Chapter 53: Futralen: The Connection to the Kay Family

...Should he say that he was deeply shocked at this moment?

Yes, he was indeed surprised. The person in the car who should have fallen into his hands at that moment had suddenly flown high into the sky along with the vehicle—anyone in his place would have been startled.

However, Fulan found that while he was astonished, there was also a sense of inevitability, as if things were unfolding as expected. The surprise surged up and, along with the distant car crashing down with a deafening roar, everything became an established fact.

Because, upon careful reflection, this was practically bound to happen, wasn't it?

Only, Fulan had not expected it to happen so swiftly, so violently, and with such reckless disregard for consequences.

It was as if the person who made the decision to commit murder knew very well that the laws and rules governing the city of Blackmoor did not apply to him, nor did they care to restrain him.

Fulan had witnessed the weapon that flipped the car over with his own eyes before.

The kiss of a Bazooka anti-tank rocket shell caused the car to explode on the spot, resembling a blooming steel firework in mid-air. The flames followed the spilled gasoline, burning half the road to a glowing red. Having suffered such a blow, the person inside the car stood no chance; everything was already too late.

The person who fired the shell from the building should not have been able to see the two cars on the road behind due to the visual limitations caused by the angle of the street.

Therefore, the most important thing right now was to evacuate the scene immediately...

Just as this thought crossed his mind, a series of sharp, consecutive gunshots suddenly echoed from the small building beneath the night sky. They were much crisper and brighter than the sound of the Bazooka, seemingly originating from a rifle.

Strange—

In that instant, Fulan suddenly understood.

The moment he immediately turned his head and rushed off the road, a dark shadow simultaneously surged up from behind.

"...Is that Vesiley?"

In the blink of an eye, Chaisi had already lunged to his side, even though he had been half a block further away than Fulan a moment ago. Judging by the sound, his breathing remained entirely unhurried.

As expected, this man had reacted as well, Fulan cursed silently in his heart, truly living up to being a bastard.

Struck squarely by a Bazooka shell, both the car and the driver had been instantly reduced to a fiery ruin, from which not even an immortal could escape. Yet the sniper had still switched to a rifle and fired several consecutive shots into the dark night. Naturally, there was only one explanation for this.

Before the Bazooka flipped the car over, someone had jumped out.

In other words, if he rushed over right now, there was still a chance to find a living captive, or at the very least, discover clues to the dead person's identity. However, running toward the spot where the car had rolled and crashed was equivalent to willingly running straight into the sniper's crosshairs.

To prevent the sniper from potentially still lingering about, the two men acted with one accord, seeking gaps and cover among nearby perimeter walls, warehouses, and various man-made structures, crouching low to close the distance.

Fulan considered his own physical agility to be outstanding, but Chaisi's agility was almost "inhuman." Determined not to let Chaisi reach the destination ahead of him, Fulan was forced to squeeze out breath while running to speak: "...If it's not him, could it be you?"

"Interesting," Chaisi responded briefly.

He crouched down, waiting for two seconds behind a low wall. Seeing that the small building across the road remained completely silent, he suddenly leaped up and lunged forward.

Fulan was not as tall as him, and his stride was not as wide, but running slower also had its advantages: as long as he followed right behind Chaisi and took his path, he could avoid the line of sight of the sniper across the street. Within a minute or two, the two of them, one after the other, ran close to the burning section of the road.

The dark night was scorched into flickering, uncertain expressions. The buildings surrounding the dock were momentarily dragged out of the gloom by the firelight, only to be pushed back into the night, as if taking turns watching this performance.

Even the air was distorted by the intense heat. Fulan stood behind cover, repeatedly sweeping his gaze over the shifting light and shadow, until he finally spotted a pair of limp, motionless human legs in the shadow cast by a row of eaves. The moment he leaped up, he saw Chaisi lunging forward at the same time.

The man lay flat on his back, covered in blood, making it impossible to tell where exactly he had been shot.

In truth, a single glance was enough to tell that he did not have much time left and could no longer be saved. His eyes were glossy with tears, his mouth half-open. When the shadows of the two men fell over his face, a wet, gurgling sound of blood and bubbles welled up in his throat.

"You guys just made a deal with Vesiley, didn't you?" Fulan squatted down beside the man and said in a low voice, "The ambulance is on the way. Hold on and answer me."

Chaisi raised his eyelids and glanced at him.

Fulan leaned in closer and called out to the injured man again: "Hey, listen to my voice, don't close your eyes. Did you guys just make a deal with Vesiley?"

The man seemed to be barely held back by the sound of a human voice. From his half-open lips, a breath escaped, which sounded precisely like a single word: "Yes..."

"What did you sell him?"

Even with Chaisi listening right beside him, he had to get this piece of information into his own hands—because this dying hunter was likely the only person in the city of Blackmoor, other than Vesiley, who knew about this transaction.

This was not the first time Vesiley had done business with hunters, but it was the first time he had resorted to silencing them after a deal.

What kind of artifact was it that made him willing to resort to killing a hunter?

Vesiley had also commissioned the Morgan family, but he could not possibly silence one of the largest factions in Blackmoor afterward; the resulting shockwave would be far too massive, equivalent to a localized war.

In other words, the artifact traded tonight possessed an essential difference from all other traded or soon-to-be-traded artifacts—what was it?

Why was Vesiley unafraid of people knowing he possessed other artifacts, yet refused to let anyone know he possessed the one from tonight?

The dying hunter's wits seemed to have already scattered; Fulan did not know whether he had truly understood or not.

His eyes remained motionless, fixed upon Chaisi's face, and amidst the blood filling his throat, he whispered, "The Ke... Key..."

Fulan was startled and immediately looked at Chaisi.

To his surprise, Chaisi's expression was as though he had just been slapped across the face. Caught entirely off guard by the unexpected shock, he asked subconsciously, "What?"

This hesitation of his stunned Fulan as well.

Chaisi actually looked even more astonished than himself, appearing as though he had never anticipated hearing the words "The Keys" from the lips of the dying hunter.

How strange the ways of the world were, always twisting and turning, linked ring within ring. Originally, Fulan had thought that Chaisi's appearance here tonight was an annoying complication; if he could turn back time, he would never have made that phone call to Royal-Roslin.

Yet at this very moment, it was precisely because Chaisi himself was present that Fulan was able to capture his genuine, unadorned initial reaction, turning it into a crucial hint.

"The Ke... Key..."

The dying hunter seemed only to wish to release the final word in his chest back into the mortal world, unable to hear their astonishment and lacking the strength to offer any further explanation.

Yet how could this matter possibly be related to the Ke family?

And if it were related, how could even Chaisi remain unaware of it?

Wait, Key—

Fulan's heart suddenly leaped, and his mind instantly cleared up like freshly fallen snow. He immediately bit down hard on his lower lip, staring down at the dying man on the ground to prevent himself from accidentally letting Chaisi see anything.

He understood what the man meant.

The other party was not saying "The Ke family" (Keys), but rather "the key."

Because he was at his last gasp, with his trachea flooding with blood, his speech had become blurred and hissing, making the two sound virtually indistinguishable to the ear.

Had Fulan not known full well that the Ke family had no business being involved in this matter, he probably would have been misled as well.

However, this subtlety had not yet been perceived by Chaisi.

As the saying goes, anxiety clouds judgment. Being a member of the Ke family and suddenly hearing his own family name spoken by a dying man, his thoughts were naturally led astray in an entirely different direction, prompting him to press urgently: "What about the Ke family? What does it have to do with your transaction?"

The hunter gave no further reply.

He stared wide-eyed, turning a blind eye to the two men, as though he had already looked past them and caught sight of the boundless sky.

Fulan stood up.

He had delayed long enough; Vesiley's men would soon arrive to clean up and handle the aftermath, and he needed to leave this place of trouble as quickly as possible.

Before leaving, however, there was one more thing he had to do: he could not let Chaisi continue to ponder, nor give the latter the opportunity to react.

After all, once the riddle was exposed, it was actually extremely simple; the only thing he was relying on was a mere misunderstanding.

Therefore, Fulan needed to distract Chaisi and drive that misunderstanding firmly into Chaisi's mind, blinding him with a single leaf before his eyes and making him prejudiced—that way, even if Chaisi realized the truth later on, he would already have secured the initiative.

"As expected... I knew the events of tonight were inseparable from you Ke family members. What are you surprised about? Could it be that you didn't even know the inside story behind this? Ah, right, after all, you aren't his biological son, are you?"

He knew he was walking a tightrope right now.

The best way to lower a person's intelligence was to provoke them. But the other party, after all, was someone whose height, speed, and strength completely surpassed his own...

Fulan tightened his grip on the iron chain in his hand and smiled, "Even if I kept a dog, I wouldn't report every family matter to it."

From the scorching red night, Chaisi's shadow slowly stood up, cutting off the sea of fire behind him.

Chaisi turned his face, his gaze falling upon Fulan.

That gaze possessed a physical texture, like sinking sand, a withered wind, as if leaking out of an old black-and-white photograph, devoid of any vitality. Neither the one who looked nor the one who was looked at seemed like a living person in this world.

The moment Fulan realized he had successfully provoked Chaisi, a piece of his left chest was suddenly devoured by some ferocious beast. For a split second, he lost all sensation, as if a black hole had opened up right next to his heart.

Had a piece of his flesh been torn away?

He felt a surge of doubt, yet he did not dare to look down, because Chaisi would not afford him the chance to raise his head again.

Had Fulan not leaned back to the side in the nick of time just now, the place that was now aching to the point of numbness, opening up a black hole to let in the cold wind, would have been his heart.

"While Fuhan is using you to make money, he really should brush up on your manners."

It was only then that Fulan clearly saw that what had just struck his chest was precisely the T-shaped rod that had once again lowered from Chaisi's hand, who knew when.

If I had only known, I would have brought a gun out tonight—

Fulan leaped to the side, swinging the iron chain in his hand horizontally toward Chaisi's waist. It rang out clearly in mid-air like a whip of hardened tendons and bones. Chaisi did not dodge or parry; instead, he slightly lowered his torso and raised an arm to block. When the iron chain struck heavily against his back and arm with a sharp *thwack*, he grabbed the chain and whipped it backward in a counter-roll, wrapping the chain around himself circle by circle like an obedient snake.

Bad.

The moment this word surfaced, before Fulan even had time to release the iron chain, he was jerked sideways by Chaisi and dragged completely off the ground.

"Didn't you bring a proper weapon tonight?"

Chaisi grabbed him by the chest, slammed him heavily onto the ground, and looking down at Fulan, cracked a smile. "Don't worry, once you're dead, I'll send some condolence money to your old man."

With the back of his head slamming violently against the ground, Fulan was left dizzy and disoriented by the fall, yet he still managed to prop up his knuckles and punch toward Chaisi's eyes. But before his fist could touch Chaisi, the latter grabbed him and heaved him upward as effortlessly as flipping a roll of bedding, hurling Fulan away.

Fulan tumbled and rolled a few steps away. When he braced his arms to climb back up, his hand touched something soft and wet. Looking back, he discovered he had propped himself right against the corpse.

The moment he realized he shouldn't have looked back, he also knew very well that unless he rolled past the corpse, he probably wouldn't be able to evade the blow about to strike from the back of his head.

Fulan's judgment was timely—when he climbed back up from the ground, gasping for breath, his body was stained with the dead man's blood, but at least none of it was his own; the skull at the back of his head was also still intact.

In the distant sky, a massive roar echoed, twisting and tearing through the veil of night. Within a few breaths, it closed in from afar, pressing down overhead with swirling sand and stones, whipped by a howling gale.

"In terms of physical might, I certainly can't match you,"

Staring at Chaisi, who was stepping over the corpse, he backed away slowly while smiling, "...That's only natural, how can a human ever beat an ape? But look, you simply don't have the time to kill me tonight."

The brilliant beam of light cast down by the helicopter swept back and forth across the two men several times. The cabin door opened, and someone shouted something indistinctly downward through the deafening roar of the helicopter's rotor blades.

There was no need to hear clearly what the person had specifically said, nor to look at the rifle mounted in that person's hands; the tone and severity alone were enough to convey her warning intent—Chaisi glanced back at the helicopter and raised a hand, sweeping his wind-tossed black hair back behind his head.

"So soon to have the adults come pick you up and take you home?" he said almost peacefully. "Go on then. Next time you go out, don't forget to bring a babysitter along."

Chaisi did not seem worried that the person on the helicopter would open fire on him as he turned to leave—though Fulan indeed found it difficult to suppress that temptation.

Yet in the end, he still refrained from ordering Longzhen to make a move: too many complications had already arisen tonight, and Vesiley must have also discovered this helicopter; he could not afford to branch out into further side issues.

"I heard the sound of gunfire and knew something had gone wrong. Fortunately, I didn't arrive too late."

Longzhen closed the helicopter door again. As they gained altitude and left the scene, she observed Fulan and asked, "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"Sister Longzhen, I'm in agonizing pain."

Fulan pointed at his chest, wearing a miserable expression as he said, "I took a rod to the ribs, banged my head, and rolled around in a pool of blood. Still, it's not entirely a bad thing."

With that, he pulled out a blood-soaked wallet from his hoodie pocket.

"Look, that guy who was doing business with Vesiley was quite considerate, leaving me a wallet right on his person."