about to step onto the final stair leading to the third floor, a massive BOOM shattered the air. Fu Tailan’s heart leaped, and he immediately dropped into a crouch on the steps.
The smell of gunpowder, which had been absent a moment ago, now filled the air. Thick smoke billowed out, and fine dust and debris hung in the air... it all rushed toward him in the wake of the explosion. He quickly covered his mouth to keep from choking and coughing.
"Hai Luwei!"
Amidst the ringing aftershocks of the explosion, Mai Mingle’s hoarse voice yelled from somewhere deep in the hallway, "Isn’t one of your feet injured? What the hell are you running around for?! I should’ve just broken both your ankles!"
Hai Luwei’s voice, when he replied, sounded surprisingly close, yet Fu Tailan couldn’t pinpoint his location at all. "Are you addicted to hurting people now? You apologized to me before, was that all a lie?" freewebnøvel.coɱ
Mai Mingle sounded both furious and exasperated. But no matter how loudly she yelled, it was still impossible to tell where she was in the apartment. "It wasn’t a lie! It wasn’t! I’m sorry, okay? I’m begging you, please stop running around!"
"Who’s running around?" Hai Luwei retorted, unconvinced. "I’m trying to figure out how to get upstairs! You’re not planning on betraying me here, are you?"
’Huh? I wonder what the trap on the third floor is. Sounds like... a lively one?’
Fu Tailan craned his neck from the stairs to get a look at the third-floor hallway.
The hallway was a hazy white, shrouded in thick smoke, but he could faintly make out its general shape.
’Aren’t the stairs just at the other end of the hall?’
’It looks like you can just walk straight ahead to get to them... or is that not how it works?’ freёwebnoѵel.com
’Seriously. This is a perfect opportunity to be the hunter waiting in the weeds. If I could just hide on the stairs and watch what they’re up to for a bit, I’d have a much better idea of what to expect when I go up myself.’
’Too bad I can’t linger on the stairs.’
Fu Tailan had suddenly become aware of this hidden rule in the apartment as he was heading up to the second floor.
He still didn’t know the maximum time limit for lingering on a staircase, but he had no desire to be chased by some danger and forced to scramble up to the third floor in a panic.
’For now, I’ll see if I can get upstairs without either of them noticing me...’
He tentatively stepped onto the final stair.
Fu Tailan didn’t walk into the third-floor hallway as he’d expected.
His vision flickered, and when it cleared a moment later, he found himself standing in the entryway of an apartment.
The door, marked with a "301" nameplate, was slowly and silently closing behind him.
Before him was a remarkably spacious living room. It was large and impressive, but something about it felt very wrong.
The building itself wasn’t large, and the fact that it was divided into ten units meant the apartments inside must be quite small. How could the living room of 301 alone be so spacious?
Fu Tailan glanced around and spotted an envelope resting on a decorative key hook on the wall by the door.
"For the third player to enter the unit," was written on the envelope.
’So it’s for me, then?’
Fu Tailan took the envelope, opened it, and found a sheet of A4 paper inside, covered in fine print. A quick scan confirmed his suspicion—it was an introduction to the third floor.
He stood where he was, quickly read the rules on the paper, and then quietly slipped it into his bag.
Hai Luwei’s voice came from about twenty meters away. He was shouting to Mai Mingle, asking her location. They were both yelling back and forth at the top of their lungs.
...Neither of them had any idea that Fu Tailan was now on the third floor with them.
