Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Money-Burning Magic Trick
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“A money-burning magic trick,” Zheng Fan replied with a beaming smile.
Lin Yilin took a bank card from her small bag and placed it on the table. “But, Mr. Hallucination, can you touch a bank card?”
The moment she finished speaking, she saw Zheng Fan pick up the card perfectly normally. Her eyes widened. “Huh?”
“Forget whatever comes next—the fact that you can do this is already astonishing…” Lin Yilin quickly realized the reason. “It’s an ability related to property. Mr. Hallucination, did you really complete that ability?”
Zheng Fan had burned several Anomalies before, but in the end, all he had managed to produce was an ability called “Robbery.”
Yet judging from what he was doing now, Lin Yilin assumed that Zheng Fan had completed the ability.
“Tsk. Why do you have to be so clever, little Binary?” Zheng Fan balanced the bank card by one corner on a single finger, making it spin. After burning the enormous Anomaly that had burst out of the Bloody Tycoon, he could now touch things conceptually related to money and wealth—though the ability was not yet entirely stable.
“I only had to look at it once to figure it out,” Lin Yilin said bluntly. “But I’m still curious about what Mr. Hallucination can actually demonstrate. Different property-related abilities manifest in different ways, after all.”
“Are you trying to cheer me up?”
“I’m serious.”
“All right, all right. Watch closely.”
Zheng Fan spun around. His black outfit suddenly transformed into a white suit, complete with a top hat, an ostentatious cape, and a silver monocle over his right eye.
“Oh. The Phantom Thief Kid,” Lin Yilin said at once, recognizing the character. It was another story Zheng Fan had told her.
“Heh heh. Prepare to witness a miracle!”
With a faint smile, Zheng Fan swiped the bank card through the air.
Then something shocking happened.
Nothing happened.
Zheng Fan: ?
He froze for a moment, then, unwilling to accept defeat, swiped the card through the air several more times. Still, nothing happened.
“…What’s going on? Something’s wrong. Was my effect nullified? Who chained me? Aren’t I supposed to be the big brother with resistance to everything?” Zheng Fan stared awkwardly at the card in his hand, babbling incomprehensibly to cover his embarrassment.
“Could it be because there’s no money in that account?” Lin Yilin asked.
Zheng Fan abruptly turned toward her, eyes wide, silently demanding an explanation.
Then the silent question became an audible one. “Why the hell did you give me a bank card with no money in it?!”
“Mr. Hallucination never said it had to contain money. You looked so suspicious, so I deliberately chose one with no balance…” Lin Yilin replied with impeccable logic.
Zheng Fan nearly began criticizing himself for not having explained things clearly enough.
Then he noticed Lin Yilin turn her head away as she spoke, her cheeks faintly puffing with suppressed amusement.
“You knew what I was going to do and deliberately messed with me!” Zheng Fan exclaimed in shock. He had truly misjudged little Binary.
Lin Yilin turned back, her face still expressionless. “No.”
Seeing that Zheng Fan was about to erupt again, she quickly handed him a black card. “This one has money.”
Still wanting to say something, Zheng Fan narrowed his eyes and accepted the card, examining it suspiciously, though he could not see anything unusual about it.
“Does this one really have money?”
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“This is a black card from the Central Bank of the Great Capital. Of course it has money.”
Zheng Fan coughed twice to clear his throat. The ceremonious mood he had worked up was already gone, so he casually waved his hand and made a swiping motion.
A cashier’s chime rang out of thin air. A magnificent black-and-gold coffee machine suddenly appeared on Lin Yilin’s desk.
Lin Yilin: “…So what is this?”
“The result of my magic trick. Every component is made from the finest materials—even though I don’t recognize any of them, they are definitely the best. It’s the emperor of coffee machines. Just look at that sheen; it practically announces how extraordinary it is.” Zheng Fan patted the coffee machine with an expressionless face.
As he spoke, he somehow produced a can of coffee beans from nowhere.
“A coffee machine this good naturally needs premium coffee beans to make the finest coffee. We can’t let it down.”
Lin Yilin blinked, still somewhat dazed. “And then?”
“And then what?”
“Doesn’t it have some hidden special effect? Like transforming into a super robot, or growing machine guns and cannons and killing every living thing within range? And perhaps this bag of coffee beans is actually concealed ammunition… or something?”
“Miss, are you hallucinating? This is just a coffee machine, and those are just coffee beans. If you don’t believe me, I can brew you a cup right now.” Zheng Fan raised an eyebrow.
You’re the hallucination here. Do you want to listen to yourself?
“If this is merely a coffee machine and a bag of coffee beans, why can you touch them?”
“Because I ‘purchased’ them with your money. They’re products of my ability—in other words, fantasy objects.” Zheng Fan lifted his chin proudly.
“So what effect does this fantasy object have?”
“It brews coffee. What’s the problem? Toast can only bite people and use flour to produce an unlimited amount of toast, can’t it?”
“Nom!” Toast called out from the corner in agreement.
Lin Yilin pressed a hand to her forehead and remained silent for a moment. “How much did it cost?”
“Seventy thousand. This ability of mine seems to add a bit of a markup, but it’s actually pretty cheap, isn’t it?”
“…But there’s already a secondhand hand-crank coffee maker in the office that cost two hundred, and we still have two bags of cheap coffee beans Auntie Chen gave us.” Lin Yilin’s eyes widened.
“I know.” Zheng Fan folded his arms. “Why else would I transform this?”
Lin Yilin clutched her head and said obediently, “I’m sorry. I was wrong to mess with you, Mr. Hallucination. Can we return this thing?”
“Hmm… no.” Zheng Fan pondered for a moment before looking up. “There are no refunds in the world of hallucinations. Besides, it isn’t completely useless. Thanks to this ability, I can drink coffee now.”
Lin Yilin drew a deep breath.
Although she had plenty of money, she was still accustomed to being frugal whenever it was unnecessary to spend.
Money did not simply blow in from the wind. Even if earning it was easy for her, spending seventy thousand on a useless coffee machine and some coffee beans was still outrageous.
Zheng Fan hopped over to the other side of the office, carrying the coffee machine to the spot occupied by the secondhand one.
“All right, little Binary. Come move this antique out of the way. From now on, this throne belongs to the Imperial Coffee Machine.”
He had even given the coffee machine a name.
A seventy-thousand-unit coffee machine deserved one!
Lin Yilin exhaled.
She accepted her fate.
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The secondhand coffee machine was dethroned, and the black-and-gold Imperial Coffee Machine took its place. Lin Yilin planned to pass the machine that had kept her company for so long on to Auntie Chen, the landlady, as a thirdhand gift.
The two of them immediately used it to brew coffee. Naturally, Zheng Fan had also “bought” the cups with a swipe of the card. This time he had not deliberately gone overboard. The cup resembled Lin Yilin’s mug, except that it had a pure black background decorated with two small gray-white dots.
Lin Yilin took a melancholy sip.
“Although it does taste better, still…” She was clearly feeling the financial pain.
“Ahh, that hits the spot.” Zheng Fan drank the hot coffee and let out a satisfied sigh.
Looking at the black card on the table, Lin Yilin cradled her cup and asked, “So Mr. Hallucination can now exchange money for objects out of thin air?”
“Yes. Apart from living creatures, I can make most things I can think of.” Zheng Fan answered casually.
“…That’s incredibly powerful.”
Now that she had recovered from her surprise and thought it over carefully, Lin Yilin could not help feeling shaken.
He had to spend money, but this ability could still be described as creation from the void!
Most property-related hallucinations could only perform minor tricks, producing vaguely similar objects to deceive people. Mr. Hallucination’s ability was on an entirely different level.
As long as he had the money, he could truly conjure whatever he wanted out of thin air!
And unlike most property-related hallucinations, he did not even need physical cash.
All he had to do was swipe a bank card through the air.
Lin Yilin picked up her phone and checked her savings balance. Seventy thousand was insignificant compared with her vast fortune, but it was still undeniably gone.
There was no payment or transfer record.
She searched more thoroughly and discovered, to her astonishment, that the money seemed to have… vanished into thin air—or perhaps it had never existed in the first place.
Apart from her and Zheng Fan, who was standing right in front of her, no one knew that seventy thousand units had silently disappeared from the Central Bank of the Great Capital.
The more she thought about it, the more horrifying it became.
The Central Bank of the Great Capital was located in the White District, a forbidden zone for all impure colors, a clean and secure area.
Yet Mr. Hallucination had effortlessly pierced through it and exerted an influence upon it.
After confirming her findings, she looked at Zheng Fan again and stared fixedly at him.
Their usual harmonious interactions often caused her to overlook the fact that Mr. Hallucination was an extraordinarily abnormal and terrifying hallucination.
Could Mr. Hallucination be some kind of amnesiac and down-on-his-luck King of Hallucinations?
Miss Lin Yilin certainly had quite an imagination.
“What is it?” Zheng Fan asked. He was luxuriating in the long-lost sensation of his own body when he noticed Lin Yilin studying him.
“…Nothing. I was just wondering—Mr. Hallucination, you never asked me for a bank card or money before, but you did say you had practiced this ability. How did you practice?”
“By stealing money and bank cards from people on the street,” Zheng Fan replied casually.
“…That really is just like you.”
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