Illusion Report

Chapter 328: Chapter 284: Jin Xueli’s Multiple-Choice Question

Don’t look down.

Keep your eyes fixed upward. Plant your foot firmly on one metal bar, then reach for the next.

Always maintain three points of contact with the frame. Only release one hand or lift one foot at a time to ensure a steady climb.

’Just one more level... Just gotta climb one more level...’

Jin Xueli stared intently at the night sky. With every movement, the metal bars of the scaffolding rang out with a CLANG. Her palms were sweating constantly, making her grip feel slick and greasy. In her imagination, she had already lost her grip and plummeted from the sky several times.

Several other times, it was a resident suddenly sticking their head out and shoving her off. The more she forced herself not to think about it, the more ubiquitous the residents in her mind became.

’Why did it have to be me? Someone with a severe fear of heights, forced to climb higher and higher?’

Just when Jin Xueli felt she couldn’t take it anymore and was about to give in to the urge to look down, she quickly ducked and scrambled on all fours, grabbing the surrounding bars to pull herself onto a level of scaffolding covered with planks.

Her legs were too weak to stand. When she tried to push herself up, her muscles trembled as if weeping.

High in the air, the night wind made the scaffolding creak and groan. She sat on the planks, wishing she were a bird, able to grip the boards tightly with her feet.

’What floor is this? It’s high enough, anyway.’

Jin Xueli first shined her flashlight through the window, sweeping its beam across the empty office a few times.

It didn’t take her long to spot a telephone. It sat innocently on a desk, looking completely harmless.

The office was dim and quiet, with nothing out of place. The entire floor seemed to have been overlooked by the residents, so normal that a glance might trick someone into thinking they were back in Blackmoor City.

Jin Xueli, of course, wouldn’t fall for that.

The moment someone actually went inside, the office would be anything but calm.

She visually measured the distance between herself and the telephone—it was a good seven or eight meters away. She had nothing on hand that could reach it. To use that phone, she would have to enter the building.

She had been clinging to the faint hope that the phone might be close to the window. Now it seemed her luck was as bad as ever.

’The office telephone is really just a last resort, an option to consider only when all else fails...’

Jin Xueli hadn’t climbed the scaffolding for the telephone in the office. That wasn’t her primary goal.

In the city, there were just too few options for gaining height without going inside a building.

She swallowed, her throat dry, and fumbled in her backpack, pulling out a pair of binoculars.

Since she knew this trip was to search for something in the Nest, she had naturally brought the right tools. Besides the binoculars, she had also printed a photo of the Original Liquid, bought a manual water pump from a pet store, and brought her old Crane-beak Shovel... Who knew what form the Original Liquid would take or where it might be hidden?

After adjusting the focus, she steadied her hands and began to scan the streets below through the lenses.

Although she hadn’t been in the right mind to count on her way up, she had to be at least twenty stories high.

Excluding the areas blocked by skyscrapers, her field of view was still vast. Her gaze swept along the roads, one by one. Routes that would have taken hours to walk could now be surveyed completely with a flick of her wrist.

’Nothing, nothing, still nothing.’

’Where are all the public phone booths? They’re the safest option.’

’Surely there are people in the world who don’t have cell phones, right?’

’Like the elderly, or the homeless? Someone is bound to run into an emergency where they need to make a call but don’t have a phone, right? Even for that one-in-a-million chance, there should be—’

Jin Xueli froze. She grabbed a metal bar, turned, and shuffled step by step to the other side of the scaffolding. When she reached the very edge, where another half-inch forward would send her falling, she slid down against a bar into a sitting position and raised the binoculars again.

’Why didn’t I think of this before?’

She had just been searching blindly, without ever stopping to consider where a public phone booth would most likely still exist.

These days, the only people who would use a public phone booth were either homeless or people who’d had an accident—like tourists, for example, who weren’t familiar with the area and were prone to running into trouble.

In Blackmoor City, there was one place that attracted both groups and wasn’t far from here: Blackmoor City Central Park. During the day, it was bustling with tourists; once night fell, it became a place where the homeless and other shady characters loitered.

The Nest was a twisted, distorted dream born from the blueprint of Blackmoor City. It was absurd and malformed, yet faithful in its own way.

If there were still public phone booths near the park, then the Nest should have them too.

Looking from this direction, she could just catch a corner of the park. Jin Xueli squinted, trying to distinguish the roads, benches, streetlights, and residents from the darkness and shadows...

’Found it.’

A weary, silent, graffiti-covered public phone booth finally came into focus, magnified several times by her lenses.

It was so far away that the slightest tremor in her hand muscles made it wobble in the binoculars, as if it were trying to slip away into the shadows.

But Jin Xueli fought through her dizziness and saw it: the phone booth wasn’t empty. There was indeed a phone hanging inside.

’This makes things easier. As long as I know where it is, even if it’s a bit far, it’s much better than risking entry into that office building—’

Jin Xueli subconsciously glanced back.

She had already turned around and moved from one end of the scaffolding to the other, yet the window beside her still revealed the same office with the same layout, same orientation, and same design. Even the small smudges on the glass were identical in shape.

Jin Xueli quickly turned her head away, pretending she hadn’t noticed, and raised her binoculars again.

’One more look to confirm the phone booth’s location, then I’m climbing down immediately.’

’Whether the same office was following me, or the building is filled with endless identical spaces, I absolutely cannot go inside.’

When binoculars with high magnification bridge a vast distance, it’s hard to find your target at first glance—your brain’s sense of space and position can’t keep up.

For a few seconds, Jin Xueli thought the public phone booth she had worked so hard to find had disappeared again, and she frantically scanned the area. When she finally relocated it, she didn’t even have time to sigh in relief before she froze.

In that short time, someone else had appeared on that street.

A slender woman in her forties, wearing a loose pullover and yoga pants, was standing under a streetlight with her arms crossed.

She seemed completely oblivious to the deep, dark shadows of the bushes behind her, huddling in the orange glow of the streetlight, occasionally raising the back of her hand to wipe away tears Jin Xueli couldn’t see.

Jin Xueli pushed the binoculars’ magnification to its maximum and focused on the woman’s face. It was still too blurry to tell if she had blue eyes and thin lips.

’Her build, age, and clothing... they perfectly match the description of "Jacqueline" from the broadcast.’

’Wait, Jacqueline is still in the Nest?’

She remembered the broadcast clearly stating that it was a recording. If it was a recording, it could have been made at any time.

’But... if Jacqueline is still in the Nest, it means the recording wasn’t made that long ago. Probably no more than two or three days.’

For an ordinary person who suddenly fell into the Nest to survive for two or three days was a one-in-ten feat. ’I wonder if she’s discovered the true nature of the Nest? Has she learned about Hunters and Illusions? Has she figured out how to get home? Will she want to become a Hunter in the future?’

So many questions, but no way to ask any of them.

Jin Xueli scanned the area around her with the binoculars, terrified a resident might be hiding nearby. But Jacqueline’s luck was good; she had chosen a resting spot in a relatively safe park. The surroundings were quiet, and even after several minutes, no residents had appeared.

She seemed to be not far from the phone booth.

’When I go to make the call, if Jacqueline is still there, I might as well give her a few warnings. For example, the Path back is the same one, so she needs to leave as soon as possible, because a resident has already put a bounty on her...’

Jin Xueli was thinking this as she started climbing down. The next thought came so suddenly it was as if it had slammed into her brain out of nowhere, making her hand tremble and miss its grip.

As if jolted by electricity, she reacted instantly, grabbing the scaffolding with a SNAP. Jin Xueli’s heart was about to explode. She clung to the metal bars, gasping for breath high in the air, letting the aftershock of fear subside before she reluctantly returned to that thought.

...A problem that had been nagging at her could actually be solved quite easily.

Even after she found a public phone, got a contact number, and connected with the radio program team, Jin Xueli would still face an unavoidable problem:

What would she use for the reward?

She didn’t know what reward the resident who put the bounty on Jacqueline had prepared, but it was certainly something she couldn’t offer.

The residents of the Nest didn’t want money, Illusions, or information from the human world. They certainly had no interest in any object she could offer—and even if they did, Jin Xueli wouldn’t dare give it to them.

But...

"Give me the location of the Original Liquid, and in exchange, I’ll tell you Jacqueline’s location. With her location, you can go claim your reward."

Jin Xueli could almost feel the slight vibrations of the sound waves in the air as those words came from a radio.

Trade a stranger’s location for nine million dollars...

No, once Nulife Biotech went public, 3% of its shares would be worth far more than nine million.

Besides, there was also that dumpster.

Trade a stranger’s location information for... for at least two hundred million.

Trade it for a lifetime of wealth, tranquility, convenience, satisfaction, and ease.

For status. For never again having to endure the troubles and pain inflicted by others.

Jin Xueli jumped to the ground.

Whether it was from the climb, the binoculars, or something else entirely, something was spinning in her head, making her dizzy.

Faced with this choice... how many people in the world would choose a complete stranger, someone they’d never met and knew nothing about?

How many would choose the two hundred million?

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