Illusion Report

Chapter 329: Chapter 285: Brianna: The First Illusion

The SIM card she’d used to call Morando had been pulled out and reinserted over and over again, each time by Brianna’s own hands.

She’d originally planned to burn it and throw it away, but when it actually came to holding a flame to it, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. In the end she put it back, keeping the phone on airplane mode indefinitely.

Only in the early hours of the morning — five, six AM, when Morando should have been asleep — did she let herself quietly switch the signal back on.

Brianna was deeply grateful she’d kept that SIM card.

November 26, 2026. 5:04 AM. Overcast with rain. Full signal.

On this day — the day she felt she could barely hold on any longer — she found twelve unread voice messages and four unread texts waiting for her. All from Morando.

Two more than the day before...

She stared at the bright red notification numbers over and over, as though they were rubies set into a crown.

She was a creature of a very particular kind. There was only one shade of red that could keep this garbage of a life going a little while longer — and it lived on a phone screen.

Brianna wanted to devour every message in one ravenous gulp, but she had to hold the greed in check, savoring each one slowly, one tiny sip at a time.

Morando’s voice — the rhythm of her breath, the tremors in it, the pauses, the emotion, even the background noise — all of it poured into Green’s body and gave Brianna something to hold onto for a little while longer.

"Whatever amount you want, I’ll pay it. Just tell me where she is..."

"I’ve already filed a police report. I hope you understand how serious this situation is..."

"Why did you get rid of the phone? What exactly was your role in all of this? Did she make you do it? Is she trying to make sure I can’t find her?"

One message contained nothing but her name — Brianna.

After the initial jolt of her heart, Brianna steadied herself quickly.

She sat cradling the phone, reading it again and again, picturing Morando’s fingers dancing across the screen, spelling out her name one letter at a time.

B-r-i-a-n-n-a.

By the time she came back to herself, she realized she’d been staring at it for nearly thirty minutes.

...That wouldn’t do.

If she could, she would stay on that couch forever, listening to Morando’s voice on repeat, waiting endlessly for the next message to arrive.

But that was impossible. Brianna had plans for the future, and this body — Green’s body — was almost spent.

She was running out of time.

That morning, before heading out, Brianna had sprayed herself with half a bottle of deodorant, layered on a thick coat of body powder, and doused herself in perfume — women’s perfume, the kind she liked, even though Green’s nose couldn’t smell anything anymore.

Even without being able to smell it, she knew perfectly well that this body had begun to reek of rot.

She couldn’t begin to imagine what the combination of deodorant, body powder, and perfume over the stench of a decomposing corpse actually smelled like. Probably enough to make someone sick on the spot.

When she walked through the entrance hall, the butler’s expression confirmed her suspicion. That European man, who never let a flicker of feeling cross his face, went visibly pale as she passed. He pressed his lips together hard, his throat working frantically, as though desperately trying to force something back down.

"In here?" he managed.

It was genuinely impressive — a true professional, capable of forming words in the middle of that suffocating, perfume-drenched stench. "Having the foyer ceiling redone... at this hour?"

"These were Mr. Westley’s instructions to me before he passed," Brianna said. "The crew was always scheduled to come today. The infrared sensors, the cameras, the security system — all of it has to go in with the new ceiling. I’ve already informed Madam Westley. It shouldn’t be an issue. She’s not here today anyway."

The butler pressed his lips shut and gave a tight nod.

Brianna knew she didn’t have much time. Within two hours of notifying the butler, she had a renovation crew at the door. The foyer ceiling soared nearly nine meters high — to replace it, they’d first have to erect scaffolding and take down the chandelier.

She couldn’t be bothered watching them work. She slipped away into the drawing room alone, locked the door behind her, and pulled a second phone from her bag — this one carrying a different SIM card.

November 26, 2026. 1:12 PM. Intermittent rain showers.

Brianna entered the number digit by digit and pressed call.

It rang a few times before someone picked up.

"Hello?" A young man’s voice, soft around the edges, a little blurred — like something had wound itself around his throat.

"Are you back?" Brianna asked.

A pause on the other end. "...Who is this?"

Without a word, Brianna hung up.

Honestly. What was taking so long? How much longer could this possibly drag on?

She sat alone in the silence, quietly going out of her mind.

With nothing else to do, Brianna turned her attention back to her plan, going over it again and again, looking for any crack, any weak point. She needed to patch every hole in advance and have a backup for every backup.

By 2:05 PM she couldn’t stand it anymore and dialed again.

"Are you back?"

"You again?" the young man said. "Hold on — are you the one who—"

Brianna swallowed her irritation and cut the call. When he called back, she didn’t answer.

At 3:25 PM, she picked up the phone again.

If she got the same result, she genuinely couldn’t promise she wouldn’t lose her temper. She barely had any time left, and she was wasting what little remained on this ridiculous waiting game—

"...I’m back." Fu Tailan’s voice came through, quiet and low.

Brianna let out a long, slow breath.

After everything that had led to this moment, she found herself speechless for half a second.

But this was only one small step forward in her plan. She could still pull back at any point if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

"I need the Illusion," Brianna said. "I know you have it."

Fu Tailan was quiet for a few seconds.

"...Fine. As long as it’s not being used on Chaisi Monroe, I don’t care," he said. "You do know it has a use limit, right? Only one left."

Had he burned through the rest himself? Whatever — it didn’t matter.

"That’s enough. I only need to make one transfer." Brianna said. "Name your price."

Fu Tailan went quiet again for a moment.

"I don’t want money."

Not wanting money was the most expensive ask in the world.

They arranged the handoff at a nearby café, in broad daylight, with people coming and going all around them. Fu Tailan didn’t even bother with a proper case — he’d shoved the Illusion, which looked absurdly like a vacuum cleaner, into a large Bloomingdale’s Department Store paper bag and pushed it across the table to Brianna without ceremony.

"There you go. The vacuum you wanted." He said it loudly enough for the people around them to hear.

Even a Hunter who knew exactly what was going on would have second-guessed themselves watching this exchange — some second-hand appliance getting casually passed over in a shopping bag. It was almost impossible to believe that thing was the Illusion capable of turning the entire Hunter World upside down.

"That’s it?" Brianna couldn’t help but feel a flicker of irritation. "You haven’t thought about whether it’s safe for me to just walk out of here carrying it like this?"

Fu Tailan only shrugged.

Fine. She had Westley’s driver waiting at the corner anyway. She’d be in the car and gone in minutes...

"Shouldn’t you have something else to say to me?"

The moment she made any move to stand, Fu Tailan spoke. He leaned forward, one arm resting on the table — just far enough to block her if she tried to leave.

"What?" Brianna blinked.

"Your..." Fu Tailan glanced up and down at Green’s body, made a small gesture with his finger, and swallowed whatever word had been on the tip of his tongue. "Anyone can see it won’t hold much longer. You’re absolutely rank."

Brianna felt her face go cold.

Not her face. Green’s face.

The face that had developed livid patches of purple and red down one side from a single brief nap. The face plastered in layer after layer of foundation. The face that could make a child cry.

"I have no idea how exactly you..." Fu Tailan glanced at the people nearby, then turned back to Brianna with a faint smile. "But I do know that George Green is about to become... someone who never existed."

Fu Tailan would probably live a lot longer if he were a little less clever.

"You still owe me a favor." He tapped the table lightly. "When I come to collect — who do I go looking for?"

"You should be grateful you were expelled," Brianna said, her voice cold. "That’s the only reason I’m willing to trade you a favor for this, instead of just taking it from you."

"A name," Fu Tailan said, his expression not shifting in the slightest. Just that one repeated phrase. "Give me a name."

"Jacqueline — you know who I mean, don’t you?" Brianna gave a small smile. "Give me two or three days. Then you can reach out to her."

"You’ve got a lot of confidence in yourself," Fu Tailan said quietly.

Brianna didn’t bother responding. She stood, walked out of the café, got into the car, and headed back to Westley’s city apartment. She let herself in with her key.

"Secretary Green?"

The butler seemed to have heard the door. He looked up and paused, visibly caught off guard. "How did you get in? Did Madam let you in?"

"She’s already here?" Brianna lifted the bag and made her way through the scaffolding in the foyer, heading toward the inner rooms.

"Yes," the butler said, clearly puzzled. "I thought she wasn’t coming today..."

"I asked her to come." Brianna stopped and turned to him. "I need to discuss something with her in private. Make sure no one comes through."

What exactly was she now?

She was no longer human, obviously — but she also didn’t seem to be fully a resident yet, either.

The Illusion, which by all accounts should have had no effect on residents or on corpses, still worked on her. And the Illusion, which an ordinary person would have needed instructions to operate, she had understood at a single glance.

Wasn’t that wonderful?

She’d gotten the best of both worlds. How lucky. How incredibly, absurdly lucky.

Brianna stared at the tube standing perfectly straight in the center of her chest, listening to its low, steady hum, and for reasons she couldn’t quite name, she felt the sudden simultaneous urge to cry and to throw her head back and laugh until she couldn’t breathe.

"What are you doing with a vacuum cleaner?"

The door swung open. By then, everything was already done.

George Green’s Path had been taken — drawn out and stored inside that vacuum-shaped Illusion, waiting for its next host.

God, she would have loved to tell Chaisi Monroe to his face. The Illusion that could have granted his life’s deepest wish had been used up, wasted, burned through — carelessly spent by her and Fu Tailan together, nothing left for him, not even a scrap — while her own plan moved forward, step by step, exactly as intended. What a shame. Would he want the empty husk it had become, she wondered? An empty husk, just like him. Surely they’d have a lot in common.

It took real effort to hold back the smile.

"What is that smell?"

Madam Westley stepped further into the room, one hand pressed over her nose and mouth, her blue eyes narrowed to long, disgusted slits. "Why does it reek in here?"

When Brianna didn’t respond, she shifted topics.

"All right, tell me. What was it my husband wanted you to give me?"

"Something very precious," Brianna said, keeping her voice as gentle as she could manage. "Come — give me your hand, Lady Jacqueline."

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