Illusion Report

Chapter 212: Chapter 175: Jin Xueli: The Stances of Friend and Foe Change in an Instant (Part 2)

She didn’t have to finish for Jin Xueli to understand.

Those parasitic faces on people’s bodies were, in essence, all creations of the Nest. And creations of the Nest could typically only exist inside a Nest.

Morando was being infested. The best and fastest way to save her was to immediately step through the doorway and return to Blackmoor City. Like bacteria submerged in alcohol, most creations of the Nest would disintegrate and vanish in the Human World.

But if they fell into the Nest, who knew how long it would take to get back to the Human World?

Neither Morando nor Chaisi had any time left.

While Jin Xueli was still in a daze, a human face lunged at her chest. An arm of the resident yanked Chaisi’s hospital bed away, exposing both her and the face to the light again.

’I’m not infested yet. I have to avoid skin contact, don’t I?’

Jin Xueli’s scalp tingled with terror. Amidst her panic, she caught a glimpse of pale blue from the corner of her eye. She grabbed the curtain the resident had knocked aside, shrouded the face with it, and forcefully slammed the bundle onto the floor. After dodging another one of the resident’s sweeping attacks, she belatedly realized that Morando was now by her side.

"Give me the weapons!"

She turned her head to see that the face on Morando’s shoulder could no longer be called a face. It looked like it had been smashed by something heavy, leaving only a concave bowl of flesh.

Despite her terrifying condition, Morando appeared to have maintained her reason and self-control.

"I’ll hold it off," Morando yelled. "You take Chaisi and get to the door!"

Her face was deathly pale and her body was sprouting faces, yet she had still managed to notice a detail like Jin Xueli unlocking the wheels on the hospital bed.

Jin Xueli hesitated for only a fraction of a second before tossing her the hammer and the water gun.

Now, she was entrusting her back completely to Morando.

Once she made her decision, Jin Xueli didn’t hesitate for another moment.

Without a single glance at the resident, she bent down, grabbed the hospital bed, and ran, pushing it toward the door. Without a single glance at Chaisi, Morando brushed past her and charged straight at the resident behind Jin Xueli.

Sure enough, the resident swung an arm at her. She didn’t know what Morando had done, but the attack stopped mid-swing. Instead, the resident let out a dizzying, nauseating howl.

"My foot! My foot, my foot, my foot!"

Jin Xueli swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

’Just a bit of dizziness. Even if I’m going to die, I’ll die running.’

From behind her, Morando’s roars echoed through the hospital room: "Chaisi’s coming through! It’s holding the door shut! Open the door for us!"

"Open the door!"

Jin Xueli pushed the hospital bed, Chaisi’s head lolling over the side. The room’s door was just a few steps away. "We’re coming!"

It was at that exact moment that she heard the shrill, thin voice.

Only upon hearing it did Jin Xueli suddenly remember: the little figure had never actually left Chaisi’s mouth.

It was now emerging from Chaisi’s mouth, just its upper body, with its arms wrapped tightly around its chest. It was impossible to see what, if anything, it was holding.

"I got it! The ’Rumor’ Illusion is so unhappy! It keeps struggling to get back into his mouth, but I’m holding it tight, tight, tight, so very tight! It can’t get away!"

The resident’s top priority was, sure enough, the Illusion.

The moment the small figure cried out, the lanky patient’s only thought was to get its hands on it immediately.

Its other arm seemed to be occupied with Morando. When Jin Xueli glanced up, she saw the hand that had been pressing against the door—a hand that looked as if it were made of countless tentacles—release its grip and claw down toward Chaisi’s face.

’Isn’t this our chance to get out?’

Honestly, at this point, Jin Xueli would be satisfied if she could just hand a living Chaisi over to Han Liuyue in exchange for an escape route for herself and Morando.

As for saving the tongue Illusion, that wasn’t her responsibility. She wouldn’t mind if the lanky patient took it.

But she never would have guessed that at this very moment, there was someone else in the room who thought differently.

Just as the lanky patient’s hand clawed at Chaisi’s face, Morando sprinted over. In less than ten seconds, she had become nearly indistinguishable from a corpse that refused to accept its own death.

’...How much is she getting paid? Is it worth risking her life like this for an Illusion?’

The resident’s hand got there first, seizing Chaisi’s face and the small figure in his mouth.

It looked as if one squeeze, one tug, was all it would take. When the resident lifted its hand again, Chaisi might only have the back of his head left.

"Open the damn door!"

Jin Xueli had no choice but to scream in fury, hoping to push Chaisi out before it was too late. But the hospital bed was heavy, and with one of the resident’s hands pinning Chaisi down, the few steps to the door felt as vast as a bottomless chasm.

Morando, who had just arrived, didn’t say a word. She suddenly aimed the plastic water gun at the thin black fissures cracking open on the resident’s arm.

A stream of dark, filthy water shot out, as if propelled by rage, straight into the fissures.

The faces within the arm’s fissures were doused by the black water. The fissures were much deeper than Jin Xueli had imagined; almost none of the water was wasted as it all poured into the resident’s arm. The air instantly filled with a damp, foul, earthy odor, somewhat like beer that had gone bad after being left in the sun for three days and then rained on.

’...What is that stuff?’

But the expected howl never came.

The resident’s hand remained on Chaisi’s face. Everything seemed unchanged—no, that wasn’t right.

Jin Xueli suddenly realized that the resident had frozen.

The small figure, apparently still in Chaisi’s mouth, let out a confused, "Hm?"

When she turned her head, she found the resident’s face was right behind her, no more than a fist’s-width away.

Its two heel-like eyeballs were fixed on Jin Xueli, completely still.

"Wh-what happened?" Jin Xueli’s breathing was ragged. She was afraid that speaking any louder would shatter the fragile peace. "What did you spray in there?"

"Ayahuasca,"

Morando gritted her teeth. She walked over to Chaisi and used Jin Xueli’s hammer to slowly, carefully pry up the resident’s hand, as if trying to gently nudge it aside to retrieve the small figure and the Illusion. "It’s a bit like your hammer," she said. "It only works the first time."

Jin Xueli froze for a second before remembering what Ayahuasca was.

"A hallucinogen? It works on residents, too?"

Morando didn’t seem to have the energy to reply.

She, too, was terrified of waking the resident. Her movements were slow and gentle, her voice a low whisper. "Don’t try to stop me. This Illusion, today I have to—"

"You lied to me."

Han Liuyue’s voice drifted eerily from the crack in the door.

"You’re still a ways from the door... and I haven’t heard Brother Chaisi say anything. I don’t even know if he’s alive. Please, have him say a few words to prove he’s still alive, then I’ll open—"

She had just interrupted Morando, but now she couldn’t finish her own sentence. A heavy THUD echoed from outside the door, followed by what sounded like a skull cracking against the wall and a body slumping to the floor.

Jin Xueli froze. The next second, the door to the room was kicked wide open.

"Sister Morando!"

The brown-haired Hunter of Love stood in the doorway, wielding an iron pipe she’d gotten from who-knows-where. "I got the door open for you!" she called out. "Hey? What’s on you—"

She, too, was cut off mid-sentence.

The door SLAMMED against the wall with a loud BANG. The sound startled the lanky patient, who shuddered and let out a grunt, as if about to snap out of its hallucination.

’...This is the only chance.’

"Han Liuyue!"

Jin Xueli raised her voice and, with all her might, shoved the hospital bed toward the door before Morando or the resident could react. "Quick, catch your Brother Chaisi!"

The resident, still not fully conscious, had no strength in its hand. The hospital bed slid out from under its grip and rolled toward the doorway. The Hunter of Love, startled, instinctively jumped aside.

In that instant, Jin Xueli suddenly realized she had made a mistake.

’The Hunter of Love must have knocked out Han Liuyue. There’s no one outside to catch Chaisi. What if Morando tells the Hunter of Love to stop the bed—’

Morando seemed to let out a sigh.

It was the kind of sigh a person makes when they’ve given one hundred and twenty percent effort but must accept a less-than-ideal outcome—a sigh of exhaustion, yet tinged with a hint of relief.

"Go on, get out of here," she called softly to Jin Xueli. "The resident is waking up."

Meanwhile, Jin Xueli was already running for the door herself. Chaisi’s bed crashed into the wall by the doorway, throwing him to the floor.

Only then did Jin Xueli realize there was a woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat slumped on the floor just outside the door. The Hunter of Love had been blocking her from view.

’...Who’s that?’

The woman in the straw hat reached out, grabbed Chaisi, and dragged him out of the Nest and into the Human World.