Chapter 203: Chapter 167: Fu Tailan: The Real Key and Father-Son Warmth
A faint, blurry red light pulsed across the ceiling, like blood thinned with water.
His consciousness was dissolving into a black fog, threatening to obscure his vision. Fu Tailan blinked slowly, twice, before his mind could finally connect the sight with its meaning.
’That’s... the light from a fire truck.’
He opened his eyes and forced them to stay open this time. The longer he listened, the more ominous the sounds from outside seemed... ’It can’t be, can it?’
"You can let go now!" a muffled voice shouted from outside.
’Who are they telling to let go? Let go of what?’
Fu Tailan dragged what felt like a stranger’s body to the window and looked down.
...’Should I call this predictable, yet surprising? Is Chaisi’s luck really that good?’
’Or maybe I should just say that fate is a truly strange and ironic thing?’
In Fu Tailan’s hazy consciousness, the next thought was doubly absurd:
’If I hadn’t just tried to kill Chaisi with that thin black object, I wouldn’t have been able to save his life.’
It was precisely because Fu Tailan had stood by the window moments before, looking trapped and unstable while shouting for help, that a passerby below had called the fire department. That was why the firefighters had set up a large, square air cushion on the ground.
It seemed that even though his mind was muddled, Chaisi had still managed to grab an outward-opening window on the seventh floor as he fell—he had tumbled out of the floor-to-ceiling window, not jumped from the roof, so the neighbor’s window below was just within his arm’s reach.
Just as Fu Tailan peered down, he saw Chaisi let go. He fell straight down, landing with a THUD in the air cushion, which buckled and shuddered from the impact.
The crowd of onlookers seemed to cheer, though someone also seemed to be saying, "Why... a goat’s head..."
Fu Tailan wanted to let out a long sigh, but it was too much effort. Before the onlookers below could spot him, he slowly shrank back into the living room and collapsed onto his back amidst the wreckage on the floor.
He no longer had the energy for regret. He could only lie there, numb, feeling his body heat being carried away by the steadily flowing blood. With every inch the warmth receded, another inch of him turned to ice.
’Chaisi has probably never suffered a loss this huge before.’
A hazy smile crept onto Fu Tailan’s face.
’He failed to kill his target, got himself poisoned, and fell off a building. Even if he recovers, he’ll have to deal with a series of hassles like police questioning.’
’And as for the most critical key, Chaisi didn’t even come close to finding it.’
’It wasn’t the key engraved with "7704 days," nor the one with "7703 days." And it certainly wasn’t in my backpack.’
’The real target key has been in this apartment from the start. It’s the one and only Illusion that Huangli Roslin detected.’
’It was sitting in plain sight, in a spot Chaisi’s eyes must have swept over countless times.’
The Fuhan Noodles slowly crawled over to him. It stretched out a neck to peer at him, as if observing his injuries and calculating his odds of survival.
’I’ll forgive you, seeing as you saved my life...’ Fu Tailan thought hazily.
This product of his hallucinations, which looked just like Fu Han, had his personality too. Realizing it couldn’t escape Chaisi, it had immediately wanted to surrender and obediently hand over the key. When Fu Tailan refused to give it up, it even tried to take matters into its own hands.
’That’s why it kept hopping, trying to climb the kitchen wall...’
’Because the key is on the wall.’
Fu Tailan blinked slowly in the direction of the kitchen. He still couldn’t make out anything through the haze. But he knew the key was still there, and that was enough.
’Chaisi really is a cautious one... Even after seeing through the ruse with the thin black object, he remained perfectly calm, probing and waiting...’
’Was it because he’d sensed it subconsciously?’
’There’s a gray area between "something that looks like a key" and "something that doesn’t."’
The more information Fu Tailan gave—whether lies or truth—the harder it became to conceal that gray area.
The real answer lay in that gray area.
The "target key" bore no resemblance to an ordinary key, yet anyone who saw it would immediately think of one.
Fu Tailan had rarely done any crafts, so he was both surprised and pleased with his handiwork.
The day he got the key, he’d already figured out how to hide it.
First, he had several copies of his house key made and engraved them with a series of numbers from 7702 to 7704. Next, he took a trip to the store and found a piece of decorative art he liked at TJMaxx.
It wasn’t that he particularly liked the art—though the kitten was admittedly cute—but because there was a blank space at the bottom of the piece.
The metal letters and adhesive he ordered from Amazon arrived the next day. Fu Tailan took the art out of its frame, laid it on a table, and took out the letter U. Using a ruler for alignment, he carefully glued it in the blank space below the kitten.
He then affixed the apostrophe and the letter R, which he had also bought.
Next, Fu Tailan took out the real target key. He picked out the letter E from it and attached it after the U’R, forming the word U’RE.
...Yes, the target key was actually three black metal letters.
They could be separated or connected to form the word "KEY."
It bore no resemblance to an actual key. Yet, had it suddenly appeared on the coffee table one day, anyone, not just Fu Tailan, would have immediately made the connection to a key.
He took the O he’d bought from Amazon, attached it, and then added the K from the key.
And just like that, the target key, "KEY," was dismantled and integrated into the phrase "U’RE OKAY." Once the adhesive was dry, he carefully placed the artwork, now adorned with the hidden letters, back into its frame and hung it on the wall.
...’Chaisi had probably never, in his entire life, suffered such a humiliating defeat.’
It wasn’t just that he’d failed on the brink of success and brought a world of trouble on himself. It was also because Fu Tailan had seen something when Chaisi was poisoned, curled up on the floor, and dry-heaving.
A bulge had formed on his cheek, pushed out by his tongue.
’In that life-or-death moment, with his mind failing, Chaisi—annoying as he was—couldn’t possibly have been trying to look cool. So there was only one explanation for that bulge in his cheek, right?’
Fu Tailan turned his head slightly. Through the hazy clouds of his vision, he could vaguely see Fu Han’s face looking down at him.
"You... you’re back?" It seemed like he spoke aloud, but maybe he hadn’t. "Did you go get help?"
Fu Han just kept looking down at him, not answering.
He didn’t know if he had or not.
Fu Tailan lay there in a stupor for a while before jolting awake again. "Oh, Dad... When I went to the Nest this time, I saw Mom."
Fu Han’s blurry face seemed to distort slightly. When it opened its mouth to speak, a few stray hairs seemed to tremble. "All these years, she’s been in the Nest?"
"Yeah... no, not exactly. It was a parallel reality... Mom was there, in that parallel reality."
"But child, you don’t even know what she looked like."
"I know... but I just had a feeling. I knew it was Mom, I’m sure of it. It’s such a shame... All of Mom’s photos went blank after that..."
Fu Han fell silent again.
After what felt like a long time, Fu Tailan whispered, "Dad..."
"Yeah, I’m here."
"Will you always be here?"
Fu Han paused. "Do you want me to always be here?"
Fu Tailan thought for a moment. "I don’t know... It feels like it would be comforting, but also painful. Sometimes I wish you were dead, but then I’m afraid of you dying."
He knew he was supposed to keep the ruling game a secret, but it felt okay to talk about it now.
"But... maybe I’ve finally found a way to set everyone free..."
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