Chapter 406 - 354: Fu Tailan: The Ultimate Deception

My name is Fu Tailan, and I'm seventeen years old.

I'm an Illusion Hunter, and I've been going in and out of Nests for over five years now.

I started risking my life in the Nests when I was twelve because I grew up without a father. It was just me and my mom, living together in Blackmoor City. She worked two jobs just so we could barely scrape by, and I couldn't stand to see her struggle like that.

When I was a kid, I was playing around, opening and closing a door. After I did it three times in a row, the space behind my bedroom door turned into a street.

"Mom?" I called out. "Mom, there's someone here!"

My mom rushed over. When she saw the street that had replaced our bedroom, and the person in a yellow raincoat standing silently across it, she couldn't help but scream.

I remember she was so scared she was on the verge of tears, which made me scared too. Mom yanked me away and slammed the door shut.

She made me swear never to play with the door like that again and strictly forbade me from ever walking through one of those doorways. Even later, when I found out about the Illusion Hunter trade and told her about the potential profits from selling Illusions, she still stubbornly refused to give in.

So, I had no choice but to enter the Nests in secret, becoming an Illusion Hunter behind her back.

...Is that good enough?

Fu Tailan opened his eyes. He waited a few minutes, and as he began to disperse and melt away, he re-examined his memories and his body. When he solidified once more, he couldn't help but sigh.

'It's no use.'

He still remembered Fu Han. He also remembered that he didn't have a mother.

He also remembered that it was after taking a fragment from Han Liuyue that he had decided to conduct an experiment on himself.

'If I fabricate a memory about a mother, keep only the parts about "mom," and release all the fragments about "Fu Han," then my memories should change, right? I should believe that I never knew Fu Han at all, right?'

'Wouldn't that be the same as adding to and editing my own memories?'

In theory, it was perfectly feasible. In practice, however, an unavoidable problem arose—the more he told himself not to think about Fu Han, the more he couldn't stop himself from thinking about him.

Even within the narrative of "a mother and son relying on each other," the simple phrase "grew up without a father" would make Fu Tailan involuntarily recall everything about Fu Han. It was understandable. After all, Fu Han was a real, living person.

He had lived with Fu Tailan for seventeen years—there were tears, fights, reconciliations, and warmth. The richness and depth of Fu Tailan's memories of him couldn't be compared to the single word "mom."

'Forget it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.' Fu Tailan wasn't too disappointed.

His real goal, after all, had never been to forget Fu Han's existence. If he actually had managed to forget, it would have just been a bonus—a pleasant surprise.

Fu Tailan had another goal in mind.

'...If it's hard to deliberately forget something, what if I just *add* a consciousness instead? Would that work?'

I am Fu Tailan. I am an Illusion Hunter.

I am also a Vulture.

Because of the Nest Dominance Game, Vultures can not only enter the human world, but have also begun to gain sapience and self-awareness. So I know clearly that I am a Vulture, and I possess all the characteristics of a Vulture.

But I am still Fu Tailan.

That's not so hard to understand, is it?

A person can be a boss and also a subordinate. They can be a criminal and also a married, devoted husband. In today's society, it's common for people to have multiple identities. Even in your daily life, can you guarantee you're the same person online and offline, or in front of different people?

People are complex and multifaceted. One of my facets just happens to be "Vulture."

No, that's not right. You might say that this is biologically impossible, that a single organism can't be both a dog and a fish. That argument isn't convincing.

Besides, I clearly remember that I'm conducting an experiment, just trying to add the memory 'I am a Vulture' to myself. How do I explain that?

How can I be Fu Tailan, yet also know that I was originally a Vulture?

The two are clearly irreconcilable, a contradiction in terms.

This is how it works:

After becoming Fu Tailan, I always believed I was the original, and I always acted as Fu Tailan. That is, until I entered this darkness... it's called the Black Abyss Belt, right?

After discovering that I would constantly dissipate and that I could take fragments of other people's memories, I had an idea.

If I can remove a piece of myself, can't I also add a piece?

So, I decided to experiment on myself and add a "resident identity." In other words, I would permanently implant a new memory into the self-perception of "Fu Tailan": that Fu Tailan is a resident.

As for why a Vulture, of all things...

It might be because I had just heard the cry of a Vulture. It might be because Vultures can travel freely between the human world and the Nests, which is very convenient. Or it's possible that my deep-seated Vulture instinct guided me to this decision.

A Vulture has to rationalize, modify, and smooth over any memories that contradict those of its original host in order to fully believe it is the real deal. This "experiment" itself is my effort to create that rationalization.

Simply put, I was a Vulture all along. But the reason I believe I was a Vulture all along is because I conducted a cognitive experiment "to make me believe I was a Vulture all along." That's how the fact that I am both a Vulture and Fu Tailan is successfully rationalized.

You can see me as Fu Tailan with an added Vulture consciousness, or you can see me as a Vulture that became Fu Tailan.

As long as you can't disprove one of those statements, then I am simultaneously Fu Tailan and a Vulture. Isn't that right?

It's just like the famous Schrödinger's cat. "Falsification" is lifting the lid of the box. If it can't be falsified, the lid can never be lifted, and the cat remains forever in a superposition of being both dead and alive.

That explains just about everything. But there's one final step, the key to ensuring the success of this "Schrödinger's Fu Tailan" experiment.

The thought, 'I'm just fooling myself; I'm not a Vulture,' is unavoidable.

So, the fragment formed by that thought drifted away into the darkness, dissolved, and was never retrieved by Fu Tailan.

He didn't need to deliberately try to forget it; any deliberate effort would make it impossible to forget. As he busied himself constructing the seamless logic of being "both Fu Tailan and a Vulture," he naturally had no time to dwell on the thought that 'this is just me fooling myself'—not until that fragment vanished completely.

And with that, the experiment was over.

Fu Tailan opened his eyes again.

He looked around, trying to sense which direction in the vast, churning darkness felt "thinner." He remembered that Chaisi had passed through a thinner stretch of darkness before accidentally stumbling upon that small diner.

Of course, even if it was thinner, it didn't seem to allow someone to simply step right back into the human world.

'If the human world is a no-go, what about a Nest?'

'Can my Path work here?'

Fu Tailan had no idea how long he'd been walking in the darkness. All he knew was that after confirming the self-awareness of "I am Fu Tailan, and I am also a Vulture" dozens of times in his mind, he finally saw it again: a small, floating, blurry corner of the human world, like a torn photograph.

Doors are countless in the human world. His luck was pretty good; sure enough, even in this torn-photograph-like glimpse of the world, there was a door.

Fu Tailan took a deep breath.

'Chaisi could reach out from this darkness and stop a coffee cup from falling in that diner in the human world... Doesn't that mean I can also reach out and grab that doorknob?'

Fu Tailan couldn't be sure if he was actually touching the doorknob at all.

His hand seemed to stretch out a great distance, yet the doorknob remained even farther away. He could only squint, and once he vaguely saw his hand obscure the doorknob, he quickly closed his fist, turned, and pulled.

'Wait, I've done this before.'

'When I was unconscious in the hospital, my consciousness was floating dimly in a patch of darkness... I think I stretched out my hand and opened a door somewhere...'

'But now wasn't the time to think about that. He had to open and close the door three times in a row before the "torn photograph" disappeared—'

When he pulled the door open for the third time, the doorway—a door in the human world, seen from the Black Abyss Belt—now opened onto an empty street in a Nest.

Fu Tailan didn't know if he first needed to step into the human world to enter the Nest. All he could do was aim for the opening and dive through the door toward the Nest beyond.

His feet landed on a cool, hard, solid pavement. Perhaps because he had just been spat out of the Black Abyss Belt, Fu Tailan was still a bit unsteady. He nearly stumbled and fell onto the street, but he managed to catch his balance in time, staggering forward a few steps before he could stand up straight.

'I'm out.' Fu Tailan was filled with astonishment. 'Did I really get out?'

He looked back. Behind him was only the vast, familiar Nest, with its towering buildings and no sign of human life. His gaze swept the area. As it fell upon the sidewalk, a patch of shadow started in alarm and instantly recoiled into a nearby storefront. A naked back, which had been kneeling on the ground with its head bowed, previously dissolved into the gloom, was suddenly exposed, like a reef revealed by a receding tide.

'I'm back.' Fu Tailan let out a breath.

'Since becoming Fu Tailan, he hadn't returned to a Nest. Coming back all of a sudden... it actually felt a bit nostalgic.'

After a moment's thought, he walked toward the naked back, which was kneeling on the ground with its legs curled up and its head buried in its arms.

"Hey," Fu Tailan called out. "You're... What are you?"

"I'm your death," the back said.

'What's with the attitude? Is it angry? This resident has a really bad temper.'

"I was hoping to ask you for directions."

"Oh, oh, oh, you should've said so! You wanted directions? I can only show you one path, and that's the path to your doom! Come on, let me give you a nice, big hug! I haven't run into a Hunter in so long—"

The naked back's head was halfway raised when it suddenly froze, the voice stopping with it. Its sticky hair, like some greasy fluid, dripped and slid down the sides of its head, obscuring its face.

"...Huh?"

"You noticed?" Fu Tailan asked.

"Huh? For real?"

The naked back seemed to be processing a thought that it found deeply confusing. It didn't seem very bright. "Wait, hold on... That can't be right... No, it seems it is... You're... you're not human? You're a resident? A real resident? I feel like there's something... something a little weird..."

Fu Tailan smiled faintly. "Your instincts aren't too slow, I see."

The naked back fell silent for a moment.

"So that's it. You're a Vulture. No wonder I was mistaken."

It sighed, a hint of envy in its voice. "Not bad. You actually succeeded in transforming into a human. Look at me... I haven't even seen a single living person lately..."