Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 679 "Gray Scale"

"What are these?" Jian Quanshen swallowed hard, his voice trembling.

Lin Yilin turned around, her calm, emotionless eyes fixed on Jian Quanshen with a chilling gaze that sent a shiver down his spine. In the end, Lin Yilin remained silent, waiting for the content to be transmitted while simultaneously browsing more information.

Jian Quanshen couldn't help but say, "I only ran away because I was scared! If you want to punish me, you can do whatever you want, why did you have to make me go through this?! I can't figure it out anymore! What's going on here? I know I was wrong! I shouldn't have watched my colleagues fall in front of me and chosen to back down! But I really had no choice! I was scared!"

Faced with Jian Quanshen's barely contained, almost hysterical voice, Lin Yilin didn't turn her head, but said softly, "Mr. Jian Quanshen... you've done enough."

Jian Quanshen was stunned: "What did you say?"

“I said, you’ve done everything you could. You’re a hero in this neighborhood, just like your colleagues,” Lin Yilin said.

Jane couldn't accept it: "Are you trying to comfort me? This is not the time for self-pity. I am a deserter! This is true! This is tantamount to betrayal."

"You ran away, you ran away, and then what?"

Lin Yilin finally turned her gaze to him again: "What did you do after you ran away? Don't you remember?"

Jane's eyes slowly widened.

The tightly closed door opened a crack at that moment.

Jian Quanshen heard the loud, almost ear-piercing creaking of the door frame, and when he turned to look, he saw another version of himself.

……

Overwhelmed by the sight of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, he failed to stand firm at his post, abandoning his colleagues and teammates as he fled in panic. He witnessed the sacrifice of everyone and was buried in the pile of bodies.

The somewhat inexperienced stabbing killer was ultimately no match for a rapidly growing illusion.

She needs to kill more people to continue the stalemate with that illusion until reinforcements arrive.

Why haven't the support troops arrived yet? Why is Dadu always so unpleasant, even at a moment that determines the lives of countless people?

They fought on the front lines for the sake of Dadu, but when death came, all they could pray for was luck.

Such pointless complaints are nothing new in the grey neighborhoods.

Crouching back and hiding behind the corpses of his companions, he figured he'd likely escape. With that thought, he stepped out from among the bodies and stood in front of the stabbing killer.

Covered in foul-smelling blood, he unleashed his fear and cursed the murderer in front of him and the hallucinations behind him.

Then he stepped forward and charged fearlessly toward the murderer.

He died from a blood-stained thorn that pierced his feet and went all the way to his head.

The stabbing killer received a crucial follow-up attack, while the hallucination missed the opportunity to finish him off, prolonging their protracted battle once again.

The layout of this small office in this small neighborhood was completed thanks to the sacrifices of many people.

The hallucinogenic and murderous demons, no longer receiving any further feedback, eventually collapsed under the balance of power, unable to escape or hide, and were taken down without bloodshed by the reinforcements who arrived later.

……

Jian Banxian stood before Lin Yilin, seemingly lost in thought. Jian Quanshen, however, had vanished. Or rather, the incomplete version of him had disappeared; Quanshen and Banxian had each found their missing parts behind the door.

"I never expected that the person who brought out the other half of me that I left inside would be you." After a long while, Jian Banxian finally looked at Lin Yilin with a gentle and honest smile on his face.

“Originally, you would either be swept away by this strange world and die, or you would encounter Jackson here, have nowhere to escape and be killed by him. However, we all made mistakes. As the saying goes, it’s an illusion. Even if you sometimes realize it, you always feel that it’s just your own imagination. A casual “maybe it’s an illusion” has already missed the huge black hole… Both the Undying Lighthouse and I were tricked.”

Jian Banxian sighed, “An extremely unique spokesperson, who is not with the other spokespeople, has always adhered to the posture of illusion and integrated into this world. He is enough to bypass all our attention and lead you, a group of inconspicuous but actually astonishingly talented people, to challenge this city and even the world... Fantastic, I want to say that, but you are already standing in front of me.”

"What exactly are you?" Lin Yilin didn't care about Jian Banxian's many comments and just asked out of curiosity.

"Jian Quanshen died in reality many years ago. What is your purpose in coming back to stand up with his appearance? Revenge? Proof? Or catharsis?"

“Of course, it’s to create a new world,” Jian Banxian said calmly, his small eyes opening and flashing with a gray light. “You should have already seen some of the files. The Gray Scale Project, I intend to completely merge white and black… not just black, but also the endless multiple worlds. The colors of the world don’t need to be so clearly defined; there should be a delicate gray between black and white. My stance is unrelated to black or white; if necessary, either side can be a friend, or an enemy.”

"motivation?"

"I am not the God of Jian Quan, but a special being who was born by accident because of a small mishap that happened in a corner of the capital that year. The illusion and murderer who died from exhaustion, the belated handling bureau brought white, black constantly devoured the package, and gray accepted everything. Thus, a new life sprouted in the accident."

“Not a spokesperson,” Jian Quanshen introduced himself. “If I really had to have a title, I would prefer to call myself a guide to the gray world. In order to lead to a truly gray world where there is no distinction between people, I volunteer to guide the countless lost sheep in the capital.”

His tone was neither contemptuous nor arrogant.

He spoke with a devout tone, recounting the facts he held dear.

"This is the choice of the capital."

"The choice of Dadu?"

"Dadu has made countless choices, and all we've done is amplify our own choices to the point of overshadowing others. As the source of order in multiple worlds, Dadu's underlying color is neither white nor black, and certainly not the naive gray of us. It is still waiting, waiting for the moment when we stand firm on a certain choice for it." Jian Banxian raised his hand, pointing to a certain entity above his head.

After a brief silence, Lin Yilin asked, "So, Jian Quanshen, what was your final decision?"

"I'm not reconciled." Jian Banxian lowered his hand and turned his face away.

Even in the dimly lit room, his eyes seemed to see very far: "The main theme that emerges from the naive gray is 'unwillingness.' And when I stood up with his body, the first emotion I felt was the same."

While Lin Yilin was still in a daze, Jian Banxian stroked his chin, looking at Lin Yilin with interest, and said, "So Jackson is a good vessel. His crazy and desperate struggle is a microcosm of the grayness of the majority. Of course, it was an unpleasant accident that he encountered your illusion. But after this meeting, I thought of another good opportunity. Lin Yilin, are you interested in a world of your own?"

It's not black, it's not white, but it can be both... a world that belongs only to you.

Lin Yilin blinked.

crunch...

What was just a crack in the door has now widened, disrupting the delicate balance of this unstable world unconsciously created by the gray branches.

Whoa!

The shadowy figure writhed, and in the blink of an eye, Jian Banxian realized that Lin Yilin had vanished with the phone.

"...If you're not willing, you don't have to run this fast," Jian Banxian said with a hint of helplessness.

(End of this chapter)