Chapter 535: Fu Tailan: Bullshit Radio

“…You know everything, don’t you?”

Damian, the host who was supposedly Chaisi’s long-dead step-brother, stood by the Haisen River as it hung inverted in the Nest’s sky. He smiled at Chaisi and asked, “You know everything about our dear father’s plans, don’t you?”

‘…’ Fu Tailan sighed to himself.

Ever since the Resident of the Coil and the Ballet Resident had abandoned him in a hurry, he’d been lying in the same spot for a good twenty or thirty minutes, the back of his head aching from the hard ground.

He’d lost too much blood and was too badly injured; the world went dark whenever he tried to get up. It was better to rest for a while, lest he pass out in the Nest and end up as a dish on some Resident’s menu.

Besides, even if Fu Tailan could get to his feet, he had no idea where to go.

It was as if he had accidentally severed the only thread connecting him to the human world. Besides the patch of road in the Nest beneath him, warmed by his own body heat, Fu Tailan couldn’t think of anywhere else in the wide world he could possibly go.

So Fu Tailan simply lay where he was, watching the inverted Blackmoor City in the sky and keeping an eye on the host, Damian.

If he wasn’t mistaken, the ??? had a lot to do with the Haisen River.

When one walked through Blackmoor City, the Haisen River was just a surging surface of water at your side, nothing more.

But with Blackmoor City suspended inverted in the sky far above, Fu Tailan suddenly understood why Damian had driven along the Haisen River upon entering the human world.

According to the Resident of the Coil, Damian entered the human world at a social housing construction site.

If one took that social housing construction site as the starting point and traced a line along the Haisen River, they would find that the river, winding its way through Blackmoor City, formed the shape of three connected question marks.

As for the dot beneath the question marks, Fu Tailan had an answer for that as well.

The overpass.

The overpass, which seemed to sever the Haisen River, looked just like the dot under a question mark from a distance. And Damian, the host, had just made a special trip by car with Kai Luonan back to the spot next to the “dot” under the third question mark.

However, the most crucial question—how exactly the ??? had fallen into Damian’s hands—was something Fu Tailan still couldn’t figure out.

Still, Damian didn’t even know Fu Tailan was watching him. Wasn’t this the perfect time for surveillance?

At first, Fu Tailan needed binoculars. Gradually, however, he realized he didn’t need them anymore.

The human world and the Nest were intertwining, step by step, merging ever deeper, as if about to become one. At some unknown point, the screech of braking cars, the sound of the Haisen River’s waves… all grew gradually clearer. Eventually, Fu Tailan could even hear the conversation of Chaisi and the others.

It was like hearing the muffled chatter of neighbors through an open window on a summer night.

Unfortunately, he’d tuned in a little too late.

For example, when Damian laughingly asked Chaisi if he already knew about their “dear father’s plans,” Fu Tailan was completely baffled. ‘What plans? What’s going on?’

He hadn’t heard a single word of the conversation before that, making him feel like a viewer who had sat down in front of the TV halfway through a show. ‘Who’s on whose side? Who’s up against whom?’ He didn’t know at all.

Damian seemed to really hate Chaisi… That much, at least, was obvious.

“How does it feel to be betrayed by Father?”

Fu Tailan froze, feeling as if he’d taken an unexpected punch to the chest.

Damian still had a human appearance, but his shriek was no different from a Resident’s. “You know I came here to give him the ???, don’t you? Are you here to steal it? To stop him? Do you want to kill him? Let me see you forced to kill the foster father who raised you for twenty years. Make me happy! Give me some consolation—”

Not until Chaisi suddenly cut Damian off with a single “No” did Fu Tailan realize that his own chest had felt as if it were being crushed, unable to draw in even a wisp of air.

‘…Betrayed by Father—no, by Kai Luonan?’

‘What does that mean?’

‘What did Kai Luonan do to Chaisi? Isn’t Chaisi his loyal dog?’

‘Why… why would Chaisi say “no”?’

Before turning to look at Chaisi’s reaction, Fu Tailan first took a deep breath to brace himself.

‘Anyone who knows they’re about to open the door to a cesspool would hold their breath first, right? It’s the same principle.’

‘…’ Fu Tailan was glad for his foresight.

“I know everything, but I won’t kill him.”

Chaisi looked at Damian, his voice distant and blurry, yet hoarse and firm. “You don’t seem to understand… I have no objection to the fact that Uncle Kai betrayed me and wants to use me as a price to gain greater power.”

‘I should just gouge out my eyes and rupture my eardrums.’

Letting that self-indulgently sentimental line of Chaisi’s drill into his ears was a form of torture, a betrayal Fu Tailan was inflicting upon himself. ‘It would have been better to just kick the bucket a moment ago than to endure this disgust while still alive.’

‘Is Damian looking for allies?’

‘No, becoming a weapon for the Residents is out of the question. But maybe I could ask Damian if, given the chance, he’d let me slap Chaisi back and forth until he develops Alzheimer’s. Perhaps—’

Fu Tailan abruptly sat up.

The movement pulled at his wounds, forcing a pained grunt from him, but his eyes remained fixed on Blackmoor City in the sky.

‘…The Black Cube.’

‘That bastard Chaisi really did give every target Illusion he had to Kai Luonan.’

But after hearing the number “109.2,” as Kai Luonan turned to walk toward his car, he waved a hand without looking back and released a perfectly square, pitch-black Illusion. It swallowed Chaisi in an instant.

Chaisi didn’t die.

Kai Luonan got into the car, his face briefly illuminated by the vehicle’s display. A moment later, he got back out and dispelled the Black Cube.

‘He got the ???.’ The thought flashed through Fu Tailan’s mind.

Damian’s voice was flat as he spoke to Chaisi. “Of course you can’t die. After the great price I paid, I’m still waiting to see how that old geezer is going to torture you.”

Fu Tailan desperately wanted to see Kai Luonan’s expression, and even more, Chaisi’s. But unfortunately, Blackmoor City was still too far away, preventing him from making out such fine details.

As Kai Luonan approached Chaisi, Fu Tailan slowly hauled himself to his feet.

Fu Tailan didn’t like pain.

He always did everything he could to avoid, dull, and numb all forms of suffering. Since the age of fifteen, he had been popping painkillers like vitamins.

Perhaps it was precisely because he couldn’t tolerate any kind of pain that he could always sense it at the first sign of intensification.

Standing there, head tilted up, he heard Kai Luonan speak in a calm, gentle voice. “…Have you ever wondered why the Resident that entered Damian’s bedroom all those years ago looked just like your mother?”

Fu Tailan turned and left.

‘All right, I know what I need to know. I’ve seen enough.’

He had zero interest in how Kai Luonan had used Chaisi’s mother, and he couldn’t be bothered to watch him torture Chaisi with it.

Even more, Fu Tailan didn’t want to know Chaisi’s reaction.

‘Whatever Kai Luonan is about to say, if Chaisi still wavers between him and his mother, still hesitates, still suffers—and if, after all that suffering, he reverts to his old self, willing to sacrifice everything for Kai Luonan… I’m afraid I’ll be disgusted for the rest of my life.’

‘If it really turns out like that… I should have just killed Chaisi Monroe sooner.’

And yet, despite having no desire to watch, Fu Tailan couldn’t help but glance back at the sky after taking a few steps.

…Huh?

It was as if someone had hit a pause button. Kai Luonan was no longer speaking. Chaisi sat motionless, leaning against the riverside guardrail. Damian had his head tilted, his gaze fixed vacantly on the air—as if a movie that only the three of them could see was playing before them.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Is this some technique that projects information directly into their minds?’

‘I’ve heard of similar Illusions before… At least this way, I won’t be forced to see anything I don’t want to see, right?’

After a few minutes, Kai Luonan brushed the dust from his clothes, glanced at his two sons, and turned to leave.

Chaisi and Damian remained where they were, immersed in a past that only they could see.

After a moment’s thought, Fu Tailan followed Kai Luonan.

Keeping up with Kai Luonan wasn’t easy. He was in the human world, while Fu Tailan was in the Nest. Kai Luonan was in a car, while all Fu Tailan had were his own two legs, weak and heavy from blood loss. It wasn’t long before he lost him.

But it was as if some unseen force was determined to drag him into the mess. Fu Tailan didn’t even have to wonder what to do next before the answer presented itself.

“…The host is going to ruin our Nest.”

When Fu Tailan heard this and looked up, he saw the back of a ballet dancer in a white dress standing on pointe in the middle of the empty, dim road ahead.

“Oh, it’s you,” Fu Tailan replied languidly. “You startled me.”

The Ballet Resident spoke as if to herself. “He took it upon himself to invite his father into the Nest Dominance Game. Now that old geezer, Kai Luonan, not only has three target Illusions in his grasp, but he’s also eliminated the people we sent to kill Mai Mingle.”

“Living people? Residents? How were they ‘eliminated’?”

The Ballet Resident paid him no mind. “He just found out the location of another target Illusion and is about to go after it. This is too much! We absolutely cannot, absolutely, abso-lute-ly, not—”

“Calm down,” Fu Tailan sighed, leaning against a lamppost. “If you let your Resident nature run wild, how are we ever going to get to the point?”

The Ballet Resident took a deep breath, her hair bun trembling.

“We absolutely cannot let him obtain the fourth target Illusion. He’s unstoppable right now. His methods are multiplying, his power is growing, and the other contestants can barely stop him. If he gets his hands on that fourth target Illusion and gets more information from the radio—”

Fu Tailan’s eyelids lifted.

“The Illusion whose location Kai Luonan learned… it’s a radio?”

The back of the Ballet Resident’s head dipped twice in a nod.

“So, where is it?” Fu Tailan asked in a low voice. “You came all this way to tell me this because you’re hoping I can get my hands on the radio before Kai Luonan, right?”

“The Museum of Modern Art, basement level one,”

the Ballet Resident said. “Melt the giant candle, and the radio will fall out… At least, that’s what Jin Xueli said. Only a human, or a Vulture occupying a human’s identity, can use the candle. It’s useless for a regular Resident to go, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to you. Kai Luonan is busy killing Jin Xueli as we speak. You’re closer than he is. If you rush over now, you should be able to get the radio before he does.”

‘…Radio my ass.’

And that, Fu Tailan thought, gritting his teeth, was why he hadn’t seen so much as a shadow of a radio, but had instead been cornered by Kai Luonan on the first basement level of the Museum of Modern Art.