Artifact Report

Chapter 230: Fu Tailan: Inaudible Chains

Fu Tailan pressed the play button on the video again.

He had already watched the same video twice, so naturally, there was no change when he played it a third time:

Amidst the crowd's exclamations, a tall figure tumbled and fell from the floor-to-ceiling window of the apartment. He barely grabbed a window that was pushed open and hung on for a few seconds before falling straight into the cushion on the sidewalk. The huge goat's head on its neck cast a white shadow in the night.

"I swear, what I saw with my naked eyes was not a goat's head,"

The phone's camera panned, panning to a young man's face. He was filled with surprise and excitement, emphasizing, "I just looked at the screen and was completely stunned. The guy who fell wasn't wearing a goat head, but why is there one on the screen? Is this some kind of signal interference or something—"

Fu Tailan turned off the video.

It is impossible to tell from the video that the person who fell down the stairs was Chai Si.

Carter took the phone back, his expression normal.

"If I hadn't known that Chase Monroe had this artifact, we wouldn't have realized immediately that it was the Kai family that was causing the conflict with you."

"I didn't know that you have been paying attention to the news about the fake image in the circle." Fu Tailan said in a low voice.

"Of course I do," Carter said with a laugh. "My bills are paid by Pseudo-Image. It's my bread and butter."

Did you say this to compliment the importance of the Hunter Supervisor?

The Morgan family made their fortune as a hunter, but has now developed into a multi-industry group company; the Morgan family still maintains the hunting branch, not so much for profit, but because they are unwilling to withdraw from the world of illusions.

If Carter didn't want to miss any useful artifacts, then it made sense for him to keep paying attention...

In other words, it cannot be falsified.

"Does the Kai family want to take a cold approach to the video?"

Fu Tailan's mind was sluggish at the moment, so he could only say some irrelevant words to give him some time to react.

"Right," Carter said patiently. "You know, the worst that can happen is we hire a few accounts to say the blogger faked the video to gain traffic. In two days, the internet will forget about it. After all, the internet is full of weird stories and news."

"Which hospital did Chai Si go to?" Fu Tailan asked.

Carter smiled.

"...I said, the board doesn't want to see gang warfare. I don't know where he's receiving treatment, and it's not the Morgan family's business. What I want to know is why you're clashing over your lives?"

Sure enough, we are back to this issue.

The Kai family adopts a traditional system similar to that of a mafia gang. On the surface, their style of operation is very different from that of the Morgan family's corporate hunter faction - but in the final analysis, it is all for profit.

Hunters' profits are not obtained by seizing territory, but by living in dangerous and unpredictable nests.

If the reward is not extremely tempting, bloody conflicts rarely occur between hunter factions.

Unfortunately, the real reward cannot be told to Carter; and making up a false message may leave clues or be unconvincing.

Fu Tailan then realized that even though he had been removed from the "Nest Domination Game", he still didn't want to tell Carter the news - why?

But now is not the time to think about the reasons.

"...It all comes down to the last experience I had in the lair."

Carter had no access and he often acted alone in the nest; his answer could not be refuted either.

"He thought I'd taken a fake image the Kai family was looking for, so when I reentered the lair, a Kai hunter came looking for me. But I didn't actually take anything, and when I told them, they didn't believe me, so I had to argue for free. During that brief moment of entanglement, the Kai hunter was ambushed by the residents."

Fu Tailan heard that the Kai family had recently lost some people - and it seemed impossible for Chai Si to report in detail to Carter which person was lost and how.

"You must have heard of Chai Si's reputation. In order to win people's loyalty, he always pretends to be very close to his own people and treats them like brothers. He came to my apartment and said he wanted to teach me a lesson so that I wouldn't dare to attack Kai's family again..."

Carter's eyes floated in the center, his expression motionless.

He didn't say anything until Fu Tailan finished explaining and silence returned to the ward, with only the rhythmic beeping of the instruments.

Carter adjusted his sitting position; clothes rustled in the silent ward. Outside, in the equally quiet corridor, someone in some unknown ward coughed in the distance.

...It's almost midnight now. Is this really the visiting hours allowed by the hospital?
Fu Tailan suddenly had a question.

But he didn't ask the question; he just looked at Carter silently.

Carter seemed lost in thought. After a long pause, he suddenly asked, "Did you find any results with the key you were tracking down a few months ago?"

Fu Tailan was grateful for the pain and medicine in his body. His face was heavy and he was not flexible enough to reveal the shock in his heart.

"It's the key in Vesile's hands, right?" Carter asked. When Carter signed Fu Tailan, he made it clear: the reason he offered such a high price to hire him, in addition to the usual Hunter Family affairs, was that he wanted Fu Tailan to track down Vesile to find out what secret he knew.

Therefore, since taking office, Fu Tailan has been reporting to him regularly on the progress of the operation - until November 11, when he received the call-up notice for the Nest Domination Game.

From that moment on, all the news Carter received was smokescreen of hypocrisy.

"It's a pity... the clue we followed ultimately led to a dead end," said Fu Tailan.

"Ah." Carter nodded, as if he understood something. "So you still don't know what secret Vesile holds?"

Fu Tailan didn't like his position in this conversation; but for the moment he had no other answer except to shake his head in denial.

"In other words... you're trying to tell me that the conflict between Chai Si and you, and the conflict between Chai Si and Vesile's men, are completely isolated and unrelated?"

Fu Tailan couldn't nod anymore.

He had no idea about this matter - when did Chase have a conflict with the Vesiles? Was that man always causing trouble and refusing to sleep?

Wait, could it be that the second artifact in his hand was not originally obtained by his ally, but was snatched from Vesile's side?
He searched his drowsy mind for a while - what artifacts did the Vesile team have in their hands before?

But even if Fu Tailan was turned into a fool by the drugs, he could still hear the hidden meaning in Carter's words.

Cato pulled the chair over and approached the bed.

He leaned his elbows on the bed and pressed the quilt tightly against Fu Tailan's body; the face that looked like it could be in "Animal Farm" was now too close to be comfortable.

"Look," Carter explained patiently, "what you say makes sense, but the biggest problem is that Chase Monroe is not an impulsive fool."

Fu Tailan didn't say anything.

"He's right to be in trouble with you for his subordinates, and I can't say he's incapable of doing it. But what's interesting is that on the same night after his conflict with you, he had another conflict with Vesile's men."

I really hope that when I open my eyes, I will find myself lying on the bed in the bedroom of my apartment.

"You didn't know about this because you were still unconscious. I told the hunters not to worry you about these things when you woke up... It seems they were considerate of you and didn't mention it. So, this is strange, right? Why? Why did Chase Monroe, regardless of the fact that he might harm the interests of the Kai family, keep fighting with other forces?"

He narrowed his eyes. "It's almost like... you're all fighting over something."

There is a mountain bike hanging on the wall of the bedroom in Fu Tai Lan Apartment.

There was nothing in his bedroom that would have marked it as the room of a seventeen-year-old boy; it was so impersonal that it almost looked more like a hotel than a hotel.

The only exception is the mountain bike on the wall.

"You see, I didn't forget."

That day, Fu Han asked him to sit with his back to the door, as if apologetically. Not long after, Fu Tailan felt him gently tapping his shoulder.

When he turned around, he saw the brand new mountain bike with a gift knot hanging on it.

"I bought you the best one," Fu Han patted it and said, "It's so expensive that I can't believe it—a bicycle costs more than three thousand dollars."

Fu Tailan was stunned. He looked at his father and asked, "Money..."

"Isn't it all spent now?" Fu Han said, rubbing his nose. "Is it a little too big? I bought the adult size. It's okay, you can ride it when you're taller. It's perfect."

Fu Tailan closed his eyes and opened them again. What he saw was naturally not the mountain bike, but Carter's face.

He lowered his eyelids and sighed softly.

He had previously watched a documentary that exposed the tragic plight of privately-raised elephants in Thailand. Elephants were passed down from generation to generation in families like heirlooms, and until they died, they still had heavy chains hanging from their legs that they could not get rid of.

Fu Tailan moved his legs slightly under the quilt - of course, as before, he couldn't hear any sound of chains.

That's not because he doesn't have it.

"...Where is Fu Han?"

Without even looking at Carter, he whispered, "You should know, right?"

　It's been a while since I've recommended any novels to you, because I haven't seen anything particularly good. However, I did finish reading Pieces of Her the other day, and it was excellent! It's a well-rounded, cleverly written story, with layers of development that unfold remarkably quickly. It's definitely worth reading. It's already been adapted into a Netflix series, and there might even be a Chinese version.

　　I'm currently reading books recommended by Xiaohongshu (with a particularly high number of likes and collections), and I feel that most of them are a waste of time and meaningless. I can't tell whether the bloggers were paid or have poor taste.

　　But I read two books in a row that Netflix bought to make TV series. They were willing to spend real money, so the quality is indeed guaranteed. The previous one was Behind Her Eyes. When the truth was revealed at the end, I broke out in a cold sweat.

(End of this chapter)