Chapter 498 - 439: Chaisi: The Same Goal, Different People

Chapter 498: Chapter 439: Chaisi: The Same Goal, Different People

From a certain perspective, the Illusion in a Hunter’s hand was no different in essence from the branch in a primitive man’s grasp—they were both human tools.

How useful a tool could be, and what function it could serve, sometimes depended entirely on whose hands it fell into.

Illusions were no exception.

Ever since Chaisi came of age, he had been dealing with Hunters and Illusions.

Faced with a greenhorn who had just come of age, possessed no Path, and couldn’t even enter a Nest, many Hunters saw a blunder on the Kai Family’s part. It was a golden opportunity to sell him something for ten times its worth—wringing the hyperbole out of a sales pitch, verifying an Illusion’s value, and figuring out its uses and patterns were tasks where brute force was useless.

All he could rely on were his own eyes and his own mind.

"...You’re leaving?"

As if in a daze, he heard Mai Mingle ask, her voice laced with concern, "In your current state, can you fool them?"

Chaisi had never known his grandparents. ’Are all old people like her?’ he wondered. ’Always worried you’re cold or tired, always wanting to drape a blanket over you.’

"I can," he said.

The greatest danger in returning now was letting Damian see his face. Chaisi wasn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but Damian could apparently "read faces"—he could decipher any emotion, no matter how well it was hidden.

The man wasn’t a fool. The moment he discovered that Chaisi’s inner world was nothing but a field of sharp, shattered ruins, he would know everything.

Chaisi would rather die than let him get his way.

Chaisi wasn’t a hundred percent certain he could block Damian’s "face-reading," but he felt his theory was very likely correct.

As he left the glow of the streetlamp and stepped into a patch of darkness, he took the "Blank Document" he had gotten from Fu Tailan out of his pants pocket.

The Blank Document was small in his hand, easily enveloped and swallowed by his palm.

’Don’t think about Damian. Don’t think about that second version of Uncle Kai just now...’ Chaisi severed his mind from the present, casting his thoughts back to a Christmas several years ago.

Over the years, Aunt Hai had never allowed him to visit for the holidays. Uncle Kai would just send someone with a gift for Chaisi, and that was that—but for some reason, that year, after Christmas dinner, Uncle Kai had actually come to see him in person.

"You’re going out for drinks with the Household Hunters later?" Uncle Kai waved a hand, cutting Chaisi off. "Don’t mind me. You young people should relax when you get the chance. I just came to see you, and to give you this."

That year’s Christmas gift was an old cardboard box.

He opened it, puzzled, and for a full half-minute, he couldn’t say a single word.

Lying on top was a photograph.

Daiju Monroe was smiling at the camera, holding a wide-eyed, solemn-looking baby. The old photograph was blurry and faded, making her look about the same age as Chaisi was now. The next few were all photos of Daiju from those years; some with Chaisi, some with her friends, and even a high school graduation photo where her smile revealed a mouth full of braces.

There were only a few photos, just five or six of them scattered across an old scarf. A pair of silver earrings, a few handwritten recipes—each simpler and more slapdash than the last, nothing more than a few lines on scraps of paper, because Daiju Monroe hadn’t liked to cook. There was also a letter, holding no sentimental value; it was just an overdue bill from the electric company addressed to Daiju Monroe for $174.35. The date was from after the incident.

Chaisi couldn’t help but gently stroke the recipient’s name on the envelope. The address below it was for a home he hadn’t let himself remember in a long, long time.

"How..." He started to ask, but had to clear his throat.

"I left Luocheng in a hurry back then and never knew what became of your apartment. I regret that. Over the last few years, I’ve sent people to ask around—your aunt’s relatives, your mother’s old classmates, the apartment manager, people like that—but they only managed to gather this handful of things."

That year—he must have been twenty-six?—Chaisi had his mother’s silver earrings re-polished, got his ears pierced, and hadn’t taken them off since.

Chaisi reached into his own mind, his own soul, and seized it, pinning it firmly to the memory of that Christmas.

He refused to let himself feel any emotion other than gratitude, loyalty, and guilt...

Holding on to this feeling, he hid the card in his palm. In a motion like brushing back his hair, he quickly aimed it at his own face and paused for a moment.

When he lowered his hand, a glance out of the corner of his eye confirmed that a photo had appeared on the card.

The Chaisi Monroe in the photo stared back at him from out of the dim light. His name, address, and other identity information had all materialized on the card—all Chaisi’s own data, naturally.

’So it’s just as I thought. If it can take someone else’s identity, it can naturally take my own,’ he concluded.

If he were to give this card to someone else, they would become Chaisi Monroe. But what would happen if he used it on himself?

’Take your own identity and then apply it back to yourself... most people would just assume the card’s effect had been nullified, wouldn’t they?’

Chaisi carefully put it away.

If he had a Path, he would have been the best Hunter—Chaisi had never doubted that for a second.

A good Hunter could use an ordinary Illusion to produce unexpected effects, even twisting a fixed function toward an unimaginable outcome—like with Fu Tailan’s Blank Document.

The reason it could deceive people into believing the bearer was the person on the card was because it "extracted" a person’s identity and appearance, then created a "false veneer" to overlay on the bearer.

’If appearance, age, and disposition can all be part of that veneer,’ he reasoned, ’then why not emotions and one’s state of being?’

Chaisi didn’t expect Damian to be fooled into thinking he was full of gratitude and loyalty forever. It was enough to simply mask his true feelings—of course, this was all just his theory.

He could also be wrong. So, as Chaisi walked toward Kai Luonan and Damian, he focused on constantly replaying his memories of everything he had been through with the Kai Family Hunters over the years.

He had blocked Jin Xueli’s video recording with sheer willpower; he could surely do the same to his own emotions.

Damian watched him from afar, motionless for several seconds.

Damian’s expression didn’t change, yet Chaisi felt as if something were sniffing at his face, probing for a crack to slip through... ’Is this the power of a Resident?’

Following his gaze, Kai Luonan also turned toward Chaisi.

"Uncle Kai," Chaisi said in a low voice, "I’ve already instructed the sniper. No matter what happens to me, she must guarantee your safety. She has plenty of ammunition and her aim is good. Stalling Damian for a few minutes shouldn’t be a problem. If it comes to it, don’t worry about me. Just go."

Kai Luonan nodded, his expression grave. "I’m not leaving," he said.

’That, at least, was the truth,’ Chaisi thought.

’Has he not reached an agreement with Damian yet?’

’The price Kai Luonan is demanding is too high. I’m surprised his life is even worth that much—no, can’t think about that.’

He thought about the bouquet of flowers he had placed on the bench at Damian’s grave.

He thought about college, about Morando sighing that he didn’t know which class to pick.

He thought about how many five-year-olds in this world still had mothers before tonight.

Damian finally relented.

’...Residents really are a species beyond common understanding.’

He was still several steps away and hadn’t moved, yet Chaisi could almost hear a soft *SNAP* as his own face seemed to settle back into place.

Damian stared grimly at Kai Luonan, but his words were directed at Chaisi. "Rest assured, I won’t kill him. And I won’t kill you."

’...It worked.’

Chaisi’s emotions and will were forged from steel; he felt not the slightest ripple of joy or relief.

From now on, he would do everything in his power to help Kai Luonan get whatever he wanted from Damian.

This was not Chaisi’s final act of repayment.

Just a few minutes earlier, Mai Mingle had cryptically asked him why he was still helping Kai Luonan. Both of them feared that Residents had supernatural hearing, so they spoke in vague and ambiguous terms. What one heard depended entirely on what one was listening for.

"Of course I have to help Uncle Kai drive the Nests from the Human World," Chaisi had said, his tone growing heavier with each word in the latter half of the sentence. "Especially now."

She had understood. ’What else would you expect from someone who’s lived for eighty-six years?’

"I understand," Mai Mingle had said in a low voice. "There’s one more thing I haven’t told you. The Illusion that keeps me young is set to expire at midnight on December 6th... Once it’s gone, so am I."

’The 6th? That’s tomorrow?’

Chaisi suddenly remembered his dream. ’Was it a dream?’

In the dream, the barely-human Dr. Nate had repeated over and over, "Mai Mingle is going to get the Time Illusion on December 6th... You have to take it from her... You must seize the opportunity. If she gets her hands on it, it’ll be too late."

"Right now, my only hope is right before my eyes," Mai Mingle continued. "So close, yet so far out of reach. But I still have to try."

’She’s talking about ???’ Chaisi realized. ’She’s pinning her hopes on the seemingly omnipotent ???.’

"My goal is the same as..." Mai Mingle said softly. "I want to get the ??? and survive. Then I will gather all the target Illusions, with or without your help. I must be the victor. Only then can I heal all the damage that has been done."

Chaisi stared at her, stunned.

"I can’t let you win, or let anyone else obtain this power," Mai Mingle said after a pause. "Power is a terrifying thing. When it comes to who wields it, I trust only myself. I know myself. I know I would never use it for evil. But that’s only the first reason."

She sighed.

"Who can live forever? The Nests have never granted anyone immortality, have they? I’m already eighty-six years old. So let this absolute power that should not exist roam the world with me for a few years, and then let it die with me."