Chapter 499 - 440: The 2-8 Gamble: ??? and Mai Mingle

Chapter 499: Chapter 440: The 2-8 Gamble: ??? and Mai Mingle

"That old woman just had to do something unnecessary!"

If he weren’t so badly injured and weak, Fu Tailan would have sat bolt upright in anger. "What’s so wrong with letting the host kill Chaisi? If she saw someone swatting a cockroach, would she save it, too? In my opinion, Mai Mingle just has too much time on her hands, and now she’s gone and exposed herself."

The gunshots from Blackmoor City still echoed faintly in the skies of the Nest.

Having finished his complaint, he looked for validation, turning to Coil. "Don’t you think?"

The Resident of the Coil stared fixedly at the sky, not saying a word.

"Coil?" Fu Tailan called out to it.

It was strange, really...

Its head was just a messy, sloppily overlapping circle drawn with a ballpoint pen, neither perfectly round nor shaped like a human head. Beyond two black dots for eyes and a red line for a mouth, it had no other details; in fact, you could see a large patch of the sidewalk tiles right through it.

And yet, Fu Tailan could read subtle emotions on such a face.

At this moment, the Resident of the Coil appeared conflicted and indignant. Fu Tailan himself couldn’t explain how he was able to tell.

The Resident of the Coil finally let out a sigh.

"So the host managed to get this far after all..." it said. "If a ruler really does appear in the Nest, I truly hope I can be the one to kill Damian. A pity I can’t kill him. Hmm... maybe I should just kill his mother instead. She’s the one who went to all the trouble to stuff him in here."

Coil briefly explained the story of how Damian entered the Nest; Fu Tailan remembered the woman who had wiped her tears as she hurried away from the parking lot.

’How strange that someone could watch a mother like that leave, head bowed, and remain completely unmoved.’

’How could someone just casually toss aside something others might never obtain in their entire lives, as if it were garbage?’

"...He doesn’t care about his mother, either," he said, swallowing a hard lump in his throat. "Killing her would be pointless. What stage has Damian reached? Isn’t the Nest Dominance Game a natural disaster?"

"It is a natural disaster. Therefore, the only correct way to deal with it is to kill the contestants, one by one."

Coil said calmly, "Damian thought he was being clever. He thought he could use the Nest Dominance Game to make the Nest invade the human world and take revenge on Chaisi. Invading the human world... well, I don’t object to that. But I strongly object to him messing with the Nest Dominance Game and issuing the *Illusion Report*."

"Why?"

"If he hadn’t unnecessarily created this whole setup, do you think you contestants would have been able to find six of the seven Illusions so smoothly?"

Coil laughed and said, "In order to invade the human world, he used the *Illusion Report* as bait to lure the contestants into doing his prep work. Now, the Nest has indeed invaded the human world, but six-sevenths of the target Illusions have also been found... In other words, he only cares about revenge. As for protecting the Nest from being dominated, he only has one, very childish contingency plan."

"What contingency plan?"

As Fu Tailan asked the question, he had a vague feeling that Coil might not answer him—and sure enough, the Resident of the Coil changed the subject. "In any case, I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t. In the end, he managed to get this far. All we can do now is hope his little method succeeds."

Even though he knew perfectly well that the Resident only wanted to use him, Fu Tailan couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.

’Coil’s refusal to tell him about the "very childish" contingency plan was probably because it worried he might, for one reason or another, sabotage the plan meant to prevent a ruler from appearing—after all, even a very childish plan was better than nothing.’

He changed the subject as well.

"Chaisi seems to be talking to Mai Mingle..." Fu Tailan said, holding up his binoculars. "They’re too far away, I can’t hear them."

He only had a partial understanding of what happened in the parking lot, like he was watching a terribly performed mime show—Kai Luonan brandished his gun and said something, then Damian attacked Chaisi. After Mai Mingle fired her gun to save him, Chaisi whispered with her for a long time before walking back.

’Who could possibly figure out what was going on from those actions alone?’

’They’re Residents, for crying out loud. Don’t they have any listening devices?’

"Whether you can hear or not is irrelevant," the Resident of the Coil said. "It’s just some human drama of love and hate, nothing to do with you and me. I’m having you watch so you can find clues about the ???."

’Seriously. It was one thing to use him as a weapon, but did it have to be so damn blunt about it?’

Suppressing his nausea, Fu Tailan watched Chaisi for a few seconds before he couldn’t take it anymore.

That look of resolute gratitude and loyalty on his face, directed at his master, was enough to make a person’s insides twist into a knot. The fact that Damian could endure such torture truly proved he was a Resident—and with that thought, he swung his binoculars back toward Blackmoor City.

After entering the human world, Damian had driven all the way to find Chaisi and Kai Luonan without stopping even once.

’He was empty-handed when he got in the car, but when he got out, he had the ??? Illusion. Wasn’t that strange? Where did it come from?’

’In other words, the key must be something that happened on the road...’

Fu Tailan’s gaze slowly traced the route Damian had taken. The path followed the winding Haisen River, cut through the city, and led all the way to the parking lot.

’The key was on the road.’

’...Huh?’

’Wait, wait, wait—I can’t be wrong, can I? No, it’s impossible...’

’It’s—it’s too similar. That has to be it.’

’Besides, what other explanation could there be?’

"Hey, what’s going on with that old woman?"

Just as Fu Tailan was filled with shock and disbelief, the Ballet Resident suddenly spoke up.

Startled, he subconsciously swung his binoculars back toward Mai Mingle.

***

’I know!’

Mai Mingle quickly suppressed a cry of alarm—she had gotten so excited that she jumped up too fast, nearly knocking over her gunstock, some decorations, and a tea table on the balcony. After fumbling to steady everything, she stared blankly at the parking lot, panting for a moment.

Not far away, Damian was speaking to Kai Luonan with a dark expression on his face.

Mai Mingle was terrified he might hear her wildly pounding heart and realize from the sound—

’Wait, did I really figure it out?’

’Am I just getting carried away? It can’t be, can it?’

’She’d never heard of an Illusion taking a form like this...’

Mai Mingle gripped the balcony railing tightly, trying to calm herself down.

"Impossible," she murmured.

’The form of the ??? is actually... it’s actually...’

***

’She knows.’ Fu Tailan’s heart leaped, and he immediately sat up.

Still in disbelief, he adjusted the binoculars to maximum magnification, zooming in so close on Mai Mingle’s face that he could see her expression with perfect clarity—including the shape of her lips as she murmured to herself after jumping to her feet.

"Impossible," Mai Mingle seemed to be repeating in a whisper. "Impossible."

"What?" Coil sat up as well. "What does she know?"

Amid his shock and disbelief, Fu Tailan said subconsciously, "She seems to know what the ??? is all about."

The moment the words left his mouth, he stopped short—he had answered too quickly.

"How do you know that she knows?" the Ballet Resident asked, the question sounding like a tongue twister.

Thinking on his feet, Fu Tailan said softly, "...It’s a feeling. How can you explain a feeling?"

’Lies and performance were two sides of the same coin. He was good at lying, so naturally, he was also good at concealing his emotions and putting on a front. Even if he was dealing with a Resident, he could put on whatever show he wanted them to see.’

Besides, what he’d said wasn’t a complete lie. In addition to his intuition, Fu Tailan had a small piece of evidence.

Mai Mingle’s utterance of "impossible" was the exact same first reaction he’d had just moments ago upon discovering the truth.

Once the true form of the ??? was discovered, anyone’s first reaction would probably be "impossible."

’Mai Mingle had tracked Damian’s movements to the parking lot, just like him, and then she’d received a huge shock. She must have figured it out, right?’

’It would be great if she hadn’t, of course, but he had to assume she had. One should never underestimate an opponent.’

Coil turned its face of ballpoint-pen lines and looked at him with its pair of black dots.

"Then do you know?" it asked.

"Let me think a little more," Fu Tailan said, frowning, a touch indignant. "If that old woman could figure it out, I’m sure I can too if you give me a little more time."

The Ballet Resident clicked its tongue.

"Then think all you want," the Resident of the Coil said, standing up abruptly, almost in anger. "Of all the people who could have found out, it had to be Mai Mingle!"

’What’s wrong with Mai Mingle?’

Coil looked utterly displeased—’how did it manage to look displeased without any eyebrows?’—and whether from anxiety, frustration, or a lingering sense of relief, it suddenly snorted.

"From another perspective, it’s a good thing it was Mai Mingle."

"What do you mean?" Fu Tailan asked.

Coil didn’t answer him. It studied Fu Tailan for a moment with its pair of black dots, then suddenly smiled and said, "Did you know? If you kill Mai Mingle, you can steal her status as a contestant. Aren’t you tempted?"

Fu Tailan almost laughed.

"Just because I’m willing to cooperate with you doesn’t mean I’m some brainless weapon," he said lazily. "So, spit it out. What’s going on?"

Coil gave up quickly—it probably knew that line wouldn’t fool Fu Tailan.

"Regarding this Nest Dominance Game, the Nest is split into two factions: one group of Residents supports Damian, and one supports me. The Residents who support him believe he has a way to prevent the Nest from being dominated while also taking the opportunity to invade the human world, which is why they’ve provided him with so much assistance... I might as well tell you the truth. The key to his ’very childish’ contingency plan is Mai Mingle."

"What do you mean? As long as Mai Mingle is around, the Nest won’t be dominated?" Fu Tailan was taken aback.

’What kind of logic was that?’

"Correct," Coil said, clearly not planning to explain further. "So, to stop him, we have been planning to kill Mai Mingle all along. Once we pull the rug out from under his contingency plan, his supporters will naturally fall apart and even turn against him. Although we Residents cannot kill each other, when the entire Nest besieges a single Resident, I guarantee you he won’t be able to take a single step out of his own den, let alone act as the host."

"So, that means..." Fu Tailan was beginning to understand. He looked up at Blackmoor City in the sky.

"We laid the groundwork for our killing blow against Mai Mingle long ago."

After Coil finished speaking, it gave a wave of its hand. The Ballet Resident immediately understood, rose up on its toes, and pattered away into the distance.

"Now is the time for them to be put to use. She has only herself to blame. She won’t even have her final 24 hours."