Chai Si, a Hunter in the Human World

Chai Si took a silver comb from his suit pocket and slowly combed a loose lock of hair back.

The comb was small, and its inset emerald reflected a deep, translucent light; the light sank into his black hair and fractured between the strands.

Since luxurious, precious things existed in this world, they were meant to be used. Chai Si would not lock a comb in a jewelry cabinet simply because it was a valuable antique.

"I stripped his clothes off myself."

Chai Si leaned back in his chair and said, "I had no objection to finding a new use for the cauterizing gun, but Dr. Nate was afraid I'd be too heavy-handed and rupture his intestines, so he examined him for me. I watched the whole time. I can confirm that the bodyguard had nothing on him."

Seated opposite him, Caironan gave a noncommittal hum.

He was over sixty, his hair faded to an iron gray, like thick fog on an overcast morning. Wrinkles carved out a hard face that rarely showed any expression, and his murky blue eyes always seemed to scrutinize people from far away, deep within that fog.

In front of him, Chai Si sometimes still thought he was a small child.

"What about the bodyguard's home?"

"I only got back from his place this morning. There isn't an intact tile left now." Chai Si considered for a few seconds, then continued, "I searched his car too. Nothing. I also checked the dashcam and surveillance footage. After leaving the estate, he drove straight home and didn't go out again before I came for him. Apart from the pizza delivery guy, he didn't meet anyone. If he hid the Phantasms at the estate-"

"There isn't a single one left at the estate," Caironan said quietly. "The new Hunter checked."

Chai Si nodded, his thick black brows furrowing.

"Of the four Phantasms that vanished from Wei Xilai's study, that bodyguard didn't get a single one?" Caironan asked.

Chai Si stared at the ceiling and thought for a while.

"No," he murmured. "He got them... he got at least one."

"How do you know?"

Chai Si sat up with some agitation, his two large, pale hands clenched tightly together, several veins rising on their backs. Faint traces of blackish-red grime still lined his nails. He had not yet had a chance to clean them thoroughly.

"I searched everywhere anything could be hidden, and there wasn't a Phantasm anywhere. That guy couldn't take much. I'd only broken his left arm before he begged me to search his home and his car. He even gave me his sister's address outside the city without my asking."

He took out several banknotes, divided them into two stacks, rolled them up, and slowly cleaned beneath his nails with their pointed corners.

"My examination was thorough. I'm confident I overlooked nothing. But as I watched him on the boat, I gradually began to feel something... I can't explain it, but I just knew." Chai Si stared at the blackish-red stains on the corners of the notes and said, "He got a Phantasm."

Though Evan feared pain and desperately wanted to escape the little boat and Chai Si at any cost, there was something... something indescribable, like bones, that held up the man as he wept, convulsed, and howled, making him grit his teeth and hold on to his secret.

People who had seen another world seemed to gain a little distance from the reality before them. Even physical pain and illness initially seemed muffled behind a layer of cotton.

Chai Si had once sensed this in Hunters who had just returned from the Nest.

Evan was not a Hunter; he had only formed a connection with another reality through a Phantasm, and that had given him a faintly similar air.

But he would not have held out much longer.

At the thought, Chai Si twisted his hands sharply together in agitation.

However valuable a Phantasm might be, it was not worth more than life and limb; even for a rare Phantasm that could grant supreme wealth and status, no one would willingly become a limbless human stump.

Late last night, Evan had sat stark naked in a pool of blood, trembling violently in the cold sea breeze. One arm, broken in several places, had been dislocated from the shoulder with its gaping, bloody wound and hung much longer than his right.

Looking at him, Chai Si had known that even without getting serious, he was not far from breaking.

By any standard, Evan was not a tough man.

A few more minutes would have made him talk, but just then, lights had suddenly pierced the darkness over the black sea in the distance. The engine of a large speedboat roared through the waves, pushing the lights into Chai Si's field of vision from afar.

Dr. Nate abruptly raised his head and whispered, "Is that the c-coast patrol?"

As far as Chai Si knew, the coast patrol did not normally appear at that location at that hour, but out of caution, he still dropped the blood-spattered weight plate in his hand. It landed with a thud, rocking the boat slightly.

"Lie facedown," he ordered the bodyguard, then added, "Doctor, hand me the cover under the seat."

He threw the cover normally used for the boat over Evan's head, concealing his pale, naked body and the blackish-red bloodstains alike.

Chai Si took a long stride over the trembling, rustling fabric, retrieved a can of beer from the liquor cabinet, and tossed it to Dr. Nate. "Drink."

The sharp crack of the pull tab was drowned out by the approaching engine. Chai Si could already dimly make out that the approaching vessel was a large speedboat, much like the kind the coast patrol used. It looked as though it would cut through the waves ahead of them in only a few minutes.

"Great. My taxes, getting in my way."

Muttering, Chai Si sat down and picked up a fishing rod on the boat without even casting the line into the sea.

Thick clouds blanketed the sky that night, hiding the stars and moon. Visibility over the sea was extremely poor; after only a few meters, his gaze seemed to fall into a dark void.

Unless the other boat shone a searchlight on them, its occupants would not even be able to tell how many people were aboard, never mind see a fishing line. The cover, beer, and fishing rod were merely precautions.

Boats heading out to fish at two or three in the morning were certainly uncommon, but Central Bay never lacked private pleasure craft. The coast patrol also seemed to have another target. It drove straight past them, taking no interest in Chai Si's little boat and never even slowing down.

The large speedboat's rapid passage churned up wave after wave, tossing the little boat up and dropping it down, rising and falling helplessly. As the waves rocked them, Chai Si suddenly swore under his breath, leaped up, and twisted around to lunge at the cover.

Unsteady on his feet, he was jolted against the railing, but he seemed not to feel it. He swept out an arm, and one large, long-fingered hand seized the cover.

"What's wrong?"

Amid Dr. Nate's startled cry and the waves slapping against the hull, he planted his palm on the shifting, heaving cover and closed his hand around it. Chai Si trusted his grip. Once he had someone's hand firmly in his grasp, they could not break free unless they shed it like a lizard shedding its tail.

Yet Evan had escaped.

It had all happened so quickly that only afterward, thinking back, had Chai Si worked out how Evan had gotten away.

Taking advantage of the waves, Evan had crawled toward the railing beneath the cover, intending to jump overboard while Chai Si was distracted. Chai Si had noticed in time, lunged over, pinned him down, and yanked him back-but between the rocking waves and the layer of fabric, Chai Si had never imagined that what he had grabbed was precisely the left arm he had broken and torn a bloody hole in himself.

That tug on the bodyguard's shoulder had torn open another deep swath of the wound that had just been cauterized shut. A long cry of agony instantly rose beside the railing, piercing the night.

Along with the agonized howl, fresh blood had gushed from his body.

The pain was unbearable, but it was precisely the copious blood acting as a lubricant that had finally let Evan wrench his broken arm free as the waves rocked the boat and roll overboard. All of it had happened in only two or three seconds, but by the time Chai Si rushed to the railing and scanned the surroundings, the bodyguard had sunk out of sight.

The night was dark and the sea vast. Even with a flashlight, he could only see the waves a few meters away.

Though the bodyguard had an injured arm dragging behind him, if he held his breath and swam underwater for a while, getting beyond Chai Si's range of vision would not be difficult.

"Did he think he could swim back to Blackmoor City while injured and losing blood?"

Chai Si tried to smile, but the muscles of his face felt heavy and would not move. "He probably died in Central Bay long ago. Who knows where the currents will carry him? I'll keep an eye out over the next few days for reports of a body being found."

"You need to wait for news of a dead man before you know how to proceed?" Caironan asked with a faint smile.

"No... of course not, Uncle Kai."

Despite himself, even Chai Si's voice grew quieter. "I'm planning to find his sister and the pizza delivery guy."

Caironan, however, seemed uninterested in his next steps. He sipped his black coffee and said, "Somewhere out in the open for you to see is no place to hide something."

Chai Si struggled to swallow those words.

He had no answer.

Before Evan jumped overboard, Chai Si had already obtained his keys, phone, identification, and even his important passwords. All that had escaped was a bare body. Logically, even if the bodyguard had escaped, as long as he had hidden the items somewhere he had been, Chai Si should have been able to find a lead sooner or later.

But Chai Si had searched every inch of every hiding place he could think of and still found nothing.

Just where had he overlooked?

Chai Si's hands had been unconsciously twisting and grinding together all this time. Only now did he realize that the banknotes he had used to clean his nails had been reduced to shreds scattered over the floor, their tiny fragments settling into the carpet. Embarrassment immediately rose in him.

"Uncle Kai, I'll get the vacuum. Is the handheld one still in the same place?"

He had only just stood when Caironan said, "There's no rush. Sit down."

Though puzzled, Chai Si sat back down.

"Harm exerts force in both directions," Caironan said slowly. "The force of a punch that lands on someone else will inevitably reverberate through your own bones and sinews, into your heart. That is why torturers are either numb and dull to begin with, or gradually become so through violence."

A warm, tingling sensation spread from his palms to his chest.

"I'll be careful, Uncle Kai," Chai Si said gratefully. "It's only bloodshed. I can take it."

"That isn't what I meant."

Chai Si's heart suddenly sank. He waited for Caironan's next words as though waiting for a punch about to slam into his stomach.

"Numb, brutal thugs are the cheapest things in this line of work," Caironan said. "You grew up at my side. I thought you would act more intelligently."

Only after a brief moment did Chai Si begin breathing again.

"If a Hunter Faction is to grow, the Nest is merely its foundation. What truly matters is how we establish ourselves and operate in the human world, how we build influence. Truly powerful Hunter Factions control the 'reality' every one of us must live in."

Caironan gave a low chuckle deep in his throat.

"...But violence and bloodshed alone cannot give you control over 'reality.' Don't tell me that's the only card you have left."

Chai Si had never known his head could feel so heavy. For a moment, all he wanted was to bow it deeply and bury it in his hands-and not because he had been awake all night.

He knew Caironan was not angry, but he would rather the man had lost his temper, questioned him, and berated him for failing to get the job done.

Chai Si was now a head taller than Caironan, well trained and formidable enough that even Hunters feared him. Yet when Caironan was disappointed in him, Chai Si still felt as though he were drowning in icy water-because he, too, could not stop being disappointed in himself.

He stared at his hands. Several long, pale scars marked their backs, stretching away beneath his watch and cuffs.

In his youth, Chai Si had conducted many experiments to find his Pathway, leaving all kinds of scars and hidden injuries on his body.

Only 1% of humans in the world possessed a "Pathway" and could enter the Nest through it, but no one knew exactly what their own Pathway was. They could only try the possibilities one by one. He had tried every known Pathway method, yet he still stood in the human world, unable to see the Nest.

Now thirty years old, he still could not forget the way Uncle Kai had lowered his eyelids without a word when he finally accepted that Chai Si had no Pathway.

As though he had seen a work of art shatter on the floor, exposing the Styrofoam within.

The scars on the backs of his hands had not come from the experiments. Chai Si had cut them with a hunting knife afterward, though he did not know why. Perhaps, at the time, he had thought he could cut open a Pathway that way.

"I understand." After speaking, Chai Si realized his voice was hoarse and cleared his throat. "Uncle Kai, I promised you I would deliver the human world to you."

He could not enter the Nest, but he could become a Hunter in the human world and seize every scrap of power and wealth this world had to offer for the Kai Family.

Because he could not give Uncle Kai what he truly wanted.

(End of chapter)