Illusion Report

Blackmoor City’s Central Police Station was built on the site of a private mental hospital, abandoned in the early twentieth century.

A wealthy doctor had built the hospital, though he seemed no more sane than his patients. The building that remained looked much like a twisted, insane man stuffed into the seemingly rational and orderly coat of a physician.

In the station-like ground floor lobby, a ring of cave-like solitary cells had been carved out. They had no windows and weren’t connected to each other. From the officers’ work area, you had to walk down a short flight of stairs to open the cells’ iron-barred doors.

Even a tall person looking out from a cell could only see the steps and the constant traffic of legs and feet. But from the opposite perspective, when an officer sat at their desk, they would see pairs of suspects’ eyes peeking out from the edge of the lobby floor.

Perhaps because the officers also found this layout unsettling, the ring of cells was completely empty when Chaisi was escorted into the lobby. Jin Xueli had been taken somewhere else.

A female officer placed an electronic device with a glass plate on the table and instructed Chaisi, "First, your four left fingers. Then your thumb."

Chaisi lifted his cuffed hands and pressed his left one onto the plate.

"One look at this kid, and you know he’s got a body on him."

A middle-aged man with a holstered gun, holding half a cup of coffee, sat at another desk nearby. He said to the female officer, "Run his prints through the database first. I’m curious to see what pops up."

"Captain Fley, is it?" Chaisi tilted his head to look at him. "Conclusion first, find the evidence later?"

The middle-aged man looked up from his coffee. "...You know me? I don’t recall ever bringing you in."

"You haven’t." Chaisi gave him a slow smile. "I have a hobby. I like to get to know Blackmoor City’s finest... especially those who collect two paychecks."

Fley’s expression flickered with the bewildered discomfort of someone who’d just sat on something sharp. But he quickly regained his composure and sneered, "We’ll have plenty of chances to get properly acquainted soon enough."

"I look forward to it," Chaisi said, almost politely.

He knew this day would come sooner or later. That was why Chaisi had always kept a close, secret watch on the people in the Blackmoor City police system: the lieutenant who needed a favor to keep his badge, the captain whose wife caught him cheating and took him for everything he had, the precinct chief who turned a blind eye to a certain benefactor... Information like that always came in handy.

Unlike some Hunter Family Factions who deluded themselves into thinking they could go legit with front companies, Chaisi had always been perfectly clear on one thing: the true place for the Kai Family, and any Family Faction, was in the shadows, where the sun didn’t shine.

Given Chaisi’s style of operating, it was a miracle that he was only now being booked at the Central Police Station, and for a crime he’d been framed for, no less. His consistently good luck deserved much of the credit.

’The question was, who had pinned this on him?’

’Chaisi was far removed from Westley. They wouldn’t have picked him as a random scapegoat. There had to be another reason for his arrest, something beyond just needing someone to take the fall.’

’And what role were the police playing in all this? Were they unwitting tools, or useful lapdogs?’

Ironically, Chaisi was usually the one asking the questions during an interrogation. Today, the roles were reversed. But as an expert interrogator himself, he knew something crucial: even as the one being questioned, if you knew what to do and what to look for, you could actually extract the information *you* wanted.

Now, all he had to do was wait.

After waiting patiently in the cave-like cell for an hour or two, Chaisi was finally led to an interrogation room. Captain Fley, with whom he’d just crossed swords, was already waiting for him behind a table, along with another officer he didn’t recognize.

"Have a seat," Fley said, tapping the table with a grin. "Something to drink?"

Chaisi glanced at the mirror on the wall to his left.

Even if he’d never set foot in a station, anyone who’d seen a cop show knew it was a one-way mirror. In a case this important, there were bound to be people on the other side observing him. ’The only question is, who?’

"Coffee." Chaisi sank into the chair, his cuffed hands hitting the tabletop with a THUD. "Aren’t you going to take these off?"

"When dealing with a dangerous individual, we have to consider our own safety," Fley said languidly.

’Just an excuse.’

Chaisi was always careful. He didn’t believe he was on any list or had ever crossed the police’s radar. To them, no matter how tough he looked, he should be just another civilian who’d never popped up on their screens. ’When do you ever need to call an ordinary citizen a "dangerous individual"?’

Especially on November nineteenth, the day he visited Damian, he never carried any weapons. Based on his record and the search of his person and his car, the Chaisi on paper was no different from any other law-abiding citizen.

’Either Fley was trying to intimidate him, or someone had warned him to be careful with Chaisi—someone connected to the Illusion Hunters, no doubt.’

He turned his head, smiled suddenly, and gave a small wave toward the one-way mirror. The handcuffs clinked in the air.

"Hey," Fley warned, snapping his fingers. "I’m the one asking the questions here."

"I want a lawyer present," Chaisi said, leaning back in his chair and propping up his long legs. "After all, you guys are the professionals when it comes to framing people."

A young officer came in and set a cup of obviously lukewarm black coffee in front of him.

Fley acted as if he hadn’t heard. He kept his head down, staring at a file in his hands. "You know, AI technology has gotten pretty incredible. Most of the things it can do seem pointless to me, and I can’t see how they help humanity at all, but there are a few features that can really solve a lot of problems."

Chaisi looked up at him, his gaze cold.

"For example, there’s this one amazing AI tech. All it needs is a short voice sample to analyze and replicate your voice. It can make you ’say’ something for a whole fifteen minutes."

Fley lifted his coffee cup as he spoke. "For example, this little speech I’m giving you about AI? In the hands of a professional, it could easily be turned into me giving you your Miranda warning. If you try to sue the department for procedural errors, you’re out of luck. Any judge reviewing the footage will see that I already told you that you have the right to remain silent and all that... all that bullshit."

’...No wonder he was either looking down at the file or raising his coffee cup while he spoke. The audio could be replaced, but he still had to hide his mouth.’

’They’d arrived at the same idea, albeit for different reasons.’

"Are you sure you want to waive your right to an attorney?" Fley put down his cup, his expression suddenly serious. "I just told you that you could have a lawyer present."

Chaisi considered this for a moment, then broke into a grin. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Since you’re going to play it that way, I might as well play along."

He raised his own cup, feeling his tongue slide uncontrollably against the inside of his cheek. He took a sip of the cheap coffee before setting it down. "On second thought, I really don’t need a lawyer. You know why?"

Fley still looked perfectly reasonable. "Why is that?"

"You know better than anyone whether or not I had anything to do with Westley’s death. As I see it, there are two ways to handle this. One: you get the hell out of this interrogation room and tell whoever gave you your orders that they shouldn’t be framing an upstanding citizen like me."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the one-way mirror.

"Two: I hang your chief, you, and the person who gave the order from the flagpole in front of this station."

Instead of getting angry, Fley laughed. The smile squeezed his puffy eyelids, making them bulge out from under his brow bone.

"Big words! I have to admit, when I was warned you were a handful, I didn’t quite believe it. If you think you can make good on that threat from a jail cell, I’d buy a ticket to watch."

In other words, they had no intention of letting Chaisi go. ’Ever since he’d walked into this room, their actions had made one thing perfectly clear: they were working for someone behind the scenes. The so-called investigation was just a flimsy pretext. The only uncertainty was the mastermind’s ultimate goal.’

But Chaisi had a theory about that, too.

He raised a hand and wiped the tip of his nose with the back of it, using the motion to hide the "rumor" he was pushing out of his mouth.

"I suppose you’re not going to let me make my phone call, are you?"

"A phone call?" Fley asked, feigning surprise. "Didn’t you just waive your right to make one?"

Chaisi smiled.

"Then I’ll just have to borrow yours," he said softly, almost to himself.