Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 346 Name
Why am I suddenly so concerned about this?

Did the earthworm intentionally lead itself to see this?

Lin Yilin still had some doubts about herself, but she put them aside for the time being.

She tried to avoid being seen while searching. Although the area was chaotic, it had rained that morning, and the dirt on the van's tires was fresh, indicating it had only recently left. There were many repair shops around, but they were also clustered together. Judging from the abductors' actions, while they were skilled, they weren't particularly organized. With a careful search, she should have the answer soon.

However, she needs to be careful not to attract too much attention, otherwise, a little girl like her would be too conspicuous here.

……

"We've only caught a few and we almost messed up, and now they've caught up with us. This operation has only just begun, don't let things fall apart!" A curse came from an abandoned factory.

The group gathered together. The middle-aged woman who had been in charge of the kidnapping had taken off her mask and sunglasses. She was angry but dared not speak out. This time, she had indeed been too hasty in choosing her target.

"Did you shake off the people who followed us? Do you know their identities? Plainclothes officers?" the cursing man asked after calming down a bit.

“I shook him off. Nobody in this area would dare follow someone I don’t know well. I don’t know his identity, he was just a taxi driver,” the other person replied.

"That's good. I finally managed to get a small share of this job. Once we have enough people, we won't have to take any risks for a long time." As he spoke, the man looked at the several children locked in cages behind him. They were all very young, covered in wounds, and didn't even dare to cry.

"Really? Who would suddenly need so many children and be willing to pay such a high price?"

"Heh, there's a rumor that it's 'white' up there, but there's a lot of filth up there. But that's enough for now, enough to satisfy our curiosity. This isn't something we should know," the leader said.

The other two nodded.

boom!
A gunshot suddenly rang out, echoing throughout the factory.

The three people who were talking, two of the men, watched as the woman who had just been nodding in agreement suddenly had a hole in her temple, her head tilted to the side, and she collapsed.

"who!?"

boom!
The leader immediately sought cover, but the other man panicked and slowed down. Gunfire resumed, and although there wasn't enough time to aim this time, the one hiding was a good shot and hit the other man in the thigh.

"Ah! Head! Help me!" The person who had fallen to the ground crawled on the ground in terror.

But the leader ignored it; the other person was lying in a very spacious spot, and getting close would only expose himself.

Damn it, it happened so suddenly he couldn't find the shooter's location, and the other party was also very cautious and didn't expose themselves.

For a moment, the factory was locked in a stalemate, with only the children's sobs and the man's wails on the ground remaining.

rustling...

Suddenly, the leader heard a sound of something moving. He immediately seized on this, his imagination running wild, and he charged forward, shouting, "Got you!"

He reached out his hand into the shadows.

But what I grabbed was a cold, slippery...

"Hiss..." A strange panting sound came from the shadows, from some kind of wriggling, elongated creature.

The leader screamed in terror and struggled violently, but the creature simply bound him and strangled him.

Lin Yilin had already reached the cage and opened it: "Can you still walk? Go to that van over there."

The children obeyed Lin Yilin's words and ran out of the cage.

Lin Yilin turned her head and glanced at the shadow, but she could no longer see the man's figure. She could only hear intermittent, gradually weakening screams and sounds of struggle.

"We've saved on bullets..."

The ground shook slightly again, but Lin Yilin ignored it and quickly went to the driver's seat of the van.

Thinking that it might be too early for her to start driving, she started the car.

……

As evening approached, she struggled to control the van, driving at a snail's pace along the road. The distance between Dongding Road and Xiding Road wasn't long, but it took her ages to drive it.

Once she entered the Xiding Road area, she felt more at ease and stopped to call the police using a public phone.

After a long wait, the police arrived.

She casually found a window sill outside a roadside building to sit and rest, watching the police find the child in the van, and the mother of the child who had been snatched away earlier that morning arrive directly to reunite with her child.

"Child, did you do that?" At that moment, a mature, steady, and powerful voice, easily reminiscent of a gentleman, came from beside you.

She turned her head and saw a man wearing an old-fashioned coat, whose gentle and refined demeanor made people feel at ease.

His features were strong, and a few wrinkles added just the right amount of weariness to his face without ruining his gentle temperament.

He seems like a very confident person.

"not me……"

“I saw it. You got out of that car. It’s hard to believe, but I can’t think of anyone else who did this. Why aren’t you happy and proud? You saved those children and saved several families,” the man said, squatting down and smiling at Lin Yilin.

“I didn’t do these things for them. I just have some questions,” Lin Yilin said blankly.

“…I see.” The man smiled and shook his head, then stood up and said, “In any case, this kind of dangerous thing is still a bit too early for your age. You can contact me next time you need anything.”

"you are?"

“My name is Edelman, and I’m the head of an independent firm. You’re sitting right outside my firm, young lady.”

Lin Yilin followed his finger and looked at the sign above her head.

Zero One Office.

"Why this name?" Lin Yilin couldn't help but ask.

“It’s binary. Because I often wonder whether this world is real or fake,” Edelman replied with a smile.

Lin Yilin was stunned, not knowing how these events were connected.

"So, considering the worst-case scenario, it's fake, and it can be manipulated at will by some being. Just like how we humans operate a computer, we can rewrite it by pressing a few keys." Edelman playfully made a keyboard-typing gesture.

"That's a huge leap."

"Perhaps. But whether it's true or not, we shouldn't doubt ourselves because of it."

"If the world is an illusion, then there's no way to verify whether one's own existence is real," Lin Yilin felt that Edelman's words were contradictory.

“Haha, then my view might be a bit more idealistic,” Edelman laughed. “The world may have truth and falsehood, but the brilliant minds of some people are eternal. It has nothing to do with truth or falsehood; it simply has always existed.”

"This..." Lin Yilin hesitated for a moment, then changed the subject: "Then why not call it the Sincerity Agency?"

"Then it serves no purpose as a warning. This sign is a reminder to myself that even if this world is fake, and everyone is fake, I must take the falsehood seriously. Besides, computers are a great product of human ingenuity."

"Starting from binary...?" Lin Yilin seemed to have a feeling.

“That’s right. Whatever your understanding, you’ve already done it, Lin Yilin.”

"Eh?"

Lin Yilin was taken aback, then saw Edelman give her a gentle smile before walking away.

After sitting outside the Zero One Agency for quite some time, Lin Yilin finally stood up, belatedly remembering, "I should go find Mom and Dad..."

They must have realized they were missing a long time ago, and are probably anxiously searching for themselves now, just like the parents of children who have been kidnapped or abducted.

Rustling——

Suddenly, the strange sound appeared again.

This time, before Lin Yilin could even look for it, the thing appeared right in front of her.

At the same time, no longer just a slight tremor as a precursor, a violent earthquake struck Dadu. At that moment, the earth seemed to shatter, the sky trembled, and the crimson sunset seemed to unleash a calamity of fire, spreading a sea of ​​flames like a carpet across the ground.

The world felt like it was about to end.

Lin Yilin fell to the ground due to the tremor, but she still stared intently at the long, black creature that had appeared in front of her.

Black earthworms...

It seemed to have been waiting for a long time, and only when the earthquake actually occurred did it finally come to Lin Yilin and call out to her.

It has gone to great lengths to find Lin Yilin, but now it is not anxious, just as it trusts Lin Yilin.

I believe Lin Yilin will find it...

boom!
Lin Yilin raised her gun, aimed it at the black earthworm in front of her, and pulled the trigger, leaving a small bullet hole in its body.

The earthworm's wriggling stopped.

For a moment, all the surrounding noise seemed to be shut out, and a muffled voice rang in Lin Yilin's ear in confusion: "Why? Why are you rejecting me?"

"Because this world is fake," Kobayashi Ichirin said, revealing the truth.

"...You're just a kid in your early teens, it seems a bit too early for you to be thinking about these kinds of philosophical questions."

“Although I can only recall the last ten years or so after racking my brains, there are too many things that don’t make sense,” Lin Yilin said. “I am indeed this age now, but in this situation, there is another me, hidden inside my body.”

"Another version of me who knows Xixi Keke better, is very skilled with firearms, and is waiting for something to come to her."

"And what I can say for sure is that no matter which version of me I am, what I'm waiting for is not you!"

The bookmark flashed through my mind, as did "curiosity," the rich girl I met at school, the "■■" the girl mentioned, and Edelman and Zero One Agency.

Whether these memories actually happened or were just some kind of dreamlike fluctuations is no longer important.

Some had long anticipated that she would encounter such a thing. When faced with a destiny that had spanned countless years, a darkness that could instantly devour all her courage and memories, she would be forced to revert to the most helpless girl from her memories.

In order to still receive help during her most vulnerable time, many people are supporting the version of herself that she has forgotten.

Friends, teachers, the vague image of him, even Lin Yilin herself...

But this absolutely does not include the earthworm in front of you.

Lin Yilin felt a surge of emotion welling up from the bottom of her heart as she faced the black earthworm in front of her.

It wasn't what she was waiting for, but this black earthworm was definitely inextricably linked to her.

"You have no scales on your body." Unaffected by her excitement, Lin Yilin calmly pointed out the most obvious flaw in her opponent.

The black earthworms with scales were proof that she felt at ease.

"This is truly... displeasing..." After a moment of silence, the black earthworm trembled, its voice almost a clenched gritted teeth, "Ten years! I've been searching for you for ten years! Back then, I saw you at first sight and held immense expectations for you! But! You actually dared to betray me!"

"The illusion that formed the world surrounding 'her' was banished along with her as she was defeated! How I miss you! If I could be with you, I would surely become an existence no less than 'her'! I wait with hope, no matter how painful it is to be trapped in the illusion, no matter how unbearable the cold of the black void! I have always looked forward to seeing you again one day!"

"but--!"

"You! How! Daring! To! Betray! Me!"

The ground shook more violently, and the streets cracked as if the gates of hell had been opened, with slick, black earthworms crawling out of the cracks and beginning to engulf the world.

It is an illusion caused by an earthquake, not by human love or a paradoxical combination of parallel worlds.

That's it!

Illusions born in the world of earthquakes! Terror arising from "natural earthquakes"!
A real "earth dragon"!
His body lashed out like a whip, and Lin Yilin quickly released her grip, the gun in her hand exploding in response. But the violent shockwave triggered a fire all around her, igniting the broken walls, and as the earthworms swayed, flying shards of stone grazed her cheeks.

Lin Yilin's skin was cut open, leaving bloody wounds.

The wounds seemed to tear open Lin Yilin's heart, stirring up her fantasies and causing immense fear to surge in again, threatening to crush everything she had just awakened.

“'She's coming, and before that, I have to—”

The sounds around me faded away.

Lin Yilin fled in panic, unable to hear any specific sounds. The slightest noise made her tremble and stagger like a frightened bird.

This time, more memories are fading, and along with her existence, the earth dragon will no longer give her any more chances.

She fell again and again, and her knees and hands became bloody from the repeated friction of the ground.

But she forgot the pain and could barely respond to anything.

The whole world was filled with terror, the deepest darkness. Ten years ago, and now, the earthquake took everything from her and swallowed her life.

Like earthworms, they coiled around her body, dragging her into the deepest hell...

Finally, she was out of breath and too exhausted to run any further.

Her most basic and instinctive reaction was to squat down on the spot, curl up into a ball, and tremble.

Miss him so much...

Where is he...?

I broke my promise...

I forgot about him... so he can't find me anymore...

It’s all my fault…

I still...

Having lost all her goals, Lin Yilin looked at the hell before her and only wanted to escape.

In the distance, a tall building collapsed due to the tremors, and the shockwave came head-on with a huge sound... but the loud noise did not reach her ears.

A hand gently covered her ears, filtering out all the noise. Even the waves stirred up by the shockwave felt like a gentle breeze.

Lin Yilin felt her heart, which had been trembling with the earthquake, suddenly become calm.

Before her eyes, the flames burst forth again, blindingly bright, and that hand stroked her eyes again, making her close them.

Unable to hear or see, her two most frequently used senses were plunged into darkness—something that should have caused her even more panic—but she felt only immense peace of mind.

"But... how can I get out of this situation..."

As if in response to her words, a hand gently took her hand. She instinctively gripped it tightly, unwilling to let go, for fear that the hand would disappear again.

The familiar touch of her hand guided her forward.

"Do not be afraid of the chaotic sounds, do not fear the dazzling colors, I am the only one you have ever seen, heard, smelled, and touched." The familiar voice guides you ahead; it is her beacon, and also the highest divine decree.

"If you have forgotten, then you will eventually await awakening. In endless time and space, I will wait..."

"Waiting for you to no longer fear, no longer forget. To remember everything that should be there."

Following the echo of those words, I lost track of how much time had passed.

Lin Yilin gently opened her eyes and looked at the figure pulling her. The figure was re-constructed, and the face with the radiant smile and the bright gray eyes were a brilliance that no material thing could match.

"Zheng Fan".

She called out that name for the first time.

(End of this chapter)