Artifact Report

Chapter 405 Fu Tai Lan's timely reminder

Carter Morgan blinked a few times and slowly woke up from his dream.

"……Well?"

Separated by a burly bodyguard captain, Fu Tailan didn't even glance at him, her ears perked up, not daring to miss the slightest sound.

Will he find out? Will he realize he's been dreaming all along?
"how……"

Carter raised his hand to rub his temples, then stopped mid-sentence. "I think I just dozed off for a few minutes?"

The bodyguard captain turned around. He wasn't wearing a sports watch and hadn't been constantly tracking Carter's status, so he could only reply, "Really?"

“Maybe he’s a little tired,” Carter said, pulling the brown leather bag full of trash even tighter into his arms.

He clearly sensed something was amiss, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. Carter thought for a moment, then suddenly turned his head and quickly glanced at Fu Tailan.

"He's always been pretty honest?" Carter asked.

Fu Tailan's heart tightened, but she remained motionless.

The bodyguard captain replied, "Yes."

Fu Tailan kept her hands hanging between her legs, with the dreamscape and handcuffs dangling below her seat. She looked straight ahead, only glancing at Carter's direction out of the corner of her eye.

...This is now the most risky part of the whole plan.

Before Carter fell into the dream, he had already met the dream's inhabitants—dreams could only create dreams, they couldn't change his memories from when he was awake.

He knew that Fu Tailan had come with a dream.

He also knew that there was no dream within the illusion of the target.

In other words, once Carter wakes up, if he starts to think deeply about why Fu Tailan brought the dream with him, or if he starts to recall the icons of the target illusions, he will find that not long ago, he mistook a "dream" that was clearly not a target illusion for a target illusion, and was even ecstatic about it.

Once Carter Morgan seizes on this weakness, he's no fool; he'll likely realize what's going on immediately.

No matter how vivid a dream is, it cannot erase the difference between it and reality.

Fu Tailan had been hiding the dream under the seat between her legs, hoping that Carter wouldn't remember it if he couldn't see it—of course, if she just hoped he wouldn't remember it, that would be almost the same as praying to the gods.

Even Fu Tailan had no good way to prevent the situation from getting worse; the only solution, which could hardly be called a solution, was to prevent him from having the opportunity to think too deeply about it.

Fortunately... fortunately, the wind and rain carrying the Nest Liquid had already washed away Blackmore City.

Indeed, only in the dim, chaotic ruins was the most suitable place for him.

“…Carter,” Fu Tailan began, her voice almost calm. “Did you do it?”

"What?" Carter was taken aback.

The bodyguard captain swallowed hard.

"Can't you tell?" Fu Tailan said softly, "Something's not right outside."

"What's wrong?" Carter turned his head and pressed his face against the window to look outside. "Isn't it just raining outside?"

“Mr. Morgan,” the head of the bodyguards finally spoke, “the situation is still unclear—”

“What’s going on?” Carter interrupted him impatiently. “Just say it.”

Fu Tailan smiled silently.

They had been driving for nearly ten minutes through the storm.

Starting a minute or two ago, the bodyguard captain's body began to tense up; the bodyguard sitting in front of him kept turning around and exchanging glances with him.

Although he's a terrible hunter who has to work as a bodyguard to survive, he's still a hunter... not so slow-witted as a piece of pork.

It was only when Fu Tailan noticed the growing suspicion and disbelief inside the car, which seemed to expand like a balloon, that she slowly ended Carter's dream.

Carter, who had just woken up, no longer had time to doubt him.

Although Carter himself was unaware of it.

“We suspect there’s something in this rain, Mr. Morgan. We’ve taken all the necessary precautions,” the head bodyguard said cautiously. “Whether the object in the rain is targeted at us is still difficult to determine at this point.”

Carter Morgan certainly believed that the world revolved around him.

"Is that even a question?" He was clearly displeased. "Don't you know what kind of hunter Fu Tailan is? Just hold him down! What's in the rain? I can't see it."

The bodyguard captain opened his mouth, but clearly couldn't bring himself to say "I don't know".

Fu Tailan chuckled in a muffled voice.

“Carter,” he whispered, “look ahead.”

Carter's suspicion was so intense it was almost visible to the naked eye. He clutched his handbag tightly and leaned forward.

The driver's head, like a black fog, hovered and shifted just inches away from him, yet he remained unaware.

Even though the driver's head is nowhere to be seen, his awareness of traffic rules is still there; at this moment, the SUV is stopped at the intersection, waiting for the red light ahead, which is blurred by the wind and rain, to pass.

"What am I supposed to see?" he said impatiently. "It's just a road on a rainy day, what's so special about it—"

Carter gritted his teeth, cutting off the second half of his sentence.

The car fell silent.

“That…that person is crossing the street?” Carter murmured.

“If you insist on saying that they were crossing the street, that’s fine too,” Fu Tailan laughed.

A hunched, short, and small shadow was inching forward. Immersed in the pitch-black wind and rain of midnight, the person's face was obscured. From the side, the person appeared to be crouched, on all fours. Just as he was about to touch the white zebra crossing, he seemed to suddenly leap up with joy, his hands flailing wildly in the night—then he would lower himself again, carefully avoiding the zebra crossing, jumping across and landing on the pavement between the zebra crossings.

"Captain," the bodyguard in the front seat swallowed hard. "Should we keep driving? If we do, we'll definitely cross the zebra crossing..."

“Keep going,” Carter interrupted him coldly. “I seem to know Fu Tailan better than you do what kind of hunter he is. He thinks he can force us to change course by having someone act strangely on the road? Isn’t that exactly what he wants?”

“But Mr. Morgan,” the bodyguard captain couldn’t help but say, “this couldn’t have been something he planned beforehand. After all, even we don’t know where we’re going.”

"Huh?" Carter was taken aback. "What—what do you mean?"

“Mr. Morgan, didn’t you give these instructions when you got in the car?” The captain glanced at him and said, “You were afraid that Mr. Fu might have some… ideas, so you told us to drive wherever we wanted, and to tell us our destination when the time was right.”

This was, of course, part of a dream fabricated by Fu Tailan—he didn't know where Fu Han was being held and couldn't give orders on behalf of Carter.

“Oh…yes, yes.” Carter frowned, a hint of surprise on his face. “I did say that…”

When a person tries to capture a dream that is gradually fading away, they will probably have the same expression on their face.

“That’s strange,” Carter said, a little uneasy. “How come I…”

The events of just ten minutes ago, when recalled, were like something submerged in water, hazy and indistinct, making anyone uneasy—Fu Tailan couldn't let him think any deeper.

“Besides, even if I could find someone to cross the street, could I replace all the traffic lights in Blackmore City?” He sighed. “I haven’t even met my dad yet. What’s the point of me doing all this?”

"Wait, what's wrong with the traffic light?" The bodyguard captain immediately tensed up and leaned forward as well.

A bright red smiley face is waving brightly in the red light. Hurry up, just cross the red light and we'll all be red together! Let's blend into a red world together!

"What's going on?" The bodyguard captain slumped back in his chair. "A nest? Impossible—"

"Turn around now! Don't go any further!" Carter finally realized something was wrong. Snapping out of his daze at the red light, he suddenly yelled, "Turn around! Turn around! Head towards 99th Street first, hurry!"

Upon hearing this, the driver turned the steering wheel.

It's amazing how he managed to replace the head with the one from the Black Abyss.

Its head turned into a cloud of black mist, which could not only drive but also speak, though its voice was a bit high-pitched: "Where to next?"

"Go ahead and start yours, I'll tell you later!"

Carter seems to be the type who takes out his stress on those around him. "Now that you've revealed the destination, aren't you afraid Fu Tai Lan might make a move? Aren't you stupid?"

He himself actively connected with the logic in the dream.

The driver remained calm and showed no sign of anger, continuing to drive.

A few minutes later, only Fu Tailan in the entire SUV saw it: from the depths of the half-cloud of black mist above the driver's seat, where his head should have been, a hand slowly emerged.

The hand was small and pale, there was only one, but it had at least twenty or thirty fingers.

Twenty or thirty closely spaced fingers gently parted the black mist.

Something seemed to flash from the depths of the black mist—it looked like an eye, but Fu Tailan couldn't quite put his finger on it.

...Isn't that interesting?
He felt like he was playing a thriller game, and he was almost completely engrossed in it because he never knew what twist the plot would take next—if he weren't still thinking about Fu Han, he would really want to go all out and play it.

“A car is following us,” the driver warned in a high-pitched voice.

As soon as he finished speaking, Fu Tailan and the other four people in the car turned their heads together.

Apart from a second SUV that also belonged to Caterpillar, they saw nothing else.

“Are you stupid?” Carter yelled. “That’s our car.”

“No,” the driver said, then paused. “Wait a little longer, and you’ll see.”

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Carter was already restless, overwhelmed by the layers of suspicion. "This is all—"

Just then, Carter's phone rang, startling him so much that he almost bumped into the car door.

That's strange, who would call him?
"Excuse me," Fu Tailan gestured to the bodyguard captain, "could you get my phone out for me? You can't not even let me answer the phone. I'll easily lose all my friends if that happens."

Carter was already on edge, about to shake his head, but suddenly changed his mind. "Give him the phone and put it on speakerphone. I want to hear what's going on."

That's even better; answering the phone means his attention won't be on his dreams.

The bodyguard captain pulled out the constantly ringing cell phone from Fu Tailan's back pocket and showed him the screen.

The caller was "Longzhen".

Fu Tailan clicked her tongue lightly.

"Hey?"

As soon as the bodyguard captain pressed the speakerphone button, Long Zhen's slightly anxious voice immediately echoed in the car. "Fu Tai Lan, where are you? Never mind, wherever you are, listen carefully. I really shouldn't have reminded you, but—never mind, that's not important. In short, you know what you've done. You know what the consequences will be. Now—"

She took a deep breath.

"Now, Chai Si is coming to find you."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds.

The bodyguard captain hung up the phone, and Carter muttered, "Chai Si? That Chai Si from the Kai family? What did you do?"

At that moment, the driver, shrouded in black mist, spoke up: "That car is here."

The next second, a car suddenly rushed out from the rain on the side road and drove straight towards the SUV—the headlights instantly turned the Caterpillar side into a blinding white.

(End of this chapter)