Chapter Seventeen: Chai Si—The Hunted Hunter

Evan was either a genius or a fool.
No, Chai Si thought, perhaps he was a mixture of both; it is said that when a fool has a sudden flash of insight, even the smartest people have to concede defeat.

“Are you trying to kill yourself? Don’t drag me into this!” Huang Li shouted in panic, forgetting to be polite to his superior. “This isn’t a nest, it’s the human world! Driving like this has consequences—if you hit someone, you’ll go to jail. Didn’t you hear the sirens behind us?”

Only a few minutes after breaking a series of traffic laws, he heard the sirens.

The sirens sounded like several circling blades, slicing through the sky behind them; sometimes they faded into the distance, making Chai Si think he had shaken off the first police car, only for more sirens to close in from other directions as new patrol cars joined the chase.

But the police never managed to intercept him, because they couldn’t recklessly cross sidewalks, drive against traffic, run red lights, and burst through intersections like he did—moving as if the streets were deserted.

Along the way, he lost count of how many pedestrians darted aside in panic, and how many times he heard the shrill screech of tires against asphalt.

Wherever the car went, chaos followed—running crowds, honking horns, and screams. Miraculously, when Chai Si finally got back on the road and sped away, he had only knocked a side mirror askew and dented a front headlight—no irreparable damage.

“Hold tight,” he said, glancing at the flashing red and blue lights behind them. “I’m going to accelerate.”

“Accelerate? You—”

Huang Li didn’t finish his sentence, thrust back into the seat by the sudden surge of speed.

Chai Si swerved around the car ahead, twisting the wheel to cut sharply in front, drawing a few angry horns. “You’ve been running with that search on the whole time, right?”

Huang Li sighed, brushing lavender-colored hair from his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, raising his phone into Chai Si’s peripheral vision. The screen displayed a map app. “Well, anyway, I’m not the one driving. So, where exactly are we headed?”

“Bluebrook Community College,” Chai Si replied tersely, racing past two cars again.

“Why?”

“Just now, you sensed a flicker of the illusion, right? I saw the subway sign for ‘Furlington Station’ on Line D. Bluebrook Community College is the terminus of Line D in this direction.”

Huang Li blinked repeatedly as he processed the information.

“Wait—you’re saying you suspect that bodyguard hid the illusion at the Bluebrook Community College subway station?”

“No,” Chai Si said, “I suspect he hid it on the subway train itself.”

Huang Li’s jaw dropped, and after a couple of seconds, he pulled it back into place. “The subway? The Blackmoor City subway? You—he—he’s crazy, isn’t he?”

It felt like what he was about to say was something along the lines of “Are you okay?”

Blackmoor City’s subway was world-famous, but not for its bustling crowds.

Besides ordinary commuters and tourists, the trains were always filled with an assortment of strange characters—cult recruiters, fake newspaper vendors, announcers declaring the death of still-living celebrities, doomsday prophets, public cross-dressers begging for money… the subway was a constant stage for the bizarre and the peculiar.

People often said, to tell if someone was a true Blackmoor City local, just see if they could sit through an entire subway ride without reacting.

Anyone wanting to hide something would never instinctively choose a place like this.

Moreover, once the subway leaves, how could Evan retrieve whatever he left behind?

“I have many questions,” Huang Li pondered aloud. “Evan stopped the car and quickly went into the subway station before coming back out—that part makes sense, and he had time to do that. But how do you know he hid the item on the subway itself?”

“You said the illusion ‘flashed by,’ right? If your perception is as reliable as you claim, then that means the illusion was at the very edge of your perception, moving forward at high speed, disappearing from your sight in an instant.

“That means before you started sensing it, it had already been moving within your perception range for some time, so that at the moment you began sensing, it was just reaching the edge and then flashed past.”

Her perception range was vast—pedestrians, bicycles, even cars driving at city speed limits couldn’t easily slip out of it.

From what they pieced together, Evan had made no contact with anyone; and within the city, what could move continuously at high speed, unaffected by traffic, to carry the illusion beyond Huang Li’s perception range?

When Chai Si’s gaze landed on the “D” line sign, he remembered: Furlington Station was nearby.

While they searched in vain, deep beneath their feet, a subway train rumbled away, carrying the illusion far into the distance.

The possibility that another illusion appeared on Evan’s route didn’t occur to either of them for now—“possibility” and “probability” were two different things. No matter how many hunters tirelessly tried to bring illusions into the human world, the number of illusions remained very small.

Huang Li glanced back at the multiple police cars tailing them closely and resigned himself, gripping the overhead handle tightly. “No wonder you’re crossing streets recklessly, even driving against traffic and speeding… You’re racing against the subway, and shortcuts alone won’t cut it. But this is terrifying—if I don’t die in the nest, dying in a car crash would be downright ironic.”

Chai Si didn’t reply, just glanced at the time. “You sensed the illusion around 10:03.”

He had an obsessive habit of always knowing the exact time, precise to the minute.

This habit persisted for over twenty years; now, even without looking at a watch, his internal clock was nearly flawless. Before checking the time, he already knew it was 10:13—he had been speeding for nearly ten minutes under police pursuit.

Ahead awaited countless red lights. Each red light was a choice: stop and get caught, or run through and risk being split in half by oncoming traffic.

He needed a plan—how to carve a road through the bustling Blackmoor City with no one in pursuit?

Chai Si asked, “How often do trains run on Line D?”

Huang Li glanced at the map app on his phone. “Every seven minutes.”

“Look at your navigation—how many minutes until the next train leaves Furlington Station? And how long to the terminus?”

“The next train leaves in two minutes, and it takes thirty-five minutes to reach the terminus.”

Huang Li’s eyes brightened as he understood. “Ah, the train carrying the illusion will arrive at the terminus at 10:36! We just need to get to the platform before 10:36.”

Anyone who treated “entering the nest to hunt” as a profession rather than a last hobby before death wouldn’t be slow to catch on.

If the next train departs at 10:15, the previous two left at 10:08 and 10:01. When Huang Li began detecting at 10:03, the 10:01 train was just about to leave his detection range; from Furlington Station to the terminus would be exactly until 10:36.

“But I have another question,” Huang Li frowned. “How do you know that train was headed toward Bluebrook Community College and not the other way?”

“I don’t,” Chai Si admitted.

Huang Li whipped his head around, staring at him.

“I only know one thing,” Chai Si explained patiently, more so than he ever would with his own hunters. “When you descend at Furlington Station, the platform on the first basement level goes toward Bluebrook Community College. The second basement level platform is for the opposite direction.”

“Oh,” Huang Li relaxed and nodded. “You’re betting the bodyguard took the nearest train. Yeah, makes sense—he only took thirteen minutes longer than GPS predicted, including stops and waiting, so he didn’t linger in the station. Quick and efficient.”

Evan only needed to ride one stop—after hiding the illusion, he could get off and immediately catch a train going the other way without waiting.

“But you know any subway station has two platform levels?” Huang Li remarked in awe. “You must have been born in Blackmoor City to know that well.”

Chai Si didn’t answer, instead ordering, “Call the police.”

Huang Li blinked twice, glancing nervously at the pursuing police cars behind. One was dangerously close, its flashing lights casting a blue and red glow through the rear window.

“We don’t lack police,” she reminded him.

“Don’t waste time.” Chai Si didn’t slow, heading straight for the red light at the next intersection. “Call and tell them you’re in a speeding car. Have them block off the area from Columbia Avenue and East 106th Street to Cherry Street within ten minutes.”

“You’re the boss anyway,” she muttered, opening the dial screen.

Just as Huang Li pressed three digits, her eyes shot up from the screen: a large truck had just crossed the intersection from the right, rumbling straight toward them, about to smash the black Mercedes in half.

“Car—”

Chai Si didn’t brake; instead, he floored the accelerator, the engine roaring desperately as he charged forward like a man betting his life.

Huang Li’s involuntary scream filled the car, drowned out by a thunderous crash at the rear—though only a corner was grazed, the car lurched heavily, nearly spinning sideways to block the intersection.

Strong hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Amid the metallic symphony of shaking and the engine’s mournful howl, the car pulled away from the intersection just in time, merging onto the street ahead. The truck slammed on its brakes and skidded to a halt, while the chain reaction of rear-end collisions behind formed a steel traffic jam, trapping the pursuing police cars at the other end.

“I joined the Hunter’s Guild hoping for more security,” Huang Li shouted, recovering from her fear. “Not to risk my life at work! This isn’t a nest—”

“911,” a woman’s voice came from beneath the seat amid the chaos, “what’s your emergency?”

“Quick,” Chai Si pressed the accelerator again and snapped his fingers in front of Huang Li. “We might not get this lucky at the next intersection.”

“Hello, hello! I’m in the car that’s been recklessly speeding through Bluebrook District!” Huang Li stammered, quickly relaying Chai Si’s instructions. She paused, glanced at him, then said, “…You want to know who I am? I was kidnapped, forced into this car at gunpoint. He said if they don’t block the roads… he’ll start throwing bombs into traffic.”

Chai Si glanced at her, a smile breaking across his face, flashing white teeth.

“I want to say it’s a pleasure working with you,” he said softly after Huang Li hung up, “but our collaboration is only just beginning.”