Illusion Report

’Business is pretty good tonight, one customer after another. It’s just that this new one is a little rude.’

Jin Xueli struggled for a moment but couldn’t break free.

She had no choice but to clutch her vest and turn back to the woman. "Are you trying to buy something? The vest isn’t for sale."

The woman braced herself with one hand on the ground. Logically, this should have propped up her entire upper body, but the space from mid-air down to the ground was filled by her impossibly long torso, which stretched on and on, curving around the gas station before disappearing from sight.

In the shadows, Xueli couldn’t make out her face.

"Take it off," the woman repeated, each word hard and heavy, as if she wanted to batter dents into her body with her voice.

"I already said, this isn’t—"

"I’m not buying it,"

The woman immediately cut her off, her back teeth clenched so tightly as she spoke it seemed she wanted to bite Jin Xueli’s words in two. "I’m telling you to take it off. Anyone who puts on the vest becomes a clerk. Are you an idiot?"

’What’s with tonight? This is the second resident who’s called me an idiot.’

"But I *am* a clerk,"

’She’s the idiot,’ Xueli thought. "I have to wear the vest precisely because I’m a clerk. It’s not that I became a clerk because I put on the vest—how did you get the cause and effect backward?"

The woman in the shadows fell silent for a few seconds, as if carefully mulling over this answer.

"Come here," she finally said.

"No," Jin Xueli wasn’t a total idiot. "Let go."

The vest must have been really well-made. When the woman suddenly yanked with all her might, Jin Xueli was pulled to the ground, yet the vest didn’t even make the sound of a stitch popping. It wasn’t that she had poor balance; the woman was just too strong. Even Godzilla would have probably stumbled from a pull like that.

"What are you doing?"

Jin Xueli fell beside a gas pump, clutching a water bottle in one hand and her vest in the other. Her shoulder throbbed where it had hit the ground. Flustered and clumsy, she also began to feel a belated pang of fear.

Her weapon was still in her backpack inside the store; right now she was bare-handed, completely defenseless.

Perhaps to hide her nervousness, she raised her head and her voice a full octave. "Why do you want my vest so bad—huh?"

The woman was inches away from Jin Xueli. If she were still breathing, Xueli would have been able to hear it.

When their eyes met, the woman couldn’t help but tremble and flinch—even though Jin Xueli hadn’t moved an inch, it was as if someone had just slapped the woman across the face.

’Could she be afraid of me?’ Jin Xueli was stunned.

The woman steadied herself, straightened her neck, and stared at her coldly from the shadows. Her lips, voice, and emotions all twisted together. "What are you looking at?"

"Oh," Jin Xueli snapped back to her senses, pressing the vest tightly against her chest. "Nothing... It’s brighter here, so I could finally see you... I just didn’t expect you to be... kind of pretty."

The woman fell silent again—this time, the silence lasted even longer.

"...What?"

Of course, this "pretty" wasn’t by any worldly standard. For example, the healthy, glowing skin and bright, glistening eyes that humans admired—the woman naturally had none of that.

"Even though you’ve apparently been dead for a while," Jin Xueli said sincerely, "you’ve developed a different kind of beauty. It’s like... um, like the Corpse Bride, have you seen that? I originally thought that since you’re a resident, you’d probably look like the English teacher—not pretty at all. I really didn’t expect—"

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

The woman suddenly roared, "Are you mocking me? You, who think you can just take whatever you want! You don’t understand anything! You think you can mock me?"

Jin Xueli felt breathless for a moment—it was the first time she had fallen so close to a resident and not been met with an attack, but instead with a direct hit from an avalanche of emotions.

It was like a raincloud in the summer night sky, thick with thunder and lightning, suddenly turning into a downpour and a tsunami that crashed straight into her soul.

I want it so bad I’m so desperate why me why you why did it have to be me who lost everything

I want to go home I want to go home but I don’t have a home in this world anymore

She is the closest place to home she is the only place I know she is the only place I want to go

"W-wait,"

Jin Xueli coughed and gasped, twisting her body with all her might, trying to roll away from the woman’s silent, emotional roar—but a corner of her vest was still clutched tightly in the woman’s hand. Unless she took it off, there was no way to break free.

She hesitated for a split second between taking it off and defending herself, then shouted, "I wasn’t mocking you!"

The woman’s mouth stretched into a black hole as waves of sound billowed out. On such a small, pale face, it was astonishing that it could simultaneously accommodate a pair of eyes and a mouth like deep Black Abysses.

"Th-that’s," Jin Xueli stammered, looking at her. "I... I didn’t mean it like that. I know that after you became a resident, you must have—"

"I didn’t become a resident! I’m not a resident, not, not, not a resident! You’re the resident!"

"O-okay, okay... What I mean is, even if you’re different from before, you’re beautiful in a different way." Jin Xueli stared at her for a few seconds, then said softly, "...Please don’t cry."

"I’m not crying! Not crying, not, not crying..."

Jin Xueli had originally wanted to get her a tissue, but after that outburst, she could only nod along. "Sorry, I was mistaken."

She watched as the mouth, twisted like a deep cavern, slowly shrank, and the face, which had nearly been melted by rage, remorse, and resentment, began to cool and solidify once more.

Like snow distantly turning white on a jet-black mountain peak; like a thundercloud, having released its lightning, pressing heavily down in the dark blue night sky.

And like a venomous snake, its scales slick and vividly green, that, while gliding silently through branches and leaves, suddenly freezes, as if it had never moved at all.

"The only reason you think I look good like this is because you’re about to become a resident yourself." She looked at Jin Xueli with a dark gaze. "Can you even remember that you weren’t originally a resident?"

Jin Xueli froze.

’Originally... was I originally a Hunter?’

’But isn’t that obvious? Every resident in the Nest was originally a Hunter.’

’But... I remember that half an hour ago, I was a Hunter who was desperate to get the Original Liquid...’

’Huh? I’ve crossed over into a whole new stage of life in just half an hour?’

’No, that’s not right. It’s like I haven’t completely become a resident yet. If I had to define it, I’m still in a "cocoon," still in transition.’

"You put on the vest to fool the English teacher... You remember that, don’t you?"

’I guess so... So I wasn’t actually hired for this job?’

The woman’s voice came low from the shadows. "Why did you need to fool her? Do you remember? Answer me."

Jin Xueli frowned, gradually remembering the clerk’s body lying in the convenience store restroom.

"B-because I was afraid she’d think I killed the clerk... No, that’s not right either. Back then I was still human. Just being cornered by her was bad enough..."

The gas station was submerged in the depths of the cold night. Jin Xueli could only hear her own panting and the sound of her voice. The woman lying on the ground opposite her was like a sculpture filled with silence, utterly still.

Until she heard a CLICK from the lock on the convenience store door behind her.

A door was pushed open.