Illusion Report

Chapter 331: Chapter 287: Fu Tailan: The First Hospital

The clock ticked past midnight. The date changed to November 24th.

At 12:34 AM, Fu Tailan stood at the entrance of the hospital building, clad in a thin hospital gown. A smear of dried blood stained the back of his hand as he stared blankly at the night sky and the streetlights.

’Where do I go? What do I do?’

After a few seconds, he couldn’t help but laugh. He had just realized that if there were a button in front of him right now—one that could make all of humanity vanish in an instant—he would press it without a second thought. Effortlessly.

"...Isn’t this just like the origin story of some supervillain from a comic book?"

He muttered to himself. For some reason, the idea of casting himself in the role of a supervillain seemed even funnier.

’Someone who would do that isn’t a villain at all.’

’If someone could make humanity suddenly disappear in the next second—unaware, unfeeling, without pain or suffering—that would be the greatest act of mercy.’

In elementary school, teachers would always ask what everyone wanted to be when they grew up. Fu Tailan, like everyone else, had answered that question.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember his answer now.

Back then, he still thought his life was his own.

His head felt light, as if attached to his neck by a single thread of consciousness. And from that thread, the dull ache of his wounds radiated through his body.

’Painkillers or a cigarette, either would do—’

Fu Tailan subconsciously patted himself down, only to remember he had left his room with nothing but his phone and the hospital gown on his back.

"...Supervisor."

He turned around, the muscles in his back feeling as if they were tearing apart inch by inch. When he saw Remy, he froze, the pain solidifying as if his back were splitting open into a canyon.

"Here to keep an eye on me?" Fu Tailan asked after a couple of seconds.

Remy took a breath.

"I’m sorry, I don’t know the whole story. I’m just following orders."

She crossed the lobby and handed him a backpack and a bag. "I’m just doing my job. I don’t want to get dragged into this... this kind of feud."

"Just doing your job?" Fu Tailan laughed. "Must be pretty easy, I bet."

Remy shrugged and opened her palm, revealing a crumpled cigarette.

She took out a lighter and, as Fu Tailan lowered his head with the cigarette between his lips, she struck a flame for him.

For the brief moment the fire illuminated her eyes, he almost believed in her kindness.

Fu Tailan took a deep drag from the cigarette, letting the white smoke unfurl through his lungs and slowly warm his blood. The colossal, unsettling shadow that was always churning in the depths of his mind was pushed back down under the deep water, suppressed by the combined effect of the painkiller and the nicotine.

The shadow struggled as it sank, and a smile floated to the surface.

"Supervisor, what do you plan to do next?" Remy asked.

"I don’t know."

"The Morgan Family is very powerful," Remy said cautiously. "Even though I don’t know what he wants you to get... whatever it is, it might be better to just cooperate for now. Just bear with it and it’ll be over. There’s no need for a head-on confrontation."

A "friend" was, of course, a much more effective method of control than open hostility and blatant surveillance.

"As long as you cooperate, I’m sure he won’t be stingy with his support." Remy studied his expression. "Even the most exceptional Hunter, with the backing of a Family Faction, can..."

"You’re right," Fu Tailan cut her off. "I’m going to the restroom."

He slung the backpack over his shoulder and handed the bag with the change of clothes to Remy. "Hold this for me."

Remy stared at it, then fixed her gaze on Fu Tailan for a few seconds, as if looking at a deranged patient. But in the end, she took the bag.

"You’re seriously injured right now," she said in a low voice.

Fu Tailan gave her a smile, the white smoke coiling between his lips and teeth before escaping, impossible to hold.

"Don’t follow me, okay?"

Remy’s brow furrowed tightly, but she held her tongue.

Even if she guessed what Fu Tailan was about to do, she couldn’t stop him—not unless she tied him up and imprisoned him. This was a large part of why he was known as a "Genius Hunter."

Fu Tailan walked into a restroom stall and pulled the door shut behind him.

Then pushed it open.

He pulled it shut again, the door closing with a BANG. He pushed it open a second time, then closed it a third.

This time, he paused for a few seconds.

He took one last deep drag from his cigarette, as if trying to inhale a bit of clarity and calm.

Fu Tailan dropped it to the floor, grinding the ember out with his heel. Exhaling a slow stream of white smoke, he pushed open the same door for the third time.

...His luck was good.

As long as he opened and closed any door three consecutive times, with no more than ten seconds between each action, he could open a Path in and out of a Nest. It was an ability that was impossible to guard against, especially since "door" wasn’t limited to the door of a room.

A refrigerator door, a car door, a closet door—anything with a "door" that could fit Fu Tailan could become his escape route from the human world after being opened and closed three times.

The Path was a Hunter’s greatest talent.

He could even choose whether or not to enter after opening the Path.

It was said he was only three years old when he first opened a Path. Back then, Fu Tailan had just stood there dazedly behind the door, a piece of candy still clutched in one hand.

"Dad,"

He looked at the sky and road that had replaced their living room, and at the person standing perfectly still in a yellow raincoat across the street. Confused and lost, he didn’t yet know to be afraid. "Dad, come here! Dad! There’s someone here!"

’What was Fu Han’s reaction back then?’

He couldn’t remember anymore.

’He must have slammed the door shut and carried me far away, right?’

’He must have warned me over and over not to open and close doors like that again, right?’

Even Fu Han wouldn’t have let his three-year-old son enter a Nest.

He had simply committed the event to memory, probably mulling it over countless times.

It was only when they were destitute and couldn’t go on any longer, when his son was twelve, that he tentatively made a suggestion to Fu Tailan.

Before he turned twelve, the longest Fu Tailan had ever lived in one place was two years.

No matter the job, Fu Han could never hold it for more than six months. He always felt he was too talented for menial work like sales or customer service, convinced that a grand business blueprint was waiting for him to make his mark.

Dragging his burdensome son along, he drifted from one rental to another, always forced into a hasty move whenever the rent became impossible to pay. Once, he took Fu Tailan to stay at a friend’s house, where father and son squeezed together on the sofa for over a month.

Every morning, when the woman of the house rose early to make breakfast in the kitchen, Fu Tailan would be seized by an unspeakable shame and anxiety. Unable to make a sound or move a muscle, he could only pretend to be fast asleep.

’I shouldn’t be here.’

He had never known where in the world he was supposed to be.

When he thought about it, in all his seventeen years, the only place Fu Tailan had known that was almost constant, the closest thing he had to a "home," seemed to be the Nest.

’...Time to go.’

He stepped out of the stall. Waiting for him on the other side was still a hospital restroom.

Fu Tailan had no intention of walking to his death—after all, Fu Han’s innocence and life now rested on his shoulders.

The "Saint Louis Hospital" within the Nest was one of the most frequently visited entry points. Opening a Path from his location in Blackmoor City gave him a high chance of ending up there—though, of course, a little luck was still required.

He walked out of the restroom, crossed the lobby, and approached the first-floor nurses’ station.

The nurses’ station was deserted, not a soul in sight. In the waiting area, however, sat a resident with a wrapped headscarf, their eyes constantly darting toward him.

The year he was fifteen, Fu Tailan had nearly died in a Nest.

If someone were to tell him he had actually died that year, and that the past two years were just a heavy, unending dream, Fu Tailan wouldn’t even be surprised. He simply couldn’t understand how he was still alive.

That day, a little over two years ago, he had stumbled into the lobby of the "Saint Louis Hospital" just like this.

His heart throbbed in his palm. With every beat, blood spattered from his back, a drizzling rain of red that flowed into a small river behind him.

"This place... it’s a hospital, right?"

A fifteen-year-old Fu Tailan, slumped over the nurses’ station counter, spoke in halting, breathy whispers. "If it’s a hospital... you’re supposed to treat people’s injuries... right? H-Help me."

The seventeen-year-old Fu Tailan, pretending not to hear the faint sound of the resident behind him getting up and quietly approaching, said to the nurses’ station, "I need to be admitted."

After he finished speaking in a low voice, then as now, a faint voice emerged from the empty nurses’ station.

"Oh my, you’re quite badly hurt."

Fu Tailan grunted in affirmation.

"Didn’t you come here once, two years ago?" the faint voice asked.

"Yes."

"It seems you were quite satisfied with our treatment? Is that why you left the hospital in the human world to come specifically to ours?"

"...Yes."

"Then you know what our hospital accepts as payment for admission, don’t you?"

"I do."

The faint voice seemed satisfied.

"Excellent. Remember, once you’re admitted, there’s no use for regrets. Let’s see... Hmm, we’ll have you stay until the morning of the 26th. How does that sound?"

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