Chapter 47 Shoes

Seiya Koji walked along the road back, while the hallucination by his side slowly spoke: "Directly laying our cards on the table and exposing information this time... but I still cannot see through it... strange... we must not let our guard down."

Hearing this, Seiya Koji could only sigh with a touch of melancholy: "Ultimately, she still took that step."

As an outsider, there was nothing more he could do; he could only hope this grand adventure would reach a pleasant conclusion.

Not long after Seiya Koji left, Zheng Fan also prepared to pack up his things and make a run for it.

Returning to the Zero-One Agency, he impatiently threw Cheng Fei's body onto the ground and stamped on it a few times: "Just as you thought, if we boldly walk the regular business route from black to white, we'll be targeted by that handsome guy."

Lin Yilin was sitting behind the desk, seemingly reading a book. Seeing Zheng Fan return, she stood up and naturally picked up the conversation: "Furthermore, it's hard not to connect the huge changes in 'Cheng Fei' to the aspect of a hallucination, but conventional methods for detecting hallucinations are useless against Mr. Hallucination. Seiya Koji also came to test the hallucination situation on me back then. If he connects these two aspects and combines them with other clues, it's not hard to arrive at a hypothesis. The rest is just seeking proof."

"A clever person's sharpness is genuinely a bit sickening," Zheng Fan bluntly stated.

Lin Yilin tilted her head: "Thank you for the compliment."

"After today, I probably won't need to go over there frequently anymore. The people looking for trouble have also decreased, mostly just harassment now. Once we equip the lackeys with guns, these small-scale brawls can be resolved by themselves," Zheng Fan said.

"Indeed, this matter has come to a temporary close, and we can get some good rest. But correspondingly, if Su Hongyuan feels it's temporarily inconvenient to seek revenge on Cheng Fei, the thought of making trouble for me might arise again," Lin Yilin calculated.

She walked over to the coffee machine, used Zheng Fan's mug to brew coffee, and handed it to him.

Looking somewhat surprised, Zheng Fan accepted it and thanked her: "You're a faction general of a major studio after all, keeping your eyes fixed on our tiny agency all the time is beneath your dignity."

"Having strong and clear desires in Metropolis is never wrong. Only in this way is it easy to touch upon things beyond imagination," Lin Yilin seemed completely uninterested in all external malice.

"Just in time, I accepted a commission for this afternoon. Let's go together," Lin Yilin suggested.

"Oh? Alright." Zheng Fan agreed without hesitation.

It was all Cheng Fei's fault; the singularity points had been consumed too quickly recently, and what they had earned from the previous remnants of the Cannae incident was almost spent. It was indeed time to go make some easy money.

After Zheng Fan rested for a while in the agency, finished his cup of coffee, dragged Cheng Fei's body to the deep recesses of the agency to hide it well, and told Toast to guard the house properly, the two of them finally headed out together.

Recently, the weather in Xixikeer still oscillated between clear skies and rain, frequently shrouded in mist.

Today, a thin layer of haze veiled everything on the streets.

It didn't do much to impair visibility, and the atmosphere it created was perhaps quite pleasing to some people's tastes.

"What kind of commission is it?" Zheng Fan asked along the way.

"Shoes."

"Huh?"

"I ran into it while arranging work for Banmu's studio over there. After chatting with some people from that circle, this matter came up."

Lin Yilin scrolled through her phone: "Recently, a type of phantom item has become popular in the underground black market of Xixikeer—they're all shoes. These shoes grant various effects when worn, making people run faster, dance better, and move with greater agility..."

"Mass-produced phantom items? There must be a source, then," Zheng Fan said.

"That's right. Currently, there are only a few cases, and the transaction process remains unclear. The Bureau of Investigation hasn't paid much attention yet, but their informants planted in Xixikeer have still filed a preliminary investigation commission. After all, it might involve the issue of hallucinations."

"Is it a commission from the Bureau of Investigation?" Zheng Fan caught the keyword.

"No. With a commission like that around, whenever the Bureau of Investigation acts, a crowd always rushes forward to vie for face time. I won't go competing for it; the one I accepted is different. It wasn't on the official website, but found on other civilian commission websites." As she spoke, Lin Yilin stopped in front of a store.

Zheng Fan halted his steps and found it was a shoe store.

However, the rolling shutter was tightly closed, and it didn't look open for business.

Circumventing the main entrance, Lin Yilin went to the residential area at the back of the store, reached out, and entered a password into the old doorbell. With the ringing of a melody, the iron gate opened, and she pushed it open to enter.

Standing in front of the inner security door, Lin Yilin said, "Hello, I'm from the Zero-One Agency that you made an appointment with online. We're here for a face-to-face meeting now."

While Lin Yilin waited outside, Zheng Fan walked straight through the door into the house.

As soon as he entered, he saw a figure flash by before his eyes, swiftly unlatching the lock, and then sprinting away at lightning speed to hide on the stairs leading to the second floor of the house.

Abnormal movement speed.

Lin Yilin pushed the door open, poked her head in for a look, and then stepped inside.

"Stay right there and don't come in yet. I need to verify your identity and safety," the person hiding on the stairs shouted with a suppressed voice.

Unbeknownst to him, Zheng Fan had already squatted right beside him, pressing closely against his side. Hearing this person speak, Zheng Fan obediently nodded and replied, "We're very safe, of course."

Naturally, this person could not see him.

Taking this opportunity, Zheng Fan sized up the man.

He looked rather slovenly and unkempt. His hair was greasy, showing he hadn't washed it in quite some time, and his eyes were bloodshot with dark circles, indicating a lack of nighttime sleep. He had changed his clothes recently, but while the clothes were new, the odor was heavy, suggesting he had merely changed his garments without washing his body.

Casting his gaze downward, excluding these details that failed to interest Zheng Fan, the focal point was the pair of shoes on the other's feet.

In stark contrast to the man's own disheveled state, a pair of dazzling black sports shoes adorned his feet, featuring aggressive, claw-like angular lines and wild patterns. The trademark on them seemed to resemble a crouching, sprinting multi-legged animal—a cheetah? A human? Or something else entirely.

These shoes looked somewhat familiar to Zheng Fan.

"Are you Mr. Teng Jun?" Lin Yilin stood at the doorway and spoke, pulling items from her small bag. "I am Lin Yilin from the Zero-One Agency, whom you contacted online earlier. Here are my business card and credentials."

Whoosh!

A gust of wind swept past, stirring even Lin Yilin's hair, yet her pupils merely dilated and constricted slightly without any change in her expression.

The items in her hand were snatched away in the blink of an eye, but she had roughly memorized the other person's appearance.

Shoes...

Zheng Fan walked over to her side: "His shoes..."

"Are a phantom item," Lin Yilin continued.

After a long while, the man named Teng Jun finally got up and came down: "Phew, are you Miss Lin Yilin? Younger than I imagined. Isn't it a bit too early to open an agency at your age?"

Lin Yilin replied, "Actually, I started working part-time at the agency when I was in middle school."

"...Alright, please come in. Sorry, because of my own situation, the house hasn't been cleaned in a long time."