Illusion Report

Chapter 222: Chapter 185: Mai Mingle Officially Enters the Hunter World

When Mai Mingle woke, the bedroom was pitch-black. Night still seeped through the curtains.

She was in her familiar bedroom. In the corner of her vision, she saw the rail of her hospital bed. A plastic bag hung from it, filled with tissues the social worker used to wipe her mouth, leftover sweet biscuits, and other trash Mai Mingle needed to throw away without getting up.

’So it was all a dream...’

The despair, loss, and fear of that moment felt like waking up trapped in a car—an iron coffin—sinking to the bottom of a deep river.

Just as Mai Mingle was about to cry, she suddenly realized a dull ache was throbbing in her foot. Everything in the room also seemed clearer than usual... ’That’s right, I can actually see the plastic bag clearly.’

She fumbled her way into a sitting position on the bed. The first thing she saw was her foot, which had been hastily bandaged until it looked like a pillow.

’It wasn’t a dream... It really wasn’t a dream.’

Mai Mingle sat on the bed in a daze, slowly recalling—no, savoring—every event from the past few days.

Good, bad, or frightening, it was all precious to her. Mai Mingle had never expected to be enveloped in the aura of youth again, to wander through a twisted wonderland and witness all kinds of dark daisies.

Even the doctor who treated Hunters was so secretive and full of unspeakable secrets... She had truly opened the door to the underworld.

’Looks like I need to adjust my mindset. From now on, I’ll probably run into deadly situations from time to time.’ When she was at the clinic earlier, she had even wondered if she should call the police. ’Thoughts like that, the thoughts of a normal person, probably won’t have a place anymore.’

No matter how skittish Dr. Nate was, he had treated her injury at her insistence. Before they left, Dr. Nate even sold them each a crutch. Since Hunters often suffered physical injuries, he had a small storage room in his office filled with support braces, various types of crutches, and foldable wheelchairs, all sold at a significant markup.

Leaning on her crutch, Mai Mingle picked up a small clock and saw it was one-thirty in the morning, already the 22nd.

She and Hai Luwei had gone to the doctor around four or five in the morning on the 21st. After returning home, she hadn’t even bothered to eat before collapsing into bed, and she’d slept until now.

Hai Luwei had warned her that people usually slept for a long time after coming out of a Nest, but sleeping for nearly twenty hours straight was still beyond Mai Mingle’s expectations.

’I wonder if that kid woke up long ago?’

A single, simple treatment had wiped out half of old Mrs. Mai Mingle’s savings. The moment young Mai Mingle woke up, her first thought was to find a buyer for that lipstick Illusion. After a moment’s hesitation, she took out the slip of paper with Hai Luwei’s number on it.

He had told her to call him as soon as she woke up, no matter the time. After all, Hunters didn’t have normal schedules... ’One-thirty in the morning should be fine, right?’

The phone rang and rang with no answer. Just as Mai Mingle was about to wonder if she had the wrong number, she finally heard Hai Luwei’s sleepy, muffled "Hello?"

He had clearly been woken up and sounded utterly wronged. "...You’re awake already?"

"Y-Yeah..." Mai Mingle felt as if she’d done something wrong.

After a RUSTLE of noise, Hai Luwei sounded like he was about to cry. "You, like me, have only slept for nearly twenty hours, right? How are you awake already?"

’Only?’

’Is "only" really the right word to use here?’

"Are you really not sleepy?"

"Not at all," Mai Mingle said, puzzled herself. "I’ve slept for twenty hours. How could I still be sleepy?"

"Most Hunters sleep for a day or two after coming out!"

’Could it be that old people need less sleep?’

"Is your mind clear, too? No tinnitus, hallucinations, or lack of coordination?"

’He sounds more like a doctor than Dr. Nate.’

"None of that," Mai Mingle replied, twisting her waist, kicking her legs, and rolling her shoulders as she did a few math problems in her head. Aside from being hungry enough to eat a person alive, everything was perfect.

"That’s really rare... Could that long black Illusion you have also prevent Nest dissociation syndrome?"

Hai Luwei didn’t expect an answer. After a moment of thought, he said reluctantly, "Well, since you’re awake... fine, let’s go to Between the Backlight now. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can come back and get more sleep... Ugh, and I can grab a bite to eat, I guess."

Between the Backlight was a bar, and it seemed to be universally known in Hunter circles—especially among freelance Hunters and those from smaller Family Factions.

At two in the morning, Between the Backlight showed no signs of thinning crowds or winding down like other bars. The moment the two of them pushed open the door, they were hit full in the face by a wall of voices, music, heat, and the smell of alcohol.

"Oh!" Mai Mingle’s eyes widened in spite of herself.

The bar’s structure and decor were similar to what she remembered of bars, but the most striking, most exceptional difference was the clientele.

It was as if everyone knew that inside Between the Backlight, they no longer needed to hide the Hunter part of themselves. The shadows of the Nests and Blackmoor City seemed to intertwine and overlap in this one bar, creating a unique space for Hunters that existed outside both worlds.

A man with a bowl cut was sitting at the bar, for some reason frequently putting drops in his eye. As Mai Mingle walked past, she overheard his companion remind him, "Hey, it’s been thirty seconds. Time for your drops."

"It hasn’t been thirty seconds, has it? Didn’t I just do it... Ugh, this is so annoying."

As the man with the bowl cut spoke, he turned his head, and his left eyeball suddenly burst out laughing, "OH HA HA HA HA," and spewed a stream of passionate curses at him.

He seemed startled and, amidst his companion’s gloating "I told you so," quickly put a drop in the eyeball. Only then did the eyeball grumble and quiet down.

’...But how does he sleep?’ Mai Mingle wondered in a daze.

In a corner, a few young people, each with a beer in hand, were arguing heatedly about something. Listening closely, she realized they were fighting over how to split the profits from a sold Illusion.

The blonde girl said, "Xiao Bu died to get this Illusion!"

Someone died. Mai Mingle’s heart instantly tightened.

Then, the blonde girl nudged the chestnut-haired girl beside her and said, "Xiao Bu, tell them. Shouldn’t you get a bigger cut?"

’...So the dead Xiao Bu is right here. And she’s a kid who still enjoys a beer even after dying.’

Mai Mingle didn’t even feel like anything was out of place anymore.

At another table, a woman with a ponytail grew impatient with her conversation, said, "Got it," and stood up. She tilted her head back and tossed a handful of jelly bean-like things into her mouth. The next second, her entire body suddenly swelled with knotted muscles, stretching her loose sweatsuit taut. It looked like even accidentally bumping into her would result in a broken bone.

As the woman with the ponytail walked toward the door, the man she had been talking to shouted after her, "Remember, you have to leave fingerprints!"

’What kind of criminal activity requires you to leave fingerprints?’

’Has this bar always been this interesting?’

Mai Mingle’s curiosity had long since swelled up. If she were a balloon, it would have already filled her up and sent her floating into the sky.

Hai Luwei, injured and sleep-deprived (this part was debatable), whispered a reminder to her, "You’re craning your neck too much. Reel it in. If you annoy someone by staring, who are we two invalids going to fight?"

Mai Mingle jumped—and in that moment, she did something that fit the bar’s atmosphere perfectly.

She touched the top of her head and asked subconsciously, "Did my second head pop out again?"

Someone in the adjacent booth glanced at her, then turned back and continued their conversation.

"Hey, this spot opened up. Let’s sit here."

The man who had just demanded fingerprints had paid his bill and left. Hai Luwei quickly motioned for Mai Mingle to grab the table. The bar was doing great business, packed to the gills with new customers constantly streaming in, so finding a seat wasn’t easy.

After the two sat down, they didn’t dare leave their seats. They craned their necks, eyes glued to the waitress weaving through the crowd, trying to catch her eye to order. In this, at least, there was no difference between normal people and Hunters.

"Why is it called Between the Backlight?" Mai Mingle asked. "It’s a pretty artistic name. Doesn’t sound like something a Hunter would come up with."

"Looking down on Hunters, are we?" Hai Luwei laughed. "The owner used to have a plaque up in the shop explaining it. It left a deep impression on me."

While they waited for the waitress, he explained, "They say that in the Japanese aesthetic, which has a special appreciation for the beauty of shadows, ’backlight’ is a common motif because of its secretive, hazy quality. And the reason you have a backlight is that one place is darker than another. So ’backlight’ also implies a longing from one place for the other. Isn’t that a bit like the existence of the Nests?

"The ’between’ part has meaning too. The world isn’t a whole assembled from parts; we just happen to name certain sections ’streets’ and ’hills.’ But connecting these named sections are ambiguous, ineffable continuities. This is the ’in-between.’ So, ’Between the Backlight’ is the very essence of a Nest, the place that every Hunter returns to time and time again..."

Just as Mai Mingle was listening, completely captivated, Hai Luwei suddenly threw his arm up and shouted, "Waitress! Hello! Over here, we haven’t ordered yet!"

’...He changes the subject fast.’

The bar had a limited menu. After Hai Luwei finished ordering two hamburgers, two plates of buffalo wings, and two plates of fries, he looked up at Mai Mingle. "What are you getting?"

"Is all of that for you?"

Mai Mingle consulted with her own stomach, and found she could actually understand his appetite. She then said to the waitress, "In that case... I’ll have the same. And I’ll add a Caesar salad."

As soon as the waitress left, Hai Luwei suddenly froze.

His gaze went past Mai Mingle’s shoulder, landing on a booth diagonally behind her. He seemed afraid to stare, but his eyes, as if pulled by a string, kept drifting over for a glance.

"What’s wrong?" Mai Mingle asked.

"Don’t look back," Hai Luwei said in a low voice, his eyes dropping to study the wooden tabletop in front of him. "Speak of the devil... What a coincidence, huh?"

"Speak of who? Who did you see?"

Hai Luwei coughed, covering his mouth with one hand. "Chaisi Monroe is sitting over there."