Illusion Report

"Sorry about the unpleasantness last time." Green said with a smile. "To avoid a repeat of that, why don’t we all set our phones aside... Actually, no need to turn them off — what if something urgent comes up?"

Fu Tailan and Longzhen exchanged a glance but didn’t protest. One after the other, they took out their phones and placed them face-down on the table, just as Green had done.

Green bent down and nudged all three phones a little further away, as if clearing space for an Illusion — though the coffee table was completely empty.

"No need to bother," Fu Tailan said, remaining on his feet. He reached into his trouser pocket and produced a train ticket, holding it up in front of Green. "See? The Illusion is only this small."

"Oh," said Green, extending his hand. "The Illusion we’re looking for should be larger than—"

He didn’t get to finish. Fu Tailan had already pressed the pale blue ticket lightly into his palm.

The ticket was small. The edges of their hands made brief, unavoidable contact before pulling apart.

The moment Green closed his fingers around the ticket, Fu Tailan said, "This Illusion is strange. It turns blue in a man’s hand and pink in a woman’s."

Green’s eyelid twitched. He immediately looked down and turned the pale blue ticket over, examining both sides carefully.

"...Isn’t this just tomorrow’s train ticket?"

He glanced at his watch. "To be precise, a ticket that becomes valid four hours from now, and only for the sixteenth. Aside from the departure and destination stations, there’s hardly any useful information here... What could you even do with it?"

That was what he said — but the time he spent examining the ticket was nearly twenty minutes longer than he’d spent on the alarm clock last time. At one point he even picked up his phone and typed out a message to someone, the keys clicking away for quite a while.

Fu Tailan waited, patient throughout. After a while, Green finally looked up.

"I just consulted a few Hunters who work with Mr. Westley... I’ve been retired for so long, I’m no longer up to date on the situation in the Nest — I’m sure you understand. This train ticket isn’t what we’re looking for, but it is interesting."

"Oh?" Fu Tailan leaned forward slightly. "Are you interested in acquiring it?"

Green’s brow creased — a rare expression for him — and he seemed genuinely uncertain.

"When I say interesting, it’s because it comes with no detailed description of its function. Generally speaking, an Illusion with an unknown purpose is like a mystery box... It might give you something wonderful, or it might cost you everything you have."

He shook his head at that and pushed the pale blue ticket back across the table. "I don’t personally purchase Illusions — if I were to buy one, it would be on Mr. Westley’s behalf. But our situation is delicate right now. We can’t afford to gamble on a mystery box."

...So Westley was afraid of something after all. And it seemed like that fear was only deepening as time went on.

Seeing that Fu Tailan hadn’t moved to take the ticket back, Longzhen reached out and picked it up. The moment it touched her hand, a flush of pink bloomed across its surface.

"I see, that makes sense," Fu Tailan said, keeping up a stream of light, noncommittal small talk while his eyes drifted upward — and then stopped.

In that brief moment, Green was staring fixedly at the ticket in Longzhen’s hand, seemingly not registering a word Fu Tailan was saying.

What was that about? Had he recognized the ticket?

"...Mr. Green?"

Green snapped his gaze back immediately. "I’m sorry — what was that?"

"Would you like another look at the ticket?" Fu Tailan asked with a smile.

"No, no, that won’t be necessary. Please don’t—" Green waved off the pink-tinted ticket that Longzhen was holding out toward him. "What were you saying just now?"

"I was asking: if our Family Faction were to open this mystery box ourselves and bring you just the results, would you be interested in purchasing it then?"

"That would depend on what it does." Green settled back into his usual composure, offering a gentle smile. "Though given the expiration date, I imagine you won’t be bringing it back to me anyway."

This time he only walked Fu Tailan and the others as far as the elevator.

"If you come across something you’re unsure about in the future, feel free to send me a photo first." He stood at the elevator doors, his smile so thin it looked like a single breath could dissolve it. "The Hunter Chief of the Morgan Family should have a basic eye for these things, shouldn’t she?"

The moment the elevator doors slid shut, Fu Tailan couldn’t hold it in any longer.

"Where does this guy get off? The way he carries himself — he doesn’t act like Mr. Westley’s secretary at all. More like Westley’s sugar daddy with a knife up his sleeve. God, dealing with someone like that every day must be like unclogging a toilet, huh?"

The bodyguard who still had to escort them looked thoroughly mortified, and opted to pretend he hadn’t heard a word. He kept his eyes down and led the group all the way to the car without a word.

Fu Tailan’s stream of increasingly creative complaints came to an abrupt halt the moment the car door slammed shut, swallowed up by silence.

Once the car had merged onto the main road, he reached forward toward Ji Mu in the driver’s seat and held out his hand.

"Well?" Fu Tailan asked, slipping back into his usual languid tone. "Let’s have it."

"It did go off — it really did."

Ji Mu was a new hire in the HR department who had been waiting in the car all evening. He fished a slim case out of his pocket and handed it to Fu Tailan. "It went off shortly after you all went upstairs. The Amber Alert sounded on your phone, Chief — but not on mine. It’s strange."

...Just as he’d suspected.

The last time Fu Tailan had received an Amber Alert was the instant his skin had brushed against Green’s. No matter how many times he turned it over in his mind, he felt certain that one of the trigger conditions had to be: making contact with Green — who had previously set off an Amber Alert.

Assuming the Amber Alert existed specifically for Fu Tailan to see — which seemed plausible, given that it had clearly been sent to him alone — then since he hadn’t seen it the first time, would it appear again once the trigger conditions were met?