Artifact Report

Chapter 321 Fu Tailan: The Little Girl He Was Jealous Of

The color of the morning sky is a pale, tired blue, like the eyes after a sleepless night.

When Fu Tailan, with the face of a middle-aged woman, walked out of the main building of the manor and into the dawn, the entire Wei family manor was plunged into confusion and chaos.

The vanished side building and the people inside resembled severed nerve endings; the commands for action could no longer be transmitted or completed.

On top of that, when Vesile's death was discovered, it was as if the brain's central nervous system had been struck again—Zhuang Yuan lay prostrate behind Fu Tai Lan, trembling and struggling, groaning as she tried to save herself, with no time to care about anything else, let alone the supervisors coming and going.

He placed the unconscious Evan and an unconscious maid together in the storeroom; and left the door to Vessil's study wide open behind him.

Deep inside the room, Vesille restored himself to the way Brianna had placed him, lying on the table as if he had never been touched.

Fu Tailan turned around and went to the staff parking lot. She pressed the maid's car key, followed the car's beeping sound, and found the old Toyota.

He opened the car door, got in, and waited quietly for a while.

The most important history has been firmly fixed, leaving no room for change. All he has to do now is clean up the mess, repeat the history that most needs to be changed, and lay the groundwork for his past self.

Around seven o'clock, Ivan, who had been placed in another room, woke up and took advantage of the chaos to escape the manor.

Fu Tailan watched his car drive away, and after a few more minutes, she started her car. The staff parking lot was hidden behind the manor, and you had to go around half a circle and pass through the main building complex before you could continue out.

As they passed the original location of the side building of the security center, Fu Tailan was startled. Her hands slipped on the steering wheel, and she almost crashed into a tree trunk.

He quickly stopped the car, and even though he knew the window would be narrow when he tried to escape the manor in the chaos, he still stared blankly for a while.

……what happened?

Evan said that the entire building housing the security center had disappeared, and he naturally assumed that after the building disappeared, there would only be an empty space left—anyone would think that, wouldn't they? Evan also seemed to say, "It's just empty now, isn't it?"
...What is that huge, thick, black mass that has replaced the side building and is suspended in place?
It's called fog, yet it doesn't dissipate; it's called a black hole, yet the sky is so blue that you can see fallen leaves passing through it, swaying gently as they land on the ground.

The strangest thing is that this scene should have attracted a lot of attention, but there was only one person nearby—Brianana.

Brianna stared blankly at the large mass of darkness, motionless.

Fu Tai Lan risked waiting a little longer and noticed that employees or security guards would come to see her from time to time, but they all ignored the large patch of darkness. Occasionally, when someone stopped and turned their gaze to the open space, the exclamations that drifted in through the half-open car window never mentioned the darkness.

"...Such a big building...could it have been demolished overnight...?"

"Where are the people inside...?"

"empty……"

A patch of darkness, visible only to himself and Brianna, completely replaced the entire side building, standing at least three stories high, floating beneath the bluish-gray sky. It wasn't until quite some time after Fu Tai Lan drove away that it finally disappeared from the rearview mirror, vanishing behind the trees.

...Briana might still be standing there, staring blankly at it.

He parked his car on the public road outside the first gate of the manor and switched back to the Mercedes he had rented.

On the way back to Blackmore City, Fu Tailan was no longer accompanied by Xiao Yan; as he drove on the highway, the closer he got to Blackmore City, the more it felt like he was emerging from a dream into the human world.

Reality, like cement, gradually solidifies.

Fu Han was still waiting for him to rescue him. From the age of twelve, it seemed that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, he didn't know its meaning; it was all just something he had to do.

There's nothing I do because I like it.

Now, Fu Tailan no longer knows what she likes.

When he returned to Blackmore City, it was not yet 10 a.m. He was exhausted, but he still had to go back to the Morgan family first to put the three borrowed artifacts back in their original positions—after all, there had been no internal theft at the Morgan family on the 16th, and he, as the hunter supervisor, would have to continue his duties for a few more days.

Next, Fu Tai Lan checked into a hotel room, ate some room service lunch haphazardly, and then collapsed onto the bed, sleeping soundly until the early hours of the 17th.

When he woke up, news of Vesilé's death was already everywhere.

In news interviews, there was a brief scene of his wife waving away the microphone from reporters; there were photos of the estate; and there were also excuses from the police that they could not provide more information. But—perhaps naturally—no media outlets mentioned "Secretary Green," nor were there any public reports about the missing side building.

What exactly was that black mass...?

Forget it. Without information, he can't figure out the answer; no matter how smart he is, it's useless.

Fu Tailan turned off the TV, called several hunters skilled in gathering information, offered prices for intelligence on Havel, and then waited.

Waiting for intelligence, waiting for the appointed time, waiting for the days to turn.

He could no longer take the Nest Train back to the 26th; he could only hide in the "17th," which is both the present and the past, waiting for time to move forward little by little until it sent him back to 3 p.m. on the 26th.

No wonder that doctor at the Nest Hospital said that buying a return ticket is like "spitting out the food you've eaten and then eating it all over again."

People don't need a return ticket; as time passes naturally, they will naturally return to the future. But if there really were a return ticket, wouldn't Fu Tailan returning to the 26th be returning to a "future" that is "past" to him?

What would it be like if the hunter, who was only half a hunter, could go back to that "past/future"? Would he still be only half a hunter, or would he be restored to his original state?
Well, that person is destined to become a resident anyway, so there's no point in making assumptions.

After placing the "KEY" on the coffee table in his apartment, Fu Tailan had nothing to do for the next few days, so much so that he was almost bored, just counting down the days. On the evening of the 17th, he learned that in an apartment in Blackmore City, an old lady named Mai Minghe had fallen into a den for the first time in her life.

For her, it was just the beginning. Because of her, Jonah would eventually survive; however, his courage to continue as a hunter would be utterly shattered.

Fu Tailan suppressed the urge to go find Mai Minghe to play with back then—that would be too reckless.

The only thing he did in the past few days was to go to the hospital after he got the information about Havel, and buy his daughter a toy teddy bear on the way; but when he got to the hospital, he found that the child had just passed away.

No one told him the inside story, but he found out before he even reached the ward.

No one can fail to sense it; death cannot be mistaken.

He sat in another corridor outside the ward, looking at the closed door and hearing faint, mournful cries coming from inside.

After a while, Havel came out.

He placed his hands on his wife's shoulders, practically dragging her out of the room; even though she should have known all along that her daughter's chances of survival were slim, the mother still seemed unable to accept it, calling out her daughter's name again and again, clutching a small jacket tightly to her chest, as if as long as she didn't let go, her daughter would still be there.

Fu Tailan, clutching her teddy bear, stared blankly as the heartbroken couple, accompanied by doctors and nurses, stumbled past her and disappeared down the corridor.

He sat there without hiding or concealing himself, but Javier couldn't see him at all.

After a while, Fu Tailan wiped her face and found that her fingers were wet with cool tears.

...The little girl died of her own illness without his intervention; perhaps it was a mercy left to him by heaven.

Perhaps the world doesn't want to push him into a place of no return.

It was already too late.

He gave Havel some time to process his pain, and recalling the timeline of his actions, he chose a time when he was still in the lair before visiting Havel—that is, 1 a.m. on the 20th.

At that time, he seemed to still be trapped in the Nest Apartment, his jawbone was fractured by resident Mai Minghe, and there was a large hematoma; while on the 26th, Fu Tai Lan's jawbone had been treated and was smooth and intact by the Nest Hospital.

No wonder he believed Chai Si when Chai Si approached him, after Chai Si only mentioned that he was in the lair on the 20th. Now another piece has been added to the puzzle.

"I don't care how much money you give me,"

Havel was easier to deal with than he had imagined; there was no need to persuade him at all.

"As long as it covers my costs, that's fine. I can't wait for you to take it away from me."

How many uses are left?

Javier, his eyes red and heavy from the alcohol, slightly opened them. A flicker of hunter's instinct seemed to be trying to enter his mind; but soon, his body slumped heavily onto the air mattress, and that instinct vanished without a trace.

"What? You knew it was used on a per-use basis. No wonder they called you a genius."

His speech is still quite clear.

"It can be transferred three times. The first time we went to test it, we were interrupted before we could succeed. After that... I just left it there and never touched it again."

Fu Tailan quoted a price; the number was so large that even Havel opened his eyes, turned his head, and stared at him blankly for a while.

He didn't know how much money could be used to soothe or alleviate the grief of losing a daughter.

If he were to die, he knew that this price would be enough to make Fu Han sit up in a flash and quickly regain his spirits; so he quoted the same figure to Havel.

His wife, that mother, probably wouldn't have thought, "It's not all bad that my daughter died."

Fu Tailan was almost jealous of that little girl.

"Why so much?" Javier asked before nodding. "Do you want me to keep this a secret?"

"……Do not."

Fu Tailan knew very well why he was able to successfully approach Javier and obtain the illusion of the transfer path before Brianna could.

Vesile did not trust Brianna; he contacted Havel privately using an alias, without going through Brianna.

After Wei Xilai's body was discovered, she could no longer use the methods Fu Tailan had employed to obtain information from his computer. So, what was rightfully hers was given to Fu Tailan first because of Wei Xilai—but she would find her way here sooner or later.

"If anyone comes looking for you, you can simply say that the deception is in my hands, it doesn't matter."

As Fu Tailan left, she glanced back.

Javier lay on the air mattress with his back to him; normally, hunters would be careful not to be double-crossed after receiving money, but he had forgotten all such considerations at this moment.

"...Go home,"

Fu Tailan remembered the woman crying in the hospital corridor and whispered to him.

Havel seemed to be drunk and asleep, and did not hear.

(End of this chapter)