Illusion Report

Chapter 188: Chapter 156: Mai Mingle: Increasing Entropy, Loss of Control, and Bitterness

It was the first time the third-floor apartment hallway had been so quiet.

The only sound came from the garbage chute blocking the stairwell.

It remained motionless, yet every now and then, they could hear something tumbling, crashing, and falling deep inside—as if someone were actually throwing trash in.

Once, they even heard a faint voice rise from the depths of the chute, greeting someone unknown. "Hey, you’re here too? A life without work and ambition isn’t bad, is it? ... I’m happy to just be trash... It’s easy, and carefree."

"Do you really think you can trick people into going in like that?"

Hai Luwei finally lost his patience. He looked up at it and said, "We’re discussing something important. Can you please be quiet?"

The garbage chute made no sound, just like a real garbage chute.

"...Is it true?" Mai Mingle asked in a low voice after a few seconds.

"You haven’t seen it?" Fu Tailan countered.

Mai Mingle shook her head, her expression blank.

The three of them were sitting on the hallway floor. Their life-or-death struggle from moments ago felt like ancient history.

That thing they had just glimpsed, the one waiting for everyone at the end of their lives, was far darker and more terrifying than the Nest or any of its traps. In the face of ultimate annihilation, all their schemes and squabbles felt absurd.

"We originally planned to come into the apartment to rest and check the Illusion’s expiration date."

Mai Mingle said in a low voice, "When we first came in, the apartment was still safe. The renovations hadn’t started yet. I had Hai Luwei look around, but he didn’t see any time or text..."

"At the time, I guessed we might have to take it off to see it," Hai Luwei nodded and continued. "But if we did, she would turn into... well, you saw what happened. We were still discussing what to do when the apartment suddenly entered its renovation phase. After that, we didn’t dare try to take it off."

He still didn’t seem to trust Fu Tailan—which was no surprise. The two of them had been thoroughly deceived by the boy. The most difficult part was that there was no way to tell if Fu Tailan was lying now, or what his motive would be if he was.

’If what he just said was also a lie, that would be wonderful...’

’But he’s telling the truth, isn’t he.’

Mai Mingle lowered her head and took a deep breath.

The two words jumped from her lips, as abrupt as a punch to the gut. "Nine months?"

It felt like she couldn’t draw a breath, and her mind went blank.

She could only repeat the same phrase over and over. "It’s too short—it’s too short. I only have... This is too short."

"To be precise, you have 267 days left," Fu Tailan murmured, leaning against the wall with his lashes lowered. "...Not even nine months."

Silence once again descended on the hallway.

"Didn’t the Nest pour a ton of information into your mind?" Hai Luwei suddenly asked, his brow deeply furrowed. "Are there any other Illusions with a similar function? We have nine months to find one..."

The information from the Nest was vast, but it was also chaotic, random, and unsystematic. Mai Mingle thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"I do know the locations of a few Illusions... but none with a similar function," she said slowly. "The more precious the effect, the rarer the item. It’s the same logic everywhere."

Perhaps she should feel lucky. At the end of her life, she still had this beautiful nine-month dream of returning to her youth.

"Life... we live it backwards. It should be the other way around."

Before she knew it, Mai Mingle heard herself speaking softly.

"You should experience death first, then move into a nursing home. Then you get kicked out for being too young. You buy a gold watch and start working. After a few decades, you’re finally young enough to retire. You can drink, throw parties, get ready for high school, then middle school... all the way until you’re a little kid again. You have no responsibilities. You become a baby, and you return to the womb. At the very end, you disappear, becoming a twinkle in your parents’ eyes."

It was a bit from George Carlin she had heard years ago and never forgotten.

"You two are too young. You probably don’t understand."

Mai Mingle offered a small smile. "When I was young, I also thought I would never change. It wasn’t a rational conclusion, just a vague sort of confidence. I forget how old I was, but one year I suddenly noticed that even when my wrist was straight, it had several lines that looked like creases. It was as if I were made of cardboard, and my wrist had been folded so many times it would no longer lie flat."

Fu Tailan instinctively glanced at his own wrist.

He was seventeen, vibrant and fresh, like the first dewdrop of morning. His eyes reflected the hazy light of a misty dawn. Naturally, there were no lines on his wrist.

Fu Tailan looked up, as if to say something, but his gaze suddenly fell on her shoeless feet.

Her foot was bandaged, so she couldn’t fit into her shoe. Her toes peeked out from the wrappings.

"Why... do you cut your toenails flat across?" he asked, his expression vacant, the question utterly unrelated to the Illusion. "Square like that... Does that have to do with getting old?"

"Your fingernails get thinner and more brittle, while your toenails get harder and thicker. If you cut them in an oval, the edges dig into your skin. They become ingrown, which is unbearably painful and causes inflammation."

Even Hai Luwei, who was a little older, looked surprised, as if he were hearing this for the first time.

"Never thought something as simple as your own nails would betray you as you get older, right?"

Mai Mingle tried to smile again. "Aging... It’s a process of gradually increasing entropy, of losing control, of betrayal."

She lowered her head and gently wiped her eyes.

"For all these years, I thought I’d gotten used to it, that I’d accepted it. Everyone gets old, everyone dies... Now I realize I never accepted it at all. I just grew too old and weary to resist, without even noticing."

"I’ll keep an eye out for you."

Hai Luwei said suddenly, "If there’s another Illusion out there with a similar function, one that can prolong your youth... I’ll do whatever it takes to get it for you. After all, you saved my life."

Mai Mingle nodded.

After speaking, he shot a sideways glance at Fu Tailan.

"Don’t you have anything to say? She went out of her way to deliver that message for you, which allowed you to save people from your Family Faction. Shouldn’t you show some gratitude?"

Fu Tailan lifted his chin slightly.

"That has nothing to do with me. I may be a supervisor in the Morgan Family Faction, but their lives and deaths are their own responsibility. Just as my life is only important to me. I’ve never expected anyone else to care about me—but I suppose it wouldn’t be any trouble to keep an eye out for you."

He paused here and looked up.

Fu Tailan had gradually recovered from the shock, once again becoming Fu Tailan, the young Hunter.

"...So long as you’re not my competitor," he said, his voice nearly calm.

Mai Mingle didn’t respond.

’With a mind like his, Fu Tailan must have realized I haven’t officially declined to join the Nest Dominance Game,’ she thought. ’Is he not pressing the issue because my days are numbered?’

’Even if I joined, I’d die of old age in nine months, so I’m not a rival worth guarding against?’

’No, he’s probably already concluded that with the time I have left, my only option is to focus all my energy on finding a way to extend my life. I won’t have time for anything else, let alone competing against others in the dominance game.’

"Jonah has been rescued?"

She changed the subject from the inevitable. "You didn’t go see him?"

"I already went. I dug him out of that massive nest of insects and carried him away. It wasn’t an easy process, what more do you want?" Fu Tailan shrugged. "The rest of the extermination work doesn’t require my personal attention, so I came to track you down."

"Is Jonah okay?"

Even though the person who had spoken with her and explained the situation wasn’t really Jonah, Mai Mingle still remembered the faint comfort of having another human for company during her initial terror.

Fu Tailan glanced at his phone screen.

"Yeah. A little longer and he would’ve been past saving. It’s 5:48 now... About twenty or thirty minutes ago, I’d say, I got a call on my walkie-talkie. They told me the ’resident’ inside Jonah has been evicted, and he needs to be taken back to Blackmoor City for further treatment. The rest of our people have arrived here too."

At that moment, her and Hai Luwei’s ears had been ringing so loudly they hadn’t heard a thing.

"You mean Hunters from the Morgan Family Faction are waiting outside the apartment right now?"

Hai Luwei whipped his head around to ask. He looked a little scared in retrospect—he certainly hadn’t been very polite to Fu Tailan earlier.

"Yes."

Fu Tailan shot a glance at Mai Mingle. "After all, if that Illusion had been the target, I would have had to secure it. I couldn’t afford any slip-ups."

’Thank goodness the Snake Belt isn’t one of the target Illusions,’ Mai Mingle thought.

’How many Illusions are required in total? The summons notice said almost nothing, just asked if I wanted to join. How does Fu Tailan know so many details?’

’Or did they receive a different kind of summons notice?’

"In any case, since you don’t have what I want, I’m just waiting to leave."

As Fu Tailan spoke, he stood up. He looked at Mai Mingle and Hai Luwei, then at the garbage chute patiently waiting in the distance.

"Where are you going?" Hai Luwei asked blankly. "The way upstairs is blocked by that thing..."

"I’m not going upstairs."

Fu Tailan smiled faintly. "We’ve all been tricked. Didn’t you realize?"