Illusion Report

Chapter 327: Chapter 283: Jin Xueli: Jin Xueli’s Idea

"Kill someone?"

The moment Jin Xueli heard the condition, she instinctively recoiled. She had stepped back into a puddle, and the few flecks of mud that had splashed onto her pants were still there.

She slapped at her pants a few times, but her mind wasn’t on the mud.

Jin Xueli was not a professional killer. She had never imagined that one day she would be faced with the prospect of killing for money. When the resident finished speaking, her first reaction was an instinctive refusal. It was impossible.

’Dealing with a stalker is one thing, but killing an innocent person I have no quarrel with is something else entirely...’

’Besides, anyone worth a hundred million to kill had to be an important figure. She wasn’t capable of something like that.’

Even though this wasn’t the time to be worrying about it, the voice of the resident with the money-symbol eyes crept back into her thoughts.

"You’re mistaken. She’s not an important figure, oh no, just an ordinary person. So she isn’t that guarded. If a total stranger were to assassinate her by surprise, they’d definitely succeed. It wouldn’t be too difficult."

As it squinted in a smile, the eerily green dollar signs in its eyes compressed.

"I’ve said it before: money is basically garbage in the Nest. That person’s existence is just an annoyance, and she’s going to die sooner or later anyway... Well, come to think of it, so are you, right?

"In any case, we’ve already made the arrangements. Whether you kill her or not, she can’t escape death in the end. I just want to use this big pile of useless, space-hogging trash to make her die a little sooner... even just a month sooner would be great."

With a THUD, the dumpster lid fell shut, sounding like a pang of loss from deep in her heart.

The cash, piled high in neat bundles just moments ago, was now hidden from view, but it felt as if it had already burned an afterimage onto her retinas. She blinked several times, but the phantom shapes of countless banknotes still spun and scattered into the night, like the stars you see after rubbing your eyes too hard.

"I don’t actually need you, you know.

"I just have a soft spot for people who love money; that’s the only reason I sought you out. Do you think you’re the only one? Who cares whether you’re willing to take this one hundred and six million, six hundred thousand or not."

It spoke as it grabbed the edge of the dumpster, dragging it back to hide itself again.

"Wait,"

Jin Xueli cried out, suddenly panicked. Yet the only words she could manage were, "W-wait a minute..."

Silence from behind the dumpster.

’G-gone?’

She stared at the shadow behind the dumpster, trying to make out a shape within the darkness. Her breath caught in her throat, her face alternating between hot and cold—a hundred million in cash was like a raging fire, enough to scorch a person’s sanity.

"Hey!" she couldn’t help but call out.

"...What?"

Jin Xueli jumped. "You haven’t left?"

Before it could answer, she rushed on, "Anyway, I have to fulfill the first condition first, right? The whole killing thing... It won’t be too late to think about that after the first condition is met, will it?"

There was no sound from behind the dumpster.

"But I need to know... will you offer this deal to other people? The same conditions?"

After several minutes, just when Jin Xueli thought it had really left, the resident suddenly let out an eerie laugh and said, "Of course."

Her heart sank.

"After you leave, I’ll find the next person who loves money. Whoever meets my conditions first gets to take this big pile of trash."

"But—"

Jin Xueli had only just begun to speak when she suddenly heard a frantic rustling of paper. She froze and stood waiting in the dim alley for several seconds.

When she worked up the courage to gently nudge the dumpster lid open with her hammer, she found it was already empty.

’...Maybe that person will end up dying on their own?’

Jin Xueli knew the thought was naive and laughable—but hadn’t the resident said so itself?

’They hate that person, so they’ve already made arrangements. If that person is fated to be killed by an outside force, maybe I can... find a way to piggyback off it.’

’If the person died in the Nest, it might be hard to fool the residents, but if they met with a mishap in Blackmoor City... that should present an opportunity, right?’

A large part of Jin Xueli’s mind was still consumed by that sea of pale green banknotes. She couldn’t help but fantasize about how, once she got the money, she would bring it back to Blackmoor City, and then how she would make it legal.

Even if that resident looked for other people, she still had an advantage: the first condition of having a "net worth of nine million."

Even among Hunters who regularly traveled to and from the Nest, very few could meet the nine-million threshold.

To meet this condition, she was just one Original Liquid short.

’Only the residents would know anything about the Original Liquid...’

However, after walking for nearly thirty minutes and surviving several encounters—some merely startling, others genuinely dangerous—Jin Xueli still hadn’t seen a public phone booth.

Deep purple, snow-white, and sapphire-blue neon lights spun and pulsed in the night sky, as if injecting an erratic heartbeat into the streets that resembled those of Blackmoor City. If you stood still and watched for too long, even your brain would start to feel like it was skidding.

Jin Xueli squeezed her eyes shut.

’In truth, even if I found a public phone, I might not be able to find the contact information for the "Virtual Guide to Infinite Environments"...’

’But what other choice did I have?’

She slowly turned in a circle, her gaze sweeping over her surroundings.

’...Actually, finding a phone shouldn’t be that hard.’

The distant cluster of skyscrapers silhouetted against the violet night sky was filled with corporate offices. Commercial buildings usually had telephones, because when the Nest spawned such structures, their internal equipment often came into being along with them.

The only reason Jin Xueli hadn’t gone into an office from the start was one that every Hunter knew well: theoretically, the more something fell into the category of public infrastructure, the safer it was. The more private and inaccessible to the public, the more dangerous.

In the private domain, the more people who might gather there, the more dangerous it was.

In other words, parks were safer than residential buildings, and residential buildings were safer than corporate towers.

Since becoming a Hunter, Jin Xueli had never once entered a commercial building. Money was great, but you needed to be alive to spend it. What’s more, office buildings came in different sizes. ’Could a ten-story building and the skyscraper before my eyes possibly be the same level of risk?’

The other places that might have a phone were bars, restaurants, and cafes—the kinds of establishments that would take takeout orders.

’...I’ll start with the restaurants and diners.’

But as luck would have it, fate wasn’t on her side. Pushing open the door to any restaurant was already a considerable risk. Jin Xueli tested and observed, picking out three or four places that looked relatively safe, but she came up empty-handed each time.

"You people all use apps or websites to order and make reservations these days. Nobody calls anymore."

In one restaurant, a resident waiter who claimed to be harmless to humans—with half of its left eye sunken into its right—kindly explained to her, "Although we don’t live like humans, don’t underestimate the Nest. We keep up with the times, too."

The fifth diner not only had a phone, but it was mounted right on the wall.

Overjoyed, Jin Xueli didn’t even spare a glance for the few "people" eating inside as she snatched the receiver from the wall mount.

"Help yourself," the owner’s thin voice called from the kitchen.

Wispy white filaments, like a densely woven mass of countless spiderwebs, stretched taut between the receiver and the phone’s base. There was a wet sound, like flesh slowly splitting open, spilling blood and fat.

Jin Xueli froze, her gaze instinctively dropping to the receiver in her hand.

Countless fine, white, sprout-like tendrils were extending from what should have been the earpiece.

With a faint POP, several white threads shot out from the base unit, bypassing the receiver to stroke her hand.

The two words ’They’re nerves’ flashed through her mind. The next second, a flood of static and noise, like a television that had lost its signal, poured into her head.

Come on come on let’s connect we can experience each other’s emotions and worlds feel joy and anger in sync share sorrow and happiness absolute understanding absolute understanding absolute understanding absolute understanding is true companionship and love—

Jin Xueli violently flung her hand away. Like sharp fingernails, a few of the white nerves scraped across the back of her hand but failed to get a grip and slid off.

The shock sent her turning and running. In her peripheral vision, she vaguely saw one of the diners jerk its head toward her—the lower half of its face was a churning, twisting mass of white, tentacle-like nerves.

’This is so infuriating...’

’I can’t use my own cell phone; I have to find a Nest phone, and the residents don’t have cell phones either.’

’See? Another reason I can absolutely, under no circumstances, become a resident—they don’t even have cell phones. How is a person supposed to live without a cell phone?’

Jin Xueli touched the cell phone in her pocket but dismissed the idea of trying to use it.

After all, she had to pretend to be a Nest resident to call the radio show. She hadn’t worked out the exact details of her plan yet, but she was certain that if she used a human cell phone to call, she’d be exposed, even if the call connected.

’This whole trip can’t be for nothing, can it?’

’I really want to just throw my head back and scream like a resident, "Original Liquid, Original Liquid, Original Liquid, Original Liquid, Original Liquid!" Even if it accomplishes nothing, at least I’d feel a little better.’

She let out a low groan, skirted around the scaffolding on the road ahead, and walked along the edge of the street, continuously scanning her surroundings.

’My luck hasn’t been too bad today; I haven’t attracted any residents. But that doesn’t mean...’

Wait.

Jin Xueli stopped in her tracks.

She stood at the edge of the road for a few seconds, then turned and looked up.

In the night, the office building undergoing exterior renovation looked like it was wearing a long mask. Dark, gloomy windows peered out from the gaps like eyes.

’...Scaffolding?’

’Maybe... maybe I can use that?’

Her heart pounded as an idea began to form.

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