Chapter 408 - 356: Chaisi: Prison Wallet

...Fu Tailan was dead.

Chaisi slowly lowered his gun. Waves of recoil still pulsed through the muscles in his arm, his sinews feeling like humming strings.

He could hardly believe it.

Fu Tailan, who always had three backup plans for every sentence, who was so cunning and unpredictable it was like trying to grab a greased-up piece of lard... had he really died from a single bullet, just like any normal person?

'...But then, what other outcome could there have been?'

After pulling the trigger, Chaisi had watched with his own eyes as the bullet burst from the back of Fu Tailan's head, tore through a spray of blood and bone fragments, and slammed into the opposite wall.

As Fu Tailan staggered back from the shot, the detail that stuck with Chaisi the most was how the boy's arms had suddenly gone limp.

They flailed about, as if searching for some current to pull him back into the world of the living. When the boy's body hit the floor with a heavy thud, his arms fell listlessly with it. They bounced once, like a dying fish, before finally falling still.

Now, Fu Tailan had gone from a person to a heap of breathless matter on the floor.

"He's really dead?" Han Liuyue sounded just as disbelieving. She crawled to the foot of the bed and peered at the corpse.

Fu Tailan's beautiful eyes were still open, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Aside from the scorched, gaping wound on his forehead, he looked no different than usual.

"The bullet went right through his brain,"

Chaisi flicked the safety on. He felt breathless, though he hadn't exerted himself, as if suffocating in a fever dream of elation. "Do you have any strength?"

"Plenty," Han Liuyue replied, rolling off the bed. Her movements were indeed deft.

Just then, a rising clamor of voices and footsteps echoed from outside the room, some heading their way. After all, even a silenced gunshot was a far cry from the discreet pop you hear in movies; it was bound to cause a stir.

Han Liuyue crouched down and quickly pulled a freestanding sign out from under the bed. On its white surface, written in a line of calm, gentle blue font, were the words, "Nothing is happening here."

The Hunter Organization, which specialized in clean-up, had made several offers to the Kai Family for it, but Chaisi could never bring himself to sell—and sure enough, it had proven useful time and time again.

Han Liuyue opened the door and set the sign up at the entrance, where it stood on its own.

Just then, a security guard came hurrying down the hall. His expression was tense and alert, but the moment he saw Han Liuyue and the sign, his features softened like a summer night cooled by a breeze. He calmed instantly and greeted her, "Good evening."

Han Liuyue nodded back, her voice bright as she smiled. "Hello. Is something wrong?"

The guard stopped at the doorway and glanced inside before speaking.

Chaisi had already tucked his gun into the back of his waistband. He grabbed a bedsheet, wrapped it tightly around his hand in several layers, and was now searching Fu Tailan's corpse for the Illusion—he hadn't forgotten about that thin, black sliver.

The guard watched Chaisi searching the corpse for a moment, nodded, and said to Han Liuyue, "Someone thought they heard a gunshot, so we're investigating. Does he need a hand?"

"No, he's fine," Han Liuyue said. "Thanks, though. You can go on with your business."

A death in a hospital. Unfortunate, yes, but what could be more normal?

In that calm, ordinary atmosphere, the guard did indeed stroll casually away.

Han Liuyue glanced back inside.

Just then, Chaisi pulled a rather unsettling-looking doll from Fu Tailan's pocket. It had a cylindrical, snow-white body and a face that was completely bare except for a pair of red lips.

"This is what he used earlier, isn't it?" Chaisi said, placing the Mouth Puppet on the bed and continuing his search of another pocket. "Liuyue, go see if David is really locked in the storage room. Take a gun."

"You think he might have an accomplice?"

"Not likely," Chaisi said, pulling a blank card from another pocket. It looked a bit like a driver's license with all the information wiped clean. "He doesn't trust anyone, and no one trusts him, so he has to work alone. Still, be careful. Just in case."

Han Liuyue gave a crisp "Yes," and pulled another gun from a toiletry bag on the bed, tossing it into a plastic shopping bag. Dressed in her patient gown, she probably wouldn't get a second glance walking through the hospital.

"If you find the storage room, see if there are any staff uniforms," Chaisi added. "Grab one for you and me."

Han Liuyue nodded. Just before leaving, she added a warning, "Brother Chaisi, be careful on your own."

Even as a corpse, Fu Tailan somehow put everyone on edge.

But the boy was dead. Chaisi had found the thin, black sliver and put it in a small bag. The gun, the two Illusions, his phone, keys, wallet—everything had been taken. There was nothing left on Fu Tailan's corpse.

'What else could possibly go wrong?'

Chaisi grabbed Fu Tailan's corpse and tossed it onto the bed. It landed like a heavy, man-shaped dead fish. The hospital bed had wheels; once unlocked, he could push it out the door. He'd cover the gunshot wound with bandages, pretend it was a patient in critical condition, and bluff his way out of the hospital.

He stood by the bed, looking at the two Illusions in his hand.

'With this red-lipped doll, can I really make a target say whatever I want them to say?'

Fu Tailan's luck hadn't been half bad, to have gotten his hands on an Illusion that could steal away a "Rumor"... Of all things, a "Rumor" should have been the one thing he'd never have to worry about losing.

'To be safe, maybe I should ask Uncle Kai to get it back for me.'

'Uncle Kai wouldn't misunderstand me.'

...It was so quiet in the room.

Chaisi looked up. He glanced first at the corpse on the bed, then swept his eyes around the room.

Actually, to say the room was quiet wasn't quite right. He could still hear the hum of the medical monitors, the whir of the ventilation fan, the distant, muffled sounds of voices and footsteps... He could hear all the background ambience a hospital should have.

'So why does it feel so quiet?'

'It's like there's a sound that should be there, but isn't... The absence of one sound is what's making it feel too quiet.'

'What is it?'

As Chaisi's gaze swept over Fu Tailan's phone on the nightstand, he suddenly understood.

'I just killed one of the contestants in the Nest Dominance Game. Why haven't I received a progress notification?'

The last person Chaisi had shot was Green, not Brianna from the Westley Team, so it made sense he hadn't gotten a notification then. But this time, after killing Fu Tailan, he should have received one by all rights.

'Could it be that Fu Tailan was disqualified from the game after losing his Illusion?'

But Chaisi couldn't explain away the nagging shadow of doubt in his mind.

He walked toward the spot where Fu Tailan had been shot and looked up at the wall, where the bullet remained lodged. In the instant that followed, Chaisi had no idea what it was that saved his life. Perhaps it was his peripheral vision catching a trick of the light that shouldn't have been there, the fine hairs on his arms detecting a shift in the air that felt all wrong, or maybe it was just instinct honed at the brink of death...

Whatever it was, the faintest warning signal had been enough.

A gunshot had rung out, followed immediately by a second. The reports slammed into each other, making it feel as if the whole room was about to collapse. Two bullets had left their barrels, one after the other, and sliced through the air just over Chaisi's head as he dove for the floor, embedding themselves in the wall by the door.

'...Who's shooting at me?'

The thought registered a split second after Chaisi's body hit the floor with a THUD.

When you're hovering between life and death, there's no time for conscious thought or analysis.

His mind was a blank, but years of combat experience had already taken over. Before Chaisi could even see what was happening, he was rolling across the floor, instinctively moving *toward* the direction of the shots—the shooter was on the hospital bed.

He reverse-drew the gun from his waistband. The moment his roll came to a stop at the foot of the bed, the safety clicked off and the pistol was aimed into the air. The lingering echo of the gunshots drowned out his ragged breaths.

"...Fu Tailan," Chaisi said from the floor, his gun aimed at the empty air near the foot of the bed. "You're pretty good at playing dead."

If anyone peeked over the edge of the bed or tried to get off it, he could instantly lock on and open fire. 'But will bullets even work?'

After a moment of silence, that familiar, sleepy-sounding teenage voice piped up from the bed.

"I wasn't pretending," he said, his voice tinged with a smile. "I really did die."

Chaisi snorted. His aim remained steady as he quickly scanned his surroundings.

Fu Tailan hadn't peeked his head out from the other side of the bed.

"You don't believe me?" Fu Tailan said. "Even you and Sister Liuyue know how to play dead to fool people. Why would I use the same trick right after? The only reason you almost fell for it is because I really did die."

He clicked his tongue, sounding indignant. "Didn't you see the bullet go through my brain? How did you still manage to dodge my shot? And you even thought to check the wall."

The wall where the bullet was lodged... it was just too clean.

A spray of blood and bone had clearly burst from the back of Fu Tailan's head, yet not a single drop had splattered onto the wall. Chaisi hadn't had time to check the floor before Fu Tailan launched his surprise attack—if the boy had waited any longer, Chaisi would have noticed the floor was spotless, too, and Fu Tailan would have lost his chance.

"It was an illusion, wasn't it," Chaisi scoffed. "What Illusion did you use? Where did you hide it? I couldn't find it anywhere."

"Why aren't you listening to me? It really wasn't an illusion," Fu Tailan's voice rose, as if he was genuinely offended. "You really *did* shoot me through the head! Why won't you believe me? It was the same with the Path Illusion. Are you just that stubborn? Can't you understand plain language?"

Something clicked in Chaisi's mind.

Fu Tailan was cunning, true, but he hadn't completely shed his childish temperament. It was like a string was always attached to him; if you found the right place to pull, you could easily tug on his emotions.

"I get it,"

Chaisi said, visually measuring the distance between himself and the vital signs monitor. The machine was sizable—a natural piece of cover. "You hid the fake-death Illusion in your prison wallet."

Fu Tailan was clearly stunned—even the sound of him rummaging through the toiletry bag on the bed paused.

"What's a prison wallet?"

Chaisi smiled to himself.

"When people go to prison, they get searched from head to toe to make sure they're not smuggling in contraband. But the human body... well, there are always places to hide things that aren't so easy to check..."

Fu Tailan was quick on the uptake. The moment he understood, he finally started acting his age.

"Shut up," he snapped, his anger unusually sharp. "You disgusting old man with no imagination! You want to know? Fine, I'll tell you. It just so happens you're someone who's been to the Black Abyss Belt."

'How does he know I've been to the Black Abyss Belt?'

Before Chaisi could dwell on it, Fu Tailan continued in a rapid-fire barrage, "I took Vulture into the Black Abyss Belt. Bet you didn't expect that, did you? Just like a person, it dissociated into countless fragments and particles inside the Black Abyss. The reason I'm not afraid to tell you is because it's impossible for you to—"

Chaisi nearly leaped up from the floor.

"You fused the fragments of Vulture into your own body?"