Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 376 The Answer to Reality and Illusion

On the return trip, there was a device resembling a ticket dispenser placed at the connection point between the subway cars.

There, you can get a free invitation by simply pressing a button, and individuals can use a ticket to exchange for more invitations later.

Zheng Fan happily took out his large stack of train tickets and began to try and see how many he could exchange for.

It turned out that the number of train tickets required for the invitation actually increased as time went on.

They're so stingy. As a fantasy world, they're not even happy when others help them invite more people, and they want to set restrictions.

Subway Line 0 was once again criticized by Zheng Fan.

On the other side, Lin Yilin, out of concern, treated the injuries of Yu Hao and the others; otherwise, given their current condition, they might have died on the subway.

The Zero Subway's Unkind Point Plus One: No Treatment Services Provided.

Even though the binary girl helped, the lifelong disability was unavoidable. This experience on the bus was a complete loss; they gave up part of their bodies in exchange for just coming back alive.

This risk is inherent, and anyone who boards the subway with the intention of consistently profiting from it must take this into account.

Even though they had considered it, they didn't expect the risk to come so quickly and so rapidly.

At least they didn't die there...

At this moment, Yang Ningyu stepped forward and took out her phone: "Let's exchange contact information."

The three were somewhat surprised, but they did not refuse.

Finally, they also approached Mo Mang, for the same reason.

Although all three were injured, their experience and combat capabilities were undeniable. And although the process wasn't pleasant, at least they gained a more objective understanding of each other after the trip.

Exchanging contact information is a win-win situation, whether it's for future collaborations, sharing, or transactions.

Lin Yilin yawned slightly.

"Tired? Yeah, you haven't slept all night. This subway is practically in an independent timeline, why doesn't it have a status reset function? It's like a makeshift operation." Zheng Fan, sitting next to her, said upon seeing this.

Thinking about what he had heard from various places about the underlying mechanisms of the subway, including what the man in the rain had said, he became even more convinced of this feeling.

"Mr. Illusion, let me lean on you for a while." Lin Yilin said, but without waiting for Zheng Fan's reply, she moved closer, grabbed Zheng Fan's arm, gently rested her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes.

"Once the subway returns to reality, normal spacetime will no longer support my physical existence. Be careful, or you might fall down." Zheng Fan didn't refuse, nor did he look much ahead; he simply stared straight ahead and said softly.

"It's okay, just for a little while." Lin Yilin didn't open her eyes, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

On the other side, five men and a woman sat at opposite ends of the subway, secretly watching the two, not daring to make any loud noises that might disrupt the atmosphere.

"That's great. Skilled people can even make riding the subway line 0 feel like a normal school commute," Yu Hao's partner, Wang Jue, remarked.

"Nonsense. During rush hour, you have to grab a seat on the subway before you can even talk about everyday life," said Yang Ningyu, a student who seemed quite qualified to comment.

"So those two clearly knew each other from the beginning, right?" The only woman, Li Huishu, looked at Fried with a hint of gossip. "Wasn't Mr. Sunday Fog with them?"

"Half and half, I just got solo killed by them offline." Fried's tone wasn't as aggressive now. He was just angry because he saw students who should have been in the school district getting on the bus at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and he couldn't help but feel disgusted by stupidity.

His words left the others puzzled.

"Besides, Miss Number One's body couldn't possibly be that tired just from not sleeping all night. They're both monsters in their respective fields," Fried waved his hand.

As soon as I said those words, I felt like I was being watched by something terrifying.

However, upon closer inspection, Zheng Fan and Lin Yilin remained unchanged, without making any other moves.

really weird.

Yu Hao asked curiously, "Are you from the firm?"

"Well, I can't give you a casual answer. If you're curious, find out for yourself. I'm not that easy to find, but she's quite easy. Go find her if you have any questions." Fried shrugged.

Yu Hao nodded thoughtfully and said nothing more.

Lin Yilin's exhaustion was genuine, but everyone except Fried was truly tired, especially Yu Hao and the other two, who in a sense had crossed the line between life and death.

Originally, they were just a team that had temporarily come together after a few short collaborations, but now they have become very close.

The subway's return journey didn't seem as fast as the outward one, so the subway gradually quieted down, leaving only the breathing of the passengers and the sound of the subway running.

……

Whether Lin Yilin tripped and fell when Zheng Fan suddenly disappeared upon arrival at the station is left open for now.

By the time everyone realized what was happening, they were already sprawled out and asleep on an abandoned bus stop.

There's no need to worry about how the subway gets to the bus stop.

As dawn broke, it seemed that the time difference between the car and the real time was not significant.

Apart from Fried and Lin Yilin, everyone else watched Zheng Fan disappear without a trace and began to wonder, "Could this really be a subway urban legend?"

But Metro Line 0 itself is already a kind of urban legend. Is this another urban legend nested on top of an urban legend?
In the end, not daring to think too much, they went their separate ways.

Fried looked at Zheng Fan beside him, whose terrifying "true form" was visible in his eyes: "I still prefer your human skin."

“Your preference doesn’t matter,” Zheng Fan said matter-of-factly. “You can talk to my four or five clients about which one they prefer, you or me.”

"Why a score of 5? Oh well, this time we've made a lot of progress. We've not only found out more about the subway, but we've also got some substantial intelligence on Jiangwen Street. I feel good about reporting back now. Two great achievements!" Fried rubbed his hands together, beaming.

"Wait a minute, I have some questions for you," Lin Yilin called out, stopping Fried who was about to turn and leave.

"It's not related to a personal grudge, is it?" Although he felt he wouldn't be able to escape if the other party wanted to arrest him, Fried still assumed a posture as if he was ready to run away at any moment. "Let's leave that aside for tonight, we'll consider it next time."

"I hope you won't consider it next time either. This whole mess has made me not want to leave the house for a while," Fried complained. But seeing that Lin Yilin seemed about to get down to business, he said seriously, "So, what is it?"

……

Hong Yijia was still asleep when Lin Yilin woke her up with a phone call.

"Hey... Xiaolin, you're up so early now?"

"Winter is almost here, and it gets light quite late now, so it's time to get up."

"...Do you think I'm stupid? It's only a little past five o'clock."

"There are several illegal hiding places for a large number of fantasy elements and fantasy objects here, along with transportation routes. If you don't take them, I'll find a way to go directly to Chief Shiraishi."

"What?! I'll take some men over right away. Don't bother the Chief at this hour, although I bet he's still awake. Anyway, I understand."

Half an hour later, the Shishikoko police and the handling bureau suddenly launched a large-scale operation.

Some people who were paying attention weren't too surprised. Recently, there have been frequent incidents, and the police and authorities have often carried out large-scale operations in the middle of the night. This time, around 6 a.m. is considered a normal time.

Afterwards, the police and the handling bureau seized a large number of illegally smuggled fantasy elements and fantasy items hidden on the old subway lines, and arrested several related gangs.

Among them were some talented individuals who, despite limited resources, managed to repair neglected sections of the old subway line.

Sometimes, when the existing infrastructure fails to provide assistance, these people will even repair parts of it themselves, with no guarantee of safety. After all, they are taking a risk, and this line can even connect to areas outside of Xixi Keke.

This subway line has integrated many illegal businesses after the disaster, with those related to fantasy factors being the most serious. Other similar businesses, such as disaster relief supplies, illegal drugs, addictive substances, and general weapons, are also included.

Some even offer bounties to inhabitants of other worlds, and they also conduct transactions through this place.

This alarmed Chief White Stone, and the actual arrest would likely take a considerable amount of time, as the underground situation was far too complex.

However, Lin Yilin's commission has already been completed so far.

At the subway construction site, the police and the handling bureau also helped with the handover. Lin Yilin received joint commendation and a record of merit from both sides, and then came here to settle the commission with another person in charge.

As for the original person in charge, they have been arrested.

On the way back, Zheng Fan looked at the police and the handling station that were constantly moving around early in the morning and sighed, "I thought the things at the construction site were caused by Metro Line 0."

"This is a form of manipulation, and it's also the result that those illegally modifying and repairing the subway hope to achieve," Lin Yilin said, looking up after receiving various messages on her phone.

“But I did sense the aura of the illusory world at the construction site, otherwise we wouldn’t have gone looking for Metro Line Zero,” Zheng Fan said.

"Because this construction site was indeed passed by the Zero subway line one night before it arrived. Many of the Zero subway line's boarding points are subway stations, which is a form of its revival, so it's not surprising that this construction site was there."

“The materials used in the Zero Subway are unknown and unique, and its origins are quite mysterious. Is this subway really going to be built using the scrap metal we’ve seen when we’ve apprehended criminals under subway lines? Almost an unlimited number of trains, and all the abandoned subways buried underground combined, can’t compare to it.”

“That’s true, but you never know what the supernatural might be. Maybe it just needs such a medium?” Zheng Fan pointed out the flaw in this line of thinking.

Lin Yilin replied, "Of course, there's more than that. During our previous inspection, we found a mixture of human traces and hallucinations at the construction site. Some of the hallucinations and auditory hallucinations experienced by the workers and security guards at night were real, while others were fabricated. Of course, we didn't find any obvious traces of transactions here at that time, because what they were trying to do wasn't to continue trading under the guise of construction. They probably wanted to move everything hidden at this site and clean up the traces before the construction reached a certain point. This area is a large site, and it won't be easy to clean it up. Once the construction is completed, this site will definitely be unusable."

"Why not carry it out covertly?" Zheng Fan answered himself as soon as he asked the question: "Oh, after all, it's a construction site. As an official project, it even has considerable security measures. Given their conditions, they may not have the ability to cover it up. So it's better to use the traces of Metro Line 0 as cover, confuse the public, and at the same time slow down the construction progress to buy time to transfer the stolen goods."

Lin Yilin nodded: "The Bureau of Emergency Management must have anticipated the emergence of Metro Line 0 through various intelligence sources. Regardless of whether they took action in places we were unaware of, if the situation at the construction site is reported, they will naturally assume it is related to Metro Line 0."

"Wouldn't it cause problems if we sent someone to investigate? Randomly assigned agencies might be unreliable, but what if we sent personnel from the Bureau of Investigation and Rectification to conduct a special investigation?" Normally, when an agency comes to investigate, they can't go down to investigate carefully because of the on-site construction, but the Bureau of Investigation and Rectification knows that there are traces of Metro Line 0 here, so it's not an exaggeration to dig three feet into the ground.

“Because someone has already been here,” Lin Yilin said. “First of all, the mechanism for the reappearance of Metro Line 0 is no longer clear, and the Bureau of Investigation is unable to determine the specifics of these signs. Secondly, before I found the construction site of this line, I had already reported to the Bureau of Investigation several times, and then the Bureau of Investigation sent people to investigate.”

"How incompetent must the bureau be to be able to detect their underhanded tactics?"

“No need for underhanded tactics, just a time difference in advance,” Lin Yilin explained. “The maintenance work on subway lines is clearly structured; if one station has hidden equipment, it doesn’t mean the entire line does.”

Zheng Fan suddenly realized: "The previous route."

Lin Yilin nodded: "The Bureau of Investigation and Handling has so many related incidents to investigate. If we had to investigate every single report, we would have run out of manpower long ago. When this line was first started to be repaired, someone had already planned ahead and used the remaining traces of the Zero subway line to create various illusions to confuse the public. Then, they reported it to the Bureau of Investigation and Handling multiple times along the way."

“They have many accomplices, and their underground network can even get a certain degree of information about the recent personnel changes at the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics. They know that after a certain point, the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics will no longer strictly accept cases. Such conflicts between the client and the client are also very common. Then they are sent to the agency, but the agency's investigation efforts are generally not as strong as the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics.”

"We don't need to keep it a secret forever; buying some time is enough."

"The person who knows the construction plan in advance, can even proactively control the construction efficiency to cooperate with the plan, and has multiple reporting authority is the person in charge of the project. Of course, there must be other connections within the team or even higher up, so let the police and the handling bureau find out slowly."

As she spoke, Lin Yilin cleared her throat and swallowed, her words carrying a long tone: "When I was on the Zero Subway, I confirmed my guess after combining Fried's and Yu Hao's explanations of the subway. The characteristics of the two subways are too different. In the end, what I asked Fried for was all the records of the Zero Subway's appearances. The Secret Service probably has more records than the Processing Bureau."

After listening, Zheng Fan couldn't help but exclaim, "It really was a grand magic trick."

Lin Yilin chimed in: "The cooperation with Subway Zero was perfect, and it even formed a criminal network. The combination of reality and illusion deceived too many people because the 'real' part was too large. Subway Zero shielded them from too much scrutiny. Even I initially only had suspicions and didn't specifically think about it in this direction. My attention was mainly focused on exploring Subway Zero."

"Even Mao Mao couldn't tell." Zheng thought of Mao Mao, the human-faced dog.

According to the information provided by Momo, the smuggled goods with no known origin are the real part of Subway Zero, but the sounds heard in the underground subway are a decoy. If Momo hears the sounds of Subway Zero precisely at midnight every day, it would probably also notice that the subway sounds at other times are not right.

However, the randomness and information gaps of the Zero Subway led to Mao Mao's misjudgment, which in turn caused the information he relayed to Zheng Fan and Lin Yilin to be misleading.

"That's how information spreads; the key is who controls the information," Lin Yilin concluded.

“A lie that combines reality and illusion,” Zheng replied.

"More important than this, I really need to go back to sleep. I'll write the commission report later; there's quite a bit to write this time." Lin Yilin actually yawned.

"Do you really want to sleep this time?" Zheng asked sarcastically.

"Although my body won't feel tired, it's not good to have my biological clock disrupted. Ensuring I get enough sleep is always a good thing." Lin Yilin replied seriously, seemingly oblivious to Zheng Fan's teasing.

(End of this chapter)