Artifact Report

Chapter 298 Fu Tai Lan's Nest: A Kind Heart

There was an extra note in the apartment, left for him by Carter Morgan.

It seems you intend to act independently, the note reads.

Since you don't need it, the Morgan family will cease all resource and human support for you, and your supervisory authority will be nullified from today. This position will be temporarily assumed by someone else.

But don't forget, the case involving Fu Han is still progressing day by day.

I'm waiting for your good news.

The last sentence on the note was, "If you want to apologize to me and cooperate again, I welcome you anytime."

...To be honest, it wasn't easy to read the note clearly.

To others, the ink and paper might appear clear and solid; but Fu Tailan recoiled as if electrocuted after reading only the first line, bumping into the sofa and barely avoiding the second line that suddenly stood upright on the paper.

One word hooks onto another, letters twist and pull, standing in the air sniffing and turning their "heads" around a few times before, as if disappointed, lying back down on the paper.

"Nest dissociation" is not a hallucination—at least, at his level, "nest dissociation" is no longer a hallucination.

Among all the hunters in Blackmore City, probably no one enters and exits the burrow as frequently as he does, without even taking breaks, so no one else can develop "burrow dissociation" into such a substantial abnormality.

Fu Tailan remembered that when he first started experiencing symptoms, he reached out to touch the hallucination; at that moment, his hand met empty air.

If I touch it now... I'm afraid I won't be disappointed, right?
He stared blankly at the crooked words on the note. After a long while, the meaning finally became clear—but it seemed he had missed the opportunity to feel any emotion. After reading it, he felt empty and not a trace of anger.

Looking into the chest, all that could be seen was a dark, deep cavern.

What can he do if he's angry? Carter Morgan won't be so afraid that he'll lose sleep over it.

So someone has taken his place, temporarily supervising him...

Fu Tai Lan leaned back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, thinking, "That person is probably Long Zhen, right?"

When he was parachuted in as the hunter supervisor, he had already vaguely sensed something. Although Long Zhen was very competent, he didn't show it on his face.

If it weren't for me, Longzhen would probably have been promoted to the position of supervisor—she doesn't enter the lair, but leading by example is not something a supervisor should do; rather, it's more accurate to say that Fu Tailan's frequent solo entries into the lair are his own willfulness, not his way of fulfilling his responsibilities.

When did Longzhen decide not to enter the nest? She seemed to have said... it was when she was in college, right? She went in once and was so disgusted by it that she was both scared and repulsed, and never went in again.

Fu Tailan let her thoughts drift aimlessly like clouds and mist, leaving the world a vast expanse of white.

After an unknown amount of time, as if pulling a tiny shard of glass out of a thick layer of cotton, he finally managed to regain his senses, pull himself back onto the table, and remember what he was supposed to do.

The pale blue envelope taken from the nest was also glued on. With a gentle tear, the envelope emitted a sharp, panting laugh—"Ugh, ugh, so itchy, so itchy, so painful!"

With a "whoosh," its last sound was cut off.

Fu Tailan thinks that the nest sometimes really has no taste.

The letter paper was an honest, ordinary piece of paper; the black ink swirled and twisted, burning out letter-like scorched holes on the paper—one could not look into the deep, scorched holes, and could only squint when reading the letter, roughly scan the outline of the words, and then quickly look away.

Nest St. Louis Hospital bill
住院时长：2026年11月24日，0:46AM——2026年11月26日，10:00AM
Consumable pills: 6

Hospital bed available: 1

Enjoy the care and attention of medical staff: 12 times (If it's free, who cares about you?)
Total Cost: Ten Days of Fate
Fu Tai Lan closed her eyes. This price... is a bit too high.

Two years ago, he narrowly escaped death, but it only took him five and a half days to live.

Fee details:

The nest will select a number of days from your future life that are equivalent to the total cost and decide your fate during that period.

Once fate is set, no matter how much you struggle or resist, you cannot escape the predetermined reality.

(Don't you humans often worry about questions like "Is fate predetermined?")

Isn't that great? You don't need to worry about your future fate anymore; the nest has already arranged everything for you, and it can't be changed.
For example, Hunter A paid for six days of hospitalization.

The Nest meticulously selected six days starting from his fortieth birthday, destined for him to be separated from his wife and children, and to suffer the destruction of his family. Therefore, when A turns forty, unless he commits suicide first, he will absolutely follow the Nest's arrangements step by step within those six days, completing his destined fate of being separated from his wife and children, and suffering the destruction of his family.

Of course, this is an extreme example. We are not always heartless.

It's also possible you'll win the billion-dollar lottery jackpot! Then, on your way home after claiming your winnings, your whole family will die in a car accident—just kidding, just kidding. Fate can be good or bad, you know.

In short, what if something good happens? One has to know how to deceive oneself and hold onto hope to live a fulfilling life.

Here is the fate that our hospital has determined for you over the next ten days. Please check it.

Fu Tailan stared at the words, not daring to stare for too long. She blinked hard a few times, turned her head to look at the kitchen, then at the French windows that were still letting in drafts even though the glass was gone and the plastic sheeting was still covering them, before turning her gaze back to the letter.

...You didn't see it wrong, he didn't see it wrong.

Did the nest make a mistake?

巢穴医院选取的十天日期是——怎么会是从“2026年11月15日”到“2026年11月25日”？
The contents of "Your Destiny" were extremely complex and detailed, filling two whole pages.

Upon closer inspection, Fu Tailan discovered that the contents of the paper were exactly the same as his experiences over the past ten days: bringing a false image to George Green, having his first "Amber Alert" intercepted by him, testing him with the train ticket, receiving the "Nest Domination Game Recruitment," and finding "KEY" in the apartment...

Up until his life-or-death struggle with Chester in the apartment, the disappearance of Fu Han, and the threats from Carter Morgan, every single detail was presented without the slightest error or distortion.

He's a little silly.

When did the nest become so generous and kind? The price he has to pay for his "destined fate" is actually history that has already happened?

The past is over, so isn't it the same as not paying a price?

Fu Tailan threw the letter aside, closed her eyes, and curled up her legs on the sofa.

Something's not right. The lair wouldn't have let him go so easily. There must be some kind of trap...

Calling it a trap might not be entirely accurate, but since the nest is called a "price," it must be a "price" that causes real pain and makes people repeatedly question whether they should have done it.

The past ten days have been used by the den as hospital bills...

The phone, which was on silent, started vibrating on the sofa. Fu Tailan opened her eyes and saw an unfamiliar caller ID on the screen.

...A nuisance call? This number shouldn't have been leaked.

The other person seemed very persistent, repeatedly tapping his phone screen.

"Hey?"

Fu Tailan surrendered. When he answered the phone, he heard his own voice, as if it too was disintegrating and drifting on the edge of the real world and illusion.

"Are you back?" a young male voice asked.

It sounds somewhat familiar, but I can't quite place it right now.

The person's vocal cords and tongue seemed very stiff, each word was stiff and rigid, carrying a strange feeling of being powerless.

Fu Tailan had never heard a dead person speak, but he felt that if a dead person could speak, it would be like this, with the words almost coming out of rigor mortis.

"...Who are you?" he asked.

Without saying a word, the other party hung up the call.

Did I really make a mistake?

Fu Tailan's body was light and perfect, but her spirit was at the other extreme. She couldn't muster the energy to go back and investigate. She collapsed onto the sofa, listening to the rustling plastic sheeting in front of the broken French windows. Her thoughts were like countless kaleidoscopes shattered.

The history that has already happened is being used as a price to pay...

Return ticket... vomit up the food you ate, then eat it all again...

Longzhen...decided not to become a hunter during college...

Surrounded by a group of people, Fu Han, despite tears streaming down his face, continued to strike repeatedly...

Blue, or red...?

"Are you back?" a man, whose name he couldn't recall, asked on the phone.

He paused, suddenly realizing that his last thought was not just a single thought.

Without realizing it, he absentmindedly picked up his phone again; on the screen, it was the same number calling, and the call was busy.

The man asked the same question again: "Are you back?"

"It's you again?" Fu Tailan repeatedly recalled his voice, as if raising a candle in the darkness of memory.

It seems—it seems to be—

"Wait, are you Joe—"

Before I could even finish saying "George Green," the other party abruptly hung up the phone.

It really was him, wasn't it?

Why would George Green call me? And why did he say something so nonsensical?

What? Did he come back? Could it be that he knows I just went to the lair?
Since the cell phone can be answered in the human world, it means he has returned, so why do we need to call again and again to confirm?

Fu Tailan was not surprised at all that her call was hung up on and she didn't call back a second time.

Strange……

He sat up from the sofa, curled up his legs, and stared at the few scattered pieces of paper on the table like an owl.

There was something... He could sense it, no, he almost knew it for sure, something that had been right under his nose, yet he and everyone else had ignored it...

Fu Tailan grabbed her phone.

The phone rang five or six times before it was finally answered, just when he thought the other party was probably not going to answer him.

“…Tai Lan,” Long Zhen said hesitantly, “What do you want to see me about?”

“The Morgan family has a decoy, and I need you to give it to me,” Fu Tailan said softly. “Or you can sell it to me; name your price.”

Longzhen chuckled. "I'm sorry, nothing, no matter what it is."

"Not even a deal? Morgan will sell anything as long as he has money, won't he? As the new head of the hunters, you should be able to make the decision to sell a fake image to an anonymous hunter who doesn't reveal his identity, right?"

Longzhen didn't seem surprised.

"To be honest, I don't understand why Carter went to such lengths. I'd also like to ask you what you did to offend him like this. But anyway, I couldn't disobey his direct orders. It's not because I have any personal grudge against you."

Fu Tailan remained silent for a few seconds.

...That was just a guess, but he decided to give it a try.

Just like pouring smoke into a hole to see if you can lure out your prey, smoke bombs are sometimes necessary.

"Really? Okay, let me change the subject. There's something I've always been curious about, Longzhen... Does Carter know that you've been tipping off the Kai family's Chai Si?"

(End of this chapter)