Chapter Fifteen: Chai Si — Hunter Among Men

Page (1/3)

Chai Si took a silver comb from the pocket of his suit and slowly combed a strand of loose hair back. The comb was small, inlaid with emeralds that reflected a deep, translucent glow; the light sank into the black hair and fractured between the strands. Luxurious and exquisite objects in this world, since they exist, are meant to be used. Chai Si would never keep such a precious antique comb locked away in a jewelry cabinet.

“His clothes—I stripped them off myself,” Chai Si said, leaning back against the chair. “I don’t mind giving the burning torch a new use, but Dr. Nate worried I’d be too rough and might stab him through the intestines, so he checked him over. I watched the whole time and can confirm, that bodyguard had nothing on him.”

Kaironan, sitting opposite, emitted a low “Hmm.” He was over sixty, his hair faded to an iron gray, like the thick mist of a gloomy morning. Wrinkles carved a stern face that seldom showed expression, and his deep blue eyes always seemed to observe from the depths of the fog, distantly scrutinizing people. In front of him, Chai Si sometimes felt like a child again.

“What about the bodyguard’s home?”

“I just got back from his place this morning. There isn’t a single intact tile left,” Chai Si pondered for a few seconds, then continued, “I also searched his car—nothing. I checked the driving records and surveillance footage; after leaving the manor, he drove straight home and didn’t go out before I tracked him down. Except for the pizza delivery guy, no one crossed paths with him. If he hid the fake relics in the manor—”

“There’s nothing left in the manor,” Kaironan said softly. “The newly arrived hunters have already scanned it.”

Chai Si nodded, furrowing his thick black eyebrows.

“The four fake relics missing from the Wesely study—did that bodyguard get any of them?” Kaironan asked.

Chai Si stared at the ceiling for a while.

“No,” he murmured, “he got at least one.”

“How do you know?”

Irritated, Chai Si straightened up, his two pale hands clenched tightly, veins bulging on the back. There was a faint black and red stain in his fingernail crevices he hadn’t had time to clean.

“I searched everywhere that could hide something—no relics anywhere. That guy couldn’t handle it. After breaking his left arm, he begged me to search his home and car, and even without asking, he told me the address of his sister’s house outside the city.”

He pulled out several bills, stacked them into two piles, rolled them up, and carefully cleaned the dirt from under his nails with the sharp corners of the bills.

“My inspection was thorough; I’m confident I missed nothing. But as I watched him on the boat, a feeling gradually grew inside me… I can’t explain it, but I just knew.” Chai Si stared at the black-red stain on the bill’s corner and said, “He got the fake relic.”

Though terrified and in pain, Ivan desperately tried to escape the boat and Chai Si’s grasp, but something—something indescribable—like a bone, supported the man as he sobbed, convulsed, and howled, forcing him to grit his teeth and keep the secret.

Those who have seen another world seem to hold a certain distance from the reality before them. Even physical pain initially feels like it’s muffled by a layer of cotton.

Chai Si had experienced this sensation once before, on a hunter who had just returned from the “Nest.”

Ivan wasn’t a hunter; he merely connected to another reality through the fake relic and thus bore a faintly similar aura.

But originally, he couldn’t have held out much longer.

Thinking of this, Chai Si twisted his hands together in frustration.

No matter how precious the fake relic was, it was no match for the value of life and limbs. Even the rare fake relics that could grant supreme wealth and status wouldn’t make anyone willing to become a broken shell of a man for them.

Last night, Ivan sat naked in a pool of blood, shivering violently in the cold sea wind. His arm, broken into several segments, dislocated from a bloody shoulder wound, extended far beyond his right arm.

Looking at him, Chai Si knew no real measures were needed; he was close to the breaking point.

By any measure, Ivan was not a man of resilience.

A few more minutes, and he could have been made to speak. But at that moment, lights suddenly pierced the darkness over the sea far away; the roar of a large speedboat’s engine cut through the waves, pushing the light into Chai Si’s view from afar.

Page (2/3)

Dr. Nate suddenly looked up and whispered, “The sea, coast patrol?”

According to Chai Si, the coast patrol wouldn’t normally be here at this hour, but out of caution, he dropped the bloodied dumbbell plate in his hand; it thudded, causing the boat to tremble slightly.

“Lie down,” he ordered the bodyguard, then said, “Doctor, give me the tarp from under the seat.”

The tarp normally used to cover the boat was thrown over Ivan, covering his pale body and the dark red bloodstains.

Chai Si stepped over the shivering, rustling cloth, grabbed a can of beer from the wine cabinet, and tossed it to Dr. Nate. “Drink.”

The crisp sound of the ring pull opening was drowned out by the approaching engine roar; faintly, Chai Si could see that the approaching vessel was a large speedboat, resembling the coast patrol’s standard craft. It seemed it would soon speed past them.

“Well, my taxes are paid to interfere with my work,” Chai Si muttered as he sat down and picked up a fishing rod, not even casting the line into the sea.

The night was thick with clouds, no stars or moon visible, and visibility over the sea was poor; just a few meters ahead, the darkness felt like an abyss.

Without the spotlight from the other boat, they couldn’t even tell how many people were aboard; the tarp, beer, and fishing rod were just precautions.

Though few boats went night fishing at two or three in the morning, private yachts were common in the central bay. The coast patrol seemed to have another target and sped straight past without slowing down or showing interest in Chai Si’s small boat.

The large speedboat generated wave after wave, tossing Chai Si’s boat up and down uncontrollably. Caught off guard by the waves, Chai Si cursed under his breath, leapt up, and lunged for the tarp.

He lost his footing and bumped against the railing but didn’t seem to notice. Swinging his arm, a long, five-fingered hand grasped the tarp.

“What’s wrong?”

Amid Dr. Nate’s startled shout and the crashing waves, Chai Si pressed down on the moving tarp and clenched his hand—confident in his grip strength, he believed no one could escape once he held their hand unless they severed it like a lizard’s tail.

Yet Ivan slipped away.

The event unfolded too quickly; Chai Si pieced it together afterward. Ivan took advantage of the boat’s rocking to crawl under the tarp toward the railing, attempting to jump overboard while Chai Si was distracted. Chai Si noticed in time, lunged, and grabbed him, pulling back—yet amid the rocking waves and the tarp between them, Chai Si didn’t realize he had caught Ivan’s own broken left arm, the one he himself had fractured and which bled profusely.

The bodyguard’s shoulder was torn open again, reopening the cauterized wound; a long, agonizing scream pierced the night.

Blood gushed from the wound.

Though the pain was unbearable, the fresh blood acted as a lubricant. Riding the waves, Ivan managed to wrench free his broken arm and rolled off the boat—this all happened within seconds. When Chai Si reached the railing and scanned around, the bodyguard had already sunk out of sight.

In the black, vast sea, even with a flashlight, one could only see a few meters ahead.

Though injured and bleeding, if Ivan held his breath underwater for a while, escaping Chai Si’s sight wasn’t impossible.

“He thinks he can swim back to Blackmoor City while injured and bleeding?”

Chai Si tried to smile but felt his facial muscles heavy and immobile. “He’s probably already dead in the central bay, and who knows where the currents will carry the corpse. I’ll keep an eye out for any reports of dead bodies in the next few days.”

“Are you really going to wait for news of a dead man before deciding your next move?” Kaironan smiled and asked.

“No… of course not, Uncle Kai.”

Chai Si’s voice dropped involuntarily.

“I’m going to look for his sister and the pizza delivery guy.”

Kaironan seemed uninterested in his next plan. He sipped his black coffee and said, “If it’s out in the open for you to see, then it’s not a hiding place.”

Chai Si swallowed those words hard.

He had no response.

Page (3/3)

Before Ivan jumped overboard, Chai Si had already taken his keys, phone, identification, and even important passwords. What escaped was just a bare body. Logically, even if the bodyguard fled, as long as he hid something where he had been, Chai Si would eventually find a clue.

But Chai Si searched every inch of every conceivable hiding place and found nothing.

Where exactly had he missed something?

His hands had been unconsciously twisting and grinding each other. Now he realized the bills he had used to clean under his nails had turned to powder, scattered all over the carpet—he suddenly felt embarrassed.

“Uncle Kai, I’ll get the vacuum cleaner. The handheld one is still in the usual place?”

As he stood, Kaironan said, “No rush. Sit down.”

Though puzzled, Chai Si sat back down.

“Damage works both ways,” Kaironan said slowly. “The force of a punch landed on someone inevitably reverberates through one’s own muscles and mind. So interrogators become either numb or gradually harden into numbness through violence.”

A warm, tingling sensation spread from Chai Si’s palms to his chest.

“Uncle Kai, I’ll be careful,” Chai Si said gratefully. “It’s just blood—I can handle it.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Chai Si’s heart sank. He waited for Kaironan’s next words like bracing for a punch to the gut.

“Numb, brutal thugs are the least valuable things in our line of work,” Kaironan said. “You grew up by my side, and I thought you’d be smarter in your actions.”

A moment passed before Chai Si regained his breath.

“To grow a hunter family, the Nest is only the foundation. The real key is how we establish ourselves and influence the world we live in. The truly powerful hunter families control the ‘reality’ that every one of us must live within.”

Kaironan gave a low, heavy laugh from his throat.

“...But mastering ‘reality’ cannot be done by violence and blood alone. Don’t tell me you only have that card left.”

Chai Si didn’t know his head could feel so heavy. For a moment, he just wanted to bow it deeply into his hands—not because he hadn’t slept all night.

He knew Kaironan wasn’t angry, but he would have preferred anger, scolding, and doubt over quiet disappointment.

Now taller than Kaironan, well-trained, and formidable enough to be feared even by hunters, Chai Si still felt the sinking sensation of drowning in ice water when Kaironan was disappointed—because he too couldn’t stop being disappointed in himself.

He stared at his own hands; pale long scars ran across the backs, disappearing under his watch and sleeves.

In his youth, to find his own path, Chai Si conducted many experiments, leaving various scars and hidden injuries on his body.

Only one percent of humans possess a “path” to enter the Nest; but no one knows what their path is, so they test one by one. He tried every known method of passage but still stood in the mortal world, unable to see the Nest.

Now at thirty, he couldn’t forget the look on Uncle Kai’s face when he finally accepted that Chai Si had no path: eyes lowered, silent.

It was like watching a piece of art shatter on the floor, revealing the foam plastic inside.

The scars on his hands weren’t from experiments. After finishing, Chai Si cut himself with a hunting knife. He didn’t know why—perhaps he thought that by cutting himself, he could carve open a path.

“I understand now,” Chai Si said hoarsely, clearing his throat. “Uncle Kai, I promised you I’d handle the mortal world.”

He couldn’t enter the Nest, but he could become a hunter in the mortal realm, seizing all the power and wealth the world offered for the Kai family.

Because what Uncle Kai truly wanted, Chai Si could not give.