Chapter 490 - 431: Fu Tailan: A Wish Fulfilled

Chapter 490: Chapter 431: Fu Tailan: A Wish Fulfilled

The fourth time he pushed the door open, he lowered his gaze and watched his right foot step in, his left following.

His feet landed on a floor of pale yellow tiles, which faintly gleamed with the water streaks left by a mop.

Fu Tailan collapsed to the floor.

No sound came from behind him, because there was no longer a door there.

He stared blankly, head bowed, at the hand where Carter’s teeth had torn away a piece of skin. Dried blood stained the entire hand, making it look like a scarlet glove.

For the first time in his life, without a single puff of a cigarette, Fu Tailan felt no pain.

Emotions were such weighty things—heavy, intense, born only from the bodies of those with flesh and blood.

He was just a wisp of smoke, ready to dissipate the moment he closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve to feel.

Fu Tailan closed his eyes and slowly crumpled to the floor.

’Fu Han has probably already forgotten.’

’Was it... back in March of this year?’

Back then, Fu Tailan had not yet joined the Morgan Family. That day had been just a bleak, lonely winter’s day. He had spent it sitting in his classroom, staring out the window at the withered branches.

When Fu Han came to pick him up from school, he knew his father must have wanted something from him. Indeed, it was on that very day, in the car on the way home, that his father persuaded him to accept the position and contract offered by the Morgan Family.

Fu Tailan sat in the back seat as gusts of air, cold as March snow, cut through the crack in the window.

"Do you think I can rest easy watching my child go into such a dangerous place time and time again?" Fu Han had said, pouring his heart out. "When you’re in the Nest, I don’t get a single good night’s sleep. It’s torture. I wish I could go in your place."

Fu Tailan was silent for a moment. Then, he slowly raised his eyes to the back of his father in the driver’s seat.

’Is that so?’

’You wish you could go in my place?’

He knew full well that expectation was a debt. Either the world paid it for you, or you paid it yourself.

He knew, and yet he still felt a faint, tingling tremor, like a frostbitten hand dipping into warm water.

But Fu Tailan didn’t ask a single question. He pretended not to have heard and simply continued the conversation about the Morgan Family’s contract—because he knew Fu Han all too well.

Language was a nimble thing, and he himself was a master of lies.

When Fu Tailan wanted an answer, he naturally wouldn’t ask for it with words.

The truest answer is the choice a person makes when backed into a corner.

For a long time, however, Fu Tailan didn’t know how he would ever get that true answer. Fu Han didn’t have a Path, so he couldn’t enter even if he wanted to. And even if he did, what logical reason would he have to go? After all, Fu Tailan was the experienced one, the one who could survive.

All Fu Tailan had were a few of Fu Han’s words.

He would occasionally recall them while eating dinner with his father, or when he saw his father pick up his dry cleaning for him. Sometimes, he didn’t know whether to consider those words a comfort or a cage.

But the world had been good to him, hadn’t it?

It had finally given him what he wanted.

Step by step, the fog began to clear. Fu Tailan saw his chance, a path to the answer.

’I’m not asking you to go in my place. I just want to know one thing.’

’When you have no other choice, will you go in yourself?’

The trap he had engineered step by step, using everything at his disposal, had finally given him the answer.

After so much effort and so much risk, it had all been just to confirm an outcome he had long suspected.

The shackles were gone.

So was the comfort.

Fu Tailan lay on the floor, arm pressed over his eyes, deaf to the sounds coming from a dim corner nearby.

The last time he’d been injured in his apartment, he had lain on the floor just like this. His Nest dissociation disorder had been far more severe back then, and a Fuhan Noodles had sat beside him the entire time.

At some point, the Fuhan Noodles had been replaced by the real Fu Han. Fu Han had called an ambulance for him and, while they waited, had stayed by his side, quietly reassuring him that everything would be alright.

A sudden whimper escaped Fu Tailan’s lips.

’Anything, any hallucination would do. Fuhan Noodles, Little Eye, Vulture, I don’t care who. Can’t someone just sit by my side again and tell me everything will be okay?’ Suddenly, Fu Tailan was terrified. He was afraid he would never be able to open his eyes again, afraid he would just keep sinking deeper and deeper into this agony, unable to struggle back to the surface no matter how hard he tried.

’Can a person be numb and in pain at the same time?’

He felt as if he were being crushed in a giant fist. Fu Tailan had no desire to cry, but every time the fist tightened, it squeezed a sob of agony from his body.

His crying became mechanical. He gasped for breath, his throat raw, his body curled into a ball as he kicked his feet in a daze. He had always been mature for his seventeen years, but right now, he was like a furious infant.

’Anyone. Please. A hallucination from my dissociation, Fuhan Noodles, anyone would be fine—’

"You’re already inside a Nest. How could you possibly be having symptoms of Nest dissociation disorder?"

Even lost in his despair, years of instinct as a Hunter took over. Fu Tailan scrambled to roll away and leap to his feet, but he forgot about his blood loss. His vision went black, his legs gave out, and he stumbled into a long dining chair.

"Honestly. Why do you humans always ask for things you’re actually terrified of?"

Fu Tailan forced open his swollen eyelids. Through a blur of tears and darkness, he could just make out a figure where he had been lying a moment ago.

In the unlit, empty restaurant, only the faint glow of a streetlight filtering through the front window illuminated the edge of the resident’s silhouette.

"Weren’t you just thinking that you’d take anyone, as long as someone was by your side?"

It knelt on the floor, tilting its head at Fu Tailan with a hand cupped to its ear as if listening for something. "Your desire was so strong just now, so loud. I was just passing by, but you drew me in. Ta-da! Now you have someone by your side. Are you happy?"

"You..." Fu Tailan managed only a single word before realizing how horribly hoarse his voice was. He cleared his throat. "You can know what humans are thinking?"

The resident lowered its hand and gave a slow nod.

"As long as a thought is strong enough, I can hear it. See? Not only can you feel emotions, but yours are so strong that even I could hear them."

Fu Tailan stared at it, then used the back of the chair to support himself as he slid down into the seat.

He had nowhere else to go, and it seemed pointless to struggle for survival any longer. Besides, he didn’t have the strength.

Fu Tailan looked at the resident in the gloom and said, "...Thank you."

’There’s someone with me again. Even a resident will do.’

"You’re a good kid. Very polite."

The resident trailed off, pausing for several seconds.

It sighed. "My instincts as a resident made me want to add, ’Your father raised you well.’ But I resisted. I know that’s just my resident instinct wanting to sting you, and I am, by nature, an expert on how to cause pain."

’...Which is probably why it has the ability to hear human thoughts.’

’It says it resisted, but isn’t this just another way of saying it anyway?’

’But it doesn’t matter.’

Fu Tailan sat there blankly, slipping back into that fog-like state. He even felt as though the person who had been crying earlier wasn’t him.

"So?" he asked softly.

"So you see, the Nest is that kind of place. In the Nest, there are Illusions to make you rich, Illusions to make you young, Illusions to eliminate your enemies... But you will never find an Illusion that lets you truly forget your pain without disastrous consequences."

The resident spread its hands. "For the Nest, that would go against our very nature."

"What are you trying to say?" Even as Fu Tailan asked, he already understood.

This resident’s ability to listen to the human heart was truly incredible. He hadn’t even realized it himself until the resident brought up Illusions. Only then did Fu Tailan become aware that he couldn’t bear it any longer.

He wanted to forget. He wanted the pain to stop.

That thing that had wrung the cries from his body—he wanted to cut it out of himself forever, never letting it near him again. Just as he had cut out and cast aside Fu Han.

He would do anything to make it happen, just as a suffocating man would pay any price for a single breath.

"The Nest is slowly seeping into the human world, and to be honest, we all have very complicated feelings about it. On one hand, we’re quite pleased, for reasons I don’t need to explain. On the other hand, we’re also much more worried."

The resident fidgeted with the hem of its clothes, like a bad stage actor trying to convey worry.

"Before, the winner of the Nest Dominance Game could only rule the Nest. Now, the winner gets to rule the Nest *and* the human world. That gives you contestants much more motivation, doesn’t it? Oh, but you’re not a contestant anymore."

It paused for a few seconds. "Oh, dear. My apologies. I couldn’t help myself that time."

Fu Tailan leaned his head against the back of the chair and laughed soundlessly.

"I don’t care," he said softly. "I don’t care anymore."

The resident smiled as well. "That won’t do. You have to care."

Fu Tailan watched it without a word.

"Because if you want the pain to stop, this is the only way," the resident said gently. "As of half an hour ago, you became the most suitable candidate."

Fu Tailan asked numbly, "Why?"

"As of half an hour ago, you no longer have any attachments to the human world. The human world is meaningless now; for you, the Nest is the only home you have left. If there must be a winner, we would naturally prefer it to be you."

Fu Tailan could offer no response but a smile, though he couldn’t manage to produce a single sound of laughter.

"Let’s go," the resident said, suddenly standing up. Its body was normal, possessing the typical structure of a human female. From the neck down, it looked just like a normal woman.

"Where are we going?"

"A part of the Nest has been pulled into the sky over Blackmoor City. From there, you can see the Host."

The resident even bent down to dust itself off. Its hands were human, too, with smooth, flawless skin—far more normal than Fu Tailan’s own bloody, mangled hand.

When it stood up straight and raised its head, however, it revealed a face drawn with scribbled Coils.

Two black dots for eyes, a red arc for a mouth—it looked like a doodle on a piece of paper, with the crucial difference that there was no paper beneath the scribbled Coils. Through its "face," one could see the restaurant’s tables and chairs behind it.

"You don’t have a single target Illusion, do you? I’ll take you to see the most powerful Illusion in this Nest Dominance Game."

It paused, then corrected itself.

"The second-most powerful Illusion," it said with a laugh. "Because the most powerful one hasn’t been born yet."