Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 5 Knocking on the door in the middle of the night
……

At the Xixikeke Subdistrict Police Station, Lin Yilin sat on the sofa in one of the offices.

After waiting for a while, a handsome middle-aged man with black hair parted in the middle and stubble walked in. "Sorry for the wait. I found the information you were looking for. It is indeed a recent event."

He threw the file in his hand onto the coffee table in front of Lin Yilin.

"Thank you for your help, Uncle Drake." Lin Yilin thanked him politely before taking action.

"It's a small matter. Before Edelman passed away, he asked me to take care of you. If you want to inherit his business, I will continue to help you just like I helped him. Anyway, most of our police work has been divided up by you guys." Drake teased with a smile and took a sip of the coffee in his hand.

Lin Yilin thanked him again in a low voice, and then stopped being polite. She reached out and picked up the file and quickly flipped through it.

The content is about the recent missing persons in Zhujin Community Apartments.

"Countless people disappear in the Gray Street District every day, are killed by gangs, involved by the Bureau, solved by the firm, abducted by strange companies for experiments, affected by hallucinations, or even lost in different worlds... What kind of job did you take this time?" Drake asked as he watched her flipping through the books.

"Actually, I haven't received any work yet, so I can only say that I'm just doing some preview." Lin Yilin was a little embarrassed.

Drake was very perceptive and couldn't help but laugh: "Are you also going to force sales?"

"I won't ask for a price... yet." Lin Yilin retorted.

"Okay, okay, okay. I've watched you grow up, so I don't distrust you. I have some idea of your abilities." Drake waved his hand to comfort her.

Lin Yilin sighed softly.

Originally, she was just planning to wait for Mr. Chen Wen to come over when he couldn't stand it anymore, but Mr. Illusion seemed to have followed her on his own initiative. This was indeed a "forced sale" in a sense.

He collected his thoughts and continued to look at the files in his hand.

"From mid-May to now, there have been four consecutive disappearances in Zhujin Community. The body of one of the missing persons has been confirmed. Is there something wrong with this community?" Lin Yilin briefly summarized and asked.

Drake thought for a moment and said, "This kind of case would be given great attention in the White District, but it is just the norm in the Gray District. We just reported it to the processing bureau, but the processing bureau may not care about it at all. After all, they are only responsible for hallucinations, but this case may not be related to hallucinations."

"Have you conducted a field investigation?" Lin Yilin looked at Drake.

"I checked with the people over there, but it was just a formality." Drake was a little embarrassed. Because the situation in the city was basically terrible, most police officers were making extra money by providing intelligence to some law firms, and other important tasks were just for show.

After Lin Yilin got into the mood, he felt like he was seeing a leader inspecting him, with a very impressive aura.

Lin Yilin didn't care what Drake was thinking at the moment. After responding casually, she turned to the content of the investigation.

The visits of some people on the floor where the missing person lived were recorded.

Most of them were not very nutritious. Lin Yilin browsed through them and found a familiar name: Chen Wen.

……

"Starting from one night, I could hear someone knocking on the door late at night."

"No, they didn't knock on my door, but I think my door must have been knocked on as well. I first heard it when I got up at night. The apartment is not very soundproof, so I could hear such a loud knock on the door clearly at night."

"Then it sounded like there were people fighting and arguing, and I heard people crying and asking for help."

"My reaction to that?"

"…I'm just an ordinary person. I was just scared. I went back to sleep without even peeing."

"Now that you police officers are here to ask questions, it seems like something really happened... My choice was right."

"…Yes, more than once, and the knocking continues."

"Location? Maybe on the same floor, or maybe... upstairs? No, I don't know, I really don't know. I don't have that much time to care about so many things."

"I'm shaking? What am I afraid of?"

"..."

"Officer, is it any use telling you this?"

"……Um."

"The knocking on the door has been getting louder and louder every day for more than a week."

"Footsteps and shouting."

"The thing outside the door..."

"Maybe it's getting closer to me."

……

Lin Yilin finished reading the record of Chen Wen's words and looked up and asked, "Does this look like everything is alright?"

Drake took a sip of coffee: "That's right, so we did report everything to the processing bureau. Involving that area is beyond our scope of responsibility." Lin Yilin nodded and put the file back on the table: "Thank you, Uncle Drake, but I have to trouble you again, can you lend me your car?"

Drake was ashamed: "I borrowed it from you last time and it was just repaired yesterday. It's my beloved car..."

"I can help you calculate your next marriage."

"...Hiss, is it urgent?" Drake asked carefully.

"From this gentleman's perspective, the number of times he mentioned hearing voices is greater than the number of recorded disappearances in the community. Combined with the fact that I confirmed that he was being targeted by an illusion when we met this afternoon, I have reason to suspect that the illusion has done something."

Drake groaned: "Things are twisted?"

"It probably hasn't reached that point yet. It could be my misjudgment this afternoon, or the police investigation was not good enough."

As she spoke, Lin Yilin stood up and said, "Perhaps the illusion has already taken over his body."

……

Zhujin Community, in front of Chen Wen’s home.

Zheng Fan tried to knock on the door and watched his hand pass through it.

How can there be any difference?

He was able to hit that ghost thing just now, but I can’t?

He has his feet on the ground and cannot float in the air. He is not an ordinary "ghost spirit" and feels even worse than a "ghost spirit".

Just when he was about to go straight into Chen Wen's house to take a look, the door in front of him suddenly creaked open.

After passing through the door, Zheng Fan stood in front of him, allowing Zheng Fan to face the person in front of him at close range.

It was Chen Wen who had just hidden in the house. However, Chen Wen looked pale, his body was wet as if soaked by sweat, and his clothes and hair were covered with a thick layer of dust. His eyes were dark, whether because of the night light or some other reason, and he held a bloodstained machete in his hand.

Zheng Fan: "...Good evening?"

Chen Wen ignored Zheng Fan and walked past him to the next room.

Standing in front of his neighbor's door, he raised his hand tremblingly.

thump... thump...

Knock on the door.

It was neither fast nor slow, but in the quiet corridor at night, it was very clear and loud, and the flashing of the voice-controlled lights seemed to be getting faster and faster.

"There's a doorbell over here." Zheng Fan came up to him with his hands in his pockets and pointed at the doorbell next to him.

Chen Wen continued to knock on the door.

Well, it doesn’t seem to be any kind of peer exclusion or cold violence.

Zheng Fan was almost kissing her face. Even if it was a "ghost", if he didn't react, his temper would be a bit too good. It was enough to confirm that the other person really couldn't see him.

According to the known information, Chen Wen seems to have been possessed.

But Zheng Fan seemed unable to snatch Chen Wen's body away as he did in the morning. The mechanism seemed to be somewhat different.

So the question is, what does Chen Wen want to do next?
"Who is it? Knocking on the door in the middle of the night." Following the knock on the door, a response came from inside the house.

The footsteps were getting closer, and the other party looked outside the door through the peephole.

"Are you, the one next door? What's the matter so late?" the other party asked.

Chen Wen nodded silently.

The other party hesitated for a moment, but still opened the door.

"What's the problem..."

Before he finished speaking, a cold light flashed and the machete hit the opponent's neck. The man fell in a pool of blood with an expression of disbelief.

Zheng Fan raised his eyelids slightly, without much expression.

"Don't move!"

Suddenly, hurried footsteps came from the stairs.

Zheng Fan turned around and saw Lin Yilin with her legs apart, holding a pistol in her hand, the muzzle of the gun pointed at Zheng Fan... and Chen Wen behind him.

(End of this chapter)