Illusion Report

Jin Xueli bolted into the night, away from the gas station. But after a dozen frantic steps, she stopped dead in her tracks—so abruptly that she nearly stumbled and fell.

She looked back. Not far away, on the grounds of the gas station, two figures were still tangled together, locked in a desperate struggle.

Jin Xueli didn’t know what percentage of a resident that woman was, but one thing was clear—even if she turned completely into a resident, she could still feel pain.

The muffled thuds of powerful blows, the occasional grunt of pain and low cry... The sounds drifted into the night, as scattered and fragmented as the skin being kicked and torn from the woman’s body.

"Hey!" Jin Xueli shouted. "You—what’s your name?"

From a distance, the woman looked up and saw her.

How to put it... She really was an incredibly tough, incredibly energetic resident.

Even though the woman was grappling with the clerk and they were dozens of feet away, Jin Xueli was still sent staggering by the wave of roars and bellows that crashed over her.

"You’re still standing there you’re seriously still just standing there what the hell are you made of how long do you think I can hold it off ten minutes at most you want to sit down for a cup of tea before you leave I’m letting go letting go letting go get the hell out out out out I want to kill you I want to kill you so completely and beautifully dye hair light golden brown get out"

’Guess I’m not getting her name.’

The woman was so furious that unrelated words got mixed into her tirade, spewing out in a high-speed, chaotic spray. Even the completely random topic of dyeing her hair came up, and she’d even picked out a color. The woman was crouched in shadow, her hair so tangled it looked like a thundercloud shot through with electricity, making its true color impossible to see.

’Could dyeing her hair be the last thing she wanted to do before she died, but never got the chance?’

Jin Xueli knew she should run, and she wanted to. But in that moment, what she wanted to do more was sigh.

In her twenty-eight years of life, not a single person—not even her own mother—had ever fought so desperately to protect her.

Scrutinizing the behavior of every man in the trailer, wearing long sleeves and pants, gauging how drunk the men were, always trying to sit by the door... Jin Xueli was the one who did all these things. She couldn’t even remember what age she’d been when the habits formed.

No one ever told her what to watch out for. She had only her instincts to rely on, stumbling her way to the present day.

When she grew up, she came to Blackmoor City. Adult life was already like forcing yourself to grope your way through the dark; but then she became a Hunter, and the difficulty multiplied exponentially. It was like navigating a ship through a rocky shoal in the dead of night.

The traps she had to avoid, the temptations she couldn’t accept, the disasters that only money could avert, the people she had to play along with (like Chaisi), the men she dated who sized up her apartment with a glance... She had faced countless difficulties of every sort.

In all those years of trouble, hardship, and crisis, the only person who had ever fought desperately for Jin Xueli was Jin Xueli herself.

She had never imagined anyone would protect her, which was why it only dawned on her now, after running so far, that the first person to ever let their body be torn apart to cover her escape was, of all things, a resident.

’Why? The reason can’t be anything good, can it?’

But regardless, that woman was the first.

And now, without even learning her name, she had to turn her back and keep running.

She didn’t know if she would ever see that resident again after this. And if she did, what would the circumstances be?

’Ten minutes. That’s a pretty tight window for an escape...’

Jin Xueli didn’t know which direction the night university was in, but her first priority was to put as much distance as possible between herself and the gas station, so she just ran without stopping.

When the gas station had shrunk to a small, bright sign in the night, she quickly tore off her vest and tossed it to the side of the road. She was no longer in the immediate vicinity. Even if the clerk came after her, he wouldn’t follow the notice and round up all the nearby residents, would he?

After putting some more distance behind her, Jin Xueli was finally able to stop and catch her breath.

She gasped for air, her heart THUMPING against her sternum as if she were housing a frantic lunatic in her chest. Her ears roared with the sound of her own blood, and her vision was starting to blur. It wasn’t safe to keep going on so recklessly.

Jin Xueli looked around and found herself next to a small neighborhood park—if you could call it that. It was really just a small greenbelt, a few trees, and a couple of public benches.

The park was sandwiched between two rows of old, mid-20th-century apartment buildings, but every window was dark. The whole area was dim; it didn’t seem like the kind of place you’d find a night university.

Jin Xueli tilted her head and listened.

A stiff, heavy silence fell—a pitch-black stillness as false as a stage backdrop. It was like the gaping, motionless mouth of an alligator.

How long had she been running? Jin Xueli didn’t have a great sense of time, but she figured it had to be at least five or six minutes.

Even if she rested, she couldn’t stay for long. She had to keep moving. Who knew if that clerk had the nose of a dog—no, four dogs... Jin Xueli froze.

She squinted, peering into the small park.

She stood in place for a few seconds, looking around, then finally pulled a flashlight from her backpack. Jin Xueli took two steps toward the park and stopped at the entrance to the path, sending a beam of light cutting through the distance.

...There was indeed a person sitting in the tree in the center of the park.

Even though it was late November, the leaves hadn’t all fallen. The person’s upper body was hidden in the canopy, and they were sitting on a thick branch, leaning askew against the trunk with their legs dangling in the air.

Jin Xueli swallowed. Her throat was dry and scratchy.

’None of my business,’ she thought. ’This has nothing to do with me.’

At this time, in this place, a person sitting there couldn’t possibly be human. It had to be a resident. Who knew what kind of disgusting face would be revealed?

’Just go,’ she told herself over and over. She still didn’t know if she was out of danger. This was no time for distractions.

’Go find the night university. Move the flashlight. Turn around and walk away.’

Jin Xueli took two stiff steps back, but the beam of light seemed glued in place. It remained fixed on the tree, carving out a circle of white that washed away the flimsy veil of night.

The ill-fitting, loose dress and the pair of feet dangling limply beneath it looked faded and pale in the beam. That grayish-white broke the pitch-black night like a long scream suddenly cut short.

’Go, you idiot!’ Jin Xueli cursed herself in her mind.

’It’s probably a trap... No, it’s definitely a trap.’

’Besides, that’s just a plain, generic dress. You see them everywhere. It doesn’t mean anything.’

Jin Xueli suddenly spun around, sweeping the flashlight beam back the way she came. The road was empty, except for the vest she had just taken off and thrown away in the distance.

"Who’s there?" she called out.

No one answered.

’Of course not,’ she thought as she hurried away from the small park. ’There’s no one on the road.’

She had only pretended to hear something, fooling herself into thinking a pursuer might be behind her, using it as an excuse to leave quickly without entering the park.

’If there were a parallel world, a parallel Jin Xueli would have walked into that park, gone to the tree, and looked up at the person sitting there...’

’It was definitely a trap.’

Jin Xueli stuck the flashlight in her mouth, deciding not to think about that park or that pair of dangling feet ever again.

’It had nothing to do with her... Nothing.’

She pulled out the crumpled night university flyer and realized that in her haste, she had stuffed several of them into her pocket.

Perhaps because the flyers were handwritten, the resident couldn’t get the font size right. To fit the same amount of information, some were complete on one page, while others were split into two. It was only now that Jin Xueli realized the flyer actually had a hand-drawn map on it.

But the resident’s drawing skills were terrible. Two straight lines represented a road, with another road branching off to the left, but there were no street names. A star, representing the night university, was drawn in an empty space completely disconnected from either road.

She looked around.

She was, in fact, standing on a road with another road branching off to her left, just like on the hand-drawn map. But there was no university between the two roads, only a paid parking lot.

This crappy map was completely useless. Aren’t roads supposed to branch out everywhere? What was the point of just drawing a road with a fork in it?

It would probably be harder to find a completely isolated road in Blackmoor City, wouldn’t it?

"How am I supposed to find it with this?" she muttered, studying the map again but still not getting it.

The star for the night university was just sitting in an empty space between the two roads. Other than that, there were no landmarks or street names. God knows where this empty space was supposed to be—

Jin Xueli subconsciously lifted her head and glanced at the parking lot.

A sign for "Rose Ridge Community College" had replaced the payment sign that read "All-Day Parking: Only One of Your Tears." It glowed a ghostly white under a row of small spotlights.

She didn’t know if it was the sign itself or the faintly glowing white letters on it, but it reminded Jin Xueli of a row of teeth.

That row of teeth clenched tight, slowly plucking a building that hadn’t been there a moment ago out of the night.