Illusion Report

In that flash, Mai Mingle knew she couldn’t hide it anymore.

The only thing to do was to keep playing her part.

"...Jonah?"

A cold sweat broke out on her back, and the muscles in her face felt heavy and stiff. Mai Mingle had no idea if she had successfully managed a "curious" expression—but she had tried her best.

"The same Jonah I mentioned when I passed on the message?"

She pretended not to notice Fu Tailan’s gaze, looking only at Longzhen. "The one whose life was in danger? What about him? He’s not... nothing happened, right?"

Before either of them could answer, Mai Mingle made the sign of the cross.

"God bless," she murmured. "Please tell me it wasn’t because my call was late... God wouldn’t blame me for that..."

Longzhen glanced at her superior. Fu Tailan frowned, waved a dismissive hand, and muttered, "She’s religious." His gaze finally shifted away from Mai Mingle’s face.

Mai Mingle inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

’Of course it’s normal for me to react to Jonah’s name. After all, I’m the one who said it several times...’

’Looks like I’ve fooled them for now.’

"This has nothing to do with you," Longzhen said to Mai Mingle first, then stopped, not wanting to continue in front of her. She picked up a pen and paper from the desk, quickly scribbled a sentence, and handed it to her superior.

A muscle in his face twitched visibly.

"Understood." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

He shot up from behind his desk, crumpling the note into a ball. Without another glance at Mai Mingle, he strode toward the office door. Just before leaving, he threw a line over his shoulder, "I’ll handle it. Get her out of here, now—use the back exit."

’What happened?’

’So what Longzhen said wasn’t just to test me—something really has happened?’

Mai Mingle’s mind was reeling with questions, but one thing was clear: due to some sudden development, the Morgan Family’s attitude had done a complete one-eighty. She was free to go.

’Who cares what the emergency is? If I can leave, why would I hesitate for even half a second?’

She sprang to her feet and immediately followed Longzhen. Sure enough, they didn’t leave the way they had come in. She had no idea what was happening in the other part of the office.

Longzhen’s mind was clearly elsewhere; she paid Mai Mingle no attention. Whatever Mai Mingle asked, she received the same stock reply: "It doesn’t concern you."

She led Mai Mingle through the sprawling office floor, making two quick turns before stopping. She jutted her chin toward the hallway ahead. "Take those stairs down. Once you’re at the bottom, have security open the door for you. Don’t wander around—it’s not safe. Now go."

With that, she spun around and hurried away, moving at a pace just short of a run.

In a matter of moments, Mai Mingle was alone again.

The short hallway was silent. The soundproofing in the Morgan Family’s offices was excellent; even if she strained to listen, she couldn’t make out any distinct sounds from the main area.

’All right, whatever is going on, I need to get out of here.’

There seemed to be no one else around. Only her own footsteps echoed off the walls of the narrow corridor. So, when another voice suddenly cut through the air, Mai Mingle jumped.

"Big Sister?"

’Oh, he can’t be talking to me. The last time anyone called me Big Sister, my parents were still alive.’

...Mai Mingle took another step before it dawned on her that "Big Sister" might have actually been directed at her.

She followed the voice and saw an open doorway on the left at the end of the corridor, leading into a bright, clean breakroom. The room was spacious, with a few long tables, chairs, and sofas scattered about. On one of those sofas, a kid was limply curled up.

’A teenager who looked seventeen or eighteen at most—wasn’t that still just a kid?’

The teen was draped lazily over the back of the sofa as if all the bones had been pulled from his body, half his face buried in his arm.

One hand dangled down, a rolled cigarette held between long, slender fingers. A thin, silken thread of white smoke curled around them.

The teen’s eyelids were half-lowered. When he spoke, his voice was soft and diffuse, like a wisp of cloud high in the autumn sky. "...Big Sister, are you any good at chemistry?"

Mai Mingle froze. "What?"

"I don’t like chemistry," the teen said, his voice still soft, hazy, and fringed with a smile. "Could you help me with my homework?"

Sure enough, there were papers and a pen on the table. ’This is my one chance to escape, I can’t be checking your homework! What kind of Hunter is so brazen they bring their kid to work?’

"I’m in a hurry, I really have to go. Sorry," Mai Mingle said, quickly turning away from the breakroom door.

A moment later, she turned back and poked her head inside.

"Um... do you know where the stairs are?" Mai Mingle asked quietly, feeling rather sheepish. "The person from the company told me to take the stairs down from here..."

In the few minutes she had spent searching for the stairs, the teen hadn’t seemed to move at all. Now, he slowly lifted his head, revealing a face with a hazy, dazed expression. Amidst the fog, his lips were a moist, brilliant red, like a sunset reflected on a lake.

’Even having lived a whole long lifetime, she had rarely seen a kid this beautiful.’

In that moment of distraction, Mai Mingle caught a faint but heavy scent in the room. She glanced at the rolled cigarette in his hand and it clicked. "Wait, are you smoking—?"

"What about it? It’s not like it’s illegal," the teen said lazily, taking another deep drag. He exhaled a cloud of white smoke that hung in the air, seeming to blur the edges of reality.

’It’s legal?’

The last time Mai Mingle was in her twenties, hippie culture had been in full swing, so she was no stranger to the idea, but she was still taken aback.

’Still, the priority right now is to get out of the Morgan Family’s building.’

"Hmm... the stairs? I can take you."

As if sensing her urgency, the teen rose from the sofa and approached. He moved as silently as a cat, as if his body were made of nothing but smoke and clouds. "I’m Xiaotai. What’s your name?"

"...Mai Mingle."

’Facing a kid like this, there seemed to be no point in using a fake name. Real name, fake name... either way, it was a name no one in this world recognized.’

The teen’s eyes were bloodshot and glistening. If it weren’t for the rolled cigarette in his hand, Mai Mingle might have thought he’d been crying. When she thought about how he was still willing to show her the way even after she’d refused to help with his homework, she felt another pang of guilt. "Thank you. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone."

"Oh? This?" The teen seemed to just then remember the cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at it, then grinned at her. "It doesn’t matter. No one tells me what to do."

’This kid is going to break so many hearts when he grows up,’ Mai Mingle thought. The way he glanced at the rolled cigarette was enough to make one feel its brief existence had been entirely worthwhile.

"We should go, then," she said, anxious to leave. "I’m in a hurry."

"Why? You have a date?"

’Do all kids talk like this nowadays?’

"I have family business," Mai Mingle said dismissively. "Which way are the stairs?"

The teen tilted his head, his eyes hazy, revealing a small red mole on his neck. He stared at Mai Mingle for several seconds, his unreadable expression making her antsy. Then, he suddenly smiled. "Ah, I almost forgot. There’s a lot of food in the breakroom. And alcohol, too."

"Why don’t you just point me to the stairs, and I’ll go myself."

Mai Mingle knew it was useless to get impatient with someone in his state; their reactions were always a beat behind. "I’m really in a hurry."

"Don’t be in such a rush to abandon me," the teen chuckled, taking her wrist with an easy familiarity. "Come on, the stairs are this way. You walked right past them. Are you sure you don’t want to look at my homework?"

"I really don’t have time," Mai Mingle said.

"That’s what everyone else is saying, too," the teen said, pouting. "Because Jonah just brought a resident back from the Nest, and they ended up right here in the building."

Before Mai Mingle could process his words, much less stop herself, she had already stopped dead in her tracks, a look of pure shock on her face.

’All the pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked into place.’

’A resident is here? No wonder Longzhen was in such a hurry and didn’t want me staying. Bringing that big bug with him, Jonah—’

’No, wait.’

’This teen...’

When she turned her head, she saw the teen giving her another soft smile.

It was the same hazy, airy smile, but as Mai Mingle looked at him, a prickly cold sweat broke out on her back.

It was as if time itself had been filled with Mercury, slowly suffocating in the space between them.

’Maybe he saw me here in the Morgan Family’s building and assumed I was a Hunter, which is why he’s speaking so freely...’

"I’m sorry, Big Sister."

The teen lowered his head. One hand still held her wrist, while the other lifted the rolled cigarette to his lips for a drag. "I have a bad habit of lying. Girls don’t like that about me."

Mai Mingle felt like she was watching a car crash in slow motion. She was powerless to stop it, able only to watch it unfold.

"Jonah didn’t actually come back," he said, as if to comfort her. "I haven’t been to the Nest yet, so no one could have brought him back. How could he have ended up here? Don’t be scared. There’s no resident here."

Mai Mingle thought she could hear the faint sound of footsteps in the distance, somewhere around the corner of the corridor.

’Are they coming for me?’

"And you’re no vagrant, Big Sister. You went to a lot of trouble to look the part... I saw you when you came in. I thought to myself, ’We probably won’t get anything out of her.’"

His voice was soft and muffled, almost a whisper.

"Why not just tell us you’re a Hunter?"

The teen paused, then let out a soft laugh.

"My guess is, either you’re connected to the danger Jonah is in and you’re afraid the Morgan Family will hold you responsible, or you’re connected to what he was chasing and you’re afraid of walking right into a trap."

Mai Mingle had a phantom sensation: it was as if her Snake Belt had already been taken from her, and she felt the pain of it being ripped away like a layer of her own skin.

His fingers were wrapped loosely around her wrist. It felt as though she could pull free with a single tug.

’But what would happen after that?’

’In the Morgan Family’s building, crawling with Hunters, where could she possibly go? What could she do?’

Mai Mingle’s voice was hoarse. "You’re..."

"I didn’t give you my real name earlier. Don’t hold it against me."

The teen’s eyelids were still half-lowered, his expression as hazy as someone half-roused from a dream. "My surname is Fu... my name is Fu Tailan. I’m the Morgan Family’s Hunter Chief."