Chapter 491 - 432: Fu Tailan: A Puzzle and a Group of People Jumping Off a Building

Chapter 491: Chapter 432: Fu Tailan: A Puzzle and a Group of People Jumping Off a Building

Fu Tailan lay motionless on an empty, damp street in the Nest, gazing up at the night sky.

There were no stars, no rain, and no moon.

Only countless skyscrapers and streets, parks and rivers, streetlights and shops... were inverted in the sky, turning the dome above into a mural of the Human World, cupped over the Nest.

It was strange. When he had looked up from the Human World, it was the Nest that was inverted over Blackmoor City. But now that he was in the Nest, the sky was Blackmoor City.

Except Blackmoor City seemed much farther away.

"When I was in Blackmoor City, I saw with my own eyes Residents and rules drifting down into the Human World. How is that possible?"

Fu Tailan, still lying on the ground, asked almost languidly, "They can’t be falling *upwards*, can they?"

The Resident of the Coil was standing beside him.

The coil that formed its head was drawn with a black permanent marker and practically melted into the night, making it look at first glance as if a headless woman were standing next to him.

"Things that fall down from the Nest, as they fall, will tumble into Blackmoor City, which is above. From Blackmoor City’s perspective, they’re falling out of the Nest in the sky. Isn’t that interesting? Hard to imagine, isn’t it?" the Resident of the Coil said with a laugh. "That’s because each one is the other’s sky."

Even Fu Tailan found it a little hard to understand.

"Ah, they’re here."

The Resident of the Coil turned its head, and half of its face—if a few black lines could be called a face—barely reemerged from the darkness.

After losing so much blood and weeping in pain, Fu Tailan couldn’t muster an ounce of strength. He only managed to shift his eyes—and could only see the newcomer’s feet.

The newcomer was perpetually on tiptoe, standing tall on the points of its feet, and wore ballet slippers. Yet its gait had nothing to do with ballet; those two sharp, upright feet were instead reminiscent of a praying mantis’s scythes.

As if stabbing the ground with the tips of its feet, the Resident "walked" closer to Fu Tailan and stopped beside his head.

Years of experience as a Hunter told Fu Tailan that the new Resident was using all its willpower to resist the urge to drive a pointed foot into his face.

"Not the face, okay?" Fu Tailan said weakly.

"Oh? You can hear thoughts too?" The new Resident bent down, revealing the back of a ballerina’s head in his field of vision.

Its hair was pulled back into a neat bun, adorned with a white tulle hairpiece—but this back of the head was its face. As for its actual back of the head, it was still the back of a head, also done up in a bun.

’No mouth, so how is it talking? Oh, well. It’s a Resident.’

"Did you bring the things?" the Resident of the Coil asked.

"I did," the Ballet Resident said, handing over a handbag. "Got everything. Some of it was a little hard to find."

As long as you didn’t look at them, the conversation was perfectly normal, perfectly human.

"You found a first-aid kit too? That’s amazing," the Resident of the Coil praised, then pulled a white box with a red cross on it from the handbag and held it out to Fu Tailan. "Treat the wound on your hand so it doesn’t get infected."

"We have germ Residents in the Nest, you know," the Ballet Resident added. "A pity they’re so rare and don’t live long. Otherwise, you Hunters would have gone extinct long ago. Such a pity."

Fu Tailan slowly sat up and looked at the first-aid kit.

A large splash of blood was spattered across the kit, looking as if it had only recently dried.

...This was clearly a man-made product; it even had the manufacturer’s name and address.

He glanced at the Ballet Resident, but he couldn’t read anything from the neat, hair-covered back of its head.

Fu Tailan decided not to ask any questions and started treating his wound. He was well-practiced in first aid and quickly disinfected and bandaged it.

"The blood loss, well, that’s a bit tricky," the Resident of the Coil said, surprisingly pouring him a glass of water. "Here, take this."

It was a small plastic bottle that looked like it contained some kind of health supplement.

"What is it?"

"An iron supplement," said the Resident of the Coil.

Fu Tailan stared at the two sloppy eyes drawn with black coils. "Isn’t this the Nest? You’re talking science now? Isn’t there a more miraculous Illusion for this?"

"This *is* an Illusion," the Resident of the Coil said. "The dosage is double that of a normal iron supplement from the Human World."

’...What a useless Illusion.’

Fu Tailan took it anyway.

It was something a Resident had given him. It might be iron, it might not be, but it didn’t seem to matter what he had actually ingested.

’He had been so unwilling to be a Hunter, always wanting to retire and live the same life as other seventeen-year-olds...’

But Fu Tailan suddenly realized that the ones surrounding him now, taking care of him, giving him medicine and water, were two Residents he had never met before.

Maybe the Coil was right. His only home was the Nest.

"The last item is a big one." The Resident of the Coil opened the handbag as if presenting a treasure. "Ta-da! A pair of binoculars."

"Is it an Illusion?"

"...No."

Fu Tailan snatched the binoculars and flopped back down with a THUD.

The Resident of the Coil lay down beside him. The Ballet Resident didn’t seem able to lie down, so it remained on tiptoe, squatting on the points of its feet to look up with them—impressively flexible, indeed.

Fu Tailan wasn’t stupid. He knew he was just a useful tool.

But even if these Residents’ true intention was to use him, at this moment, it didn’t seem to matter.

He raised the binoculars and, following the Resident of the Coil’s directions, slowly swept his gaze across Blackmoor City.

He peered through the clouds, lingering on the isolated islands of light from the streetlamps, drifting over the river that cut through the city, and saw countless people who were panicking, deforming, laughing hysterically, and utterly lost... or rather, what were once people.

’So the Human World had always been this distant from him.’

He was like a god above the clouds, watching the Human World with a remote detachment, able to put it all down, to stop looking, at any moment.

Only when Fu Tailan’s gaze returned to the vicinity of Carter’s apartment building did he suddenly curl up—in that instant, it felt as if guilt had become a colossal elephant, stomping on his chest and crushing it.

’Is Fu Han still foolishly waiting for me to come home?’

’When Dad realizes I’m gone, will he be disappointed? Will he be in pain? Will he decide to enter the Nest?’

’Should I look for Fu Han in the Nest?’

’Will Dad still forgive me?’

"It’s okay," the Resident of the Coil said softly. "Everyone has to walk their own path. There’s no sense in a father riding on his son’s back for a lifetime."

Fu Tailan took several low, gasping breaths before his heart rate finally began to steady.

"I... I never want to feel this way again," he said hoarsely. "I want a painkiller."

"Then there’s only one way," the Resident of the Coil said with a smile.

Fu Tailan was silent for a few seconds, then grunted in acknowledgment.

"Now, follow this road up, yes... keep going up, and turn here." The Resident of the Coil stretched out its hand, guiding Fu Tailan’s gaze. "Use the binoculars to look at that empty lot."

Between a few buildings, there was an inexplicably bare patch of land. In the distance, a few small figures seemed to be standing there.

Fu Tailan raised the binoculars.

"...Chaisi," he said in a low voice. "And Kai Luonan. Who’s the other man?"

"That’s the Host," the Resident of the Coil said calmly. "He’s also Kai Luonan’s biological son, Damian, who was killed by Chaisi. Right before he died, he was drafted into the Ruling Game as a player. After his body fell into the Nest, he became the Resident known as ’the Host’."

Fu Tailan was stunned. ’Chaisi Monroe—?’

’That same Chaisi Monroe who acts like a lapdog?’

’He killed his adoptive father’s biological son? Does Kai Luonan know?’

The Resident of the Coil explained, "In this round of the Ruling Game, the most powerful Illusion at the moment, ???, has fallen into the Host’s hands. The Nest’s invasion of the Human World is also a situation he single-handedly created... Can you find any clues about ??? on him?"

"You don’t know what it is either?" Fu Tailan asked.

"It’s not in my hands, so how would I know?" the Resident of the Coil said, full of self-righteous confidence. "Aren’t you a young genius? You figure it out. If you can snatch ??? away, the chances of anyone else winning the game become quite low."

The Resident of the Coil seemed to have been monitoring the Host, clearly describing his every move and his route tonight.

Damian—that is, the Host—was no longer a player in the Ruling Game after his death. But somehow, during his transformation into a Resident, he became part of the game’s mechanics, responsible for distributing Illusion Reports to the players.

This also explained why none of the other players received a notification after Damian obtained the ??? Illusion.

Fu Tailan had unfortunately already had two run-ins with Chaisi tonight.

The time Damian supposedly obtained ??? coincided with his own confrontation with Chaisi. If Chaisi had received a notification then, he would have reacted, and Fu Tailan would have heard it.

"You said ??? was born in the Human World. That means the Host only obtained the Illusion after entering the Human World," Fu Tailan said. "Since you’ve been monitoring the Host the whole time, shouldn’t you know better than anyone how he got it?"

"That’s the strange part."

The Resident of the Coil said, "I was watching the Host the entire time. The Illusion was definitely not in its hands at the beginning, that’s for sure. After ??? appeared, the Host drove straight to Kai Luonan without stopping at all, and no other Residents made contact with it. So, when and how exactly did the Host get the Illusion?"

Now that it mentioned it, that was indeed a bit strange.

Fu Tailan raised the binoculars again. This time, he moved his gaze away from where Chaisi and the others were and, following the Resident of the Coil’s guidance, carefully retraced the Host’s route.

’How did it manage that? To snatch the item, I first need to know how the Host got it. After all, I have too little information to go on.’

As Fu Tailan was still pondering, he suddenly shuddered and quickly swiveled the binoculars—he hadn’t been mistaken. From a nearby skyscraper, several figures were leaping off, as if they had all agreed to commit suicide together.

’Could it be people who couldn’t bear the Nest’s invasion? No, that’s not right.’

The people jumping from the skyscraper all had the exact same gender, appearance, and build.

They were all the same person.

"Ah, that’s another player from the Ruling Game, Jin Xueli," said the Resident of the Coil. "Or should I say, several of her? You could say it was a blessing in disguise, but of course, she’s also sharp-witted. In any case, the Observer can no longer see her."