Chapter 458 - 400: Fu Tailan: The World’s Most Ironic, Most Fitting Thing

Chapter 458: Chapter 400: Fu Tailan: The World’s Most Ironic, Most Fitting Thing

Just as he would after waking in the morning, Fu Tailan stretched his limbs out long.

A crushing weight seemed to press down on his chest, forcing his breath to crawl painfully between his ribs.

But he still couldn’t help but smile; almost content, he closed his eyes under the pouring rain.

"Kai Luonan’s Path is gone? So what are you worried about?"

He said with a faint, wheezing laugh, "Hasn’t Kai Luonan retired? Isn’t the Path useless now? Are you heartbroken that at his age, he still has some grand, unfulfilled ambitions in the Nest?"

The weight on his chest suddenly increased—then was forcibly lightened the next moment.

Fu Tailan savored Chaisi’s tangible rage and pain. "...Ah, I get it now."

After saying this, he shut his mouth and lay where he was, refusing to say another word.

After several seconds, Chaisi finally ground out through clenched teeth, word by word, "Do you think I’m going to ask you what you get?"

Even with his eyes closed, Fu Tailan could picture Chaisi’s thin, tight-drawn lips.

’Aren’t you just asking the same question in a different way?’ Fu Tailan almost wanted to laugh.

He opened his mouth as if to answer, then turned his head and spat with great emphasis and deliberation.

"Ah, rainwater’s getting in my mouth. It’s hard to talk lying down in a downpour like this."

Fu Tailan took the opportunity to scan his surroundings. He saw that besides Carter, who was held at gunpoint by Han Liuyue, the other bodyguards had all vanished. He almost wanted to stomp his foot in frustration. ’Look at Chaisi’s people, taking down Carter’s bodyguards within minutes of the crash. What a complete waste of talent. Pearls before swine.’

The swine, Chaisi, gave a cold laugh and suddenly bent down to grab him.

Fu Tailan was nearly 1.8 meters tall, but when Chaisi grabbed him by the collar and hauled him off the ground, it was as effortless as lifting a bag of spaghetti. Fu Tailan didn’t even have a chance to resist before Chaisi slammed him down onto the twisted car body and pinned him.

"The Path,"

The car’s headlights were behind Chaisi, faintly illuminating only his rigid silhouette. He seemed to be struggling to suppress his anger and regain his composure. "Talk."

Fu Tailan looked at him and smiled.

"Your dear Uncle Kai, the distinguished head of a Family Faction, lost the most fundamental part of being a Hunter. It’s only normal for you to be furious that he’s suffered such a great loss and humiliation."

He raised a hand, holding up two fingers. "But that’s only about twenty percent of the reason, right?"

"One more useless word out of you, and I’ll kill you right now," Chaisi said, his voice almost calm.

"You won’t," Fu Tailan smiled again. "You forget, lies are my servants. You’re no good at it. You’re not that flexible. You’re so stiff you’ve practically turned into a block of cement."

Chaisi said nothing. ’At a time like this, isn’t staying silent the same as admitting it?’

Fu Tailan raised another finger, turning the "two" into a "three."

"Thirty percent of your anger is because you’re scared."

Chaisi’s breath hitched. On this cold, rainy December night, under the glare of the headlights, every breath they took was a white puff of air.

"The person you cherish most in this world was approached without your knowledge, and his internal Path was stolen... What if that person wanted more than just the Path? What if that person had killed Kai Luonan? While you were so pleased with yourself, pissing all over Blackmoor City to mark your territory, your godfather could have been snuffed out in an instant. The very thought of it makes you—"

Fu Tailan didn’t get to finish.

Both of them knew perfectly well that Chaisi wouldn’t kill him. So, the storm of attacks and pain Chaisi was inflicting upon him now was no big deal. Chaisi, of all people, should know that pain was useless against Fu Tailan.

His Nest-induced dissociation also kept physical pain at a distance.

He didn’t even need to register where he was being punched, where a bone had broken, where he was bleeding.

Sure enough, Chaisi stopped just as quickly.

He squatted down, looking at Fu Tailan, who was slumped beside the car’s wheel.

A few seconds later, Chaisi suddenly said in a low voice, "So what?"

Hm?

"So what if I was scared? So what if I have regrets?" Chaisi said through clenched teeth. "After all, you didn’t kill him. You still have some last shred of sanity."

’Heh, and here I thought Chaisi was going to say, "So what if Kai Luonan died?" Chaisi Monroe really is a rigid and uninteresting person.’

"I didn’t kill him," Fu Tailan said, his voice muffled.

He paused to spit out a mouthful of blood, ran his tongue over his teeth to confirm they were all still there, then continued, "Want to hear the rest? Another ten percent... is your excitement."

A Path being taken from Kai Luonan naturally implied another possibility: a Path could be installed in someone else.

"As a ’Muggle,’ this is something you’ve yearned for your entire life. You must have tried countless times, right? You must have gotten hurt who knows how many times because of it, right? Deep down in your heart, you’ve always harbored a little bit of hatred for me, for Han Liuyue, for anyone who can open a Path with ease, haven’t you?

"Now that the Path has been moved... you finally know that it isn’t fixed in place. You, even you, even Chaisi Monroe—who was adopted to be a future Hunter but ended up as nothing—finally have a chance to touch the edge of the Nest."

Unexpectedly, Chaisi said nothing and showed no reaction.

Han Liuyue’s gun was still pressed to Carter’s head, but her gaze was fixed on Chaisi. She called out to him imploringly, "Brother Chaisi... Brother Chaisi, don’t listen to him anymore."

Chaisi Monroe acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

"Oh, there’s more," Fu Tailan said, his voice almost gentle. "You’re not a complete idiot, after all. For a split second while you were chasing me in your car, didn’t a thought flash through your mind? If you could get Kai Luonan’s Path back, then maybe... ’Uncle Kai would give the Path to you’?"

For the small amount of pain Chaisi’s violence had caused him, Fu Tailan could repay it a thousand times over with just a few words.

"You’ve fantasized about it, haven’t you? Even for just a second... you must have imagined it. A true inheritance between a father and son, one that transcends blood and genes. You would inherit his Path. You would become Kai Luonan’s one and only true son, in every sense of the word."

It was the very core of Kai Luonan’s being as a Hunter; it was his entire life. If he were to give it to Chaisi, it would be his ultimate acknowledgment of him.

"So why does such an exciting fantasy—no, a fantasy exciting enough for a dog—only account for ten percent?"

Fu Tailan was no longer smiling.

"What about the remaining forty percent?"

"Brother Chaisi," Han Liuyue finally spoke up again, "Let me kill him—"

Fu Tailan didn’t let her finish.

"The remaining forty percent is your fear."

His voice, without him even consciously trying, had become soft and indistinct, a murmuring gentleness. "After all... you can’t help but remember what I said in the hospital room, when you and Han Liuyue cornered me."

Thinking back now, it had only been a few hours, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

Fu Tailan repeated the sentence, word for word.

"The Path Illusion has been used up. It’s useless now. You have no hope. You’ll never be able to enter the Nest in this lifetime."

Even hearing it again, Chaisi would surely still cling to a sliver of hope.

"You don’t believe me, do you?" Fu Tailan said calmly. "You don’t want to believe me. It doesn’t matter. The truth is the truth, and it won’t change whether you believe it or not."

Even he found it somewhat ironic, hearing those words come from his own mouth.

But that was far from the most ironic part of this whole affair.

When Fu Tailan thought about what he had done, he wanted to laugh out loud in the rain.

"You still don’t get it... I’ve done you a favor," he said, shaking his head slightly. "From a certain perspective, our situations now have a strange... commonality. No, that’s not right. Let’s call it... a ’mirror image’."

Chaisi finally managed to ask, "...What do you mean?"

"Your father always looked down on you because you didn’t have a Path, couldn’t enter the Nest, couldn’t become a Hunter. Now, his Path is gone too."

At this point, Fu Tailan almost felt like saying, "You’re welcome."

"As for my father," he continued with a smile, "he was always forcing me to use my Path, to enter the Nest and make money. Now, he has a Path too."

The rain rumbled on for a moment, as if hammering the world—and the minds of everyone present—into an incomprehensible, blank void.

Until Carter finally cried out, having realized, "What? Are you saying—are you saying—No, that’s impossible! He was always—"

He wasn’t stupid, but he was a step too slow to react.

’See? Chaisi understood it long ago.’

Watching Chaisi’s knees hit the rain-soaked ground as he slowly lowered his head and curled into himself uncontrollably, Fu Tailan discovered that what he felt was not satisfaction.

Fu Tailan wanted to laugh, but not because of Chaisi’s pain.

He almost felt a sliver of pity, wanting to tell Chaisi that he might as well laugh along with him.

"...I gave Kai Luonan’s Path to Fu Han."

Fu Tailan couldn’t hear clearly, nor could he see.

But he knew that behind the dense, heavy curtain of rain, Chaisi Monroe was sobbing uncontrollably.