Artifact Report

Chapter 318 Brianna: So Poisonous, So Hateful, So Ruthless, So Painful, So Exhilarating

Both of them were startled at the same time, but Brianna reacted first—it was the communication system between the safe room and the outside world.

Communication alarm systems are different from regular apartment doorbells; they sound extremely aggressive. After all, in an emergency, missing any communication between people inside and outside could have irreversible consequences.

When the communication system went off, it was like an ambulance had driven in, its siren blaring one after another, sharp and tight, piercing straight to the head, as if determined not to leave anyone any time to catch their breath.

The call coming from outside right now must be from Vesile's bodyguards who were left outside—wait—

Brianna suddenly understood why she had survived tonight.

Her attention was only diverted for a moment. When she turned her head again, Fu Tai Lan had already stood up and even seemed to have quietly taken a step closer.

...Is this person a ghost? Even residents or cats wouldn't move so lightly and quietly.

Fu Tailan, holding the "compression gun" with both hands, once again aimed it at Brianna's face.

Even though she hadn't entered his attack range, she couldn't help but take two steps back, bumping into the desk at the other end of the room.

书桌
There was a row of books, the Fly King Waterhill, the wasteland, but I couldn't see any more, and there wasn't enough time.

"I see,"

She withdrew her fleeting gaze, a thought flashing through her subconscious. Amidst the crackling of the communication devices, she raised her voice and said, "I know why you had to spare my life!"

Fu Tailan blinked but didn't say anything.

After the communication alarm sounded more than a dozen times, it finally went silent, leaving the air in the room still buzzing and vibrating.

"what is the reason?"

Brianna gestured towards the lobby outside. "The person who rang the bell just now must have been one of Dad's bodyguards who stayed outside. Only security personnel with certain permissions can call the security room."

"So?" Fu Tailan raised her eyebrows.

“You probably understand by now,” Brianna said. “Even when he went into the safe room with his daughter and ‘Vulture,’ he hesitated and made thorough preparations. How could he not have told his bodyguards to stay outside and wait for orders?”

"You're not suggesting that if I kill you, I'll run into a bunch of bodyguards when I go outside, are you?"

Brianna smiled. "I'm not that stupid."

After Fu Tailan killed her, he could have used that fake identity to impersonate Wei Xilai and swagger out from the group of bodyguards.

As for why three people went in but only he came out—would Fu Tailan be troubled by lying?
"I think your original plan was to use Vesilé's identity to leave the safe room, and even the manor, right?"

Fu Tailan remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement.

“But there is one piece of information that I know, but you don’t,” Brianna said almost gently. “It is this one piece of information that determines that your original plan will not work. You will need my help to leave the manor tonight.”

"Oh?" Fu Tailan tilted her head. "What intelligence?"

“My dad took me down here to see the safety room once before.”

His motives were so narrow and sinister that Brianna was unwilling to reveal them—after all, her father had repented and apologized, hadn't he? She only needed to retain the memory of his apology.

"He told me that when he was inside the safe room, the safe room would be sealed off and would no longer be allowed to be opened by external verification."

"So what? It just means people outside can't get in, but people inside can still get out—"

Fu Tailan stopped speaking halfway through her sentence when her expression suddenly changed.

Brianna smiled slightly.

"You've thought of that?" she whispered. "If you kill me, leave my father and me lying dead here, and then you leave... then no one will be able to open the door to the safe room and come in."

Fu Tailan lowered her head and let out a long breath.

The "compression gun" slowly sank a few inches, as if it was still unwilling to give up and refused to drop completely.

“If no one can open the door, no one will find his body,” the boy whispered. “If the body isn’t found… history will be changed.”

“You understand now,” Brianna smiled.

Fu Tailan couldn't possibly leave the room and then open the door wide for anyone to discover—the security room didn't allow that; besides, he wouldn't pass the security check anyway.

“The irony of letting you return from the 26th but forbidding you from changing history is truly unique to the Nest.” Brianna gradually regained control of the situation and became more confident: “I guess if you try to change history, not only will history not be changed, but you will probably suffer severe punishment.”

Fu Tailan rubbed her hair vigorously a few times, looking annoyed.

It's strange that he believed her without even asking her for evidence—could it be that people who are good at lying also know very well what the truth is?

"so what?"

He was still just a young man, and it was clear that his patience was wearing thin: "Just tell me, what are you planning to do?"

When was Vesilé's death discovered?

“I didn’t pay close attention to the news at the time, so there are many details I don’t know. But the body was discovered early on the morning of the 16th, and it’s almost time for him to be found now,” Fu Tailan said with a long face.

Brianna smiled.

"Then your options are even fewer. You have no choice but to cooperate with me and move his body out now—where was he found?"

“…The study.” Fu Tailan seemed a little absent-minded.

He was probably considering the possibility of killing Brianna and moving Vesilé out by himself.

Brianna didn't even need to persuade him verbally. He thought for a while, then slumped his shoulders, seemingly giving up on the idea—even if the bodyguards outside the security room could temporarily leave, then what?
After encountering Wei Xilai, Fu Tailan could only appear in her true form. Could she possibly drag Wei Xilai's corpse alone through a huge manor in unfamiliar territory, passing through checkpoints guarded by bodyguards, and searching for the study like a headless fly?

The existence of "Secretary Green" is key to ensuring that history unfolds as usual.

"After all, it's just a corpse... Do you know how to get to the study discreetly?" Fu Tailan asked.

“Of course,” Brianna said. “Not to mention Green, I lived here for a while when I was still Brianna.”

"Then, what about target artifacts?"

Brianna shrugged. "Consider the key you took a souvenir of tonight. Keep it for me for a few days. We'll compete for it again later."

Fu Tailan's face was dark and she remained motionless, which seemed to be her approval.

"However, I have one condition for cooperation."

The moment she lowered her eyes, Fu Tailan understood—she didn't even need to finish her sentence.

“Understood,” he said, waving the compression gun in his hand. “I’ll leave it in the safe room before I leave.”

“Fine, let it sink here forever, never to see the world again,” Brianna said insincerely. She wouldn’t give up the illusion and the safe room.

After Vesilé's death was discovered, she had to speed things up and get a real vulture into the manor—didn't Fu Tailan say that a vulture would be able to enter the human world within the next few days?—Let it stick to the corpse, transform into Vesilé's appearance, and enter the safe room again.

Of course, Fu Tailan didn't need to know about these plans.

She watched as the boy produced the illusion, and soon, her father was reborn once again, standing before Brianna.

...I'll have to get used to it, since I'll have to see the vulture turn into my dad again next time.

She instructed Fu Tailan on how to give the orders, then had him open the communication system and, using an excuse, dismissed Dylan outside the safe room. They each took one side of the body, supporting each other as they carried Vesilé's corpse in the middle, finally leaving the safe room.

Before encountering guards, Brianna would temporarily put down the body and go ahead alone to distract the guards; fortunately, there were no survivors left in the security center, so they were able to carry the body through the corridors under the cameras and back to Vesilé's study.

Wearing her pajamas, Vesile was gently helped into a chair by her daughter.

She placed her father's arms on the desk, making him lean forward as if he had fallen asleep from exhaustion while working.

"What about the time of death, sister?"

Fu Tailan stood far away at the door of the study and spoke softly.

"Leave it to me."

"Then, I'll leave the cleanup to you."

After a pause, Fu Tailan, for some reason, said softly, "...I'm sorry."

This apology, which came out of nowhere, only made Brianna wary.

Fu Tailan was also worried that Brianna would harm him, so he stayed close to Brianna, not giving her a chance to call for help. On the way here, whenever Brianna needed to send someone away, he lingered nearby like a shadow, making sure she didn't say anything she shouldn't.

To ensure his safe exit, Fu Tailan assumed Wei Xilai's identity before laying him down on the desk.

...But so what?
Brianna didn't care whether history was predetermined or not, nor did she care whether Fu Tailan would be in trouble if he didn't get the key—she absolutely did not want him to leave the manor with the key.

How can you rely on something that will be exposed at the slightest touch?
As long as Dylan and his men bring enough men to completely block off the roads leading out of the manor, and prevent anyone from doing so—

Brianna's consciousness blinked.

It wasn't that Green's eyes blinked; rather, the flow of his mind and consciousness suddenly stopped for a moment.

She didn't even realize that her consciousness had gone dark for a moment and then immediately brightened again—just like when a person blinks, it's hard to notice the darkness in their vision.

She grasped the essence of that fleeting moment logically during her subsequent reflection and analysis.

As her consciousness blinked, Brianna was turning around; she was about to turn from beside her father's body toward the doorway, facing Fu Tailan.

During this process, her consciousness went black for a moment, but she was completely unaware of it—she only knew that when her gaze fell on the doorway, Fu Tailan was gone.

"……what?"

Wasn't that guy just talking about cleaning up the mess? How did he disappear in the blink of an eye?
Brianna heard a very low, soft voice in the corridor, barely audible, muttering a single word before falling silent.

"...I heard...the words..."

what?
Brianna took a few quick steps toward the door, but stopped abruptly just as she was about to leave.

That child was cunning as a devil. Could it be that he was hiding some kind of facade that he hadn't revealed yet? Now he suddenly disappeared and was whispering in the corridor, just to trick her into going out.

That's why he suddenly apologized just now?
Even without going out, he could still order the guards to set up a tight net—in fact, this move had absolutely no impact on his plans.

She gazed at the doorway and retreated step by step back into the study. But the study was completely calm, and she couldn't discern what kind of trap Fu Tai Lan had prepared.

Brianna only started to feel a little strange after she had finished giving all the instructions and hung up the phone.

I feel like... I feel like something's missing?
Is it an illusion?

Brianna stood there in a daze. After a while, she suddenly raised her hand, touched her cheek, and waited for a few minutes.

I never got to see that lump that my tongue was sticking out of.

"Rumors?" she murmured, her heart sinking. "...Rumors? Are you there?"

There was no response in the silent study. The "rumor" had vanished.

The "rumor" disappeared from her mouth.

Why, why, why did this happen? It was clearly a handover that needed to be completed through dialogue. How was the rumor taken? It must be Fu Tai Lan, but how did he—

Brianna's mind suddenly lit up, as if an electrical circuit had been switched on and sparks were flying.

She slowly turned her gaze to her father's corpse on the desk.

She slowly turned her gaze toward the study doorway.

Fu Tailan was no longer in the corridor.

Brianna covered her mouth and forced back a long horn-like sound that was both a sob and a roar.

He could speak through someone else's mouth; he made me speak. The reason he knew how to complete the conversation was naturally because he had already heard the conversation once and participated in that conversation, which is why Dad forgot the handover command—

It turned out that the one speaking was not Dad.

He pretended that Vesilé was still alive and had a breath left.

He said, "I'm sorry"; he said, "I hope you win, I hope you're happy"; he said, "Take the rumors away."

He tricked her out of the password to hand over the message, and then took the message from her mouth; he deceived Brianna into believing that Vesilé had repented for her before his death.

So poisonous, so poisonous, so hateful, so cruel, so painful, so exhilarating!

...He truly is the only person in the world who has ever understood me, and knows where to start.

She vaguely remembered the desk in the safe room.

A large hall with three rooms.

One master bedroom is naturally prepared for Vesile and Jacqueline; what about the other two?
The books on the desk were all children's books...

He had the tumor removed and now has a new home.

Vesilé never apologized to her until his death.

(End of this chapter)