Illusion Report

Chapter 356: Chapter 308: Fu Tailan: Companions No More After Tonight

As the smoke gradually dissipated, Green—no, Brianna, was kneeling on the ground, hunched over Westley’s corpse.

She looked down at him, her face submerged in the smoke, streaked with hazy, drifting white.

It was hard to say if she was like someone who had just woken from a long slumber, or someone who had been awake for a very long time, unable to sleep; in the smoke, her eyes burned—bright, hazy, bloodshot, and dry.

"...Dad?" she asked softly, her head lowered. "Are you okay?"

Fu Tailan didn’t know if, compared to her, he was the more fortunate one, or the more unfortunate.

The laughter died in his chest like a spark. The smoke made his eyes water relentlessly. He wiped the tears away and, with near-perfect calm, remembered what he had to do.

This scene before him was, in the end, someone else’s fate. No matter how long he stood here and watched, the break would have to end, and he’d have to return to his own prison sentence.

One father had died, but another had to be saved.

Fu Tailan began to back away, step by step, soundlessly.

He covered his mouth and nose, suppressing the urge to cough, so as not to startle Brianna out of her dazed, hypnotic state.

As he neared the doorway, he glanced back—in the safe room’s main hall, the Black Cube had long since shrunken and slumped as if it had sprung a leak. It lay far off in a corner, showing no sign that it was once the thing Brianna had so deeply feared.

’Westley’s dead, so the Illusion has reverted to its original form.’

Scattered on the floor near it were several metallic objects; he couldn’t be more familiar with their shapes—"KEY".

Besides the Black Cube and the three letters, there was also a small, squarish-round, dark blue object on the floor. He couldn’t make out what it was at first. Since Westley had hidden the "key" target Illusion inside the Black Cube, could it be that the thing hidden with it was also a target Illusion?

The Fu Tailan of the 16th hadn’t obtained this blue object, but that didn’t mean the him of the 26th couldn’t, right?

’There were three target Illusions in the safe room in total. Another one was in the dead Westley’s mouth...’

Fu Tailan remembered Westley saying that as long as he didn’t cooperate, no one could ever take it. Once he was dead, it could never be retrieved.

’It was a tongue-shaped Illusion that lived in a person’s mouth, and it required the original owner’s active cooperation to be passed from one person to another...’

’The method of transfer... could it be related to the act of "speaking"?’

’A dead man can’t speak, so naturally, it can never be retrieved. That condition fits.’

’External force can compel a person’s limbs to twist and perform actions against their will, but it can’t move their tongue and make them speak certain words—at least, not human strength.’

’It can’t be taken by force. That condition also fits.’

’In that case... there seemed to be something that Brianna had never known...’

Fu Tailan glanced back.

Brianna was gently raising a hand, touching Westley’s wide, unblinking eyes.

He turned and, trying his best not to make a sound, quickly darted into the safe room’s main hall and rushed toward the Black Cube and the few shadows around it.

Fu Tailan bent down, swept his arm, and snatched up the letters ’E’ and ’Y’. Just as he was about to straighten up, he heard a sudden rush of air behind him—it was too late to dodge. He had no choice but to roll on the ground, stopping himself in a rather undignified manner before looking up.

Brianna stood ramrod straight a few steps away, naked from the waist up. Without a belt, her long pants hung loosely on her hip bones.

She was still holding the short electric baton.

Her earlier strike having missed, she was now slowly lowering her hand.

Her face was so calm it was as if she’d never had an expression. Like a primordial rock that existed long before humanity ever felt an emotion.

"...I thought you didn’t care about this anymore, sister," Fu Tailan said, looking at her with a breathless smile. "How could you lie to me?"

"You’re the one who lied to me."

Brianna lifted the electric baton and swung it in a lazy circle through the air.

"You told him you only came back to ensure history wouldn’t change... That was a lie meant for me to hear, wasn’t it?"

’Yes.’

’No one ever said you have to face your target when you tell a lie.’

But Fu Tailan put on an aggrieved expression as he scrambled to his feet. "Sister, what I said just now was to help you."

Brianna tilted her head, thinking quietly for a moment.

"If you only wanted to ensure history didn’t change, you shouldn’t have come back at all. Your return is what created the biggest variable in history."

’She could have remained out of it for a while longer, having just killed her own father. She really didn’t have to snap out of it so quickly.’

’On the 26th, everything had already been settled. If he hadn’t returned to the past, history wouldn’t have changed anyway.’

Although it was he who, after returning, had single-handedly brought about history’s... He was treading on a timeline like an ouroboros, unable to distinguish cause from effect.

"So... you came for the target Illusions, didn’t you?" Brianna asked. "You were never expelled?"

Fu Tailan stared at her for a few seconds.

"I was expelled," he finally said with a sigh, his shoulders slumping. "I didn’t lie to you."

’Telling Brianna the truth might be easier. Besides her, who else could he tell?’

"I was drafted on the night of the 15th, but in less than ten days, I was expelled."

Like someone who has just woken from a nightmare, he felt the urge to tell someone he’d had one. Otherwise, it was as if he and the nightmare would be trapped together forever, alone.

"Why?"

"...Because of my dad," Fu Tailan said.

Brianna understood, and she believed him. She didn’t say so explicitly, and her expression didn’t even change—but he just knew.

Her next question proved it: "Then what do you still need the target Illusions for?"

Fu Tailan subconsciously reached into his pants pocket, wanting to pull out a cigarette, but then remembered he’d already finished the last half.

He stood there stunned, like a man who’d lost his cane and forgotten how to walk.

"To save him," he finally said, his head bowed, his voice thick and nasal.

"...Save?" A crack finally appeared in Brianna’s composure.

Fu Tailan wiped his face. He kept his head buried low.

Brianna suddenly started to laugh. Her voice, hoarse from the smoke, sounded like the cawing of a crow.

"How pitiful. How pitiful. How pitiful."

’...A resident?’

’This feeling—it’s a resident—it has to be a resident, right?’

She covered her face with one hand and said through her laughter: "To think you’re even more unlucky than me you don’t even seem to have a choice then he must have loved you at least a little how pitiful you are how lucky how unlucky"

Fu Tailan looked up, staring at her blankly.

"Sister," he took an involuntary step toward her. "You..."

Brianna’s eyes were terrifyingly bright.

’Right. She hadn’t changed her original appearance to this George Green one because she liked it.’

"I’m sorry," Brianna said softly, calming down. "I mean it."

Fu Tailan didn’t speak.

"Your arrival tonight is the second-best thing that has ever happened in my life."

Brianna let out a soft sigh, as if deeply satisfied. "I truly wish I could help you achieve your goal... but not when it involves the ruling game."

She gestured at the Illusion on the floor with her short electric baton.

Fu Tailan now got a clear look at the small, dark blue Illusion from before: its surface was printed with a white letter ’W’. Anyone who glanced at it would probably realize instantly that it was identical to the icon for the Word text editing software.

"Perhaps in the future, after I’ve won the ruling game, before I shut down the Nest, I’ll do my best to grant your wish. You can save whoever you want... How about it? I’m willing to swear an oath to you."

Fu Tailan closed his eyes and gave a small laugh. "Shut down the Nest?"

Brianna hummed in affirmation.

"Is that why you want to win the ruling game?"

"Do you have another reason?"

’Of course.’

"What influence the Nest has on the human world, how many tragedies it cooks up, who it makes into a millionaire, who it turns into a corpse..." Fu Tailan watched her quietly and said in a low voice, "I don’t care about any of it."

Brianna said nothing.

"I only know one thing. If freedom exists anywhere in this world, it’s inside the Nest."

He vaguely recalled the apartment building he had followed Mai Mingle into, and the endless walls of television screens on the second floor.

It was the Nest. Only in the Nest could he stretch out on autumn grass and watch his claws open into petals in the air; he could be with the mother he never had, driving down a long, straight highway, with cornfields shimmering in the sun.

The Nest had always been so gentle to him.

"I still don’t know what I can do, what I can achieve, after I win the game... But I think I can figure that out slowly. I’ll have a lot of time then, and all the freedom in the world... Maybe I could even choose a new fate, be reborn, if I still wanted to be."

A dreamy, faraway look also appeared on Brianna’s face.

"That sounds wonderful," she agreed. "Sometimes I don’t know which side is home either."

Fu Tailan watched her; he knew she hadn’t finished.

"But I can’t."

Brianna said with a small smile, "I don’t need that kind of freedom... I just need a path that can lead me back to her side. I hope the Nest never touches her. I’m sorry."

’Then there’s nothing to be done.’

’Even if I’m about to make a move on you, you’ve survived the night, sister.’

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