Artifact Report

Chapter 361 Fu Tai Lan: The Ultimate Deception
My name is Fu Tailan, and I am seventeen years old.

I am an illusion hunter, and I have been entering and leaving the lair for more than five years.

The reason I started venturing into the lair at the age of twelve is because I grew up without a father and lived with my mother in Blackmore City. My mother worked two jobs at the same time, but it was barely enough for us to make ends meet, and I didn't want to see her suffer like that.

When I was a child, I would open and close the door repeatedly. After opening it three times, the area behind my bedroom door turned into a road.

"Mom?" I called out. "Mom, there are people here."

The mother rushed over and, upon seeing the road that had replaced the bedroom, and a person in a yellow raincoat standing quietly across the road, she couldn't help but let out a scream.

I remember she was so scared she almost cried, and I got scared too; my mother grabbed me and slammed the door shut.

She forced me to swear never to open or close the door again, and strictly forbade me from ever stepping behind an open door—even after I later found out about the "image hunter" profession and told her about the potential profits from selling images, she still refused to budge.

So I had no choice but to sneak into the lair and become a deception hunter without her knowledge.

Is this okay?
Fu Tailan opened his eyes and waited a few minutes. As he began to disperse and melt, he rechecked his memories and body. Once he stabilized again, he couldn't help but sigh.

Can not be done.

He still remembers Fu Han, and he also remembers that he has no mother.

He also remembered that it was after he took a fragment from Han Liuyue that he decided to use himself for an experiment.

If I fabricate a memory about my mother, keeping only the "mother" and letting go of all the fragments about "Fu Han," then my memory should change accordingly, right? I should think that I never knew Fu Han at all, right?

Doesn't this mean adding to or editing your own memories?

In theory, this is entirely feasible; however, in practice, an unavoidable difficulty arises—the more he reminds himself not to think about Fu Han, the more he can't help but think about Fu Han.

Even in a narrative of "mother and son depending on each other for survival," the phrase "I've never had a father since I was little" will involuntarily remind Fu Tailan of everything about Fu Han—this is understandable, after all, Fu Han was a real person.

He lived with Fu Tai Lan for seventeen years, experiencing tears, fights, making amends, and tenderness; Fu Tai Lan's memories of him are rich and profound, far exceeding what the single word "mother" can describe.

Well, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Fu Tailan wasn't too disappointed.

Because his real purpose was not to forget the existence of Fu Han—if he could really forget, it would be icing on the cake and an unexpected bonus.

Fu Tailan has other plans.

...If it's true that it's difficult for a person to deliberately forget something, then can I simply "add" awareness to it?
I am Fu Tailan, and I am an illusion hunter.

I am also a vulture.

Because of the "nest domination game," vultures can not only enter the human world, but also begin to have intelligence and self-awareness. Therefore, I know clearly that I am a vulture and I have all the characteristics of a vulture.

However, I am still Fu Tai Lan myself.

That's easy to understand, isn't it?

A person can be a boss and a subordinate; a criminal and a married husband; in today's society, it is very common for a person to have multiple identities at the same time. Even from the most everyday perspective, can you guarantee that you are the same person online and offline, and in front of different people?

Humans are complex and multifaceted, and my Fu Tailan is just one aspect of being a "vulture".

No, that's not right. You might say that these species cannot coexist, just like a creature cannot be both a dog and a fish. That argument is unconvincing.

Besides, I clearly remember that I was conducting an experiment, trying to add the memory of "I am a vulture" to my mind—how do you explain that?
How could I be both Fu Tai Lan herself and know that I was originally a vulture?

These two things are clearly irreconcilable and contradictory.

Here's the thing:

After becoming Fu Tai Lan, I always believed that I was the real Fu Tai Lan and always acted as Fu Tai Lan until I entered this darkness—is it called the Black Abyss Belt?
After I discovered that I could constantly dissipate and also take away fragments of other people's memories, I had an idea.

Can I give myself one less piece, or can I give myself one more piece?

So I'm going to do an experiment on myself and add a "resident identity" to myself—in other words, I'm going to permanently implant a new memory into my self-awareness of "Fu Tai Lan": Fu Tai Lan is a resident.

As for why it had to be a vulture...

Perhaps it was because I had just heard the sound of vultures, or perhaps it was because vultures could easily move between the human world and their nests; or perhaps it was my deep-seated instinct as a vulture that led me to make this decision.

The vulture must rationalize and smooth out its contradictory memories of the original owner in order to fully believe that it is the real owner; this "experiment" itself is my effort to rationalize it.

Simply put, I am a vulture; but the reason I believe I am a vulture is because I conducted a cognitive experiment that made me believe I am a vulture—in this way, the fact that I am both a vulture and a vulture is successfully rationalized.

You can think of me as Fu Tai Lan with increased vulture consciousness, or you can think of me as a vulture that has become Fu Tai Lan.

As long as one of the claims cannot be disproven, I am simultaneously both Fu Tailan and Vulture, aren't I?

Just like the famous Schrödinger's cat, "falsification" is like lifting the lid; if it cannot be falsified, the lid can never be lifted, and the cat will forever remain in a superposition of dead and alive. Everything has been explained to a large extent, but there is one last step, which is the key to ensuring the success of "Schrödinger's cat."

The thought, "I'm lying to myself, I'm not a vulture," is unavoidable.

Therefore, the fragments it formed gradually drifted away into the darkness, dissolved, and were never caught by Fu Tailan again.

He didn't need to deliberately forget it; the more he tried, the more he couldn't forget it. While he was busy constructing a perfect logic of "being both Fu Tailan and a vulture," he naturally didn't have time to think that "this is tantamount to deceiving himself"—until that fragment completely disappeared.

The experiment has now concluded.

Fu Tailan opened her eyes again.

He turned and looked around, trying to sense which direction the darkness was "thinner" in the vast, rolling darkness—he remembered that Chai Si had walked through a relatively thin darkness before he accidentally came across that small restaurant.

Of course, even if it is relatively thin, it doesn't seem to allow people to directly step back into the human world.

If the human world is no good, what about the nest?

Will his pathway be effective here?
Fu Tailan didn't know how long he had been walking in the darkness; he only knew that after repeatedly confirming his self-awareness, "I am Fu Tailan, and I am also a vulture," dozens of times in his mind, he finally saw a small, blurry, fragmented corner of the human world.

There are countless doors in the world; he was quite lucky, for even in this fragmented corner of the world, like a broken photograph, there was indeed a door.

Fu Tailan took a deep breath.

If Chai Si could reach out from the darkness and stop a coffee cup from falling in the restaurant... wouldn't that mean he could also reach out and grab the doorknob?
Fu Tailan wasn't even sure if she had actually touched the doorknob.

His hand seemed to reach out very far, but the doorknob was even further away; he could only squint and vaguely see that his hand was blocking the doorknob before he quickly closed his hand, turned it, and pulled it back.

Wait, I've done that before.

When I was unconscious in the hospital, my consciousness was also hazy, floating in darkness. I seemed to reach out a long hand and open a door to a place I didn't know where I was...

But now was not the time to think about that; he had to open and close the door three times in a row before the "shattered photos" disappeared—

When the door was opened for the third time, the door to the human world in the Black Abyss led to an empty road in the lair.

Fu Tailan didn't know if he needed to step into the human world before entering the nest; all he could do was aim carefully and leap towards the nest behind the door.

He stepped onto a solid, cool surface; perhaps because he had just been expelled from the Black Abyss, Fu Tai Lan was still somewhat unsteady on his feet and almost stumbled and fell onto the road—he managed to regain his balance in time, staggered a few steps, and then stood up again.

"I'm out!" Fu Tailan was filled with astonishment. "I'm really out?"

He looked back and saw only a vast, familiar nest with towering buildings and no sign of human life. His gaze swept around and landed on the sidewalk. A shadowy figure was startled and immediately shrank back into a shop on the side of the road. A naked back, which had been hidden in the shadow and kneeling on the ground, was suddenly exposed, like a reef after the tide has receded.

Fu Tailan breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm back."

Since becoming Fu Tai Lan, he hadn't returned to his lair. Returning for the first time felt quite familiar.

He thought for a moment, then stepped toward the naked back of the person who was kneeling on the ground with their legs curled up, head hidden in their arms.

"Hey," Fu Tailan called out. "You are... what are you?"

“I am your death sentence,” the voice behind him said.

What's wrong? Are you angry? This resident has a really bad temper.

"I want to ask you for directions."

"Oh, oh, oh, you should have said so earlier! So you wanted to ask for directions. I can only tell you one way, and that's your dead end. Come on, let me give you a good hug. I haven't encountered a hunter in so long—"

The head, with its bare back raised halfway, suddenly stopped, frozen in place, along with the sound. Thick hair, like some kind of slippery liquid, dripped down from both sides of the head, obscuring its face.

"……Um?"

"You found out?" Fu Tailan asked.

"Huh? Really?"

Its bare back seemed to be processing a perplexing thought, suggesting it wasn't very bright. "Wait, wait...no, that's not right...you, you're not human? You're a resident? Really a resident? Something feels...off..."

Fu Tailan smiled slightly. "Your senses aren't too slow, are they?"

His bare back remained silent for a while.

"So that's it, you're a vulture. No wonder I mistook you for one."

It sighed, seemingly a little envious: "Not bad, you've successfully transformed into a human. Look at me, I haven't seen a single living person lately..."

(End of this chapter)