Chai Si: A phantasm lost in the metropolis

"According to the surveillance footage we obtained,"

Chai Si said as he drove, "Evan left the gates of Wei Family Manor at 7:21 a.m. on November 16 and never looked back."

Of course the bodyguard would not go back. The moment he stole the phantasm, he put his job out of his mind and headed straight for Blackmoor City without so much as saying goodbye.

"What about his movements after he left the manor? How do we establish those?" The young woman in the passenger seat wore her hair in long, thick dreadlocks dyed a deep purple. Draped over her shoulders, they looked like a great flowing armful of lavender.

"I have his GPS records. We're following the route he took on the sixteenth."

The young woman paused at that and glanced at him.

"I know," Chai Si said, his expression unchanged. "Just because his GPS recorded a route doesn't mean he actually took it."

"Right. I heard you have to get route data from the manufacturer to find out exactly where someone went," the dreadlocked woman replied. "That's difficult without police resources, isn't it?"

Generally speaking, it was.

But Chai Si had always been lucky.

He soon discovered a grocery store across from Evan's apartment building. Since people lived upstairs, a smart security camera had been installed at the entrance, recording everyone who came and went.

Posing as a police officer, he had no trouble retrieving the footage for the period he wanted to see. At 10:47 a.m., Evan's car entered the street, circled for a while, then snagged a parking space.

It had been a Saturday, with no rush-hour traffic. Evan had taken three hours and twenty-six minutes to drive from Upper State District to Blackmoor City, only thirteen minutes longer than the GPS estimate. Considering the rainy weather that day, a discrepancy of a little over ten minutes was insignificant, well within the normal range.

"If he'd taken another route, the timing couldn't have been this close."

The other GPS routes would have taken at least twenty minutes longer, so the timing did not fit. Besides, Evan had been fleeing with stolen goods. Logically, he would have wanted to travel as quickly as possible, not take a longer way around.

That all but ruled out the possibility that Evan had made a detour-to his sister's home, for example, or a rented storage unit-to leave the phantasm in someone else's keeping. A discrepancy of a little over ten minutes simply would not have allowed enough time.

What if Evan had called ahead and asked his sister to wait for him somewhere?

As he drove past, he would only have needed to hand a package out the window. Such a brief delay would not have shown up in his driving records.

But Chai Si soon dismissed that hypothesis himself.

He had all of Evan's belongings, and it was easy to obtain his call records from the phone company. He discovered that Evan had made no outgoing calls that morning and had not contacted his sister in the days before or after it. In fact, Evan's entire call history for the sixteenth consisted of just two calls: the first was from the bodyguard captain, demanding to know why he had abandoned his post; the second was an afternoon call to a pizza place, ordering a large pepperoni pizza.

Surely he could not actually have entrusted a priceless phantasm to a delivery driver he had never met?

It would have been one thing if the two knew each other, but according to the Hunter sent to investigate, the delivery driver had no connection to Evan whatsoever.

He might have borrowed another phone, but there was currently no evidence to support that possibility. Evan did not seem like someone capable of thinking that far ahead, either.

Regardless, Chai Si still had to exhaust every possibility.

He had to bring what Uncle Kai wanted back to the faction. In the face of that objective, no obstacle could be allowed to stand in his way.

"Mr. Monroe, I have a question-" the young woman with dreadlocks said.

"Just call me Chai Si," he interrupted. "When other Hunters call me Mr. Monroe, it means they know they're in trouble."

Huang Li had not been with the faction long. Previously an ordinary, obscure Hunter, she had suddenly made a name for herself recently and become highly sought after. Today was the first time Chai Si had met her in person since she had been recruited into the Kai Family.

As far as Chai Si knew, such a transformation was not particularly unusual for a Hunter.

The Nest held countless forms and phenomena, bizarre and strange beyond measure. Apart from phantasms that could be brought back into the human world, Hunters might encounter creatures, rules, domains, or things that defied definition, too numerous to list even with imagination stretched to its limits. Intersections with them could produce untold consequences and effects-though, of course, not all of them were good.

The vast majority were not.

But occasionally, someone like Huang Li would draw a lucky lot and return from the Nest one day with abilities they had never possessed before.

"Chai Si," she corrected herself. "I checked Wei Family Manor. I can confirm that not a single phantasm remains inside or outside the manor. I haven't sensed any phantasms along the route we've just driven, either. That also supports the idea that, after getting the phantasm, the bodyguard brought it straight to Blackmoor City... All of that makes sense.

"But why did he shut himself inside after getting home? If he stole a phantasm, he should have understood its significance and value, and known someone would definitely track him down. If it were me, I'd have gone home, grabbed the essentials, and run immediately-no, I might not even have gone home or picked anything up."

Before answering, Chai Si lifted his chin toward the window.

Outside, the heavy, gray, clouded sky maintained its sullen expression, threatening rain. Beneath it, dingy, dark-green woods sped backward without pause.

"Well? Anything?"

Huang Li frowned, paused for two seconds, and said, "There's quite a bit of overlap with my last scan... Still no phantasms."

Chai Si checked the time without speaking.

He did not know how Huang Li sensed them.

In principle, the ability to "sense phantasms" was fundamental to Hunters and immensely valuable. The problem was that Huang Li's perception was far too imprecise.

He had been driving at fifty kilometers an hour for several minutes and still had not left the area of Huang Li's previous scan.

By a rough calculation, her phantasm detection range covered a radius of around five kilometers. As for where exactly within that radius a phantasm might be hidden, only heaven knew.

Was such a vague means of perception still a treasure the Hunter Faction had to recruit?

Chai Si had never seen the Nest, so he did not know the answer to that question, either.

"Evan had a certain low cunning."

Bringing his thoughts back to the present, he looked straight down the lane ahead and answered, "He knew someone would definitely trace those phantasms missing from the study, so he took a gamble with fate... He bet he could slip through unnoticed."

"Slip through unnoticed?"

"If a former bodyguard went on the run immediately after Wei Xilai died, everyone would know at once that something was wrong with him. Not to mention that no one currently knows whether Wei Xilai's death was caused by another person. What if it was murder? Running would implicate him in Wei Xilai's death, too.

"If Wei Xilai was murdered, Evan's decision to flee would attract attention from three sides.

"First, the police investigating the cause of death. Second, whoever murdered Wei Xilai and didn't want any clues discovered. Third, the various Hunter Factions that suspected him of stealing the phantasms."

Huang Li nodded. "True... He was better off pretending he knew nothing. Even if he wanted to run, he should at least have muddled through the first few days without attracting attention."

"Exactly. He couldn't stay at the manor, because that would be the first place anyone searching for the phantasms would target. Wei Xilai fired Evan before he died, so Evan only had to use that as his reason to leave the manor. Besides, four phantasms went missing, and he probably only took one. As long as he kept a low profile, people wouldn't necessarily come looking for him."

"Then how did you find him?" Huang Li asked with interest.

"...I was lucky."

"Luck? I don't believe in luck," Huang Li said with a smile, watching the road ahead. "I earned everything I have myself."

What a youthful answer.

The Nest was no elementary school teacher. It never rewarded effort alone-but Chai Si did not say that aloud.

"Really? Then you probably won't mind what the other Hunters say about me."

"What do they say?"

"That I'm lucky because I draw away the good luck of the people around me."

Huang Li probably thought he was joking. She laughed and gave Chai Si a look, but as though a cloud's shadow had passed overhead, her smile dimmed and quickly faded, leaving her quiet again.

Anyone who could become a Hunter had, to some extent, sharper instincts than ordinary people.

Following the GPS route, Chai Si took the highway exit and entered Blackmoor City.

Forests of modern towers built from glass and steel, classical buildings standing amid the accumulated weight of centuries past, neon advertisements with overlapping light and shadow, office workers striding briskly along the streets, tourists on red double-decker sightseeing buses and the phones they held aloft... Like pieces of a puzzle, they gradually assembled before his eyes into the world's most prosperous, vibrant, and diverse metropolis.

Chai Si had lived in Blackmoor City for thirty years, yet everything he had seen and learned so far probably amounted to less than the tip of its iceberg. Accompanying its vast population, with all their varied forms and circumstances, was the unknown: no one knew what would happen next. Chai Si had never considered leaving Blackmoor City, not only because of the Kai Family, but also because he needed that unknown as much as he needed oxygen.

If every day of his life were the same, he would be as good as dead already, merely waiting to be buried.

To reduce interference, Huang Li closed her eyes and opened the window, as though listening to the city's arteries.

"Nothing... nothing... Is that Blue Blue Fifth Street up ahead?... Nothing there, either."

"Are you sure?"

Huang Li's eyes suddenly flew open. "Wait!"

Chai Si eased off the accelerator. As the car slowed, a flurry of irritable honking immediately rose from the line of cars behind them.

The people of Blackmoor City were not known for their patience or friendliness.

"There!" Huang Li stared wide-eyed, turning to look from side to side, yet a cloud of doubt lingered on her face. "Wait, let me try-"

"Where?"

As though she had not heard him, Huang Li leaned her head out the window, remained frozen there for several seconds, then dropped back into her seat with a thump.

"It's gone," she said quietly. "I thought there was a phantasm nearby... But it's so strange. The sensation flashed past, and when I focused on sensing it again, it disappeared. I promise, my senses are very accurate. I've never encountered anything like this..."

Flashed past?

The car crawled along. Chai Si had completely shut the honking and angry shouting behind him out of his mind.

His attention swept outward like a searchlight, circling his surroundings: the road, streets, buildings, pedestrians, and signs... Sights he had seen countless times before now imprinted themselves on his mind one by one, clear and vivid, as though entering his field of vision for the first time.

A phantasm that "flashed past" within an area with a radius as large as five kilometers...

His eyelid suddenly twitched, and his gaze stopped on a round sign in the distance bearing the letter "D."

An idea came to Chai Si.

He turned to check the opposite lane, waited for a gap in oncoming traffic, then abruptly wrenched the steering wheel, cutting across half the road and charging into the other lane.

Amid the squeal of brakes, honking, and furious curses he provoked, he pressed one hand against the center of the steering wheel, sounding a continuous warning blast as the car surged onto the sidewalk. Frightened pedestrians scattered to either side like waves thrown up by the car.

Huang Li clutched the grab handle overhead and cried out, "What are you doing? Where are you going? You're going to hit someone!"

With the tires on one side below the curb and those on the other on the sidewalk, the car drove forward at a tilt. They rushed past a row of storefronts, startling a customer who had just stepped outside into spilling coffee all over themselves.

Chai Si paid no attention whatsoever to the chaos outside the car.

Staring straight ahead, he said, "I know where the phantasm is."

Friends, yesterday I got up early to go out and take care of something. I even posted the chapter from the car. Chapter numbers, author's notes-I didn't have time for any of that. Serve the food first, bring the cutlery when I remember; just eat with your hands for now. Oh, let's make do. We've been together all these years.

As for what I'm doing today, at this very moment I'm on my way to the airport again. Go check the headquarters offices of all the major airlines right now. They've all got my portrait hanging up. Seriously, go look if you don't believe me.

I have mixed feelings about writing author's notes. I've got a mouthful of nonsense I can't bear not to say, but when I do, I keep seeing people say the notes are better than the actual story. Am I supposed to be fucking happy about that or not? Once the paid chapters start, should I just post nonsense? Would that be appropriate?

(End of chapter)