"Thank you for riding,"
The driver's back was motionless. Throughout the entire ride, he had been the only absolutely still object in the moving vehicle. "You've reached your destination."
Jin Xueli stood on the road next to the Museum of Modern Art. The car door slammed shut behind her with a BANG.
She instinctively turned to look, just in time to see the bright red taillights of the yellow taxi. They receded into the distance, blurring into a fog born from the depths of the night and the white steam rising from the sewer grates.
'...She seemed to have forgotten something.'
Jin Xueli stood on the road, her eyes fixed on the taillights until they disappeared into the dark night, the misty blue, and the smoky white, yet she didn't know why she was staring so intently.
Of course, she knew a piece of her memory had been taken as the fare. No amount of thinking could ever bring it back.
But Jin Xueli felt that what she'd forgotten was something outside of that lost memory. It was as if there was something she should have noticed but hadn't. It was the same vague suspicion she sometimes got before leaving the house, the feeling she'd forgotten to bring something. It was like a cloud obscuring part of her mind, a cloud she couldn't part to see the moon.
At times like these, it was always useless to try and remember. Only after you'd left the house and actually needed the item would you have that sudden jolt of realization.
'Oh well. At least I got out of the car with all my limbs intact and my head still on my shoulders. Even if I did forget something, it clearly wasn't a matter of life and death. I'll remember it sooner or later.'
She pressed her face against the glass of Entrance D, peering inside before carefully pushing the door open just a crack.
Unlike in Blackmoor City, buildings and facilities inside a Nest were almost never locked. If you came across a door that wouldn't budge, it usually meant there was a Hunter inside. For humans delving deep into these bizarre and treacherous realms, the faint comfort offered by a single lock was something to be clung to desperately.
'After all, people can't survive without some illusion of safety. If everyone was clearly aware of every single thing happening in society, would anyone dare to take a single step out of their homes?'
Jin Xueli held the door open with one hand but didn't enter. She waited a few seconds. When the silence behind the door remained unbroken, she finally took a step inside as soundlessly as possible, her foot landing on the floor.
Even though it was late at night, half the lights in the museum were still on. The corridors, exhibition halls, and elevator bay were all steeped in a sterile-white glow.
Perhaps because it was a museum of modern art, the lighting design and architecture all felt vast and cold. Walking between the stagnant white walls and the white light, she felt too "alive." Her vitality was too hot, too superfluous. She was out of place.
Following the signs, she soon found the elevator bay.
'The broadcast had given three main instructions: one, "Take the first elevator on the left"; two, "Do not look at the other elevators"; and three, "Go to the first basement level." None of them were complicated. Good thing the memory I paid as my fare wasn't this one, or I'd really be in trouble.'
Jin Xueli pressed the button, positioned herself in front of the first elevator on the left, and stood perfectly still, staring straight ahead.
This godforsaken place was, at times, completely predictable. When a crisp DING shattered the silent air, it was, of course, the elevator on the right that had arrived first.
The dead silence held for a breath, then was slowly unzipped as the elevator doors parted.
Jin Xueli didn't look, but every hair on her body stood on end like a tiny antenna. Her eyes were locked on the closed elevator doors in front of her. She had a vague feeling that the elevator on the right was not empty. There was something inside.
'Bring it on. She had already made up her mind. She wouldn't so much as glance over, not even if a mountain of cash poured out of that elevator, let alone a resident.'
"Oh, good, there's someone out there..."
A woman's voice, thin as a silk thread, was drawn out of the elevator by an invisible hand, trembling in the air. "Listen to me, I just came down from the third floor. Something terrible happened up there..."
'Don't talk to me,' Jin Xueli told herself. 'I'm deaf and blind.'
The display on the first elevator to the left glowed with a blood-red "28." This building only had three floors above ground.
"Don't be afraid,"
The woman's voice, once like a silk thread, gradually thickened, as if the sound itself had roots. Or perhaps the woman was slowly crawling out of the elevator, the source of the sound drawing closer to Jin Xueli.
"I'm a Hunter, too, from Blackmoor City. I came in to find an Illusion I'd hidden... but after I got in, I lost track of time... What's the date today? The day I came in, Reagan was giving his election speech."
'I'm blind and deaf, I'm deaf and blind,' Jin Xueli repeated silently, like a mantra.
She took a casual step to the side—but she didn't dare move too far, lest she be unable to dash into her elevator the moment its doors opened.
"Whatever you do, don't get on the elevator,"
As the voice got closer, it was no longer like a thread but like sewage GURGLING from the mouth of a black hole. "I never should have listened to the Announcer... He baited me with small rewards the first two times, then led me to a dead end on the third. Lucky for me, I reacted quickly..."
When she heard the word "Announcer," Jin Xueli almost failed to suppress the urge to turn her head. She kept her eyes glued to the elevator, but her heart hammered uncontrollably as if it had been stabbed, and a POUNDING filled her ears.
Her gaze was fixed in mid-air, not daring to look down. But a dark shadow slowly rose from the floor and stopped at her chest, as if it were listening intently.
'...Does a racing heart count as a response to the woman?'
Jin Xueli didn't dare to make any sudden moves. Her breathing and the dark shadow on her chest remained in a stalemate for several seconds in the cold, silent elevator bay. Finally, another DING from an arriving elevator shattered the stagnant air.
The doors of the leftmost elevator opened.
'Wait, the woman is stopped right in front of me. I'll have to go around it to get past... but does going around it still count as ignoring it?'
'But I can't just barrel into it, either, can I?'
Jin Xueli watched the doors part, revealing an empty elevator car. Just as she was hesitating, unsure what to do, she felt the dark shadow on her chest suddenly shrink to the side and retreat.
"How annoying..." the woman seemed to mutter.
Jin Xueli never questioned her good fortune when it came. Good things were fragile; they couldn't withstand scrutiny.
The moment the shadow before her moved aside, she bolted into the elevator and repeatedly slammed the "close door" button as if trying to punch through the panel. All the while, her gaze was fixed to the side, refusing to look out the door.
But even without looking, she could sense something in her peripheral vision: a dark shadow on the floor, its limbs swaying as it moved, like a giant lizard slowly crawling away.
Not until the elevator doors had completely closed and it began to descend with a low RUMBLE to the first basement level did Jin Xueli finally release the breath she had been holding tight in her chest.
So far, she had followed the broadcast's instructions to the letter. There shouldn't be any more—
"...He baited me with small rewards the first two times," the woman's voice echoed unexpectedly in her mind, "then led me to a dead end on the third."
Jin Xueli rubbed the corners of her eyes, deciding to suppress this annoying and distracting thought for now.
'The "Virtual Guide to the Infinite Illusion Realm" is meant for the Nest's residents. It's not strange at all that the woman knew about the Announcer.'
Compared to the lizard-like resident in the elevator bay, she trusted the broadcast's Announcer a little more. Of course, that "trust" was still tempered with three parts doubt, three parts vigilance, and three parts scrutiny.
However, the next few minutes seemed to prove that the broadcast Announcer hadn't told a single lie. In the dimly lit exhibition hall of the basement level, she found the exhibit named "Candle Tears" with almost no effort. To be honest, it would have been harder *not* to find it.
Now, standing before the exhibit, Jin Xueli was dumbfounded.
Because the exhibit named "Candle Tears" was a gigantic white candle, laid horizontally on the ground. It was about as tall as she was and dozens of meters long.
If not for its waxy, creamy-white surface and the arm's-length black wick dangling from one end, it might have looked more like a giant's roof beam. The candle rested on numerous custom-made iron stands, under which ran a row of metal troughs of indeterminable purpose.
"This thing is an Illusion?"
The candle was so large that Jin Xueli walked for a while without managing to circle it completely. "I can't tell if it's powerful, but its size is certainly impressive..."
'It's so big. How am I supposed to take it back by myself? Can I just cut off a piece?'
She couldn't even tell what this Illusion did, so naturally, she had no idea if that would work.
Art exhibits usually came with a brief introduction to the work and its creator. Based on her experience, if there was detailed information about the Illusion, it was likely to be in that description.
Sure enough, when Jin Xueli walked to the other side of the candle, she found the description for "Candle Tears" covering half a wall.
"Some say time is like flowing water; others say time is speed. But the artist, Judy Picot, believes that time is wax... The time we are living through is a slowly melting candle, giving us the illusion that its form is still within our grasp. But once this moment, this hour has passed, it becomes solidified candle tears, permanently fixed in the shape of history.
"...The artist's interpretation of time ultimately took shape in the exhibit 'Candle Tears.' The giant candle viewers see represents a long, primordial stretch of time.
"It is an interactive piece of art. Viewers can light a fire under the iron stands to heat the candle, watching it gradually deform and drip with candle tears."
Amidst the sentences formed by neat, black print, there were interspersed lines of crooked, handwritten script, as if the person who printed the description for "Candle Tears" had deliberately made one part neat and rational, and the next chaotic and mad.
"It's an Illusion an Illusion an Illusion the Illusion that melts time"
"Melting time means freeing history from its prison! Quick look at your history don't accidentally kill your past self hey how about you put me in, put me next to your past self"
The next paragraph returned to normal.
"After the candle is heated and becomes transparent, viewers will notice objects the artist has encased within the wax. They represent historical events that occurred during that primordial time. By reshaping and molding the hot wax and changing the objects within, viewers can alter the 'original history.' The artist believes..."
Reading this, Jin Xueli couldn't hold back any longer. She turned to look at the massive, creamy-white candle behind her, momentarily unsure how to process this shock.
'By melting and reshaping this candle, you can change time—no, change history?'
'Did I understand that correctly?'
If she had understood correctly, then it truly deserved its reputation as "one of the most powerful Illusions."
'I need to study the specific instructions more carefully, and preferably test it out myself. I also need to see what effect it has on the future.'
'I need a basic understanding before I can plan my next move. Cutting off a piece probably won't work. Even with help from other Hunters, we couldn't carry it away, because everyone's Path is different, so we can't return together. It looks like my only option is to hide it for now...'
That was the last thought that went through Jin Xueli's mind before she turned around and a Hunting Knife was plunged into her throat.