Illusion Report

Chapter 187: Chapter 155: Fu Tailan: Still Unwilling to be Abandoned by Life

He’d expected to feel a rush of excitement and joy the moment he stripped the Illusion from Mai Mingle.

’No, maybe there really was a flicker of joy?’

But for some reason, it was nowhere near as intense as Fu Tailan had imagined.

That sliver of joy was thin and cold. Before he could even savor it, it vanished as if it were some cheap trinket that couldn’t stand the test of time.

As Mai Mingle and Hai Luwei tumbled to the hallway floor, Fu Tailan turned his head away, refusing to look.

He lowered his gaze and pulled out his phone.

As a dull thud echoed from bodies hitting the floor, he looked down and tapped the screen.

The screen lit up, displaying the wallpaper. It was a seagull perched on the long wooden railing of a pier.

A vast white fog filled the space between sky and sea. The wooden railing stretched into the distance, gradually dissolving into the mist. The seagull gazed into the depths of the fog, with no sea and no sky in sight, lost and uncertain of where to go.

’...Still nothing.’

Having narrowly escaped death, Hai Luwei scrambled up from the floor, coughing and gasping for breath as he crawled over to the other figure.

Fu Tailan saw all this from the corner of his eye. He didn’t look up, still waiting for his phone to vibrate.

"Mai Mingle!"

Hai Luwei cried out, his voice trembling as if he couldn’t bear to look. "Is... is that really you? Is this... is this what you looked like before?"

’What appearance?’

’Why isn’t Mai Mingle getting up?’

’Old people can still get up, can’t they?’

The questions flashed through Fu Tailan’s mind, but he still didn’t look up. As he watched, the time on his screen ticked over to 5:39 AM.

’...Still no notification about acquiring the target Illusion.’

The last time, when he’d unexpectedly acquired the key, his phone had vibrated and chimed almost the instant he touched it, congratulating him on obtaining his first target Illusion in the Nest Dominance Game.

At that time, he was in Blackmoor City.

But that didn’t mean it was impossible to receive messages from the Nest Dominance Game while in the Nest. After all, hadn’t Mai Mingle received a broadcast notification earlier in the library plaza?

The notification she’d received was different from the summons he got. Strangely, the broadcast had even given her the choice of whether to join. He, on the other hand, had been given no such choice; he was just thrown into the game and made a participant.

However, this difference in content wasn’t enough to prove the notification method would change. He should still receive a notification here in the Nest.

’It hasn’t been that long...’

’Could it be that this isn’t one of the target Illusions?’

’If it’s not—’

Though he’d been mentally prepared for this, disappointment inevitably welled up. Suddenly, the black, snake-like Illusion in his hand began to twist and coil, as if it were a real serpent about to spring to life.

Fu Tailan subconsciously glanced down at the Illusion.

Just beyond the web of his thumb, there was a row of numbers.

It was the countdown timer that appeared on the Illusion after entering Blackmoor City. Upon returning to the Nest, the numbers had frozen and would remain that way until the next time he left—

’Huh?’

Fu Tailan’s heart skipped a beat. Thinking he must have misread it, he carefully went over every single word again.

’This... does Mai Mingle know about this?’

"Mai Mingle!"

Hai Luwei cried out at that very moment, and Fu Tailan looked up at the sound. His gaze finally fell upon the person who had just slid from his arms.

’Is that... Mai Mingle?’

Fu Tailan froze.

’...Is that even human?’

Looking back, he realized it was the first time he had ever seen Mai Mingle without her Illusion. It was also the first time in his life he had ever seen a human being so withered and ancient, on the very brink of death.

For a split second, Fu Tailan even wondered if the apartment building was playing tricks on him, creating illusions like something out of a horror movie. ’What’s next?’ he thought. ’Other monsters? Zombies?’

By the time he snapped out of it, he realized his gaze had already darted away, fixed on some other, safer spot.

At least Mai Mingle’s clothes were still soft and thick, showing no signs of weathering and disintegrating along with their owner.

They just seemed so empty, as if they weren’t draping a person at all, but were instead wrapped around a cloud of ashen decay.

Fu Tailan couldn’t understand.

He’d never thought about growing old, though he often thought about death.

To him, even people in their thirties already seemed ancient.

’But until the day my life is taken, I’ll always look the way I do now, right?’

’Only this face, these hands, this body, this mind... this is the real Fu Tailan.’

’If I changed into something else, how could I still be Fu Tailan?’

The agile, warm, and vibrant Mai Mingle from a few minutes ago and the thing now on the floor were absolutely not the same person. No matter what logic dictated, he couldn’t accept that they were the same woman, separated by a few decades.

"Fu Tailan, give the Illusion back!"

Hai Luwei suddenly looked up and roared, a mix of anger and fear in his voice. It took a special kind of courage to hold Mai Mingle in her current state. "How is what you’ve done any different from murdering her?"

Fu Tailan opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. After a second or two, he said something that he himself found incredibly stupid.

"...Where’s Mai Mingle?"

To think he would one day ask such a stupid question.

Fortunately, it seemed no one heard what he’d said.

Hai Luwei lowered his head again, apparently because the Mai Mingle in his arms had stirred slightly. Fu Tailan didn’t know what was happening, because he didn’t dare to look.

He kept his eyes fixed on Mai Mingle’s clothes, terrified that she would move, and equally terrified that she wouldn’t.

If he had simply stumbled upon a dying old stranger, it would have been different. The feeling, he imagined, would be akin to seeing a bizarre deep-sea fish—’Ah, so creatures like this exist in the world.’

But just a few minutes ago, Mai Mingle had been one of his own kind.

"What? What did you say?" Hai Luwei murmured to the person in his arms. "Can you say it again?"

’...She can still talk?’

Hai Luwei lowered his head, pressing his ear close to that withered, dark, cavernous mouth.

Fu Tailan almost felt a flicker of admiration for him.

It seemed Mai Mingle could indeed still speak.

A sound like rushing air emerged—it was impossible to tell if it was dry or viscous—intermittent, hoarse, and slow. It made one’s hair stand on end.

He couldn’t make out a thing. After a moment, Fu Tailan summoned his courage and asked, "What... What did she say?"

Hai Luwei looked up, glared at him, but didn’t answer. He just gently laid Mai Mingle back on the floor and stood up.

"Are you really just going to let her die?"

He limped over, demanding, "Even if you won’t give the Illusion back, shouldn’t you at least take her back to Blackmoor City and get her to a hospital?"

Fu Tailan actually took half a step back—only then did he remember that Hai Luwei had an injured foot and was lucky to even be standing. There was no need to retreat from him.

"She just said ’Save me,’" Hai Luwei said rapidly. "Do you have the heart to refuse?"

’...He’s lying.’

Perhaps because Fu Tailan was an expert liar himself, he was also extremely sensitive to the lies of others. The moment the thought entered his mind, suspicion took root.

’At a time like this, why would Hai Luwei lie?’

The next second, before Fu Tailan could even open his mouth, the black serpent clutched in his right hand gave a sudden, violent twist.

In that instant, it was as if the Illusion had suddenly grown two feet. It extended its tail, planting it on the floor to stand upright. Once it was steady, it began to swing its body and thrash about, trying to shake loose from Fu Tailan’s grip. Fu Tailan had just turned his head toward the Illusion, not yet seeing what was happening, when Hai Luwei lunged at him out of the corner of his eye.

’...So that’s what this was about?’

As Hai Luwei slammed into his chest, sending him falling backward onto the floor, everything became crystal clear to Fu Tailan.

As he fell backward, his vision filled with the rapidly approaching ceiling. A black shadow shot up, expanding rapidly. The back of his head hit the floor with a heavy THUD. At the same moment, the shadow, now free from his grasp, stood tall, its head touching the hallway ceiling.

It tilted its head. With its long, slender limbs, it now clearly had a humanoid form.

As if looking for something, its head swiveled around before it began to take unsteady steps in another direction.

’So it’s a shapeshifting Illusion...’

"Don’t move!" Hai Luwei yelled angrily, pinning him down. "Don’t even think about going after it!"

A dull ache throbbed from the back of his head—he’d hit it hard. But the impact seemed to have knocked away some of his earlier fear and confusion, leaving him with a renewed sense of calm clarity.

"Get off me," he said, both flustered and a little angry. "So that’s what Mai Mingle told you, right? To wait for a chance to knock me over and make me let go?"

"So what if it is?"

Hai Luwei, all thoughts of propriety forgotten, threw his entire weight on top of Fu Tailan, trying to pin him to the floor. With both of them on the ground, the disadvantage of his injured foot was greatly reduced.

"This was her dying wish, and I will see it through!"

"Get the hell off me!" Fu Tailan roared, punching him in the lower back. "That thing has nothing to do with time—"

Hai Luwei was in so much pain he couldn’t even draw a breath, but he still pressed down relentlessly on Fu Tailan’s chest. Fu Tailan was seeing stars from the pressure. He wanted to draw his gun, but the entire side of his body where he kept it was pinned down.

"...I think ’dying wish’ might be the wrong choice of words."

The two men, struggling on the floor, both froze.

Hai Luwei was the first to react. His eyes lit up as he scrambled off Fu Tailan. He turned his head at the exact same moment as Fu Tailan and saw the person standing up in the hallway.

Mai Mingle’s face was pale, her eyes shimmering with tears, as if she was still shaken from the ordeal.

But her eyes were bright and clear, her skin and hair were lustrous and smooth... She had once again become one of his own young kind.

The Illusion was gone.

"If I had died, then what I told you could be called a dying wish," Mai Mingle said softly, giving Hai Luwei a gentle smile. "Thank you. You saved my life again."

Hai Luwei got to his feet. Fu Tailan remained sitting on the floor, dazed, staring at her.

"You... you knew that Illusion would transform?" he finally asked softly after several seconds. "You knew it would choose you?"

"It seems to know I need it more than a young person does. It was the same way the first time I met it."

Mai Mingle looked down, slowly stroking her waist.

"I knew that when someone lets it go, it takes on a human form... and as a human, it might just walk back to me. If I wanted to live, my only hope was to make you release it. In that moment of complete despair... that was the last, desperate struggle of an old woman who refused to let life give up on her."

She raised her gaze and looked directly into Fu Tailan’s eyes.

It was difficult to describe her expression. She was like the sea, serene and solemn once more after a raging storm of emotion.

"Do you still want to take it?" Mai Mingle asked, her voice almost perfectly calm. "If you want to, you can still find a way."

Fu Tailan sat there for a moment before shaking his head.

"Seeing me like I was just now... it scared you, didn’t it?" Mai Mingle asked, watching him.

After a few seconds of silence, Fu Tailan nodded, almost meekly.

"...Just tell me," Mai Mingle said suddenly after a pause. "You don’t have to hold back because you feel sorry for me. You saw it just now, didn’t you? This Illusion’s expiration date... how much longer does it have?"