Lin Sinan hurriedly nodded. “Yes, yes. The Special Operations Division has excellent benefits. Not only do we provide full social insurance and a housing fund, you receive an apartment as soon as you join.”
Lu Yan said, “I already have one. Two-hundred-forty-square-meter luxury flat in the city center. Market value: thirteen million.”
The flat had been given to him as compensation after the authorities took his father away. Housing prices had not been so outrageous back then, but it had still been worth several million.
“And family members receive substantial subsidies and special benefits.”
Lu Yan: “Both my parents are dead. I’m an only child.”
“Your children can receive priority placement at key primary and secondary schools.”
“I’m gay. I won’t have descendants. Opposing surrogacy is everyone’s responsibility.”
Lin Sinan: “…”
Lu Yan answered so seriously that he looked exactly like one of those people who went to a construction site just to argue over every detail.
Lu Yan coughed lightly and drank another glass of water. “What’s the monthly salary?”
In all his years of work, this may have been the first time Lin Sinan had ever met someone who asked about the monthly salary. For a moment, he looked genuinely blank.
After all, for people like them, money was the least important thing.
Lin Sinan said, “One hundred thousand?… Base salary plus performance pay.”
Lu Yan calculated silently.
Not bad. Far higher than what he had earned as a doctor. Then again, his patients had become considerably more dangerous, so the compensation seemed reasonable.
Lu Yan accepted the document and began reading.
Lin Sinan had brought an official employment contract, but perhaps because Lu Yan did not come from a military background, it contained few restrictive terms. There were only two real requirements: report to Headquarters regularly and participate in at least one mission every three months.
Once he joined the Prevention and Control system, Lu Yan would receive a fixed monthly supply of special medication, free access to pollution-disease intelligence, and training at Headquarters. The organization would also provide assistance if he encountered difficulties.
Overall, in order to attract more people to a profession where one practically carried one’s own head on one’s belt, Headquarters offered extremely generous conditions.
[The Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center and the research institutes aren’t the same organization. If you want to join, it’s actually a decent choice.]
Lu Yan finished reading the employment contract and signed his name in the lower-left corner.
*
At Lu Yan’s strong insistence, Lin Sinan assigned two staff members to escort him home.
Only one night had passed, yet the streets looked as though they had suffered a terrorist attack. Broken glass lay everywhere, streetlamps had toppled across the road, and occasionally bloodstains and mutilated remains could be seen. Some belonged to humans. Others belonged to Pollutants.
The Pollutants in K City could still be destroyed through physical attacks, so many people in military uniforms remained busy along the roads.
Lu Yan rolled the car window halfway down and observed the world outside.
He had stayed home all this time and had never gone out during daylight. Seeing something in the news and seeing it with his own eyes were entirely different experiences.
With his enhanced senses, Lu Yan could even see the tear tracks on the face of an officer collecting the body of a fallen teammate.
Tears mixed with blood, grime, and dust as they ran down his face, grief-stricken and silent.
[K City has only a few dozen Awakened and a little over thirty thousand military personnel assisting them. How could they possibly save all three million people intact? Obviously, during the earlier riot, some humans hiding at home were dragged out and eaten by furious Pollutants. Chomp, chomp.]
The System’s detached tone made Lu Yan frown.
[Expecting a System to empathize like a human is rather unreasonable.]
[Besides…]
The System’s voice suddenly became delighted.
[My existence depends on you. Human personalities really are complicated. Whatever you are, I may also become… Are you angry at another side of yourself?]
Lu Yan’s expression chilled. He closed the window, pressed his right hand over his left palm, and shut his eyes in discomfort.
Something was bulging beneath the skin there, like a bamboo shoot after rain, ready to break through the earth at any moment.
*
After returning home, Lu Yan switched on the computer he had not used for a long time.
Lin Sinan’s contact information remained on his phone. The man had sent him a web address and told him it was an internal forum.
Probably because of something the Prevention and Control Center had changed, Lu Yan’s IP was no longer trapped behind the local firewall.
He could see discussion from the outside world about K City’s lockdown.
“Pollution disease,” “monsterization,” “mutated people”… These topics had actually dominated the trending topics for several weeks.
But people who had never experienced it could hardly understand what kind of horror it truly was.
[Evolution is accelerating throughout the world. Governments have chosen to abandon information blockades. They hope that public education will help more ordinary people survive when they encounter danger.]
[It also makes recruiting Awakened more convenient.]
…
…
The internal forum was simply called “Revelation.” It was invitation-only. Awakened all over the world with any connection to official organizations had accounts there. Its administrators were selected from each country’s Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center. To accommodate users from different regions, the forum thoughtfully included a built-in translation system.
Users were required to keep a permanent ID, but the site recorded almost no real personal information, and posts could also be made anonymously. Even administrators had no authority to view private identities.
Rumor had it that an overseas official organization had once tried to hack into the forum. They obtained nothing whatsoever, and the very next day, the person in charge unexpectedly died.
After that, nobody dared cause trouble.
Lu Yan hesitated over the username field for a long time.
He originally wanted to call himself “Doctor,” but the ID had already been registered.
Lin Sinan had told him that some combat records from Awakened missions might later be published on the forum. In those records, forum IDs replaced real names, so Lu Yan had to choose carefully.
“There’s an Awakened from Sichuan who named himself ‘Any Tops?’ Later, whenever he went on missions, straight teammates avoided him like the plague, while strange people kept clinging to him. Anyway, think carefully. The forum doesn’t sell name-change cards.” At the end, Lin Sinan seemed to remember something and added, “He ranks pretty high on the forum too. If you’re a top yourself, cough, you could try posting a selfie and asking him to team up…”
Lu Yan had no interest in teaming up. After some thought, he entered two words: Truth Listener.
The Truth Listener was a legendary divine beast said to know all things in the world and distinguish truth from falsehood.
Very suitable.
This time, Lu Yan registered successfully.
The Revelation Forum looked like one of those chat forums from the beginning of the previous century, back when the internet had only just become popular. The interface was ugly and old-fashioned, like a first-year computer-science student’s final project. It had three main sections: “Technical Exchange,” “Bounty Missions,” and “Off-Topic.”
Lu Yan opened the Pollution Disease Case Studies subsection under Technical Exchange and read all available materials from S-rank through F-rank.
Intelligence was extremely important. At the very least, the next time he encountered a contamination source, he would not need to capture a specimen and dissect it just to learn its characteristics.
The lower the contamination-source rank, the more detailed the records.
S-rank pollution-disease files contained only a few lines of information, while the file on the C-rank contamination source “Parasitic Fish” was a full seven or eight pages.
[Ahem. That’s perfectly normal. Everyone talks about a community with a shared destiny these days, but Awakened still have nationalities… You can apply for the Prevention and Control Center’s internal files. Those are much more detailed. Honestly, China is already very generous. Forty percent of all information on the Revelation Forum was provided by Awakened from China.]
Given the current situation, “a community with a shared destiny” was no empty slogan. If the whole world fell, the Greater China Region alone would not survive for long.
Lu Yan had always read quickly, yet it still took him two full days to finish so many case files. Some were nauseating enough to resemble mental contamination even from the photographs alone.
He found information on Lin Sinan’s contamination source: the C-rank Pollutant “Parasite.”
In the image files, many corpses were covered in plump white worms.
Fat, fleshy worms crawled from nostrils, ears, and mouths, making people want to drag the photographer who had refused to censor the images straight through the computer screen and beat them.
The information section also contained an “Awakened Ranking.”
It was assessed officially once a year, based primarily on Spiritual Power Threshold, contributions over the past year, and various political negotiations that outsiders were not supposed to know about.
More than sixty thousand people were registered on the Revelation Forum, but only the top one hundred appeared on the ranking.
Lu Yan scrolled all the way to the bottom and discovered that Number One Hundred was none other than “Any Tops?”
Profile: I care about looks. Ugly tops stay away.
Bai Qiushi’s codename was “Cold Cicada,” ranked thirty-seventh.
The list also contained names that were obviously foreign, such as “Sakra,” “Michael,” “Odin,” and “Miyamoto Musashi.”
Lu Yan scrolled upward until he reached Number One.
ID: Tyrant.
He opened the profile. Nothing appeared there except the lonely username and nationality: China. The page-view count, however, was astonishing.
Lu Yan fell speechless. “That’s painfully edgy. Someone actually named himself ‘Tyrant’…”
Then he noticed something else. The ID Tyrant had been registered in 2037. In other words, even if Tyrant had registered on the day he was born, he should now be eighty-four years old.
Lu Yan’s own registration date was February 26, 2121.
He checked other accounts. Registration dates ranged from the previous century to the current one. So this was not a system error.
“So pollution disease and Awakened already existed last century.”
Presumably, only now that concealment had become impossible were these strange changes finally entering ordinary people’s field of vision.
Like an elderly person discovering high-speed mobile internet for the first time, Lu Yan enthusiastically browsed the forum for several days.
He only lurked and never posted, but he learned a great deal. For example: when encountering a contamination source, the more frightened a person became, the faster their Mutation Index rose; the farther one moved from the source, the slower mutation progressed… Pollutants were also divided into two broad categories, biochemical and psychic. K City’s Pollutants had all belonged to the former. Powerful Pollutants, however, often possessed both.
Besides that, Lu Yan saw several posts in the Off-Topic section offering enormous sums for healing-type items.
As global evolution progressed, many special items besides healing-type Awakened could reduce a living being’s Mutation Index.
Healing abilities, however, were the rarest among more than a dozen branches of supernatural ability. Only three had currently been discovered.
No wonder the Pollution Control Center had been so nervous about him. If Lu Yan had not clearly refused, they might even have sent him to Headquarters and treated him like a treasure.
On the fourth day after returning home, Lu Yan’s symptoms finally began to ease.
Previously, his arm had hurt as though it were being torn apart. Even tossing a wok while cooking made his hand unsteady. At night, the pain soaked him in cold sweat.
Now the intermittent pain had subsided, and a new change appeared in his body.
Lu Yan lowered his head and looked at the center of his left palm.
As he stared, the inside of his palm gradually split open, exposing bright-red flesh. Sharp fangs lined the edges of the opening—triangular shark teeth.
Strange as it looked, this was unquestionably a mouth.
Lu Yan inserted a finger from his right hand. The sensation was peculiar. His left hand did not exactly hurt, but it was definitely uncomfortable. His right finger, meanwhile, felt as though a happy puppy were enthusiastically licking it.
In the middle of the night, he secretly slipped outside again and cut off a section of an algae-man’s tentacle to bring home.
The mouth in his left hand ate with great enthusiasm. It was much more convenient than feeding through those white filaments.
Lu Yan asked, “Is my left hand still my hand? In the end, will my body still belong to my soul?”
The System laughed. [It’s still a juvenile fish and depends heavily on you. But if you remain in your current state forever, once the naughty little fish realizes its master is so easy to overpower, it may bite back.]
*
On the seventh day after Lu Yan returned home, the news anchor announced in an uplifting voice, “After one month of tireless effort, united in purpose and working together, we have finally brought the contamination under control! The Prevention and Control Center states that after three more days of observation, K City’s confinement order can be partially lifted!”
“This pollution-disease incident has been classified as a B-rank emergency. The source was the C-rank Pollutant ‘Parasitic Fish.’ This disaster caused a total of 46,321 deaths among K City residents, with 456 rescue workers killed in the line of duty…”
As she continued reading, the anchor’s eyes reddened.
Behind every cold death statistic lay a family, a life, and years of joy and sorrow.
After turning off the television, Lu Yan remained silent for a long time. His social connections had always been sparse, but remembering Dr. Li, the rich young man, and Shen Qingyang, whose whereabouts were unknown, still stirred grief and melancholy in him.
Fortunately, Lin Sinan’s call interrupted his mood.
“Dr. Lu, it’s me. Lin Sinan.” Lin Sinan’s cheerful laugh came through the phone.
“Captain Lin.”
Lin Sinan said, “I’m calling because there’s something I want to discuss with you. Advancing as an Awakened also requires contamination sources. Your information has already been sent back to Headquarters. At the moment there are two opinions. One side hopes you’ll gain practical experience while your safety can still be guaranteed. The world is changing too quickly, and personal strength is genuinely important. The other side hopes you’ll go to Headquarters and advance through medication like ‘Bishop’…”
When he said “medication,” Lin Sinan’s expression became faintly unnatural.
The System remarked, [Whether they’re taking medicine or eating people, this humble editor would very much like to know. I have to say, among the country’s thirteen research institutes, Research Institute One is genuinely twisted.]
[A pack of inhuman lunatics conducting experiments that would terrify even gods. One day, they’ll inevitably suffer the backlash.]
Lin Sinan continued over the phone. “If you choose the first option, Headquarters has already selected a location. In W City near K City, a mountain village has mutated. The case codename is ‘Living Dead.’ The contamination source is E-rank, and the highest detected contamination value is 1,100. Besides me, another Awakened with a Spiritual Power Threshold of 3,000 will accompany you. If you choose the second option, I’ll personally escort you to Research Institute One. The advantage is that it’s safer and more controllable.”
“I’m downstairs right now. Once you decide, come down and tell me your choice.”
Chapter 12, 012
012
—Waiting for you to tell me your answer.
The way Lin Sinan said it sounded almost like a marriage proposal.
Lu Yan did not need any further thought before choosing the first option.
A research institute? He would never go to a research institute in this lifetime. The outside world was so interesting. What difference was there between entering a research institute and going to prison?
Besides, he was not actually a healing-type Awakened.
Lu Yan put on a down jacket and a mask, then went downstairs.
Lin Sinan was leaning against the car smoking. The moment he saw Lu Yan approach, he hurriedly extinguished the cigarette. The butt drew a beautiful arc through the air and landed directly in a trash can.
“Mr. Lu.” Lin Sinan’s manner was slightly restrained.
Lu Yan said, “I’ve decided. I’d still prefer to encounter more pollution-disease cases.”
Lu Yan rarely experienced ordinary worldly desires. Or rather, his emotional fluctuations were extremely faint. He neither became particularly happy nor found it easy to feel sadness.
He understood perfectly well that something was wrong with him. He was indifferent and lacked empathy, so he wrapped himself in a socially acceptable outer shell.
He studied hard because conventional values pushed everyone to struggle upward. Whether studying, practicing medicine, or anything else, he did it because it was “appropriate.” He did not especially love any of it, nor did he hate it.
Pollution disease was different. It was like a game whose ending no one knew, offering a new surprise every time it opened.
Lu Yan liked it. Liked it enough… to shiver.
Lin Sinan looked at him deeply. “I understand. Then I’ll do everything in my power to protect your safety.”
Even if that protection cost his own life.
Lu Yan said, “That really isn’t necessary.”
“It’s an order from Headquarters,” Lin Sinan replied. “Obeying orders is a soldier’s duty.”
*
K City Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center.
A middle-aged man arrived under the protection of several soldiers.
He was a researcher sent from Headquarters, from Research Institute Three. His name was Ji Wen.
He had the appearance of a scholar and seemed refined and mild. The director of the Pollution Control Center stepped forward, hoping to ingratiate himself, but Ji Wen raised a hand. The director could only retreat awkwardly.
Now Ji Wen sat at a computer desk watching valuable footage recorded earlier by the intelligent surveillance system.
The two clips showed Lu Yan treating Pollutants.
Occasionally, Ji Wen pressed the space bar to pause and fell into thought.
“Devour?” Ji Wen murmured. “‘Number Zero’ is extraordinarily susceptible to contamination, so they can’t come into contact with the outside world and have remained in a life-support pod. ‘Bishop’ is reclusive and rarely leaves the research institute… Honestly, I don’t know very much about healing-type Talents.”
But he had noticed the tiny fish scales that appeared on Lu Yan’s arm.
“Compared with a supernatural ability like ‘Devour,’ after examining the evidence, I’m more inclined to believe that during this disaster he encountered a special Pollutant and fused with part of its body. That is extremely dangerous, but clearly he succeeded.”
“Which means Lu Yan’s actual Talent is something else.”
“He lied and claimed his Talent was ‘Devour.’ The purpose of the lie was to hide his real Talent. Therefore, he must know certain things.”
“But Lu Yan’s past life has been monitored both online and offline. I’m certain that before this incident, he never encountered any information related to pollution disease. Then how did he know?”
“My inference is that he actually possesses an information-gathering Talent.”
“On the Talent Sequence compiled by Mr. Qiao Yu, six Talents are related to information acquisition: Omniscience, Precognition, Information Cocoon, Mind Reading, Soul Detection, and Heavenly Eye. The only one that truly fits is…”
Ji Wen suddenly fell silent, then casually wrote several marks on the paper that only he could understand.
When he was young, Ji Wen and a friend had invented their own writing system, combining oracle-bone script with cuneiform. Only the two of them could read it. So whenever Ji Wen needed to record something important that he did not want anyone else to know, he used that script.
Ji Wen was forty-seven this year. He had begun researching pollution disease at twenty under the mentorship of Qin Changsheng.
Qin Changsheng’s own mentor was Qiao Yu, one of the earliest people in the previous century to discover pollution disease and establish it as a specialized field of research.
At the beginning of the twenty-second century, disagreements over research philosophy led Qin Changsheng to separate from Research Institute One and establish Research Institute Three.
As Qin Changsheng’s direct disciple, Ji Wen was naturally no ordinary researcher.
Lin Sinan and Bai Qiushi had seen nothing unusual, while Ji Wen had nearly reconstructed the truth simply by watching surveillance footage.
This was exactly why the System remained so wary of research institutes. They contained the most intelligent people in the world, the people with the deepest and most detailed understanding of pollution disease.
Ji Wen pushed his glasses up, then put away his pen. “Logically, I should report this. But he’s Experimental Subject Number 18’s son.”
He closed the video player and, through the system’s administrative backend, chose to delete both recordings.
A warning box appeared, asking him to enter an authorization password.
This was not ordinary deletion, not simply dragging files into a recycle bin and shredding them. The two recordings would disappear from the world completely. No one would ever see them again.
“Consider it repayment for the fact that I once cut open Number 18’s brain… Should I meet the kid?”
Ji Wen waited for the progress bar to reach one hundred percent, then took out the evaluation report.
[Lu Yan. Male. Age 26. Mental state: stable. Mutation level: low. Education: master’s degree.]
[Highly perceptive of the external environment. Cautious and suspicious personality. Prolonged monitoring is not recommended, as it may cause him to lose trust in the Prevention and Control Center.]
[Preliminarily confirmed as healing-type Awakened. Talent: “Devour.” Capable of using a spiritual entity to devour contamination sources. Highly effective on Awakened with low-to-moderate Mutation Index.]
[Can he assist with Tyrant’s treatment: Unknown. (Note: Spiritual Power Threshold currently too low. Contact with Tyrant not recommended due to contamination risk.)]
[Danger level: Low.]
The friend who had invented that writing system with Ji Wen all those years ago was named Lu Cheng.
Lu Cheng graduated from Capital University in 2091, married in 2094, and had his only son the following year. In 2111, he was exposed to contamination and became an Awakened. That same year, he was confined in Research Institute One under designation Number 18. [Talent—Precognition].
In 2113, Lu Cheng’s Mutation Index exceeded one hundred, and he became a Pollutant. In 2117, he escaped from the research institute. His whereabouts remained unknown.
“Better not meet him after all. I held him when he was little. That child always had an excellent memory. He might recognize me.”
Ji Wen stopped writing. After thinking it over, he still felt uneasy, so he fed the sheet covered in his private symbols, along with the photographic materials, into the shredder.
*
Lin Sinan brought Lu Yan to the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center to meet the researcher who had arrived from Headquarters.
But when they reached the building, they were startled to learn that the researcher had already left.
“Deputy Director Ji is extremely busy,” a staff member said helplessly. “He arrived at eight this morning and left at nine. He said he had many important experiments to conduct, but he already completed the evaluation report.”
The System complained to Lu Yan, [The researcher they sent this time seems to have discovered my existence. If we’re being confident, we can remove the words “seems to.” Apparently, I underestimated humanity again.]
[Fortunately, for now, he’s on your side.]
Countless events occurred every moment across the world. Although the System was “Omniscience,” knowing too much all at once would only cause its Host’s brain to explode and leave him intellectually disabled.
Its perception had a range—not too large, not too small. Within that range, it truly deserved the name “Omniscience.”
“Mr. Lu, please follow me to collect your uniform and this month’s allowance.”
Lu Yan’s information had already been formally registered. He was now an official employee with a personnel file and permanent post.
Codename: Truth Listener. Spiritual Power Threshold: 440. E-rank Awakened. Mutation Index: 3.1.
Affiliation: Special Operations Division, Group One, Seventh Detachment.
The staff member opened a secure vault on the basement level of Headquarters, removed a suitcase from a cryogenic compartment, and began explaining its contents.
“This is the research center’s newest invention, the ‘Galaxy Detector.’ The standard model is a wristwatch. If you don’t like that form, you can apply to have it made into something else you prefer, including but not limited to a necklace, phone, and so on.”
“The detector can monitor your own Mutation Index in real time, as well as the contamination values of nearby Pollutants. It also includes navigation, positioning, Bluetooth calling, and other functions. Here is the instruction manual. You may choose to disable China’s satellite-navigation positioning system and opt out of data transmission.”
The detector resembled a finely crafted, highly technological electronic watch.
Lu Yan did not put it on immediately. He slipped it into his pocket instead.
“This is one of the research institute’s most valuable inventions: special medication for pollution disease. Because the raw materials come from Pollutants, it is extremely expensive to manufacture. Please do not sell it for cash.” Previous incidents had occurred, so the staff member emphasized the point. “If you need money, you can contact Headquarters directly. Your current cash-withdrawal limit is five million.”
The special medication came in capsule form. There were only four capsules.
“The standard monthly allocation for an E-rank Awakened is two capsules. The other two are a performance bonus for your excellent contribution during the K City contamination incident.”
[This medication is good stuff. It’s different from what they distribute to mutated people in the shelters. In a critical moment, it’s practically a life-saving drug. Your Mutation Index is still low right now. Stockpile as much as you can.]
“This is your work identification.”
The ID was a card resembling a national identity card, bearing Lu Yan’s photograph, recorded fingerprints, and DNA coding.
“Every time you undertake a mission, completing it earns corresponding Contribution Points. Contribution Points can be used to exchange for items, issue missions, pay for contamination control, and other purposes.”
“Finally, this is the weapon Headquarters prepared for you based on the researcher’s report.” A dagger.
It was exquisitely crafted. Lu Yan drew it from the sheath, revealing a blade that reflected a deep blue, cold light.
It was double-edged.
[Made from the sharpened bone of a D-rank Pollutant land turtle. Market value: five hundred Contribution Points. Anything better would be wasted on you and might attract masked superhumans looking to rob you. It suits you very well. Headquarters really went to a lot of trouble. Are you the director-general’s illegitimate son or something?]
“Thank you.” Lu Yan swung the dagger twice. “I like it very much.”
The staff member bowed deeply. “I’m glad you like it. Thank you for your contribution to humanity’s future. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to serve you again.”
…
Once Lu Yan came out, he could not help saying, “That was excessively solemn.”
He had hardly done anything yet.
[Just a script. Who doesn’t harbor a little heroic fantasy and adolescent edginess? Some people respond well to that kind of thing. You’re simply benefiting from the respect earned by those who came before you.]
That respect was directed not only at Lu Yan, but at every Awakened in the Special Operations Division.
The research institutes handled theory. The Special Operations Division handled combat. The Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center provided logistics. The three supported one another while searching for a future.
Lin Sinan was waiting in the off-road vehicle outside. He lay over the steering wheel with his eyes half closed, looking lazy.
After taking the special medication, his Mutation Index had fallen significantly, from fifty-three several days ago to thirty-nine.
Exposure to contamination sources increased Mutation Index. Time away from them allowed it to slowly decline toward a baseline. The special medication lowered that baseline.
Lin Sinan’s current baseline was thirty-one. Exactly ten times Lu Yan’s.
As the number of doses increased, the human body also developed resistance to the medication… but nothing could be done about that.
Lin Sinan waved. “Come on. I’ll take you to meet your team captain.”
He himself was captain of the Third Detachment of Group Six.
Normally, Lu Yan would have been best placed in Lin Sinan’s unit. But Headquarters probably considered Lin Sinan’s Spiritual Power Threshold too low, and his missions too dangerous, so they deliberately assigned Lu Yan to a different team.
Lin Sinan took it in stride. His threshold was only 1,600, which by classification made him merely D-rank. It was difficult to trust someone at that level to protect a healing-type Awakened.
Lu Yan was joining Group One of the Special Operations Division, also known as the Dragon Group. The entire group had fewer than forty members.
An overseas Awakened had once remarked, “If you average it out, every member of the Dragon Group is worth about three aircraft carriers.”
Group One had not accepted a newcomer in years. Lu Yan was the only one in the past three years.
Seated in the back of the vehicle, Lu Yan thought for a moment, first disabled data transmission, and then put the detector watch on his left wrist.
The display showed his Mutation Index: 7.5.
Right side: 3.1.
There really was a difference between the two sides.
Lu Yan had not slept well for several days. The village they were traveling to was more than two hundred kilometers from K City, the roads were poor, and the journey would take at least three or four hours. Leaning back in the rear seat, he could not stop drowsiness from overtaking him.
Lin Sinan noticed his exhaustion and said gently, “There’s a blanket in the back. Cover yourself and sleep. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
Lu Yan murmured, “Mm,” and gradually fell asleep.
When he woke again, the sky was completely dark.
For a moment, Lu Yan was disoriented. He almost asked, “Why aren’t we there yet?” Then he abruptly became alert.
He smelled blood.
The surroundings were unnaturally quiet. More importantly, Lin Sinan was no longer in the driver’s seat.
[You’re finally awake. Damn it. Why would it appear here…]
[I don’t have much time. You have to remember everything I tell you—]
[You’ve encountered the A-rank Pollutant Dream Eater. This place is both a dream and reality. What you see may not be real, but it may not be false either. In any case, if you die here, then you truly die. You’ll become nourishment for the Dream Eater. I wonder what your soul tastes like. Unfortunately, I’m being suppressed inside this false space because you aren’t the owner of this dream.]
[If it were only the Dream Eater, things wouldn’t be this bad. But I never expected that damned wall to appear here too. The two have overlapped, turning this instance into nightmare difficulty. I thought we were headed for the beginner village, only to stumble directly into a hidden dungeon.]
[Someone is already on the way to rescue you. The key to leaving this place is: make the owner of the nightmare wake up.]
[The only fortunate thing is that in this dream, you aren’t the nameless female classmate… All right, I can’t say anything more. It’s about to notice me.]
The System fell completely silent.
Lu Yan lay quietly in the back compartment, hearing no unusual movement. After a moment, he felt around and found his phone.
He shielded the light. The battery was at ninety percent, but there was no signal.
A text message from Lin Sinan sat in his inbox.
“You still haven’t woken up. I’m going outside to take a look. Something feels wrong out there. Wait for me to come back. No matter what happens, do not leave the vehicle. Stay safe.”
Back when Lu Yan worked as a doctor, he had already noticed that the patients discharged fastest were always the ones who followed medical instructions exactly.
So he remained in the vehicle until dawn. In the latter half of the night, roars and cries for help occasionally sounded outside, but Lu Yan did not move.
After daybreak, Lu Yan finally discovered the source of the smell of blood.
Lin Sinan had been nailed to the rear window.
The corpse had been there all night, separated from Lu Yan only by cold glass, staring rigidly into the vehicle with blood-filled eyes. Several grotesquely large maggots had already crawled from his ears and now wriggled across the window.
Lu Yan’s phone fell to the floor.
Only after a long time did he slowly say, “Pupils visibly dilated and highly cloudy. Mild odor of decomposition. Estimated time of death… thirty-six to forty-eight hours ago.”
…
…
The outskirts of K City, bordering W City.
A long stretch of road had been sealed. Countless traffic police rushed about behind the cordon, overwhelmed.
Staff from the Prevention and Control Center had hurried to the scene and had already spent more than twenty hours assisting researchers in analyzing the contamination source.
Numerous reporters arrived and raised their microphones:
—“What rank is the newly appeared contamination source in K City? Does it threaten the survival of nearby residents?”
—“In the forty-eight hours since the fog appeared, has anyone emerged alive?”
Behind the traffic police lay a mass of dense fog.
Gray-black mist churned endlessly like the merciless maw of Leviathan devouring everything.
Chapter 13, 013
013
Dream Eater. A-rank Pollutant.
Lu Yan had read its file on the forum.
Just as Awakened were divided into combat, support, and special systems, Pollutants also had different classifications. Broadly speaking, they were divided into psychic Pollutants, biochemical Pollutants, and special Pollutants.
Without question, the Dream Eater was a psychic Pollutant.
Dream Eater. True form unknown. Areas in which it appears become covered by dense fog over a fixed radius. Contamination values are lower at the edge of the fog and rise the closer one approaches the Dream Eater. Recorded regional contamination-value peak: 7,200. Trough: 200.
The Dream Eater favors terrified souls. It feeds by dragging people into dreams. Death inside the dream is real death. Research suggests that the Dream Eater does not create dreams from nothing; instead, they originate from the genuine memories of other people.
Mutation Genes: Hypnosis, Dream Manipulation.
A border city once became an “Orange Contamination Zone” because of its presence.
…
The System had little choice but to go offline. Strictly speaking, it was also a psychic-type Talent. As a mass of mental energy inside another mental entity, it would probably stand out like a flashbang.
If it attracted the Dream Eater, there would be no point continuing the novel: Lu Yan dies, the end.
The detector on Lu Yan’s wrist was still functioning. It displayed a reading of 3.2.
Apparently Lu Yan’s heart was not as completely unmoved as his expression suggested. At the very least, he had been frightened enough to gain 0.1.
The contamination value here was 270.
Lu Yan examined the body through the glass.
“Fatal injury: gunshot wound to the chest. Clothing intact. No other injuries.” Lu Yan murmured, “The way out is to wake the person who’s dreaming. But whose dream is this?”
Lu Yan did not know whether this Lin Sinan was really Lin Sinan. He hoped he was not.
Daylight had fully arrived. Lu Yan was uncertain whether he should leave the vehicle. Mainly because he feared some kind of instant death the moment he opened the door. The dream might be false, but he himself was real.
He did not hesitate for long, however, because the watch on his wrist suddenly vibrated.
He looked down and discovered the numbers on the display were jumping wildly.
[Contamination value 3,000… 4,000…]
The reading continued soaring until it stopped at 9,999.
The detector’s maximum measurable contamination value was 9,999.
Clearly, something was approaching.
The surrounding atmosphere became visibly oppressive, accompanied by a scorching smell of sulfur.
It was unbearable. In less than ten seconds, Lu Yan’s throat dried until it hurt.
The reading was already far beyond the Dream Eater’s recorded value. Either the previous data had been wrong, the Dream Eater had evolved again, or whatever was approaching was not the Dream Eater at all, but some other monster.
Lu Yan had no interest in satisfying his curiosity. Xiao Ming’s grandfather had lived to a hundred precisely by minding his own business.
He tightened his grip on the dagger, slowed his breathing as much as possible, and tried to reduce his presence.
But the Pollutant did not leave as Lu Yan hoped.
It stopped directly beside the car door.
From Lu Yan’s angle, he could only see part of a suit. There was blood on the white shirt collar.
Its build looked relatively normal. An adult man.
A hand settled on the door handle.
Lu Yan’s mind tightened to the limit. Almost the instant he heard the door open, he threw open the door on the opposite side and lunged out.
Obviously, such a struggle was meaningless before an unknown Pollutant.
A thin iron chain wrapped around his ankle and yanked him backward.
The world spun.
Lu Yan fell directly at the Pollutant’s feet.
The sulfur filling his nose became even stronger. It was so intense that Lu Yan felt as though he had already lost his sense of smell.
He looked up at the person before him.
Male. Approximately thirty years old. The exposed skin bore burn damage severe enough to have carbonized in places. His hands were worst of all: the skin had completely melted away, exposing vivid red flesh.
Ignoring the somewhat revolting wounds, his face alone could even be called handsome.
That was not good news. Research institutes had long established that the more human a Pollutant looked, the higher its contamination rank might be. Such Pollutants also usually possessed two forms.
Lu Yan was certain he had never seen the Pollutant before, nor had he seen any related information in the database.
That meant every Awakened who had encountered it was already dead, without even transmitting useful intelligence.
The man slowly raised his scarlet hand. Lu Yan could faintly feel scorching heat radiating from it.
Lu Yan knelt on the ground, the ever-thickening sulfur smell around him making it difficult to breathe.
Was he about to die?
The thought inevitably crossed his mind. Unexpectedly, he felt no fear.
To Lu Yan, death was quiet.
But in the next moment, the hand gently touched the side of his face.
It was hot, but surprisingly not hot enough to burn him.
“Little sister, why did you run so far this time?” the Pollutant asked. His voice was unexpectedly clear, like springwater striking stone. “I’ve been looking for you for so long. Thank goodness you’re all right. Otherwise, how would your brother live alone?”
Lu Yan stared in shock. In a flash, he suddenly understood what the System had meant by “you aren’t the nameless female classmate.”
Inside this dream, he was this Pollutant’s “little sister.”
*
Lu Yan searched his pockets and found a student ID.
The name on it was “Lu Yan.” The photograph had been torn away, but the edge still carried part of an embossed seal reading “M City No. 3 High School.” The year was 2111.
Ten years ago had also been significant for Lu Yan. It was the year his father began to mutate.
He did not know the Pollutant’s name. Since the other man called him little sister, Lu Yan reluctantly assigned him the codename “Brother.”
Judging from Brother’s burns and the lingering smell of sulfur around him, his Mutation Genes were probably connected to fire.
Besides that, he possessed a chain used as a weapon, which appeared to be some kind of special spirit-bound item.
Lu Yan was tied into the front passenger seat, while the Pollutant beside him drove with an unexpectedly humanlike manner.
The road was bumpy. Lin Sinan’s corpse was shaken loose and fell directly into a ditch, which made Lu Yan rather upset.
Perhaps because he stared at Lin Sinan for too long, the pressure radiating from Brother suddenly darkened.
“Is that bastard the one you’ve been dating online? Is he why you ran out this time?” Brother pressed the accelerator to the floor, suppressing his anger. “You’re still in high school. Instead of studying properly, all you think about is dating! You can date anytime. Why do you have to do it while you’re still studying?”
“I was in H City preparing materials for a lawsuit. The nanny told me you’d disappeared, and I immediately flew back to find you. I may even miss the court hearing because of this. Why are you so inconsiderate?”
“I admit I was wrong to make those little boyfriends of yours transfer schools. But why can’t you understand that I did it for your own good? When are you going to learn to listen? Mom and Dad would be heartbroken underground if they saw you like this.”
Lu Yan: “…”
Apparently little sister had quite a colorful romantic history.
The vehicle Lin Sinan had driven was modified and performed extremely well. With the accelerator floored, its speed was not far from taking flight.
From time to time, Lu Yan could see corpses scorched into dry charcoal crawling with difficulty along the roadside, apparently trying to grasp something.
Lu Yan had worked in the emergency department, which meant he had some familiarity with many different types of surgery.
Every year, he had treated a fair number of burn victims as well. The most memorable were patients brought in after a tanker explosion.
Under extreme heat, those patients had been cooked all over. Surface fat had melted. Some bodies had swollen dramatically and oozed pus; others had lost their eyes entirely to burns and could no longer close their lids, leaving only raw red membranes covering the sockets. To keep them breathing, doctors sometimes had to perform tracheotomies.
The saddest part was that even in such agony, many patients remained conscious.
Brother had not revealed much, but Lu Yan could infer several things.
Brother was probably a lawyer or judge. Their parents were dead, leaving him and his younger sister dependent on one another. At the same time, he had taken on the roles of father, mother, and older brother.
As a result, he had developed an extraordinarily severe desire to control and protect his sister.
Brother himself was also a very traditional Chinese parent. Once his sister entered high school and became rebellious, serious communication problems arose between them.
The love he gave was too heavy. He repeatedly told her what he had “sacrificed for her,” a weight of guilt heavy enough to crush the heart of a teenage girl.
For now, Lu Yan could not determine whether Brother was the owner of the dream.
He began desperately missing the System. If the System were present, Lu Yan would probably even know the exact color of Brother’s underwear today.
Because he was too close to the contamination source, the detector on Lu Yan’s wrist had already issued three warnings.
His Mutation Index was rising at a steady rate. At this speed, Lu Yan would survive only two days inside this instance.
His Spiritual Power Threshold was currently too low. Even if the Pollutant did not actively release contamination, Lu Yan would inevitably be affected by proximity alone.
That was why Ji Wen’s evaluation report had previously said he was “unsuitable for contact with Tyrant.”
After more than an hour of driving, the car finally stopped in a mountainside villa district. The villas were uniformly gray-white, like tombstones rising among the hills.
Brother’s chain remained fastened around Lu Yan’s ankle. Brother walked quickly, but fortunately the chain was long enough for Lu Yan to keep up.
It was morning, yet the surroundings were eerily silent. There was not even the sound of an animal.
The front door stood wide open, then shut behind them with a heavy thud.
The household was clearly wealthy: a two-story Western-style villa with a garden and garage.
Brother pulled the chain and led Lu Yan upstairs.
On the second floor was Lu Yan’s bedroom.
The moment the door opened, Lu Yan could not help frowning.
The bedroom was large, at least thirty square meters, with its own private bathroom.
Yet iron bars sealed the windows firmly shut. Several enormous eyeballs protruded from the corners of the room, their pupils rotating constantly as though alive. Lu Yan needed a moment to realize they were probably surveillance devices.
But even that was not the worst part.
The pale-yellow wallpaper was smeared with bright-red blood.
At the center were several bloody handprints. Above them, a crooked line had been written in blood: SAVE ME.
The smell of blood inside the room was strong enough to overpower the sulfur, yet Brother seemed not to notice.
“Stay in your room and think carefully about what you’ve done.” Brother locked the chain to the bedframe. “I need to go meet a client. I’ll be back later.”
He extended a hand and gently rubbed Lu Yan’s head.
Lu Yan did not dodge.
Brother’s mood visibly improved, and a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
Yet when he reached the doorway, Brother suddenly turned back as though remembering something and casually asked, “Little sister is strange today. Why haven’t you cursed me even once?”
So he was a masochist too.
Chapter 14, 014
014
Brother left. The contamination value on the detector gradually fell, finally giving Lu Yan a little room to breathe.
The chain was just long enough for Lu Yan to walk from the bed to the bathroom.
The eyeballs in the corners turned to follow every movement he made. Being watched constantly like this was deeply uncomfortable.
Besides the bed, the bedroom contained a television, desk, bookcase, and dressing table.
The dressing table was covered with cosmetics and skincare products. Lu Yan casually picked up a jar and saw that the face cream was La Mer.
Lu Yan himself used only Longrich products and petroleum jelly for skincare, but he had vaguely heard how expensive La Mer was.
Apparently little sister normally lived a very comfortable life.
There was no clock in the room. Lu Yan checked his phone. It was nine in the morning.
The notification center showed that he had received a text message.
Lu Yan opened it. The sender was actually Lin Sinan.
“Where are you? Why did you disappear?”
Sunlight outside the house was bright, yet the room felt strangely cold.
Lu Yan slowly exhaled. Seeing the message actually put him somewhat at ease.
If the “dead Lin Sinan” could still send messages, then the Lin Sinan he had seen was probably not the real one.
He considered calling back but restrained himself. In horror movies, people who did suicidal things like that usually failed to survive ten minutes unless they were the protagonist.
What surprised him was that an unfamiliar contact had appeared in his phone’s text-message list.
Saved as: Lu Jiahe.
The final message timestamp was December 2111.
Lu Yan opened the thread. Nearly all of the messages had been sent by the other party. He scrolled upward and decided to start from the first.
The earliest message was dated 2109.
[You told me you had tutoring after class and that I didn’t need to pick you up. Then what is this?]
[Image]
It looked like a candid photograph. Only the backs of two people could be seen, one male and one female. Their distance from each other appeared normal. They were not excessively intimate.
[You fucking sent someone to watch me again?]
[I’m only worried about you.]
[Are you sick in the head? Fuck off.]
[Today is Mom and Dad’s memorial day. Do you want to visit their graves with me?]
[You still have the face to go see Mom and Dad?]
[If it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t be dead.]
[Are things all right at school?]
[Your teacher said you got into a fight with another girl in your class. What happened?]
[I really can’t stop worrying about you like this. I should move back to M City. M City may not compare to the capital or Shanghai, but it’ll be easier for me to take care of you.]
[Don’t need you.]
The relationship between these siblings truly was strange.
Most of the messages concerned ordinary daily life. But there was a gap of almost an entire year with no communication at all.
Lu Yan frowned faintly and kept scrolling until the very end.
[Lu Yan.]
[Where are you? Answer me.]
[Pick up the phone.]
[Don’t abandon your brother. Please.]
His phone still had no internet connection. Lu Yan opened WeChat, but the contacts there remained his own. It had not become Lu Yan’s WeChat account.
After some thought, he switched on the television in the bedroom and changed to a news channel.
As expected, the current date appeared in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
July 21, 2111.
The anchor was reading local news.
“Recently, a vicious criminal case occurred in our city…”
Lu Yan went to the desk. A fashion magazine lay on top. Beside the desk lamp stood a row of nail polishes.
Beneath the magazine was a report card. Lu Yan’s name ranked second from last.
Apparently little sister’s grades were poor. No wonder Lu Jiahe worried so much.
Combined with the tone of her messages, an image of a badly behaved delinquent girl immediately formed in Lu Yan’s mind.
There were three drawers beneath the desk. Every one was locked.
Lu Yan could not find the keys. So he could only press his palms together and say to the empty room, “Forgive me.”
Then he gave each drawer a punch.
Crash after crash.
The cabinet doors were smashed to pieces.
Without changing expression, Lu Yan pulled out what he wanted.
The first drawer contained a group photograph with only three people: a married couple and a child. The boy in the picture looked unusually restrained. But Lu Jiahe’s features were recognizable in his face. The background read “Autumn Mountain Orphanage.”
Beneath it was an adoption registration form. Lu Jiahe’s parents had unfortunately died in an earthquake. The surviving boy was adopted by Lu Yan’s parents, who had no son.
The second drawer contained a death notice.
During Lu Jiahe’s first year of university, he missed the bus home for Spring Festival. Lu Yan’s parents insisted on driving out to collect him and died in a traffic accident.
The third drawer contained a diary.
Lu Yan opened the first page. There was no date. Judging from the handwriting, the writer had still been very young. The farther he read, the more the handwriting and tone gradually matured.
“I’m the biological child! I’m the biological one!”
“I’m not Lu Jiahe’s little sister.”
“Today, in front of everyone, I said that Lu Jiahe’s parents were dead and my family adopted him. He looked really upset. I feel a little guilty… So annoying. So annoying!”
“This Spring Festival, I told Lu Jiahe not to come home. I want to spend it with Mom and Dad. I don’t want to spend it with him.”
“FUCK. Mom and Dad went to pick up that jinx.”
…
…
The diary reached its final page.
Lu Yan now roughly understood the background of the dream.
Lu Yan had been born into a family that favored sons over daughters. For various reasons, her parents could not have a son, so they adopted Lu Jiahe. Unlike most adoptions, the child adopted by the Lu family had already been rather old.
Normally, a healthy and handsome boy like him would never lack prospective families. Strangely, however, every family that adopted Lu Jiahe eventually suffered misfortune of varying severity. Some went bankrupt. Some fell ill… Lu Jiahe had been returned to the orphanage three separate times.
The year he was adopted, Lu Yan was six and Lu Jiahe was seventeen.
She felt no affection for this older brother who suddenly appeared. Like an animal whose territory had been invaded, she reacted with pure aggression.
Lu Jiahe, however, treasured everything he had finally been given. He studied hard, respected his adoptive parents, and learned how to be an older brother.
He tolerated every tantrum and every burst of anger from his younger sister.
Misfortune nevertheless descended on the family.
Lu Yan’s parents died in a traffic accident while driving to pick up Lu Jiahe.
Fortunately, Lu Jiahe had already been an adult for some time and could take responsibility for raising his younger sister—although it was still too early for him to bear such a burden.
After losing their parents, Lu Jiahe’s protectiveness toward his only sister became nearly pathological. He controlled her friendships, her romantic relationships, everything about her life, wanting her to exist in a safe, sterile, vacuum-sealed world.
He practically wanted to cut open his own heart and show her every blood vessel beating inside it, yet his sister never once opened her heart to him.
After entering adolescence, her behavior became increasingly unruly. But Lu Jiahe was not her biological brother, and disciplining her always left him struggling helplessly.
“Is this Lu Yan’s dream, or Lu Jiahe’s?” Lu Yan closed the diary and fell into thought.
He leaned toward it being the sister’s dream. Here, the surveillance cameras became disgusting eyes embedded in the walls, and her brother’s protection became a chain locked around her body.
The only thing he could not understand was this: if he was the sister, where was the real sister?
The television news was nearing its end.
“This was a vicious case involving home invasion, robbery, and rape… The suspect, Zhang, was the son of the Li family’s nanny. From his mother, he learned that Mr. Li frequently traveled for work and that the victim was often home alone, prompting him to plan a burglary. The victim ordinarily boarded at school, but happened to be home that day after skipping class.”
“After discovering the crime, the nanny helped Zhang destroy the body and evidence, deleted surveillance footage, and falsely claimed that the victim had run away from home.”
After the report ended, the television emitted harsh static and dissolved into snow.
People said dreams reflected the subconscious. Lu Yan did not believe that had been a meaningless news report inserted at random.
He stared at the television screen after it lost signal. His expression became strange. “…She died?”
*
After investigating for a long time, Lu Yan confirmed that he had no way to open the chain around his ankle.
His detector showed that his Mutation Index had risen to 33.7.
Fish scales had appeared not only on his arm but also across his back. Probably because of dehydration, the scales lifted at their edges and cut painfully into his entire body.
To some extent, a rising Mutation Index was not entirely bad. Lu Yan could clearly feel that his physical condition had improved again.
His mentality remained excellent. He even pulled out one scale and examined it. Judging by its color and shape, if he mutated completely, he would probably become a koi.
Koi brought luck. No wonder his luck had always been decent. In the afternoon, a sound came from the front door.
“Little sister.” Lu Jiahe’s voice came from downstairs.
The readings on Lu Yan’s watch began to soar. Lu Jiahe opened the bedroom door.
There was even more blood on him than before. His black suit was soaked, and every step left a bloody footprint.
Lu Jiahe’s body had developed additional mutations. Beyond the scorched wounds, several bone spurs had grown from the backs of his blood-soaked hands, sharp as blades.
“Strange people have appeared all over the city. I feel like they all want to hurt you. But don’t worry. Your brother will kill all of them.” He spoke the most horrifying words with the gentlest expression, as though commenting on the pleasant weather.
Lu Jiahe continued, “I also stopped by the slaughterhouse and bought some fresh meat and vegetables. It’s been a long time since I cooked for you. Come downstairs and eat.”
At the word “slaughterhouse,” Lu Yan could not help raising an eyebrow.
Far away in X City, an A-rank Contamination Zone had the same name. The master of that Slaughterhouse was a butcher with a pig’s head.
Lu Yan had seen photographs of the Slaughterhouse in the files. The factory was spotless and orderly. Human bodies hung from hooks like pork carcasses and traveled along conveyor belts for processing. If one ignored the intestines, eyeballs, and other things in the waste bins nearby, it actually possessed a certain modern industrial aesthetic.
Lu Jiahe fastened the chain to the corner of the dining table.
Because the kitchen was semi-open, Lu Yan was forced to watch the entire cooking process.
Lu Jiahe said, “I bought a piglet today. The meat is excellent.”
He did not even need a knife. One sweep of the snow-white bone blade, and an infant’s head fell to the floor. The baby was about four or five months old and had already been processed once at the slaughterhouse, with its organs and eyes removed.
The way he handled the corpse was no different from an ordinary person preparing a meal. He did not even need to turn on the stove. A pale-red flame emerged from Lu Jiahe’s fingertips, and as the meat cooked, the Maillard reaction released a roasted aroma. Rendered fat dripped onto the kitchen island.
At that moment, Lu Yan clearly understood the difference between humans and Pollutants.
No matter how human they looked, in a Pollutant’s eyes, humans were merely “meat pigs.”
Did people feel guilty eating pork?
A pig might feel pain and fear. Before death, it might be tied up and drained of its final drop of blood. But it had been raised to be eaten in the first place.
The human flesh was plated in the shape of lamb chops and cut neatly into small cubes.
The Western-style plate was garnished with carrots and broccoli. The meat was cooked medium-rare and drizzled with some unknown bright-red sauce. If cut open, pink muscle fibers might still be visible.
Lu Jiahe’s abyss-like eyes fixed on him. “Little sister, have a taste?”
Lu Yan did not pick up his chopsticks. He spoke his first words of the day. “I can’t eat it.”
Lu Jiahe looked confused. “Does it taste bad?”
He extended a hand. A bone blade pierced the meat, lifting a small piece for him to taste.
“It tastes fine,” Lu Jiahe said. “You aren’t fat. Why would you need to diet? You’re still growing. Don’t be picky.”
By the end, Lu Jiahe’s tone had clearly become stern, with anger faintly rising beneath it.
Lu Yan picked up the chopsticks and remained silent for a long time.
He was considering a possibility. But if his inference was wrong, he might have to face the fury of a Pollutant whose contamination value exceeded 9,999.
In his current state, ten Lu Yans together would not be enough for one of Lu Jiahe’s hands.
Still…
Lu Yan looked down at the human flesh on his plate and slammed his chopsticks onto the table. “Why do you care? Aren’t you annoying enough already? I said I’m not eating, so I’m not eating. I don’t want a single thing you cook. Just looking at you ruins my appetite!”
Lu Jiahe’s expression stiffened. His shoulders slumped like a large dog that had just been scolded.
“Then… should I order delivery for you?”
“No. I don’t want to eat.” Lu Yan turned his head away, his voice full of impatience. “I’m not hungry.”
Lu Jiahe sounded dejected. “…All right.”
Lu Yan stood and tried to return to the bedroom, only to tug against the chain around his ankle.
The chain had shortened while they were at the dining table, allowing him to move only one or two steps.
Lu Yan pointed at it. “I’m going back to my room. Unlock it.”
His emotions were naturally muted. The anger he had just performed had nearly exhausted his quota of emotional fluctuation for the next week.
Lu Jiahe shook his head firmly. “No. If I unlock it, you’ll definitely run away again. I won’t let you leave. It’s dangerous outside.”
Brother, you truly have no self-awareness. Everything outside combined is less dangerous than you alone.
In the time it took to eat one meal, Lu Yan’s Mutation Index had risen to 49.2.
He did not know what would happen if it exceeded one hundred inside the dream, but he could faintly sense that the result would not be good.
“Once I deal with all those dangers, little sister can go back to school…”
“Lu Jiahe,” Lu Yan suddenly said. “I’m not your sister.”
Logically, he should not have acted so impulsively. He had originally believed the sister was the dream’s owner, but the sister was already dead.
That left only Lu Jiahe as an option, and Lu Yan truly had no other method of waking him.
If he dragged this out until his Mutation Index exceeded one hundred, he would die anyway.
The sentence seemed to trigger a switch.
Outside the window, the sky that had been bright only moments ago darkened with those words.
Lu Jiahe raised his head and narrowed his eyes.
A flash of blood-red passed through his pitch-black pupils.
Lu Jiahe stood and walked toward Lu Yan one step at a time. The chain kept winding upward until it tightened around Lu Yan’s throat.
Lu Yan could barely breathe. The scorching sulfur smell rushed into his nose and made his eyes burn.
His heartbeat accelerated uncontrollably, unrelated to fear. It was the instinctive response of prey confronting a predator.
Lu Jiahe placed a hand on the back of Lu Yan’s neck, rubbing slowly, then peeled away a fish scale. Blood welled out and soaked the back of Lu Yan’s collar.
It hurt. Quite badly. Like having a tooth pulled without anesthetic.
“Stop saying things just to make me angry.” Lu Jiahe lowered his eyes and used his bloodstained hand to wipe away Lu Yan’s involuntary tears. “Little sister.”
Chapter 15, 015
015
You can never wake someone who is pretending to sleep.
As though he could not smell the blood on Lu Yan, Lu Jiahe carefully straightened his collar.
His movements were cautious, as though he feared the bone spurs growing from the backs of his hands might scratch Lu Yan’s skin.
“Brother has to go away on business. I’ll be back in a couple of days.” Lu Jiahe’s voice was very gentle. “Once Brother cleans up the school, you can go back to class.”
Lu Yan was chained to the bed again. Irritation surged through him, but since he could not win a fight, he had no choice but to endure.
Lu Jiahe closed the door. “Wait for me to come back.”
A gloomy layer of blood-red shadowed the depths of his eyes.
After he left, the room seemed even emptier, and the bloodstains on the walls looked increasingly vivid.
Lu Yan was so thirsty that he chose to soak in the bathtub. The tub had been full when he climbed in; by the time he got out, the water level had dropped by a full half.
At least the parched feeling had eased considerably.
Lu Yan dried his hair with a blow-dryer and casually switched on the television. There was still no signal.
Apart from fashion magazines, Lu Yan’s bookshelf contained only popular novels.
His phone had no internet connection and could not make calls.
Yet in his message inbox, the contact “Lin Sinan” sent him a text praising the new fish scales he had grown, saying they looked beautiful and that he liked them very much. If he ever got the chance, he would really like to pull out two and try them.
“…”
Lu Yan could not resist replying, “Who are you?”
A red exclamation mark appeared beside the message. The phone was outside the service area, so naturally it could not send anything.
*
Lu Yan woke because of the noise. He had been too bored, and he genuinely had not slept well. Not long after finishing his bath, he had fallen asleep leaning against the bed.
When he woke and looked outside, the sky was completely dark. Probably because he had not eaten for more than thirty hours, Lu Yan’s stomach chose an inconvenient moment to become hungry.
The sound of the front door opening came from downstairs, accompanied by a faint, wavering call. “Lu Yan~ Miss Lu, time to come out and eat.”
“Mr. Lu will be angry if he finds out I didn’t take good care of you.”
“I take Mr. Lu’s salary, so naturally I can’t disappoint him. Don’t you agree?”
“Lu Yan, come out.”
The voice’s gender was impossible to identify. It was simply hoarse and piercing, like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.
In the darkness, footsteps sounded below. Lu Yan listened carefully. It sounded as though someone were dragging something. In addition, there was the metallic clanging of something striking the walls.
Lu Yan thought it sounded like some kind of restricted weapon.
As the person approached, the reading on his detector rose rapidly, soon breaking one thousand before finally stabilizing at 1,500.
Lu Yan’s current Spiritual Power Threshold barely reached a fraction of this Pollutant’s level.
He immediately got up and locked the bedroom door.
Lu Yan did not know whether that would help, but the chain around his ankle showed no sign of loosening. His range of movement was limited to the bedroom.
On the walls, the dried dark-red blood seemed to come alive. It seeped through the wallpaper, wet and glossy, then dripped continuously onto the floor.
This was the nanny Lu Jiahe had hired. But Lu Yan had not forgotten the news report he had seen during the day.
He gripped his dagger, took a deep breath, and tried to cut through the chain. But the metal was far tougher than he expected. The double-edged dagger worth five hundred Contribution Points struck sparks from it without leaving even a mark.
The nanny had already reached the door.
At first, she tried to turn the handle silently. When she discovered Lu Yan had locked the door, she began pounding on it with tremendous force.
The bedroom door was only wood, but it seemed to have been strengthened to a certain degree by the dream. The pounding became as violent as war drums, yet the door merely shook instead of breaking apart.
“Lu Yan, why are you so disobedient!” The nanny’s voice was full of anger. “Open the door!”
The four eyes in the room, which had remained open until now, all squeezed shut at once. Lu Yan inferred that the surveillance inside the room had been cut off.
While searching for anything in the room he could use as a weapon, Lu Yan answered calmly, “I’m not hungry.”
“You still need to eat even if you aren’t hungry. Your brother spoils you too much!” the nanny snapped. “I’m not trying to criticize you, but what exactly has your brother ever done to wrong you? I’ve never seen a little sister like you! Do you think raising you all these years was easy for him? How can you be so unfilial? Your brother is so busy with work—can’t you give him a little peace of mind?”
This was probably how outsiders had seen Lu Yan.
To everyone else, the Lu couple’s traffic accident had been exactly that: an accident. It was difficult to argue that Lu Jiahe had directly caused it.
Lu Yan may have understood that as well. But after losing her parents, she could only redirect her grief toward him, using blame to release pain too difficult to name.
Outside the room, the nanny raised the axe high.
She was an unusually large and sturdy woman, nearly two meters tall. Bright lipstick covered her mouth, blue eye shadow surrounded her eyes, and she wore a padded coat and trousers. Her nanny’s uniform hung open, revealing a pouch on her abdomen like that of a mother kangaroo. Several thin, blackened arms resembling burnt branches reached out from inside and groped continuously.
That was her beloved son.
Her son may have had a few bad habits, like petty theft. And while stealing, after unexpectedly encountering his employer’s younger sister, he may have entertained certain vile intentions… But Lu Yan had not actually been killed by her son. Lu Yan had died by falling from the window while trying to escape!
He was her precious baby, the child she had raised mouthful by mouthful on milk and food until now. He was the lifeblood of the Wang family, the pillar holding up her spirit. How could she possibly allow him to go to prison?
But that damned Lu Jiahe… The nanny knew he was a famous lawyer in the profession. His reputation was excellent. He had provided free legal aid to many struggling families and repeatedly rendered criminals speechless in court, steadfastly pursuing the maximum punishment permitted by law for every offender.
If her son were forced to bear all the charges, the only possible outcome would be death for murder.
So, Lu Yan had fallen to her death after the nanny, enraged during their argument, pushed her out the window.
That was her confession.
There was only one thing the nanny had failed to anticipate.
Lu Jiahe believed in rule of law. He firmly believed that only the law had the right to punish the guilty, even when the legal code itself seemed inadequate.
And yet this very man chose private vengeance.
Lu Jiahe spent a month learning her son’s routines and travel routes. One night, without anyone noticing, he abducted him.
He imprisoned the man in a basement, castrated him, carved open his flesh inch by inch with a knife, and finally set him on fire until he burned into charcoal.
After committing such an enormous crime, the murderer seemed to disappear from the world without a trace. He had never even faced legal punishment! Only her son remained, dead and alone, wandering through hell.
The nanny had once been devastated by grief.
Fortunately, in this world, she could put her son back inside her belly and give birth to him again.
The nanny raised the bloodstained axe and slammed it heavily into the door.
The axe blade burst through from the other side.
Unable to endure the assault, the wooden door splintered into pieces.
“Miss Lu Yan, stop hiding. Come out and eat…” A smile appeared on her face. “Don’t hide. My son misses you too.”
The nanny stretched out one hand, felt around, and found the door handle.
Lu Yan hid beneath the bed and pulled out his phone.
There was still no signal.
He found his text-message conversation with Brother and, without much hope, sent two words: “Save me.”
*
—Revelation Forum—
Thread: Newly emerged Contamination Zone in the suburbs between K City and M City confirmed as a composite of A-rank Pollutants “Dream Eater” and “Wall of Resentment.” The Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Centers of K City and M City have already dispatched more than twelve Awakened and over 110 assisting soldiers to investigate. No survivors. Provisionally classified as an Orange Contamination Zone and A-rank contamination incident.
Floor 1: No survivors??? That’s terrifying. Did any information come back?
Floor 2: My home is right around there, holy shit. K City and M City are both next to me. It was always peaceful before. Even that C-rank Parasitic Fish incident a few days ago happened in K City.
Floor 3: Earth is doomed sooner or later.
Floor 4: There have been more abnormalities in the past few years than in the previous decade combined, and they’ve become far more obvious. Information about pollution disease and Awakened is already public now… I just hope it doesn’t cause even greater unrest.
Floor 5: Have you seen what it’s like overseas? The Red Contamination Zone “Divine Kingdom” genuinely wiped out an entire small island nation. There’s no point hiding things anymore. Everyone would find out sooner or later. The Public Opinion Department has been working overtime for years, deleting posts online every day. Let them rest.
Floor 6: Too weak. No strength.JPG. I want two slices of bread with cheese. (smokes)
…
…
Floor 73: Latest news. Tyrant and the deadweights trailing him were already dealing with the “Wall of Resentment.” Last time the Wall appeared overseas, and now it moved all the way to M City. He probably followed it inside.
Floor 74: Tyrant went in??? Then why has there been no news at all after four days?
Floor 75: Dream Eater Nightmare Realm + Wall of Resentment reincarnation loops. Nobody knows how many smaller instances exist inside… Give them some time, okay?
*
“Fifteen minutes remain before the National College Entrance Examination begins. Proctors, please organize candidates and direct them into their examination rooms…”
The voice over the broadcast sounded faintly sinister.
Tang Xun’an stood in the corridor, leaning against the balcony while smoking, watching Pollutants brush past him.
The grotesquely mutated creatures wore vicious expressions as they stared at the motionless Tang Xun’an. Saliva nearly dripped from the corners of their mouths onto the floor.
“Want to eat me?” Tang Xun’an’s tone was infuriatingly casual, even a little roguish. “Come on, then.”
But the Pollutants did not dare approach. The exam was about to begin. Anyone who violated examination rules would be torn to pieces by the proctor.
Tang Xun’an extinguished the military sedative and sighed with emotion. “I graduated so many years ago, yet whenever I have a nightmare I still end up back at the college entrance exam.”
The stairwell trembled. In the pitch-black passage, a pair of crimson eyes lit up like lamps.
A hot, fishy wind blew toward him, carrying a nauseating stench of decay.
A two-headed giant wolf as tall as an entire floor stepped from the stairs.
This was the proctor for the current examination.
Mutation Direction: Gigantification, Beastification.
The giant wolf panted heavily. “Why aren’t you inside the examination room?”
Tang Xun’an’s hand settled on the Tang-style saber at his waist. The entire blade was black and bore an unusual name: “Yellow Dust.”
Yellow dust and clear waters beneath the three mountains; a thousand years of change pass like galloping horses.*
The name had not been chosen casually. Researchers had said there was no one more suited to this ancient blade than Tang Xun’an.
“Of course I was waiting… for you.” Tang Xun’an drew the saber and smiled carelessly.
In contrast with his free and unrestrained air, his brows and eyes were excessively cold, like late-arriving snow in the depths of winter. So when he smiled, it inevitably brought to mind the first trickles of springwater beneath thawing ice.
Tang Xun’an drew his blade quickly. He sheathed it even faster.
A flash of steel. The werewolf before him split directly in two. Blood erupted and soaked the soles of his shoes.
The corpse did not stop changing. Its deep-black fur turned gray with age. Its body shrank continuously until, within only a few breaths, it resembled dried cured meat, rapidly withering and weathering away.
There were two ways to break a dream. The first was to kill the most powerful Pollutant inside it. The second was to wake the person who was dreaming.
To save time, Tang Xun’an always chose the first.
He took out a pocket watch and checked the reading. 97.2. A number that would make Prevention and Control Headquarters faint from anxiety.
The only advantage of a dream was that while the pain was real, both contamination values and injuries were actually false. As long as one did not die or become a Pollutant, there was no major problem.
The space before him began to distort, break apart, and reorganize until it formed another dream.
A road appeared in front of Tang Xun’an, leading to an unknown destination. The air carried a faint smell of sulfur. Beside the road, several charred corpses occasionally struggled one or two steps forward.
“Contamination value over ten thousand. Finally…” Tang Xun’an looked toward the distant city. “Can I get off work now?”