Illusion Report

...What to do?

Jin Xueli’s first instinct was to flatly deny it. But a moment’s thought was all it took to realize that would be pointless—just noise to fill the silence.

Chaisi hadn’t spoken so plainly because he was suspicious and wanted to see what she would say. It was the exact opposite.

He was already certain. He was merely provoking a reaction, looking for a crack in her armor to pry open the hand that so tightly gripped her secret.

’This is driving me crazy. Does the Candle Tears Illusion have some kind of special scent? Did I accidentally get some on myself for Chaisi to smell?’

A good while had already passed. Jin Xueli knew the longer she kept silent, the more she seemed to be confirming Chaisi’s suspicion. Yet, she came up with several excuses only to discard them all, and in the end, she couldn’t get a single word out.

"You didn’t take me for a fool and hit me with a string of ’I don’t know’s and ’It wasn’t me’s. I’m quite pleased about that."

Chaisi lowered his arm, his body still leaning against the staircase bannister.

It should have been a relaxed posture, but his limbs seemed to form a cage, trapping Jin Xueli in the small space at the foot of the stairs.

He murmured, "When I’m interrogating people, for some reason, there are always those who are just itching to lie to me."

"You’re right,"

Since there was no hiding it anymore, Jin Xueli steeled herself and said, "I do have a life-saving measure I didn’t tell you about. But so what if you found out? I’m not afraid to be blunt. It’s my ace in the hole, and I’d never just tell anyone about it. You had no right to know in the first place."

’If I had to admit I was hiding something, then this time and place was actually ideal,’ she thought. ’The Nest’s communication network can’t last forever. Chaisi has to find the police chief within a limited time, so he can’t possibly drop everything now just to torture a confession out of me.’

’As long as he doesn’t act against me right now, I have a chance to escape. And as long as I can escape, no matter what damage I suffer today, it can all be undone, made to disappear... The only annoying part is that the memories would remain.’

’Failing that, using Candle Tears as bait to entice that woman, Mercury, is another option. If I could just get those two to start fighting amongst themselves...’

In just a few moments, Jin Xueli had already run through several potential countermeasures in her mind. However, she never expected Chaisi’s next words to render all her mental preparations useless.

"You’re right." He actually nodded. "I’ve said it before: as long as you don’t stand in my way, I can be a reasonable person. Though you, like most people, don’t believe me."

’And whose fault is that?’

Jin Xueli didn’t say it out loud. She wanted to see what Chaisi planned to do next.

"There are countless good things in this world that belong to other people... like the Nest’s communication network. As long as something isn’t essential to achieving my goal, I don’t feel the need to possess it."

Before Jin Xueli dared to breathe a sigh of relief, Chaisi continued, "But that little something you’ve hidden away... has greatly piqued my interest. Call it intuition?"

’More like his sense of smell,’ Jin Xueli thought. ’Such a sensitive nose, like a dog’s.’

"What do you want?" she asked stiffly.

"What is it you want most?" Chaisi suddenly asked with a low-voiced smile.

"...What?"

"In this life—a life that began without your consent, yet one you must see through to the end—there must be something you crave. A goal you want to achieve no matter what. Something that can dilute the unbearable bitterness of life, maybe even bring you some comfort and satisfaction..."

Chaisi straightened up as he spoke. He leaned down and asked, his lips near Jin Xueli’s ear, "What is it? Tell me."

"I—"

Jin Xueli opened her mouth, only to find she had no answer.

"No, there’s nothing I particularly want..."

In the dim, narrow stairwell, time seemed to slow, and a few seconds of silence stretched on.

In the distance, the Mercenaries still scouring the Central Police Station would occasionally shout or sweep a flashlight beam, disturbing the thick, dark fog the Nest’s communication network had draped over the building.

The conversation should have ended there, but for some reason, she heard herself speak again.

"I... I like money, beautiful people, good food, pretty things, having fun... but I don’t need anyone else for those things. I can get them all myself."

’Chaisi means to trade my greatest desire for Candle Tears, right?’ Jin Xueli thought, a little lost.

The proposal wasn’t exactly unfair, but it seemed she didn’t have... she didn’t have a goal that could "dilute the bitterness of life and bring her comfort and satisfaction."

The dreams of her youth—living in Blackmoor City, in a beautiful house, with lots of money and gorgeous clothes—thinking back, she had actually achieved them all. But when they came true, she barely even noticed, let alone felt anything.

Even the happiness was fleeting, just a brief high when she first obtained something, and then it passed.

"And how did that feel?" Chaisi seemed to laugh silently.

’How did what feel?’

"Now that you have all those things, how do you feel?"

Jin Xueli didn’t answer him for a while.

Logically, the question shouldn’t have been difficult. She considered her life fairly happy; whatever she wanted to eat or whatever fun she wanted to have, she could get it in an instant. Even Anthony, whom she’d killed later, had brought her a brief period of joy.

After half a minute, she finally whispered, "...Unfulfilled."

Chaisi waited quietly for her to continue.

"I always feel there could be more, that I could experience more, that I want more... But if you were to ask me what ’more’ is, I couldn’t tell you."

’Maybe he’s just extremely skilled at interrogation,’ Jin Xueli thought in a daze. ’Maybe I’m being interrogated right now and I just don’t know it.’

’What’s the difference between an expert interrogator and a psychologist, anyway?’

He didn’t answer.

"Come with me," Chaisi said simply in a low voice, then turned and started up the stairs.

Jin Xueli froze. Instead of following, she glanced back down the stairs.

In just a few seconds, without a single glance back, Chaisi was already halfway up the flight of stairs. If she turned and ran right now, there was a decent chance she could shake him and escape to the third floor. She couldn’t match his strength, but her speed might not be any slower.

’That fat chief has managed to hide this long. It shouldn’t be too hard for me to hide, either, right?’

The scales of her decision wavered for only a few moments. Then, as if compelled by some unseen force, Jin Xueli followed him up the stairs.

She herself didn’t know why she hadn’t run.

"We’ll start from the fifth floor and search our way down, floor by floor."

As he spoke, Chaisi pulled a phone from his pocket—whose, she couldn’t tell—and showed her a picture from the photo gallery. It was a bust portrait that had been hanging on a station wall, showing a fat man with a restrained, dignified smile. The caption beneath the photo listed his title and name. It was the missing police chief.

"Ever since the Nest’s communication network took over, no one has seen him. As far as I know, he’s been inside the Central Police Station all day and never left, so he has to still be in this building. But the interesting thing is, I and a dozen professional Mercenaries have turned this place upside down and still can’t find him."

Huh?

’He’s already asking me to help him find someone?’

’Weren’t you just asking what my greatest desire was, so you could trade it for Candle Tears? Why are you dropping the subject now?’

Logically, Jin Xueli should have been happy that Chaisi wasn’t pursuing the matter of Candle Tears any further.

But she didn’t understand why. At this moment, she felt as if she’d missed a step on the stairs, a lingering, hollow feeling of something left unfinished. She even found herself faintly hoping that Chaisi would press her with a few more questions.

...After all, the most important thing she wanted in life wasn’t Candle Tears.

She just didn’t know what it was yet.

Jin Xueli collected her thoughts, trying to focus on the task at hand. It wasn’t as if she could leave without helping him search, anyway.

She studied the photo carefully. "When that tall, skinny guy went into the room next to your interrogation room, he was surrounded by a few officers. This fat guy... he might have been one of them. I’m not sure."

"Let’s start with the first room."

"The door’s locked," Jin Xueli said, trying the handle.

Perhaps in an attempt to shake the faint, bewildering sense of loss, she made a perfectly ordinary joke: "You’re from the Kai Family, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you have the keys?"

She didn’t expect Chaisi to suddenly freeze.

He stared at Jin Xueli without blinking. After two seconds, a smile slowly cracked across his face.