Chapter 63: Schoolmate

Did Lin Yilin really tell this woman all about him, or does she genuinely have a thing for such bizarre tastes?
Zheng Fan remained skeptical.
Hong Yijia pulled a dial-like device from her upper pocket. "Well, if he's unwilling to see me, I suppose I'll just have to initiate contact." With that, she pressed the button on it.
Immediately, centered on that strange instrument, a faint black hue began to spread outward, gradually enveloping Lin Yilin's entire agency.
Countless black particles tinged with red emerged over Toast's body, while slight traces of black and red appeared on Lin Yilin.
Hong Yijia herself remained completely untainted, a pristine, immaculate white, yet the items she carried on her person harbored massive amounts of black and red.
Similarly, Lu Lu's shoe, cowering in the shoe box in the corner, was exposed beyond escape, and the coffee machine was no exception.
As for Zheng Fan, he merely felt a gentle breeze sweep past, and then...
Nothing happened on his end at all.
Lin Yilin glanced over at Zheng Fan's side, then looked back at Hong Yijia.
Hong Yijia was equally stunned, sweeping her gaze across the agency. "Huh? It's not working?"
She looked suspiciously toward the sofa where Zheng Fan was supposed to be, her brows slightly furrowed. "Could it be at a deeper tier? Well, I suppose that's within expectations..."
Her fingers slowly slid across the scale of the instrument in her hand. The black layer diffusing from the device expanded wave after wave, gradually casting a gloomy filter over the surroundings.
Even though the sun shone brightly outside, the interior of the agency felt as though it had stepped right onto a horror movie set.
When a certain threshold was reached, the instrument began to emit warning beeps.
As Hong Yijia adjusted the instrument, her eyes grew wider and wider.
Click—
Until she turned the depth-influence of the device to its maximum setting, the warning alarms merging into an air-raid siren, the entity she longed to see still failed to appear.
It wasn't as though there was no effect whatsoever; upon reaching a certain depth, Zheng Fan did indeed feel as though he was on the verge of breaking through some sort of barrier.
Yet, under these circumstances, any fool would know what roughly happens after breaking through such a barrier. Clinging to his utter aversion to this woman, Zheng Fan reined himself in.
With a purely subjective desire not to be seen, the barrier that was just about to fracture immediately smoothed itself out and settled down.

Being able to avoid contact so effortlessly left Zheng Fan muttering to himself. If only his intent could manifest just as easily whenever he actually wanted people to see him.
"Are you kidding me... Xiaolin, what on earth have you picked up..." Hong Yijia's shock was too profound to be easily described in words; for a moment, she was entirely at a loss.
"Stop joking around and turn off the contact instrument first," Lin Yilin said, glancing out the window and raising her voice slightly.
Hong Yijia snapped out of her daze and turned around. Outside the agency's windows, gaze after gaze—belonging to nothing of this reality—stared straight through the glass right at them.
The expression of being startled by Zheng Fan vanished from Hong Yijia's face as her eyelids drooped slightly. "Scram."
The entities lingering outside the window, poised to invade, immediately dissipated one after another.
Only then did Hong Yijia leisurely readjust the instrument back to its original state, shutting it down entirely until the horror-movie filter finally faded away.
Watching this scene, Lin Yilin could only sigh inwardly: her inability to perceive hallucinations was entirely normal.
As a natural-born bearer of pure-white factors, she found it difficult to journey to other realms, and equally difficult to be touched by things from other realms. Were it not for the vast array of specialized equipment she carried, Hong Yijia could be said to be entirely insulated from the supernatural elements of Metropolis.
Hong Yilin didn't care about that; she was still dwelling on the fact that the hallucination Lin Yilin had hidden away couldn't even be revealed by this method.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lin Yilin stepped outside to check, confirming that none of the entities lured by the contact instrument had left any residue behind.
When she returned, Hong Yijia grabbed her arm. "So, Xiaolin, what on earth is that hallucination you found? If you're being held hostage, blink twice."
Lin Yilin stared at her blankly.
"I already overestimated you, thinking you might have roped in some high-depth hallucination, but my contact instrument is custom-built! Maintaining maximum depth for a while can even trigger a momentary black overlap, and even that couldn't force the other party to manifest? That's no ordinary hallucination anymore!" Hong Yijia grew serious.
Lin Yilin patted her shoulder. "Calm down first, how about a cup of coffee?"
Hong Yijia's serious expression instantly shattered. "Lots of sugar, please."
...
In the reception area of the agency, Lin Yilin sat in her single-person sofa, Hong Yijia sat opposite her across the coffee table, and Zheng Fan sprawled lazily across the long sofa in the middle.
Three steaming cups of coffee were placed upon the coffee table.
Lin Yilin roughly filled Hong Yijia in on her situation during this period, clarifying that while her partner hallucination had plenty of issues, it was actually a highly intelligent entity that could listen to reason.
Hong Yijia remained somewhat worried, but ultimately, based on their mutual understanding, she chose to trust Lin Yilin.

Only when she asked Lin Yilin to describe Zheng Fan's appearance did Lin Yilin's hesitant, stammering response leave her somewhat bewildered.
Only then did Zheng Fan realize that it wasn't that Lin Yilin had coordinated stories with Hong Yijia beforehand; rather, Hong Yijia genuinely had a penchant for this type.
For a perfectly fine young woman to actually fancy his kind of existence—well, that was truly a sight for this lifetime.
"I see. So the agency has gotten lively all of a sudden. I was really worried about you when Uncle Edman left, but I couldn't make it over because of other matters... I'm sorry." Hong Yijia looked around Lin Yilin's agency once more, finally letting out a sigh of relief as she smiled at Lin Yilin.
With a deadpan and blunt expression, Lin Yilin replied, "At the time, I certainly cursed you all bitterly in my heart, wondering why none of you were around, and why not a single person came to the funeral."
Hong Yijia's smile stiffened, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
"Still... well, it's not the first time, after all. Or perhaps I had mentally prepared myself long ago—it's not like I couldn't see my foster father's physical condition getting worse by the day. I adjusted pretty quickly after the funeral, probably within a single day." Lin Yilin glossed over a period that perhaps shouldn't have been brushed past so lightly.
"You can't just put it that way," Hong Yijia glanced at Zheng Fan—strictly speaking, her perspective could only look at the sofa. "Is the feeling of a family member leaving really something you can just get used to?"
Lin Yilin lowered her head to look at the coffee in her cup. "But I've already forgotten what my biological parents looked like."
"..."
"I suppose I'm a very unfeeling person, just as Sister Ye said," Lin Yilin said softly.
"You can just take what someone as self-centered as her says with a grain of salt; don't take it to heart," Hong Yijia said, curling her lips.
With that, she retrieved a file from her expensive-looking leather handbag. "Besides, if you were truly that unfeeling, why would you still be so obsessed with the earthquake from ten years ago?"
She pushed the file forward, sliding it across the coffee table from her end to land right in front of Lin Yilin.
"'That earthquake was definitely not a natural phenomenon.' Those were the exact words that slipped out of your mouth when we first met and talked about this."
Lin Yilin reached out and took the file. "Perhaps it's just out of interest."
"Here we go again?" Hong Yijia sighed helplessly.
"Who knows." In the end, Lin Yilin could only add in a faint murmur.
Zheng Fan watched quietly from the side, shifting his gaze from Lin Yilin to Hong Yijia, and then back to Lin Yilin once more, without uttering a word.