Chapter 23: The Security Guard’s Solo Kill
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On the subway, the crowd had already thinned compared with the morning rush. Lin Yilin found a relatively empty spot and sat down.
After a while, she asked, “Mr. Hallucination, what did you think of that person just now?”
“He was pretty handsome?”
“…Are you gay?”
“How did you manage to take it there again?”
“Never mind. What I wanted to ask was whether you sensed any hallucinatory factor in Kiyono Koji.”
“A little, but it wasn’t very strong. Why?”
Zheng Fan sat down across from Lin Yilin.
“I’m not the only one who has made a deal with a hallucination. Aside from the common and legitimate method of obtaining fantasy factors left behind by hallucinations and using them to wield supernatural powers, the only way to use that kind of power without losing yourself is to make a deal with a hallucination,” Lin Yilin explained.
“I see. But the risks must be enormous.”
“They are. You can never be certain of everything a hallucination will do. Still… because hallucinations develop in different ways, the differences between individuals can be enormous as well. There are quite a few people like that. Kiyono probably acquired this power three years ago, and he has remained perfectly safe ever since. In fact, he has been doing better and better at his own agency.”
Lin Yilin stared at the subway route map, seemingly lost in thought.
“Dangerous, but that kind of power can change a person’s circumstances in an instant. Is that it?” Zheng Fan summarized.
“In the Great Capital, there are countless people who want a sudden reversal of fortune. I’m only one of them. I simply made a little more preparation than most. Understanding more doesn’t mean you can completely control everything. If you weren’t so easygoing, Mr. Hallucination, my fate might have been a great deal more miserable.”
Lin Yilin’s gaze shifted toward another carriage.
The exhausted crowds, the beggars, peddlers, and displaced wanderers—one could see plenty of them on the subway in the Gray District. They were all genuine faces of the Great Capital.
Zheng Fan smiled. “But if my actions had revealed even the slightest sign that something was wrong, you wouldn’t have come looking for me so readily, would you?”
“Hmph.”
Lin Yilin neither confirmed nor denied it, but a smile appeared on her face.
“What happened with the university trying to expel you?” Zheng Fan asked, changing the subject to something he was more curious about.
Lin Yilin was obviously extremely intelligent. In fact, she seemed almost like a genius. Merely standing beside her gave people a sense that she was somehow inhuman—different from ordinary people, impossible to read.
In that respect, Zheng Fan felt that Kiyono Koji’s assessment of her had been quite accurate.
Yet although that Japanese pretty boy understood this, he still treated her as he would any ordinary person.
Or rather, Kiyono probably hoped that Lin Yilin could free herself from that sense of alienation.
A genius who was clearly human, yet detached from humanity; someone others paid no attention to and simply overlooked. Dreamlike and unreal, as though she were a hallucination among a crowd, destined to vanish in the blink of an eye.
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Still, when someone like that said she had nearly been expelled from university, the feeling of unreality suddenly became rather tangible.
Zheng Fan felt a little guilty, but he still found it somewhat amusing.
“I only violated some school rules in the club and caused a few unpleasant incidents. Some of my classmates were involved too, and I wasn’t even the mastermind.”
Lin Yilin glanced to the side, speaking as casually as if it were nothing.
But you just admitted to being a mastermind.
“A club? You actually joined one?” Zheng Fan asked, somewhat surprised.
Back in university, his parents had enrolled him in a “fun” major. If he hadn’t already grown accustomed to those two idiots, he might really have called the police. As it was, he hadn’t cared much.
He had met a few interesting people at school, but all in all, university had left little impression on him. As for clubs, they felt like something from a distant past.
“It wasn’t exactly a club, since the university didn’t recognize it. We were simply a group of private individuals who gathered for activities. Collectively, we called ourselves the Multiverse Research Society.”
What kind of research society?
What on earth had you been doing at university?
It sounded like one of those hobby groups formed by chuunibyou youngsters looking for something entertaining to do, rather like the supernatural research societies he had heard about.
But looking at Lin Yilin and considering the methods she possessed, this research society sounded deeply ominous.
Wait. She said they had caused an accident in the club. Was that accident really nothing more than an ordinary violation of school rules?
Zheng Fan’s thoughts erupted into a full-blown storm.
“Mr. Hallucination, we’re here,” Lin Yilin suddenly said as she rose.
Zheng Fan stopped thinking about it and followed her.
Never mind. If they spent enough time together, anything he ought—or ought not—to know would eventually come to light.
Everyone had a few damnable episodes in their past.
Closed Community was an area to the northwest of Xixike Street. It was fairly large, and among all the neighborhoods of Xixike Street, it ranked as one of the more prosperous. If Laughter-and-Tears Road was the equivalent of a county town, then this place was probably the downtown district of a small city.
But along with its prosperity came something worse than what could be found around Laughter-and-Tears Road: larger gang forces had gathered here.
The largest underground black market in Xixike Street—and even among the several surrounding urban districts—was located here as well.
None of that had much to do with Zheng Fan and Lin Yilin. They went straight to Kaibisi’s home.
It was a fairly upscale residential complex. At the entrance, they encountered a profession considered highly dangerous in the Great Capital and exceptionally rare in the Gray District:
A security guard.
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And this rare figure was precisely where Lin Yilin got stuck.
“From an agency? You’re not getting in.”
The security guard had looked at the card Lin Yilin handed him, given it no more than a cursory glance, and then answered without hesitation.
Even Lin Yilin was momentarily stunned.
“A little unknown agency like yours—I don’t even know what sort of jobs you take. If I let everyone in, how am I supposed to keep this place secure? Run along home, little girl. Don’t treat an agency like it’s a game.”
The guard waved her away dismissively.
“Wait, please…”
Lin Yilin tried to plead her case, but the guard did not even bother listening. He turned around and went straight back into the security booth.
“Pfft…”
Zheng Fan finally broke.
Talk about failing before even getting started.
The invincible Miss Lin Yilin had hit a wall at the security gate.
And just like that, it seemed she really had no conventional way to get inside.
“How could this happen…”
Lin Yilin lowered her head by the roadside, looking rather like a… earthworm lying beside the road.
“He’s only doing his job conscientiously.”
“When I said I was from an agency, he didn’t reject me immediately. He looked at my card first. That means he wasn’t opposed to agencies in general, only small agencies. As he said, the quality of small agencies varies wildly, so they aren’t very trustworthy.”
Lin Yilin let out a long breath.
“Want me to handle it?” Zheng Fan asked.
“I could use a hallucinatory ritual to fool him, but there are too many people around here, so it would be difficult to carry out in plain sight. Mr. Hallucination, I’m sorry that I have to trouble you with something like this.”
Lin Yilin could only resign herself to reality.
A while later, as a car drove back into the residential complex, the vehicle gate opened. The guard at the entrance felt only a blur before his eyes, followed by a sudden gust of wind.
He blinked, looking around in every direction, but saw nothing unusual.
“Lin Yilin” stopped in an empty corner as casually as someone out for a stroll. She glanced back at the distant guard, gave a soft laugh, and strode boldly into the complex.
With Zheng Fan possessing Lin Yilin, the solution was very simple.
She merely had to walk in when the gate opened.
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