Illusion Report

Chapter 183: Chapter 151: Fu Tailan: An Explosion Brings the Dawn of a Breakthrough

"...It’ll be soon. You two, back up a bit."

Fu Tailan acted like a traffic cop, gesturing for the other two to move back. Once they were against the wall, he gestured again by covering his own ears and said, "Find something to plug your ears with. If you two go deaf, you’ll just become an inconvenience to me."

Since they couldn’t hear him anyway, Fu Tailan muttered to himself, ’Who even writes by hand these days? My hand’s a little sore from writing all that nonsense just now.’

The two understood his meaning and hurriedly looked for things to plug their ears. Hai Luwei was clearly very wary of him, shooting him sharp glances from time to time as he cut up a bandage and rolled it into a ball—it was a completely meaningless precaution.

’If he wanted to shoot them, would he be afraid of them watching?’

’They had already come this far. Cooperating to get out of here sooner was what would benefit everyone.’

Fu Tailan slowly took out his earbuds. With a DING, their automatic noise-cancellation feature activated.

The noise-cancellation might not be enough to handle an explosion, so he also covered his ears with his hands and opened his mouth. He figured it was best to block as much sound as possible.

As if waiting for the three of them to get ready, the dustpan and broom by the wall were suddenly devoured from the inside out by a burst of brilliant light.

A deafening BOOM shattered a small pocket of space, followed immediately by another crack like muffled thunder. The explosion had happened twice.

The broom and dustpan burst outward, spraying countless fragments and sparks, as if they had suddenly transformed into a fluffy ball of intense light. The wall behind them exploded inward, collapsing into a large crater. Bricks and rubble tumbled down as dust and smoke filled the air, making it impossible to open one’s eyes.

The three of them were prepared for this explosion. They either huddled in a corner or hid behind their backpacks, needing only to wait for the thick smoke and dust to clear. When the corridor grew quiet again, they looked at each other from a distance and saw that aside from being covered in grime, no one was hurt.

"Did both unexploded bombs go off?" Mai Mingle asked loudly.

As expected, she had noticed something was off. "That’s strange. Didn’t those two unexploded bombs appear at different times? They shouldn’t have exploded at the same time, right?"

Before answering her—’which would mean writing a whole lot more,’ Fu Tailan thought, unable to summon the energy—he first walked over and picked up the broom, which had already returned to its original state.

An unexploded bomb rolled out from the edge of the dustpan, its path blocked by the broom.

"One of them didn’t go off? No, that’s not right..." Mai Mingle frowned. "I definitely heard two consecutive explosions just now..."

Fu Tailan figured she might be able to understand without him explaining, which would save him some trouble. But at that moment, Hai Luwei shouted, "Hurry up and write! Aren’t you supposed to be cooperating with us? Explain what’s going on."

’Do I owe you something?’

’You with your blurry, soft, mushy face, looking like a half-melted ice cream cone.’

Fu Tailan shot him a glare from the corner of his eye but still took out his pen and paper and began to write furiously:

There were indeed two unexploded bombs just now.

One of them ran out of time and exploded.

When it exploded, it also detonated the other unexploded bomb next to it, even though its timer wasn’t up.

This is just as I suspected.

Think about it. Only the unexploded bombs appear in the form of actual "bombs," right? It’s right there in the name.

Why would they be specifically distinguished from ordinary items?

As bombs, can they be chain-detonated by a nearby explosion?

That’s what I wanted to test. And it seems the results were ideal.

Mai Mingle squinted as she finished reading the note, her face filled with admiration.

"You’re an incredible kid. Your line of thinking is both cunning and logical."

She even clapped her hands and said loudly, "That’s right! The rules say an unexploded bomb only appears after an explosion. This means an ordinary item exploding can’t possibly detonate an unexploded bomb that doesn’t exist yet. That created a blind spot for us, making us think an unexploded bomb would never go off before its timer ran out. But you saw right through it! This kid is no ordinary person. You’re going to do great things someday."

Fu Tailan felt as pleased as if he were basking in a spring breeze. His mood lifted, and he felt a new surge of energy. After Hai Luwei had also read the note, he flipped the paper over and continued writing.

By speeding up the detonation of the unexploded bombs, we also increase the rate at which they appear. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

We’ve now met 3/12 of the clearance condition. We still need 9 more steps to open the staircase.

Our next move is to create more explosions, collect the unexploded bombs, and gather them in one place.

"How do we create more explosions?" Hai Luwei asked from a distance, the suspicion still evident in his voice.

The old lady also shot him a few glances—it seemed she had also thought of that one possibility.

To create more explosions, they would have to leverage Fu Tailan’s earlier discovery: having the person carrying an unexploded bomb increase the number of explosions around the others.

After Mai Mingle and Hai Luwei read that last sentence, they both began to shake their heads repeatedly.

They were decent enough, though. Neither of them said, "Then you should be the one to get blown up." ’Fu Tailan had seen countless people change their tune the moment their positions were reversed.’

He took out a new sheet of paper and wrote:

Even if we increase the explosions around others, there’s a way to minimize injuries.

We’re lucky; a fourth unexploded bomb has appeared here.

Step one: one of us equips it.

Then, the bomb-carrier clears out an area, like a room.

Everything in the room, including large furniture like desks, chairs, and wardrobes, must be completely removed.

Then, place a few small objects in a corner of the room. The smaller, the better.

Step two: the bomb-carrier stands at one end of the room, and the other two stand at the other end.

We’ll be between one and two meters apart.

This way, the probability of explosions around the other two people increases.

But the things that can potentially explode are no longer an infinite number of random items. In other words, the options are reduced to the few small things we’ve placed.

Once we know where an explosion is likely to happen, we can be prepared.

And with three pairs of eyes watching, we’re more likely to spot a countdown timer in advance, further reducing the risk of injury.

"Theoretically, it is indeed feasible..."

Hai Luwei frowned and said loudly, "Then why not just do it in the hallway? There’s no furniture in the hallway to begin with."

Fu Tailan’s hand was genuinely sore, but he still had to keep writing.

The main reason is that we don’t know what’s on the other side of the hallway walls.

The hallway is long and narrow, with limited space to dodge.

What if the wall you’re standing next to happens to have a family’s TV or a framed picture on the other side, and it explodes?

We can’t possibly clear out all the apartments behind the hallway walls.

Finding a room is the surest method because the walls are gone. We can confirm that there’s nothing in the room’s surroundings that would be catastrophic if it exploded.

"You think things through so meticulously. When I was your age, I certainly didn’t have a mind like yours."

A gentle smile lit up Mai Mingle’s face. "And what’s more," she said, "when most people write out a plan, they misjudge the spacing and the words get cramped toward the end. But look at your writing, it’s like you measured it out beforehand! Each word is neat and well-spaced, with just the right amount of room left over, filling the whole page perfectly in the largest possible script."

Fu Tailan was taken aback. He glanced down at the paper he’d written on and realized it was true. ’The old lady really has a good eye,’ he thought. ’She’s so perceptive. I never would have thought I could be praised for something like that.’

’Once he takes the Illusion from her, she’ll go back to looking like an old lady...’

Fu Tailan thought of the old couple who lived on the floor below him.

The old woman permed her snow-white hair so it was big and fluffy, and even though her skin was dry, wrinkled, and slack, she still put on lipstick every day. She would go downstairs to walk her dog at the same time every morning. When they occasionally met in the elevator, she would complain about how she was old but her dog was still young, and how she struggled to keep up with its four fast-moving feet.

’He felt a little bad for Mai Mingle... but when the time came, he’d still have to do what he had to do.’

’He had to win the Domination Game.’

"I get it," Hai Luwei shouted. "But who’s going to equip the unexploded bomb? I don’t trust him to do it."

His suspicion hadn’t faded, but it wouldn’t be hard to convince him.

After all, Fu Tailan was the only one who was fully able-bodied and capable of moving large furniture. Besides, as long as the other two knew his location, the person carrying the unexploded bomb was actually the one at a disadvantage.

With only a few minutes left before the unexploded bomb was set to detonate, the three finally reached an agreement—which was actually quite efficient, all things considered. Fu Tailan scooped up the bomb, motioned for the other two to follow, and led the way into Apartment 301.

He had already scouted out a spot earlier, having anticipated that things might come to this.

Inside Apartment 301, a small room had been used as a home office. It didn’t have much in it, and it was located right next to the corridor between two apartments, making it a semi-empty space. Dragging out the desk was half the battle, and he cleared the room out in no time.

The fact that the surrounding walls were gone had become a reassuring factor: even if someone tried to rush one of them, the target would have no trouble finding an escape route.

Of course, this was mainly to put Mai Mingle and Hai Luwei at ease.

Fu Tailan wasn’t worried about them turning on him. ’Between the two of them, they barely had two good legs to stand on, and this wasn’t a narrow hallway anymore.’

On his way into the room, he had already grabbed several small items.

Fu Tailan placed some odds and ends—a bottle of eye drops, a charging block, a pen—in a corner of the room. He then backed out, waved to the other two not far away, and shouted, "Alright, get in there! The unexploded bomb is about to disappear. Let’s hurry up and try to trigger an explosion or two!"

Mai Mingle and Hai Luwei entered the room one after the other and got into position.

They stood a meter apart from each other and more than a meter away from the row of small items. Behind them, Fu Tailan also entered the room.

When the first small item—a black hairpin—went BOOM and erupted into a ball of bright flame, all three of them let out their first cheer since entering the apartment building.

"We’re really okay," Mai Mingle said, almost moved to tears. "It seems if we control the number of objects in our surroundings, we really can get out of here safely!"

’Yes,’ Fu Tailan thought. ’Everything is going according to plan. Very smoothly, in fact.’