Lin Yilin arrived at the entrance of her office, treading through the morning mist.
The moment she took out her key to open the door, she suddenly paused.
Her gaze quickly swept around the doorway before she continued to open the door and entered the office.
"Mr. Illusion?"
Toast was sleeping in the corner, and Zheng Fan was nowhere to be seen for a moment.
Lin Yilin squatted down by the long sofa, staring at the floor for a while, then her gaze shifted to the side, and she softly murmured numbers.
Finally, she looked all the way to the coffee machine, sniffed lightly, picked up the can of coffee beans on the coffee machine, then put it down, and her gaze fell on the mug on the coffee table.
The sound of wings flapping came, and a grey-eyed bat flew out of the room, transforming back into human form. Zheng Fan landed next to Lin Yilin: "Good morning, you're a bit early today."
"Mr. Illusion, what happened last night?"
"As expected, I can't hide it from you, can I?" Zheng Fan sighed, then said, "But don't worry, although a small accident happened last night, Toast and I handled it perfectly for you."
"Oh?" Lin Yilin tilted her head.
"Firstly, it's still our good neighbors, the Banmu Office. They sent people last night to try and smash and harass your office, trying to drive you away."
Lin Yilin nodded.
"Then Toast and I scared them away." Zheng Fan spread his hands, seemingly demonstrating his achievement.
Lin Yilin nodded.
She waited for a moment.
"And then?"
"There's no 'then', they all ran away, what else could happen?" Zheng Fan put away his hands and feigned ignorance.
Lin Yilin blinked: "Traces of people entering and exiting at the door, bloodstains near the sofa that weren't completely cleaned, indentations on the floor made by heavy objects, gunpowder near the coffee machine, and a reduction of expensive coffee beans equivalent to ten cups, but Mr. Illusion, you shouldn't be drinking that much in one night."
Zheng Fan maintained a smile.
Lin Yilin continued: "So, has Mr. Illusion's account omitted too many things? How exactly did you scare them away? Also, about four people seem to have died here, how were the bodies disposed of? And why does one person seem to still be alive and hiding inside the office?"
"If you get married, the husband would absolutely not dare to cheat."
"I allow the husband to cheat, and then we'll arrange a perfect crime together to make the other woman disappear."
"Hiss, how benevolent, Miss Lin Yilin."
Saying that, Zheng Fan stopped playing dumb and led Lin Yilin into the house.
There were indeed several spare rooms inside the office, some for temporary accommodation, some for storing Lin Yilin's secret small tools, and even a relatively simple laboratory.
Entering the laboratory, Lin Yilin saw Cheng Fei lying on the central table at a glance.
At this moment, Cheng Fei still had his eyes open and was breathing shallowly, but otherwise, there was no other reaction.
Lin Yilin stepped closer to observe, even pulling out a flashlight to shine on him and test his pupillary light reflex. After a simple observation, she asked, "Vegetative state? What did Mr. Illusion do?"
"Possession, complete takeover. But then he just became like this." Zheng Fan shrugged.
Lin Yilin nodded, then walked towards the laboratory's freezer: "So the other bodies are in..."
Opening the freezer door, this freezer was usually only used to temporarily store some samples and items that needed freezing. Its capacity was not large, and the person who crammed them in did so quite roughly.
Fortunately, four people squeezed together could still leave a little space.
"Mr. Illusion..."
"My apologies, if your freezer has other uses..."
"Can't you dismember them?"
"...Huh?"
Lin Yilin dragged the bodies, which were already frozen together, out of the freezer. The four bodies, squeezed together, frozen and stuck, looked quite terrifying, but Lin Yilin was unmoved. She walked to a table in the laboratory and opened the large drawer of the table.
"There are tools here; any normal adult can easily use them. Tools for cleaner bloodstain removal and odor elimination are over here. The office's soundproofing has been specially reinforced, especially in this laboratory. An hour's time... a little longer if you're not proficient, but as long as you're willing to do it, cutting the bodies into small pieces before dawn, putting them in the freezer, and cleaning up the scene is not a very difficult task."
Zheng Fan was stunned for a moment and said, "So the perfect crime is real?"
Lin Yilin tapped her chin with her finger as if thinking: "The husband finds four people for a party? That would be a bit difficult."
"Ah, it's Cheng Fei's body that's too useless. It has no strength at all when I use it; just cleaning up outside exhausted me. Even if I used to stay at home for several months without exercising, eating takeout all day, I wouldn't be this useless." Zheng Fan returned to the main topic, pointing at Cheng Fei on the table.
Lin Yilin returned to Cheng Fei's body and looked at it: "Is this body's left arm new?"
"I went through a lot of trouble to regenerate it for him, otherwise this body would have died too."
"No, this body should have already died. The 'mark of death' is very obvious."
"Hmm?" Zheng Fan was startled, "But I can't possess a dead body."
"It's a bit complicated to explain... Mr. Illusion is not an ordinary Illusion. The threshold to see Mr. Illusion is very high; I made a lot of preparations to see you back then."
"Jiang Si?"
"That's why I said she's very special."
"So that's how it is."
Lin Yilin continued: "Cheng Fei couldn't see Mr. Illusion either, but he was successfully contacted by Mr. Illusion. Based on the scene, it was probably at the brink of life and death, coupled with intense mental shock, that caused him to break through that barrier. But even so, it was 'temporary'; he fundamentally couldn't see, his aptitude was insufficient, and even if he saw Mr. Illusion, his appearance would likely be different from Mr. Illusion's true form."
Zheng Fan listened, stunned: "So what does this have to do with me possessing him?"
"It does. Although it was temporary, the conditions for successful contact and mental breakdown were met, so Mr. Illusion could invade. But at the time of invasion, Cheng Fei was already dead."
Lin Yilin looked down at Cheng Fei: "Then, during the process of stepping into the world of death, this body was restored by Mr. Illusion's powerful strength and achieved complete takeover. This body has been marked with 'death'; it shouldn't move again in this world. And Mr. Illusion forcibly making him move is resisting the rule of death, which is why it's so difficult."
"The rule of death?" Zheng Fan repeated.
It didn't sound like physiological death or mental death or anything like that.
Physiological problems, Zheng Fan had already fixed. As for mental death, Zheng Fan could replace that part.
But even so, it couldn't change the rule in Dadu that "Cheng Fei is dead."
The world of death? It seems to be another issue with Dadu's so-called "multiple worlds."
"Moreover, if it were a complete takeover, Cheng Fei would have completely become Mr. Illusion's nourishment, but the result is that Mr. Illusion actually didn't absorb this body, neither completely invading reality nor being unable to detach from it. After detachment, the body is in this subtle, vegetative-like state, between life and death," Lin Yilin added.
After roughly understanding the situation, Zheng Fan said annoyedly, "Tsk, I knew I shouldn't have shown off and drunk coffee. I was a step too late!"
"It's hard to say," Lin Yilin comforted. "After all, Mr. Illusion is not like a typical Illusion. Whether such a temporary sighting at the brink of life and death can be recognized as a host by Mr. Illusion's power is also hard to say."
Although for a normal Illusion, it would probably be possible, it was hard to say for Zheng Fan.
After all, she had never heard of a dead body being forcibly pulled back just after dying.