Artifact Report

Chapter 297 Fu Tai Lan: The Price in the Envelope

...Isn't everything going too smoothly?

He had racked his brains to come up with the angle for asking the question, but when Fu Tailan actually got the answer, he became suspicious again.

The hand holding the red pill is composed of 27 units of swirl.
The hand holding the blue pill is composed of 3970 units of swirl.

The answer on the surface seems quite clear: the blue pill is in that football-sized hand, which is Fu Tailan's right hand.

However... the traps in the lair are always layered with steel teeth, and the most deadly moment often comes when people think the clouds have parted and the fog has cleared.

"You've chosen a rather unusual angle," the nurse chuckled from behind the curtain, "but I'm a resident, you know. Can a resident's body really be analyzed like this?"

Fu Tailan turned a deaf ear.

He had no more questions left to ask.

What could be the trap?
Since it is called a "unit", each unit should be of equal quality, equal size and equal division - to give an example, one penny is no more than another penny.

Theoretically speaking, a hand with a small unit number can potentially increase the distance between units and form a larger volume by means of "dilution" or "inflation"; similarly, a hand with a large unit number can also be "compressed".

However, the difference between the two figures is so vast that this possibility becomes very low.

A hand composed of 27 units is dozens of times larger than a hand composed of 3970 units... So there should be some clues in its appearance, just like an inflated balloon, the color of which is definitely lighter than that of an uninflated balloon.

Fu Tailan stared at the two hands in front of him until his vision blurred slightly—he was afraid that ten years from now, when he closed his eyes, he would still be able to clearly see these hands without thumbs in his mind—but no matter how he looked at them, there was no difference in skin color, texture, or thickness.

"Hurry up," the nurse urged from outside the curtain. "We're short-staffed and very busy. Do you think you're the only patient? If everyone takes this long to take their medicine, everyone else will die."

Fu Tailan snorted.

He was the only hospitalized hunter in the entire hospital—who would be hospitalized here unless absolutely necessary?
"hurry up,"

The nurse's voice became rougher, almost like the grinding of bricks. "I can't keep wasting time with you here. Haven't you asked all your questions? You should know which hand has the blue pill, right? Hurry up and choose, or I'll just randomly shove a pill into your mouth."

"I need to think about it some more—"

"five."

The nurse's voice suddenly lowered, as if a worm had landed on the skin.

Fu Tailan's nerves tightened. Had it started counting down?
Starting from five and counting backwards?

Even though he knew the other party was creating a sense of urgency and forcing him to make a mistake, he had no way to counter it—what could he do if the nurse forced him to take the medication? In the Nest Hospital, the party in control was neither the patient nor the hunter.

"Four."

"Wait a minute," Fu Tailan also felt her mind was in a mess, and for a moment she couldn't make a decision except to stall and stop him: "Um, give me half a minute..."

"three."

He couldn't delay any longer—he had no room for maneuver.

"I see,"

Fu Tailan had no choice but to grit her teeth, resigned to a do-or-die situation, and reach for the fist the size of a soccer ball. "The blue pill is in the larger hand—"

Even through the curtains, one could almost feel the residents' sudden quiet and renewed anticipation.

A flash of white light suddenly appeared in his mind.

How could he have almost made this mistake?

The residents clearly stated, "The blue pill is in your left hand, but until you've confirmed which hand is your left, it can be anywhere to you, can't it?"

In other words, finding the hand where the blue pill was located is only the first step—

Just as he was about to touch the resident's skin, Fu Tailan shouted at a speed that almost made him bite his tongue, "This is the left hand!"

It's not enough to just find the blue pill; he also needs to verbally confirm that the hand holding the blue pill is his left hand in order to pin "left hand" and "blue pill" together—shouldn't that be it?
If you miss even one, you won't get the blue pills—this is the trap, isn't it?
Silence fell both inside and outside the curtain.

Fu Tailan still had one hand on that cold fist, holding his breath, staring only at the hospital blanket covering him. The thin blanket was wrinkled and piled on top of him, and the outline of his legs could be vaguely seen.

Whether his speculations and choices were right or wrong, he had no chance to know.

Perhaps... making the wrong choice isn't such a bad thing.

It's like pressing the button that makes humanity disappear... After taking the red pill, you'll be in a state of illusion of youth and health, in a state of peaceful ignorance, when one day you'll suddenly be dragged out of the world and never have to open your eyes again.

At that point, what happens to Fu Han will no longer be a concern for him. The iron chain that has always bound him will no longer be able to restrain him because he no longer has a body.

"...Okay, I'm going to open my hand now." The nurse's sweet tone returned as she slowly opened her hand, which was about the size of a soccer ball.

In the palm of my hand lay a small blue pill.

That's right.

Fu Tailan didn't say a word, grabbed it, closed her eyes, tilted her head back and swallowed it.

"Great, I chose the blue pills."

The nurse withdrew her hands, and the curtain closed again. "Well then, my task is complete. I'll come again tomorrow morning."

Fu Tailan let out a long sigh and fell heavily back onto the bed.

When I slammed my back onto the bed like that, the wound didn't hurt anymore.

And so, the nurse came three more times—and each of the next three times, Fu Tailan received a blue pill.

He didn't want to think about whether or not hallucinations were involved.

By the morning of the 26th, the day he was discharged from the hospital, Fu Tailan felt that he was no different from before he was injured—no, if he had to say, after lying in bed for two days, he felt that he was more alert and agile, and even his physical fitness seemed to have improved.

However, compared to the benefits, the costs and risks are so heavy that one dares not even think about them.

"Oh dear, it's already time to say goodbye to you."

That morning, four doctors and nurses who had had contact with him at the hospital stood together at the ward door, with nearly a hundred faces waiting for Fu Tai Lan.

The entire corridor was densely packed with countless faces on the ceiling, walls, and in every corner; he didn't know how so many faces were connected to bodies, but he couldn't look.

"Don't be too surprised if you accidentally swallow a red pill and it suddenly explodes into a puddle of scum outside the hospital," someone said.

"You are such a model patient, I don't want you to leave."

Fu Tailan lowered her head, trying not to look at anyone, and walked step by step through their tangled and complex bodies, stepping on the small gaps to land.

"Actually, you left at a very opportune time. We just received a critically ill patient here."

"Oh? You mean that half-body that was sent from the Nest Central Station? It's already in that state, how can it even pay for hospitalization?"

...These residents who came to see him off started chatting amongst themselves.

"Sure, why not? He really did become half-dead today because he was trying to buy a return ticket, and he's not far from death, but he wasn't like that before."

"Return ticket?"

A resident with countless faces laughed along with all of them. "Buying a return ticket at Central Station? What kind of nonsense is this—eating a meal, vomiting it up, and then eating it all again?"

"Well, he absolutely refused to believe he didn't have a return ticket, and lingered at the station for too long, so he became halfway there. Anyway, the surgery is scheduled for this afternoon. I'm confident in my skills and I'm sure I can perfectly stitch him back into the resident's body."

Return ticket?
I have a feeling that this word subtly touched something...

He did have a fake ticket for the train departing from the Central Station of the Nest, but it had long expired. Besides, the destination was Blackmore City, so he didn't need a return ticket—he could just use the passageway to get back to the Nest.

Didn't that hunter, who was already half-dead, think of this problem?
Or is it that the thing that harmed the other party is not the same as the fake image in your own hands?

Fu Tailan wondered if she was using the "return ticket" as a distraction.

"Congratulations on your discharge from the hospital,"

When he returned to the lobby on the first floor, the same voice rang out again from the empty nurses' station. "Now that you've fully recovered, you can settle your hospital bills, right?"

As if the torment they suffered in the hospital was not enough, they had to endure another round of mental anguish upon discharge.

"……I see,"

Fu Tailan rested her arm on the nurses' station, propped her chin on it, and said softly, "I can't even owe you money, can I? You can take it, I'll just wait here."

Just like two years ago, a hand reached up from behind the nurses' station, climbed over the counter, and reached in front of Fu Tai Lan, placing an envelope down.

"You can only open it after you return to Blackmore City," the voice said almost cheerfully. "Well then, until we meet again."

(End of this chapter)