Chapter 59: The Magical Shoes

Zheng Fan talked about the Alien franchise with burning passion, and it was evident how much he loved the series.

"By the way, Mr. Illusion, with your wealth ability, you should be able to buy movies from your world, right?" Lin Yilin suddenly thought of this and brought it up directly.

Hearing this, Zheng Fan was stunned for a moment, then cupped his chin and fell into deep thought.

He pulled out a bank card—the very same empty bank card Lin Yilin had used to trick him previously. But now it had money in it. Although the studio on Mimeguro's side had not yet completely broken even, it was entirely normal for the boss to misappropriate a little bit of funds.

Could using money be considered embezzlement when done by the boss?

He swiped the card, and a USB flash drive materialized and dropped into Zheng Fan's hand.

"Mmhmm?"

"The entire Alien movie series is in here..." Zheng Fan said.

Lin Yilin's eyes lit up. "As expected of Mr. Illusion, a cultural collision across two realms is about to be forged in the hands of a mere illusion." She reached out, intending to take it.

However, Zheng Fan pulled his hand back to avoid her.

Lin Yilin was puzzled. "What's wrong?"

Zheng Fan wore a solemn expression, as if he had some unspeakable difficulty.

"Is there some sort of taboo regarding this?"

"No. If I could just conjure movie files directly using my wealth ability..." Zheng Fan slowly raised his head. "Then wouldn't all the time I spent bitterly practicing my Alien transformation go to waste?"

"..." Lin Yilin fell silent, presumably left speechless.

Zheng Fan opened his mouth, and the iconic telescoping inner jaw of the Alien darted in and out, as he spoke indistinctly, "I spent quite a lot of time getting this jaw mechanism right."

"Don't waste so much effort on weird things," Lin Yilin sighed, rubbing her forehead.

"Otherwise, I'd have nowhere to showcase my transformations anyway. Up until now, I haven't found a single body that allows me to transform." Zheng Fan was quite helpless as well.

It seemed that his immensely powerful transformation ability currently served no purpose other than self-amusement.

"Let's see when the end of June arrives," Lin Yilin said, glancing at her phone.

"The end of June? June thirty-first? The overlapping of the dark worlds."

"Mmm. When the dark worlds overlap, illusions can directly interfere with reality to a certain extent on that day," Lin Yilin nodded.

"Really?!" Zheng Fan perked up.

"However, the scope is also very limited, depending on the specific circumstances. Besides, this June might not even have a thirty-first."

As the end of June gradually approached, there were no commissions of sufficient importance to warrant much attention.

For the majority of commissions, even those slightly involving supernatural elements, Lin Yilin likely wouldn't spend more than half a day on them. Not every illusion managed to find a high-quality target for intrusion to grow rapidly, and some simply possessed poor foundations to begin with, making them even easier to deal with. Without requiring Zheng Fan to make a move, Lin Yilin could easily take them down with minimal preparation.

Miss Lin Yilin once again raised her screening standards regarding the quality of commissions.

Today probably wouldn't see any commissions either, so Zheng Fan had found something to occupy himself—reproducing the shoes of the Lu Lu illusion.

Resting on the coffee table right now was the only decent-looking pair of black leather shoes crafted by the Lu Lu illusion.

After the Lu Lu illusion was dealt with by Zheng Fan, the matter of the phantasmagoric shoes came to a temporary close. Most of the decoy shoes had already lost their efficacy, but according to Lin Yilin's subsequent investigation, residual power still lingered in a few pairs, allowing them to be classified as phantasms.

Wearing some of these shoes could slightly increase running speed or jumping height.

Consequently, Zheng Fan decided to add some flair to them.

Toast elongated his upper body, draped himself over the coffee table, and curiously watched Zheng Fan knead the table-tennis-ball-sized singularity he had absorbed from Lu Lu.

Ever since he learned of Lin Yilin's abstract ritual techniques, Zheng Fan had also grown fond of putting on a show and performing a routine before "casting spells."

However, his level of skill resembled the domestic ancient costume dramas in his memory, where characters about to unleash some power always had to wave their hands in meaningless, ambiguous motions. Only then would you know they were presumably casting a spell.

When Zheng Fan finished performing a sequence of rubbing motions reminiscent of a Rasengan and finally made the singularity vanish entirely, the shoes before Toast looked seemingly unchanged.

"Done!" Zheng Fan clapped his hands together, wrapping up the job.

"Awooo?" Toast was puzzled. These shoes hadn't come to life the way he had.

"What are you doing, Mr. Illusion?" Lin Yilin walked over to check what mischief Zheng Fan was up to.

"I'm trying to whip up a pair of magical shoes," Zheng Fan told Lin Yilin.

"Shoes? Where are the shoes?" Lin Yilin looked at the coffee table with a peculiar expression.

Zheng Fan snapped his head around, only to find that the shoes on the coffee table had vanished.

Zheng Fan: ?

"Awooo!" Toast hurriedly let out a bark in a certain direction. Zheng Fan and Lin Yilin followed the sound and spotted the shoes sneaking away toward the door.

The moment everyone looked toward it, its movements instantly froze.

Yet it was frozen mid-stride, with one shoe still raised in the air, as if an invisible person were genuinely wearing this pair of footwear.

"Come back," Zheng Fan said coldly.

The shoes burst into a sudden surge of effort to escape, but... Toast directly outpaced them, intercepted them at the doorway, and bumped the shoes back when they tried to bypass him.

The shoes looked extremely flustered; could one faintly even see them breaking out in cold sweat?

Swish!

Then, they abruptly unleashed their power!

Another pair of shoes split off from its body, though their style was entirely different from the main body—they were football cleats!

The football cleats moved with extreme swiftness and ghostly rhythms, dazzling Perfect Toast for a moment before they suddenly executed a stealthy, powerful volley.

Bang!

"Awooo!" Toast was kicked so hard a massive dent formed in his body, and he went spinning away through the air.

Yet Perfect Toast quickly adjusted himself, slamming against a corner of the wall to reveal astonishing elasticity. Rebounding through a few perfect angles, he bounced right back and collided with the football cleats, sending them crashing to the floor where they lost their combat capability.

The main body of the shoes grew somewhat panicked.

What the heck is this piece of toast anyway? Why is it so troublesome?!

The coffee maker in the corner, despite not being plugged in, lit up with an unbefitting red indicator light, and the suffocating sensation of being locked onto followed closely behind.

Good grief, what kind of place was it born into?!

In the end, the shoes stood frozen in place and suddenly stopped moving.

Lin Yilin watched from the side for a long time without any intention of interfering. From the perspective of Toast and the shoes, the recent encounter seemed like an evenly matched clash.

Yet in her and Zheng Fan's eyes, aside from Toast's rebound antics, the shoes genuinely acted like a toddler playing a game, and they hadn't even run very fast.

"What are they doing?"

"Well..." Zheng Fan muttered contemplatively, observing closely while stroking his chin before finally rendering a verdict: "Based on my observation, they appear to be surrendering."

However, because there was only a single pair of shoes, the gesture of raising both hands was invisible, leaving it entirely to be inferred.