Illusion Report

Chapter 355: Chapter 307: Brianna: Old Death and New Life

Brianna was starting to wonder if she hadn’t actually been rescued—if she was still trapped in the Black Cube.

Otherwise, why did it feel like her mind and body were about to drift apart, piece by piece?

But Brianna was no longer afraid.

Her feet seemed to tread on mist, leading her forward. It felt like floating, or swimming—anything but walking.

Her hearing had receded. She could still hear, but everything in the world sounded impossibly distant.

In her daze, she sensed Fu Tailan walking beside her, though he might as well have been on the other side of the world.

Was it the cigarette in his hand? Where was this endless, thick, swirling fog coming from?

In the vast, white expanse of the Human World, it seemed they were the only two, walking forward step by silent step.

Her consciousness floated high above the clouds, whispering: ’Go. He’s behind the first door.’

’Go. Go kill him.’

She had no weapon, no Illusion. She was bare-handed, and her father wouldn’t go easy on her.

If she were to truly die here again tonight, she felt she would have no regrets—except for the deep, endless, aching sense of unfulfilled longing she felt whenever she thought of Morando.

But she wouldn’t die, would she?

After all, the future was walking right beside her.

Brianna raised her hand and slowly pressed the switch on the reinforced door. Her father hadn’t locked it.

The door slid automatically into the wall. Simultaneously, they both dodged to the sides, each taking cover behind the wall, revealing an open doorway to a room neither of them could see into.

Westley’s heavy breathing rushed out of the room, floating in the vast white mist.

"What do you people want?"

He couldn’t seem to figure it out. "The target Illusion? To win the game? Aren’t you both smart people? Why aren’t you doing what smart people are supposed to do?"

His words fell into silence. Quiet descended both inside and outside the room.

’There was no way to explain it to him; perhaps because she didn’t understand it herself.’

"Dad," Brianna asked softly after a few seconds, "what’s in your room?"

As she spoke, she slowly undid the buttons on her shirt. When the phone had woken her, she hadn’t had time to dress properly, merely throwing the shirt on over her bare skin.

Fu Tailan glanced at her.

’A man’s body did have its conveniences.’

She took off the shirt, thinking how this lean, flat-chested body had nothing to do with Westley.

’Isn’t this great?’

"Dad, I’m coming in."

Before the words were even out, she flicked her wrist, and the shirt fluttered toward the doorway.

For a moment, everything was silent. No gunfire erupted from the room. Westley had no firearms training and disliked using guns personally. Besides, what was the power of a gun compared to an Illusion?

Suddenly, the shirt froze in mid-air.

It seemed to hesitate for an instant, a sleeve clutching at the air, hanging there as if it realized it could still turn back, still retreat.

But that illusion of a possible return to how things were was instantly crushed.

The shirt was sucked into what seemed like a vacuum bag as someone flipped a switch. The air was violently ripped away; the shirt was flattened, twisted, and contorted, finally compressed into a small, unrecognizable lump that fell to the floor.

Brianna looked down at the small lump on the floor, realizing it had been less than a second since it left her hand.

Fu Tailan clicked his tongue. "Vicious."

"Shut up," she said.

Fu Tailan chuckled softly.

Westley was panting, as if the effort had taken a significant mental toll. After getting a clear look at the shirt on the floor, he said nothing. Perhaps he knew that words were now meaningless.

Father and daughter had both bared their fangs.

Brianna thought, ’It’s a shame this vast white fog only exists in my head. Otherwise, Westley wouldn’t be able to see a thing—’

’Ah, wait a second.’

She glanced at Fu Tailan; the young man felt her gaze and looked up.

Without a word, Brianna looked at him, mimed flicking a lighter, and then pointed at herself.

’Lighter. Lend it to me.’

Fu Tailan nodded, but then paused.

He thought for a moment, then pulled two things from his pocket: a lighter and a wallet. Unhurriedly, he emptied the wallet first. Brianna understood.

With a flick of his wrist, Fu Tailan tossed the empty wallet through the doorway first.

For an instant, the wallet also froze in mid-air and began to be compressed and contorted—but in the very next moment, the lighter, following right behind it, flew smoothly through the air and landed in Brianna’s hand.

’So that’s how it works.’

’Westley’s Illusion... is it something that activates on a "command"?’

’Like firing a gun, he has to see the target and pull the "trigger" to suck the air out from around it. His Illusion can’t create a passive "field" where anything that enters is affected.’

’That’s why he attacked the empty wallet but didn’t have time to react to the lighter that came immediately after.’

’It seemed Westley might not have even realized he’d missed a lighter.’

’This makes things much easier.’

A smile touched Brianna’s lips.

After two tries, she managed to light a chair she had dragged over from the hall.

The chair was covered in velvet and stuffed with thick foam. Once it caught a spark, a blazing fire would soon replace all order.

The chair was hidden with her behind the wall, out of Westley’s line of sight. Unless he left the room, he couldn’t create a vacuum around the chair to extinguish the fire.

Brianna watched it burn quietly. The white smoke and thick fog from her mind were finally rising up in the real world—just like her. Something that shouldn’t exist, something unwelcome, still seizing every opportunity to crawl its way into this world.

The smoke grew thicker and more suffocating. The safe room wasn’t large; soon, her entire field of vision became the same vast whiteness as the one in her mind.

Fu Tailan was coughing, having already covered his nose and mouth with the hem of his shirt.

Brianna undid the leather belt at her waist and wrapped it around her hand. The heavy metal buckle dangled from her wrist like the head of a sleeping snake.

"What are you doing!" Westley roared angrily, choking on the smoke. "Are you trying to burn me alive? You think this safe room doesn’t have a fire suppression system?"

Brianna squinted, listening to the smoke alarm on the ceiling start to BEEP, a strange, sharp music. But the heat and smoke from one burning chair weren’t yet enough to activate the fire sprinklers.

Seeing the time was right, she grabbed the scalding chair leg and flung the chair into the room.

The leaping, dancing flames seemed to glide upon waves of white, churning the air and smoke before being swallowed by the thick haze. Crouching low, Brianna lunged into the room at almost the exact same moment, a two-pronged attack with the chair.

Behind her, Fu Tailan seemed startled.

Her eyes were locked on the flickering firelight. Through the roiling smoke, she could already make out a familiar silhouette.

’Dad, I’m here.’

She saw the silhouette’s back curl as he choked on smoke;

She saw the firelight suddenly get snuffed out in the smoke;

She saw him turn toward her, a step too late.

Brianna raised her arm. The belt awoke, whipping through the air with a sharp WHISTLE as she swung it at the silhouette. The sound of the metal buckle finally striking flesh made her heart clench. It was as if some fundamental law of nature had suddenly chimed, nearly bringing her to tears.

As Westley cried out in pain, something slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor with a CLATTER.

Brianna felt as if she had lived an entire lifetime in the smoke.

She couldn’t see anything clearly either, but she reacted in time, lunging forward to kick away the Illusion on the floor—a device whose form she still hadn’t seen.

Amidst the music of the alarm, Westley’s meaningless roars of fury sounded very far away.

"Stop—don’t you want ’Rumor’ anymore—"

Another sentence tumbled out of the thick white smoke: "I’m your father!"

Brianna drove a fist into the space between his chest and stomach. Westley’s shout was cut off once again as he crumpled to the ground.

’I’m sorry. That must hurt, right?’

She shouldn’t have been able to see it, but she did. The short stun baton he had tucked into his waistband.

In that moment, Brianna suddenly knew the future.

Fu Tailan had come in at some point and was standing in the distance, silently watching her and her father. He was covering his nose and mouth, but his eyes burned so brightly they seemed to pierce through the smoke.

She leaned down and snatched the stun baton.

Westley twisted around, trying desperately to see Brianna clearly, still trying to persuade her to think things through. What was she doing? Was she really going to attack her own father? He had never abused her, had he? Was it really necessary to go this far?

"Think of your mother! If she knew what you were doing—"

Brianna opened her mouth, only then realizing her throat was sore and hoarse from the smoke. The words she wanted to say wouldn’t come out. She couldn’t say goodbye.

’Dad, the future is already set. History cannot be changed.’

’Dad, we won’t be seeing each other in hell.’

’You and I will be in two completely different hells, staring at each other from an eternal distance.’

She pressed the stun baton against Westley’s chest and flipped the switch.

At that moment, Fu Tailan burst into laughter. His voice, scorched and distorted by the smoke, sounded almost like a cry of release, of surrender.

Brianna had never been in so much pain.

Brianna had never been so happy.

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