Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 362 Subway Line Zero
"Number One?!" Fried was only able to snap out of his inexplicable terror after hearing human speech.

After confirming it wasn't a ghost, I breathed a sigh of relief: "It's not a ghost! You scared me half to death. Seriously, can't offline meetups be a little more serious?"

"Why would someone who's already hallucinating be afraid of ghosts?" Lin Yilin asked, puzzled.

"Ghosts and hallucinations are not the same thing."

"It's pretty much the same for most people."

Fried didn't argue, but just let out a long sigh. But then he suddenly thought, "You asked me a question and then stopped replying. So you're planning to kill me offline?!"

For Fried, who spends his days surfing the internet without a second thought and is completely irresponsible about his words and actions, and who casually swears while playing games, this seems almost as terrifying as seeing a ghost.

Fried stared in horror at Lin Yilin before him.

He recalled in his mind whether he had made any inappropriate or excessive jokes with "Ms. Number One" online in the past.

Calm down. Although it was their first formal meeting, he should have been confident in his knowledge of Lin Yilin.

Miss Number One is just holding a cat in front of him, isn't she? It seems she doesn't intend to retaliate...

Meow!
boom!
No sooner had a cat meowed than a bullet hole appeared in the stone bricks at Fried's feet, the faint smell of burning reminding him of what had just happened.

That's not a cat, that's a cat gun.

Yes, he should remember this information too! Since he didn't think he would run into this active "Number One" lady, he certainly wouldn't memorize every detail of this information. Besides, this cat was too deceptive, and Lin Yilin rarely used it to maintain its mystique.

Make sure that most witnesses who see this cat spit out bullets, grenades, and missiles will keep their mouths shut forever.

There was no other way; Lin Yilin was just a weak woman with no strength to even kill a chicken, so she had to rely on this ability to hide her trump card.

And, Fried confirmed it.

Miss Number One is really here for revenge!

"That's better." Just as he was thinking this, Lin Yilin casually soothed the cat and put it back into her waist bag.

Fried: ?

"What are you doing? Do you like cats?" Seeing his silly look, Lin Yilin was slightly disappointed in this person in charge of a considerable intelligence network for the Secret Service.

"I like cats, but I don't like cats that spit bullets out of their mouths."

"Really? Shouldn't that be a plus?"

"Where's the bonus point...? You're not here to kill me, are you?"

"Why would I kill you? Because of your past overpriced intelligence and some low-level jokes? Please, we're an agency, not gangsters."

"Is there a difference?"

"There's no difference, but I'll do it more decisively than them."

"Isn't this even more terrifying!?"

Lin Yilin ignored the noisy Fried, who was behaving rather cowardly, partly due to his personality and partly due to his habitual pretense.

Just as Hong Yijia wears a customer service-level smile at work, some people will put away their usual frivolity and put on a serious face during a crisis. Peter Parker will use his talkativeness to cover up his nervousness after changing his clothes.

This person is of a similar type, who is used to using loud noises and exaggerated actions to buy himself a chance when he is in crisis. In essence, he is using his clownish behavior to remind himself of his state.

Being too calm can lead to a loss of necessary vigilance or even spontaneous despair; some people are like this.

When Lin Yilin first approached, the other party screamed and said that he had seen a ghost, but in his panic, he immediately created a suitable distance, but not far enough, leaving room for a counterattack.

Sure enough, he immediately prepared to join forces with his illusions to fight the enemy, but was interrupted by Mr. Illusion, which directly deprived him of a major fighting force.

He is now using this tactic to lower Lin Yilin's guard, while he is also preparing to either escape or retaliate.

It's pathetic, but very effective; the outward appearance and inner thoughts are completely different, and it can even deceive oneself.

If Lin Yilin hadn't already subtly surpassed him in intelligence network capabilities, and if the other party hadn't been so wary of Lin Yilin, it would have been really difficult to find and lock onto this person.

"It's just a piece of ordinary intelligence. It's not like they'd come all the way to me via the internet to settle scores," Fried said with a sheepish grin.

“Really? Your personal appearance here at this time of day means that the intelligence is just as you described online, anything but ordinary,” Lin Yilin said. “Coming here was the right decision. It seems that the recent activity of Secret Pass is inextricably linked to this matter.”

"You even know this? Well, asking like this makes me sound like some extra on the street." Fried immediately mocked himself after asking the question. People in the intelligence industry all use similar tricks to show off in front of others, and as one of Lin Yilin's seniors, he certainly knew it.

“Frede…” A hoarse voice came from the side.

Fried suddenly remembered. Miss Number One didn't seem to intend to kill him for the time being, but the illusion next to Miss Number One looked even more dangerous than Miss Number One herself!

The coin-operated system is going to be shut down.

"Big brother, loosen your grip! I'm begging you! Inserting the coin is really important to me! Sir! I'm kneeling before you! I can't live without it! Miss Number One, please help me persuade it!" Fried knelt down from the bottom of his heart for his hallucination.

“I’ll ask you questions, and you must answer them. You can’t hide anything,” Lin Yilin said as she approached Zheng Fan.

"Okay, okay, it's all up to you."

They received a reply, albeit verbally, but it was sufficient for their current actions. After all, the main purpose was to have a good laugh; Lin Yilin and Zheng Fan weren't actually going to place an order to kill someone offline.

As soon as the coin-operated illusion was released, it quickly retreated back into Fried's body.

Fried patted his chest, feeling the fear transmitted by the coin-operated illusion, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Alright, since you’ve come all this way, Miss Number One, there’s nothing more to say. Welcome aboard the Dadu Night Line Zero subway, bound for the wondrous world of infinite possibilities in Dadu.” Fried said, spreading his arms as if to show Lin Yilin and Zheng Fan something magnificent.

However, right now there's only a dilapidated subway station here.

Oh, Zheng Fan saw that Fried stepped on a mouse.

Compared to this.

"The Illusionary Realm?" Zheng Fan exclaimed.

When he said goodbye to Niu Qianliu after the earthquake, he said that after a few months of relative calm, Dadu might fall into an unprecedented long period of chaos.

While it may not cause the same kind of devastating damage as an earthquake, various subtle, gradual effects and subsequent consequences will emerge.

In the past, many illusions existed, like chewing gum stuck under public tables and chairs—disgusting and difficult to remove. However, these illusions were gradually cleared away thanks to a certain opportunity, which to some extent sealed off the chance for large-scale formation of illusions. This earthquake will shatter that.

There might even be a retaliatory backlash.

At first, Zheng Fan thought the ghost subway was just another hallucination, but after considering all the information, it seems that this thing is not so simple.

It's not just about simply moving through space.

A single illusion and a cluster of illusions are simply different paths in the evolutionary process of illusion.

However, the illusionary realm has an advantage that even the most terrifying hallucinations cannot match in terms of spreading influence and altering time and space, as well as cognition. Therefore, "Lossevier" has to use the power of the illusionary realm to expand her influence.

Furthermore, the illusionary realm can do even more bizarre things, such as severing connections.

Although Lin Yilin herself was partly responsible at the time, the illusionary world formed by the accumulation of numerous hallucinations did indeed have the potential to sever even the connection between Zheng Fan and the host.

He could interpret this as "the illusionary realm can achieve this as long as certain conditions are met".

Therefore, he would be a little more attentive when facing large-scale illusionary realms.

Not all illusions are like the "cute little thing" that Niu Qianliu scared out of his body.

Zheng Fan isn't afraid of petty tricks, but his adorable hosts might not be.

"What exactly is Subway Zero?" Lin Yilin asked, her mind racing through all the possible connections to this thing.

The earliest sightings included some mysteriously disappeared subway parts, ordinary workers from Xixi Keke who went to Xinjiang Wen, strange events at the subway construction site, and information about the human-faced dog Mao Mao.

It seems that something else has taken root in Xixi Keke without anyone noticing.

No, in Fried's words just now, he described the area as "most of the capital," not just limited to Shishikoko.

It's understandable, after all, the fact that the worker was sent from Xixi Keke to Xinjiang Wen is already one aspect of the subway's influence.

"That's a part of history that has been largely erased, partly due to the Zero Subway itself. In the past, along the subway lines underground in the capital, a super illusion continued to commit crimes, hiding in the subway trains and taking away many passengers. Subway security was far less stringent back then than it is now, and the subway was also a favorite smuggling route for many people."

"The smuggling of fantasy factors?" Lin Yilin guessed the key point that followed.

“That’s right. At the time, another major case was taking place. A huge amount of fantasy objects and fantasy factors were smuggled out of the processing bureau in a bloody battle and were intended to be transported by subway. That’s when the accident happened.”

"Thus, the Zero Subway Line, which runs through the entire history of Dadu and parasitizes the very foundation of Dadu like an ouroboros, was born. It was a colossal illusion, a illusion itself devoured by the illusion, unable to dominate such an existence. It could take people to unexpected and wondrous worlds, not multiple worlds, but rather the fault lines within Dadu itself, countless pasts that Dadu wanted to forget. Naturally, those were just the past, merely remnants of time and space connected by the Zero Subway's passage. However, what terrified Dadu the most was..."

Fried's voice trailed off.

“Those things from the false past can be brought back by the Zero Subway.”

(End of this chapter)