Illusion Report

Chapter 152: Chapter 120: Jin Xueli: A Company of Three and Some Casual Chat

Han Liuyue stared at the coffin and thought for a moment.

When she looked up again, the doubt had vanished from her face. Her eyes sparkled as she grinned. "Yep, it’s definitely coming from inside!"

’...What are you so happy about?’

"Could he be alive?"

Jin Xueli involuntarily took a step back, her mind racing with countless possibilities. "Did they bury someone else alive?"

"Don’t be scared, I’m here. Just step back a bit," Han Liuyue said, raising the axe in her hand.

’Wait a minute—’

Amidst the heavy CRUNCH of the axe smashing the coffin and the splintering wood flying everywhere, Han Liuyue’s next words seemed to dance in the air like musical notes: "We’ll know once we open it, won’t we?"

’Should I call her reckless, or just direct? Who knows what’s inside?’

’And why does she seem so excited about it?’

However, any objections or protests Jin Xueli might have had were forgotten in the very next second.

A flash of something skin-colored darted through the crack in the coffin lid—as if someone inside, startled, had tried to dodge the axe.

"Quick, smash it, smash it!"

Jin Xueli immediately abandoned her stance from two seconds ago and urged, "There really is something alive in there!"

Han Liuyue had exceptional stamina and considerable strength. Putting all her muscle into it, she smashed the coffin just two or three times, creating a hole with jagged, sharp edges in the upper half. She grabbed a splintered board that stuck out like a spike and, with a heave, managed to wrench it open with her bare hands, forcibly widening the hole in the thick wood to the size of a human head.

’...Is immense strength a requirement for joining the Kai Family?’

Jin Xueli craned her neck and peered into the opening.

In the tomb, lit only by a single construction lamp, the space beneath the hole was dark and blurry. As the two of them watched, a sliver of a flesh-colored shadow slowly emerged at the edge of the hole, growing wider and wider.

The top of a head, like a mushroom after a rainy day, squeezed out of the hole little by little.

It seemed oblivious to the wood fragments sticking into its scalp. Accompanied by the occasional CRACK of a splinter, a complete human face soon grew out of the coffin.

It was a man with a small head and delicate features, his grayish-white hair full of wood shavings. His skin was slack, and every wrinkle seemed etched with solemnity.

The two women and the face stared at each other.

Jin Xueli glanced at Han Liuyue. Han Liuyue met her gaze, then passed it on to the head in the coffin, like a relay of stares.

After a few seconds of silence, Han Liuyue finally scratched her head, a little embarrassed, and chuckled. "Um, Jin Xueli, you keep an eye on him... I’m gonna pull up a photo of Westley on my phone."

"You don’t recognize him either?"

Jin Xueli let out a sigh of relief for some reason. "I was just thinking, I’ve heard his name so many times, but as for what his face looks like, I really..."

"Right? Right?" Han Liuyue, happy to have found a kindred spirit, pulled out her phone. "He doesn’t really appear in the news much. And the rare times he did, it had nothing to do with me."

"He’s not some handsome celebrity or a show-off tech billionaire. Who would bother memorizing some shriveled old man’s face? It’s not like he’d pay me for it."

"See, I knew you’d get me." Han Liuyue looked down, opening a web page. "If there was just a dead body in the coffin, we wouldn’t need to search; we’d know it was Westley. But now..."

"You two are being incredibly rude,"

the head suddenly spoke. Its voice was so soft that Jin Xueli almost missed it. "Digging up my grave is one thing, but is this really the time to be discussing whether I’m ’shriveled’ or not? Please let me out of here right now."

"That tone of yours doesn’t sound like someone who was buried alive by mistake."

Han Liuyue kept her head down, her fingers going TAP-TAP-TAP on the screen. "Let’s see, oh, here’s a photo..."

"How is it?"

Han Liuyue abruptly looked up and flashed the phone at Jin Xueli. "Look, it really is him. He looks so... generic."

The two women looked at each other for a second, then simultaneously turned their gazes to the head sticking out of the coffin lid.

"...Vulture?" Jin Xueli said softly. freēwēbηovel.c૦m

It was unclear how much information Han Liuyue had gotten from Chaisi, but she didn’t seem surprised at all to hear this.

She seemed to have also connected Westley with "Vulture," saying, "They wouldn’t have buried a living Westley... So it must be the Vulture."

Jin Xueli felt like her brain was a ball of yarn that a cat had been playing with for too long; she couldn’t sort anything out.

"But... why is there a Vulture here?"

Chaisi had told her that the Vulture’s behavioral change had been brought about by Westley using an Illusion—before, the Vultures only wanted to look like dead people.

Now, a Vulture could completely transform into its target without waiting for them to die, and because of a rumor started by Westley, it was even able to enter Blackmoor City.

"It entered Blackmoor City, does that mean... Westley was a Vulture all along? Wait, no, the Vultures being able to transform into living people started on the 17th, and Westley died on the 16th..."

"Don’t overthink it," Han Liuyue said, walking over and patting her shoulder. "I’m here. I’ll figure it out."

Jin Xueli shot her a grateful look.

’She really is the ’reliable’ person Chaisi mentioned, truly—’

Before she could even finish the thought, she saw Han Liuyue raise the axe again.

"Wait—"

Like a game of Whac-A-Mole at an arcade, the axe bit deep into the coffin lid, sinking into the empty space within. After a muffled THUD, the head was smashed out of sight.

"Is that your only move?" Jin Xueli asked, staring at the spot where the axe had kissed the coffin. "How is that a way to ’figure it out’?"

"If it’s still alive after I hit it with an axe, it’s a Vulture."

Han Liuyue flashed her a bright, toothpaste-commercial smile. "If it were Westley himself—but how could it be! And even if it were, he’s already dead in name, right? Dying again would just make it official."

Jin Xueli tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Y-You do have a point..."

"Brother Chaisi said so too. A lot of things don’t need to be complicated. Occam’s... something-or-other razor." Han Liuyue lifted the axe, aimed at the hole in the coffin lid, and said, "I’m going again—"

"Don’t do it again," came a muffled voice from under the coffin lid. "...I’m the Vulture."

Huh?

Jin Xueli was utterly shocked. She rushed to the side of the coffin, peering into the hole as she spoke. "Th-that’s not right, is it? Aren’t you supposed to believe with all your heart that you’re Westley?"

"I’d very much like to be," the voice from beneath the coffin lid said. "But when I opened my eyes, the circumstances didn’t allow me to believe I was the real Westley."

"Why not?"

Jin Xueli was growing more confused. She took a moment to explain to Han Liuyue, "The one that turned into me, even when it was standing face-to-face with me, it managed to rationalize everything, believing I was the Vulture and trying its damnest to kill me."

"Is that so? What a lucky fellow," the Vulture in the coffin said drily. "I wasn’t so fortunate. When I opened my eyes, I was already in a coffin."

"And you knew you were a Vulture right then?"

"I couldn’t help but know."

It even let out a very human-like sigh.

"After I transform into a target, their emotions, experiences, and memories are all copied into my mind. So... I clearly retain the memory of Westley’s final moments."

The two women outside the coffin couldn’t help but exchange a look.

As if afraid the living people outside wouldn’t believe it, it added an explanation: "The last thing he saw was the study’s carpet, pressed against his face. Then everything went black. I know he’s dead. Since ’Westley’ is dead, then who am I? If you think hard about something like that, the answer becomes obvious."

"You didn’t think you’d been resurrected?" Han Liuyue asked, her axe still poised, itching for action.

"At first, I did think I had been resurrected."

The Vulture, having taken Westley’s form, could now communicate normally like a person, which felt rather strange. "But when you broke the coffin lid just now, light shone in, and that illusion was shattered. My worst suspicion came true."

"What was it?"

Something inside the coffin moved slightly, making a noise. The coffin was spacious, and "Westley" had a small, thin frame, yet it kept bumping into the sides.

’Wait a minute...’ Jin Xueli suddenly started to understand.

"Because lying right next to me is the real Westley’s corpse."

The Vulture sighed again.

"No wonder I could still copy his appearance after waking up in the coffin... It’s because the man himself is right here at my back."