Chapter 497 - 438: Chaisi: The Screening of the Truth

Chapter 497: Chapter 438: Chaisi: The Screening of the Truth

Damian’s revenge was a success.

Or, to be more precise, it was at least half successful.

But one thing was certain: Damian himself didn’t know it yet.

Because this was merely an unintentional side effect—everyone present, Damian included, had long since forgotten about that one incident.

When the Nest first appeared upside down in the sky, rain was still drifting between heaven and earth.

Rules from countless traps and scripts fluttered down with the fine rain, scattering into the Human World. One of these threads of drizzle, wrapped in a rule, landed on Chaisi’s face. He subconsciously reached up to wipe it away, smearing it to pieces.

Chaisi thought, ’I wonder when my good luck will ever run out.’

It was all because he’d subconsciously wiped his face. The words of the rule, encased in the raindrop, were smeared away with it. As a result, no one present had any idea what the rule had originally said.

At the time, only three fragments of it remained, clinging weakly to Chaisi’s fingers. They were:

"Only when"

"is when"

"is screened"

Everyone present, including Damian, had of course seen these three fragments, but they couldn’t be formed into anything meaningful.

Now, Chaisi finally understood its meaning. He could even complete the rule himself.

"Only when, after being saved from the brink of death, one then has physical contact with another person..."

He couldn’t bring himself to think any further.

If he continued down that path of thought, he’d rather stab a knife into his own temple.

He didn’t know what kind of ruin he would have collapsed into if Damian and Kai Luonan hadn’t been there. Likewise, he didn’t know why he was still standing.

He even felt a dazed sense of wonder.

His guts, his flesh, his bones, and that tiny thing deep in his soul that sustained his existence—it had all been shattered, inch by inch. Why was he still able to stand?

Why was he still able to think?

He had long since collapsed to the ground, had his head long since been pushed down by the hand of a god into a suffocating, world-ending disaster—couldn’t they see that?

That neither Kai Luonan nor Damian could see that he was about to—

"So disgusting," Damian was still muttering. "So disgusting. I’m going to puke, seriously. I have to snuff out, snuff out, snuff out that disgusting thing on your face..."

Whatever that thing on his face that disgusted Damian had been, Chaisi knew it was gone now.

Chaisi slowly licked his cracked lips. His thoughts were as hazy as a wisp of mist rising after a rain, sparse and scattered, shrouding his mind.

Damian hadn’t seen his face yet.

He couldn’t let Damian know—couldn’t let Damian know that he had, in fact, succeeded. That he had long ago severed the thing that had sustained Chaisi for twenty-five years.

Keeping him in the dark wasn’t for any other reason; it was simply because Chaisi couldn’t bear it.

’I killed you, and that’s that. You will never, ever get the chance to be as smug as you were that night seventeen years ago.’

’I have to help Uncle Kai—’

’I have to help Kai Luonan achieve his goal.’

"I’m not leaving either," Kai Luonan said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. As if he hadn’t heard Damian speaking, he gripped Chaisi’s shoulder and said, "We’ll face this together."

Chaisi opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Don’t antagonize him for now," Kai Luonan said, signaling for him to back away a little. "Let me talk to him. He still thinks of me as his father, which makes things much easier."

Chaisi nodded.

He turned and, from the vast, empty fog, dredged up his own feet and planted them on the nightmarish floor. Step by step, he walked toward the edge of the parking lot.

Chaisi walked a long way. When he turned back, he realized he could no longer hear Damian and Kai Luonan’s conversation.

’Have I gone too far?’

’Right now, I should probably act the same as before. Maybe I shouldn’t... Forget it. This is fine.’

Chaisi couldn’t muster the strength to walk back.

He turned his head again, his gaze vacant as he stared at the dim, lightless department store. All he knew was that he was looking at that small balcony—only a narrow road separated him from it.

He stood there blankly for a while, not knowing why he had walked over, how long he had been standing there, or what he was waiting for.

Until, amidst the dusky shadows on the small balcony, something suddenly stirred.

The silhouette of a person slowly rose from the gloom—it seemed the person had been lying prone on the ground just moments before.

’Who is it?’

As Chaisi tilted his head up toward the figure, he suddenly realized he was looking at the only person here and now who was willing to save him.

No wonder he had wandered here in his dazed and broken state.

"...Chaisi?"

He recognized it at once—it was Mai Mingle’s voice.

’How could it be Mai Mingle?’

Perhaps because the answer was too unexpected, or perhaps because the world had long since warped into something unrecognizable, Chaisi was, surprisingly, not surprised at all.

As if they had arranged to meet, it didn’t even occur to him to ask "What are you doing here?" Instead, he said naturally, "You should leave now, while you still can. Damian will find you."

"He already has," Mai Mingle said in a low voice.

Chaisi stared at her, stunned. ℴℴ𝘮

"Didn’t he stare in my direction for a moment just now? I don’t know why, but I just have this feeling... that he already knows I was the one who fired the shot."

At this, Mai Mingle glanced at the two men in the parking lot before continuing, "I don’t know what’s so special about me... but he actually saved my life in the Nest before, and now he’s letting me off the hook again. I don’t get it either."

Chaisi was speechless for a moment. He stood in a daze for a few seconds, then waved a hand. "Anyway, you should still go. You’ll only be... you’ll only be safe once you’re gone."

As he turned to go back, Mai Mingle suddenly asked, "You know, don’t you?"

Chaisi whipped around. For an instant, it was as if a savage beast was about to burst out of him, roaring and howling, to become a torrent that would tear everything apart and wash it all away. He barely managed to compose himself and asked hoarsely, "...Know what?"

Mai Mingle was silent for a few seconds.

Chaisi realized she was searching for the gentlest, most painless way to speak the truth—but unfortunately, no such way existed.

Mai Mingle took a deep breath.

The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she changed the question. "You... you wanted him to succeed? You don’t hate him?"

’She really does know.’

A roar filled Chaisi’s ears. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his own blood pounding in his vision, pounding in his brain.

If a person could drown in their own blood, he would be the first.

"Yes, I wanted him to succeed," he heard himself say in a low voice. "But I do hate him."

"Then why are you still—"

Mai Mingle paused. It seemed she, too, finally understood that no amount of careful wording could make the next words any less painful. "Then why are you still willingly letting him use you?"

Chaisi didn’t speak. He couldn’t say it.

There are many things in this world that seem unreal, that seem to have room for negotiation, as long as they remain mere speculation circling in your own mind. But once spoken aloud by another, they become a crushing reality.

He stood there in a daze as he heard Mai Mingle continue, "You know... you know that Kai Luonan is using you as a bargaining chip to get things from Damian, right?"

Of course, he knew.

The moment Kai Luonan patted his shoulder, the "truth" began to screen.

No one else saw it, because that rule only affected Chaisi.

When the "truth" began to play in his head like a movie, Chaisi, for the first instant, thought he was going mad. Scene after scene of images and sounds swept through his mind, and in a matter of seconds, he saw everything with perfect clarity.

"Damian wants revenge on Chaisi, which is why he brought the Nest into the Human World. But Chaisi won’t sink into despair and suffering over this... On the contrary, it will give him motivation."

A double image of Kai Luonan appeared before his eyes.

One stood beside him, the other in the parking lot in the distance.

The second Uncle Kai seemed to be treating the open space as a stage, performing a soliloquy.

"You can tell just by looking at this kid’s eyes,"

The other Kai Luonan said, sizing up Chaisi with an almost paternal affection. "Death, combat, pain, morality... none of it can torment him. His talent and his willpower both justify my decision to adopt him back then. A rare talent in this world."

Chaisi’s gratitude and joy vanished in the next second.

"There’s only one thing in this world that can make him suffer. Or rather, only one person... and that person is me."

The other Kai Luonan glanced at Damian. "It’s not that Damian didn’t think of this at all. It’s why he wanted to tempt me into becoming the master of the Nest. But Damian’s thinking is too shallow."

Kai Luonan smiled.

"Only I can torment Chaisi. Which means, at this negotiating table, I hold the only real bargaining chip. As long as I continue to stand by Chaisi’s side and refuse to follow Damian’s script, even if Chaisi dies tonight, he’ll die full of gratitude and loyalty... and once he’s dead, Damian will never get another chance to make him suffer."

Kai Luonan wiped his face and slowly exhaled.

"Damian must have spent the last seventeen years in the Nest living a life worse than death. Given his personality, combined with the fundamental nature of the Nest’s inhabitants... he probably hasn’t gone a single day without tormenting himself, not a single day without living in hell."

He looked at his son. "And that’s a good thing."

"The more he suffered in the past, the more he wants revenge now, and the more valuable my bargaining chip becomes."

Kai Luonan’s gaze swept over the parking lot, the streets, the clusters of buildings... and the Nest in the sky.

"Since I hold the only bargaining chip, why would I ask Damian for some paltry little profit? Anything he can give me, he can also take away. His thinking is too shallow. Did he really think that by letting me have a little taste, by showing me a movie, I would be unable to resist the temptation and agree to become the knife he’d plunge into Chaisi? With a mind like that, it’s no wonder Chaisi killed him all those years ago."

Kai Luonan lowered his head and slowly examined the gun in his hand.

"Whether it’s the qualification to participate, the seven target Illusions, or the future of the Human World and the Nest... it will all be mine."