Zheng Fan met Lin Yilin at the end of May, and May was about to end shortly after they got to know each other.
The day Zheng Fan had been silently anticipating had also arrived.
May 30th.
"You want to go to the Violent World?" Lin Yilin, who was engrossed in writing notes, looked up at Zheng Fan when she heard his plan.
Zheng Fan lay on the sofa, one hand teasing the energetic Toast, and lazily replied, "When I was strolling around this morning, I heard someone discussing it. The police and those uniformed personnel from the Processing Bureau have also become more active; they must be preparing for this."
"Although there isn't a non-existent date at the end of every month, early preparation is naturally necessary," Lin Yilin nodded slightly. "Xixikeke Street, as a large district, is the first to bear the brunt and especially needs vigilance."
"Since I'm new here, I want to go and see. Maybe I'll discover something. Do you want to go?"
"No," Lin Yilin's refusal was decisive.
"Eh~, if the Violent World overlaps, there should be many incidents that can be used to boost performance," Zheng Fan was a little surprised. After all, Lin Yilin was someone who dared to face that 【Chicken】-level violence rating and went alone to find him, a Black Illusion.
He thought she was the type who liked to go to places with lots of trouble.
"Incidents are incidents, commissions are commissions. An incident without a client has nothing to do with me; it just adds trouble," Lin Yilin's clear, cold voice spoke somewhat heartless words.
But she wasn't wrong.
"Then I'll just go by myself? This means I can only watch from the sidelines again," Zheng Fan said with some regret.
Lin Yilin blinked.
So, Zheng Fan's reason for wanting Lin Yilin to go was simply hoping to use her body to participate at the appropriate time.
"Woof!" Toast, on the other hand, was eager to try, but it was also just a 【Chicken】! Without Lin Yilin's body, Zheng Fan wouldn't be able to save Toast if it met a tragic end, so he couldn't bring it.
It's just a piece of Toast.
Rejected by Zheng Fan, Toast immediately looked dejected, its wiggling little tail drooping down.
Zheng Fan didn't care; the carefree Toast would recover quickly.
"Didn't you say that place could be used for leveling up? If you want to increase your combat power, perhaps that's also a way?" Zheng Fan was still a bit persistent.
Lin Yilin picked up her cartoon Earthworm teacup and took a sip of water: "The Red World's violence index is not that easy to obtain. While increasing the violence index through violent acts is convenient, the crimson factor within it will also gradually change a person."
"Impulsive, irritable, paranoid, addicted to violence, accustomed to solving all problems with violence, becoming a violent maniac, a madman, a psychopath, a butcher. Once the gray-white on one's body is completely dyed red, one will be forever stuck there."
"Will I also?" Zheng Fan asked.
"Mr. Illusion is already black to the core, so it doesn't matter. Black is the deepest color and won't be stained by any other color," Lin Yilin tilted her head and replied.
It sounded as if she was saying Zheng Fan was beyond help.
Afterward, Zheng Fan inquired about the specific details of the world overlap.
Lin Yilin generously divulged the information: "When an overlap occurs, ordinary people generally won't feel anything very obvious, but some more sensitive people might see some signs. Then, some qualified individuals will be attracted and encompassed, and furthermore, residents of the Red World will appear. They might be native residents, or they might be the people I mentioned earlier who are staying in the Red World."
"Can these residents leave that world?"
"They can. It's even simpler than illusions lingering in reality. For a period after each Violent World overlap, public security will be very poor. Most of this is because the influence of violence can make ordinary people impulsive and irritable, and another part of the reason is that some residents of the Violent World have escaped to this side..."
"It'll turn Dadu into Gotham, won't it?" Zheng Fan mused.
"What's Gotham?" Lin Yilin asked curiously.
"A famous large city in my world, with persistently high crime rates and outstanding people; it's roughly similar," Zheng Fan explained, though it was from a fictional work... No, that's not right, in reality, there are places like that, just missing a few super villains.
"Mr. Illusion's world, huh?" Lin Yilin was quite curious.
Zheng Fan did not shy away from the fact that he was a "transmigrator," because from the perspective of Dadu in this world, he was indeed a transmigrator from "another world."
When he told her this, Lin Yilin showed no change in expression whatsoever.
According to her, the depth of the Black World far exceeded the imagination of real people, or rather, as deep as real people's thoughts and imaginations could go, so deep was the Black World.
The Black World was just a general term; it contained countless other worlds, and the Illusions that emerged from it would increasingly manifest their origins as they grew.
In the understanding of these mature and powerful Illusions, their worlds would also become more complete.
Lin Yilin thought it was perfectly normal for Zheng Fan to have a complete other world in his memory, and to have lived a complete life in that world.
The only slightly strange thing was that Zheng Fan's world was a much more normal and ordinary world by comparison, which was unlike most powerful Illusions.
This conversation with Lin Yilin almost made Zheng Fan himself feel a bit insecure.
He really couldn't be sure if his world before transmigration was part of that so-called Black World.
However, Zheng Fan only pondered for a moment before letting it go.
Because thinking about such things was too troublesome; he was too lazy to think further.
As dusk fell, Lin Yilin packed her things and left the office. Before leaving, she looked back at the office sign, which still had graffiti on it: "I hope it doesn't get too messy this time."
After saying that, she turned and left.
...
Zheng Fan stayed in the office with Toast until dark. Time passed, the hands of the clock on the wall gradually approached twelve, and the digital clock on the desk also ticked.
He sat on the sofa, silently watching the clock's movement and listening to the commotion outside his ear.
Police sirens flashed intermittently, and police lights repeatedly shone into the room from outside the window before quickly fading away.
Tick-tock... tick-tock...
Finally.
The hour and minute hands both pointed to twelve.
Silently, but Zheng Fan's eyes widened.
Outside the window, a blood-red light suddenly shone forth, casting a thick red filter over his vision.
In the true sense of the word, a Red World.
The clock hands on the wall continued to move, but the date displayed on the digital clock screen did not change; after May 30th, it was still May 30th.
The bloody Thirtieth.
He picked up Toast, who had fallen asleep on the floor, placed it on the sofa, and covered it with a blanket.
When not moving, Toast would retract its short legs, ears, and tail, returning to its perfect Toast appearance, making it difficult to distinguish.
Zheng Fan's action of covering Toast with a blanket seemed a bit comical.
After doing all this, he turned and walked out, his body passing through the doorway.
Bang!
Just as he stepped out, a loud bang came from an intersection not far away.
It turned out to be a police car colliding with a gray minivan.
People immediately got out of both the police car and the minivan. The police drew their guns and confronted the thugs in front of them.
The thugs, who were originally only armed with knives and bats, hesitated at first when they saw the guns, but suddenly one of the thugs in the crowd also pulled out a gun and fired directly at the police officers nearby.
The scene instantly became chaotic.