Chapter 5, 005

　　“This type of frog-man has corrosive saliva. Its stomach acid is about as corrosive as aqua regia.”
　　“It shows a pronounced response to human flesh and blood, consistent with the mutation pattern observed in pollution-disease patients.”
　　“Skin is flexible and waterproof. Weak point is the abdomen.”
　　“Most of the body is composed of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Preliminary assessment: high explosive strength, poor endurance.”
　　Lu Yan recorded the data item by item in his work notebook.
　　After two days of recovery, the injuries on his body no longer affected his movement.
　　A doctor had all sorts of things at home. So possessing a set of scalpels for dissection did not seem particularly strange.
　　Lu Yan would not have minded describing the dissection in detail, but if he did, the author might end up in police custody.
　　Low-level Pollutants like this had essentially lost all human characteristics and completely lost their reason, retaining only the primitive desire to feed. They could no longer be considered human. Besides, this one had tried to kill him.
　　So although Lu Yan still maintained the respect one ought to show a cadaver used for study, he did not go easy on it.
　　When Lu Yan dumped the frog meat into a grinder, minced it, and flushed it down the drain, the System sounded deeply regretful. [This frog meat… really does taste pretty good.]
　　Lu Yan: “I think there are some things a person simply cannot—and should not—do.”
　　[…Fine.]
　　By the time the corpse had been completely dealt with, another day had passed. Lu Yan had gone nearly thirty hours without sleep.
　　He collapsed into bed, only to be awakened by knocking at ten the next morning.
　　He had always been a light sleeper. There was nothing he could do about it.
　　The property-management worker called loudly from outside. “Mr. Lu, are you awake?”
　　The property manager’s name was Shen Qingyang. He had worked here for two years.
　　The previous lock had been corroded away. Under the current circumstances, Lu Yan could not find anyone to replace it, so he had installed a new one himself.
　　An electronic lock, opened by fingerprint, without a keyhole.
　　He activated the peephole camera and asked through the speaker, “What is it?”
　　“Do you know where the resident across from you went?” Shen Qingyang asked. His gaze looked slightly vacant. He held a bottle of mineral water and took a sip every half minute. “He hasn’t collected his water for the past two days. We checked the surveillance footage but couldn’t find him. We were curious.”
　　Lu Yan answered calmly, “I don’t know.”
　　“All right. If you hear anything, you can contact me in the property-management group. I’ll go deliver water to the next household.”
　　Shen Qingyang did not seem to notice that when he left, he moved in little hopping steps.
　　If a child walked like that, it would probably look cute.
　　Lu Yan fell silent for a moment. He had the feeling that far more people in the city had been infected than he had imagined.
　　Even the System sounded rueful. [Evolution is speeding up. Under normal circumstances, going from the first stage to the third would take at least a month. K City will lose control faster than expected.]
　　Lu Yan hesitated, then asked, “Isn’t there a Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center?”
　　[There were never enough Awakened to keep pace with the number of Pollutants. Now they can’t even keep up with the speed at which Pollutants are leveling up. Fires are breaking out everywhere in the world, and you only have one bottle of water. Which fire are you supposed to put out?]
　　Lu Yan thought that made sense.
　　He waited a while, then carried the water and vegetables from outside into his home and turned on the television as usual.
　　Although he had stockpiled a great deal of supplies, most of them were instant or shelf-stable food. Fresh ingredients still needed to be delivered.
　　The television station was currently broadcasting the news, the only program K City residents could now receive. The station was severely understaffed and only had a signal at ten in the morning, two in the afternoon, and eight in the evening, for one hour each time.
　　They no longer tried to paint everything as peaceful. Onscreen, the female anchor solemnly began introducing pollution disease.
　　It may have been the first time the anchor herself had seen this information. Her voice trembled slightly as she read.
　　“This is the gravest trial humanity has faced since entering the new century.
　　“K City has now issued a yellow contamination alert.
　　“This form of pollution disease spreads through parasitic fish eggs. Some infected individuals are contagious. Parasitic fish eggs primarily survive in tap water. Residents are urged to pay careful attention to drinking-water safety.”
　　“According to current intelligence, mutation in infected individuals occurs in three stages. Characteristics of the first stage include… The mutation cycle lasts between seven and fifty days. Fully formed Pollutants fall into three categories: frog-men, fish-men, and algae-men, in ascending order of danger. Mutated individuals are highly aggressive and are no longer human. If you encounter one, immediately find cover and avoid it. If someone in your household begins to mutate, call the police at once.
　　“Although the enemy is exceptionally powerful, we still cannot abandon hope. The relevant departments of K City have never given up on rescuing ordinary residents.”
　　“In addition, any resident who has been exposed to contamination but shows no signs of mutation may call the Prevention and Control Center. At this critical moment of life and death, we need the strength of every single person!”
　　…
　　…
　　As one censored photograph after another appeared on the television, the last scrap of modesty concealing pollution disease was torn away. Fear and unease settled over everyone’s hearts.
　　Many people realized the severity of the problem through the broadcast and, willingly or unwillingly, went to the shelters.
　　Other residents chose to flee the city overnight. Gunshots continued until dawn. As long as social order had not yet collapsed, armed force remained extremely effective.
　　On the fifteenth day of lockdown, someone reached the outskirts of the city for the first time.
　　It was a taxi driver. Using his familiarity with K City, he had shaken off the people pursuing him. He drove along the highway out of town, his face filled with the relief of someone who had narrowly escaped death.
　　The streets were empty, more desolate than ever. The driver turned onto a small road. Its condition was worse, but it allowed him to reach the highway without passing a toll station, and from there he could continue to another city…
　　Beyond the old Tea-Horse Road lay neighboring M City.
　　Victory was right in front of him, yet the smile froze on the driver’s face.
　　At some point, a wall several meters high had been erected around the edge of K City.
　　It stretched as far as the eye could see, unnaturally smooth, like an enormous cage.
　　Headquarters had indeed sent an Awakened as reinforcement.
　　Bai Qiushi, leader of Special Operations Division Group Two and captain of its First Team, [Talent—Barrier], Spiritual Power Threshold: 8,700.
　　He sat atop the towering city wall, listening to Lin Sinan’s report with unconcealed impatience between his brows.
　　“Fighting? I’m never fighting in this lifetime. If I weren’t terrified of dying, I wouldn’t have awakened a Talent like this in the first place. Besides, my physical condition is terrible. I’m not one of those rabid combat-type lunatics… What? I wasn’t insulting you-know-who. I can keep this earthen city wall standing for one week at most. One week. Get every Pollutant inside the city under control. Otherwise Headquarters will consider dealing with the problem using heavy weapons. You know—the kind that goes biu, then makes a mushroom cloud. Understand?”
　　*
　　The sixteenth day of lockdown.
　　Shen Qingyang’s face had already developed obvious signs of mutation. His eyeballs protruded forward.
　　Lu Yan had dissected Zhou Kaiwen. The man’s brain had severely atrophied until it was only about the size of a walnut. All the gyri and sulci on its surface had disappeared, leaving it looking like a smooth, tender piece of foie gras. This mutation of the brain had clearly caused the Pollutant to lose human reason.
　　Of course, it also explained why some Pollutants could keep moving even after their brains had been blown apart. Hilarious—they did not need a brain at all.
　　Shen Qingyang stopped outside Lu Yan’s door.
　　He pressed the bell. “Mr. Lu, are you there?”
　　A moment later, Lu Yan’s slightly distorted voice came through the speaker. “I am.”
　　“That’s good. This is the last time I’ll be delivering water. The inspector from the Pollution Control Center said I’m about to enter the second stage of mutation. I don’t know exactly what part of me is changing, but I can tell something is wrong. Everyone’s become afraid of me.” Shen Qingyang spoke very slowly. “They’re short-handed right now. If someone had come to replace me sooner, I would’ve gone to the shelter a long time ago… You know about the shelters, right? The places where mutated people are taken for centralized treatment.”
　　“They call them the concentration camps of the twenty-second century. Not one mutated person sent there has ever come out alive. But there’s nothing else to do, is there? I saw the news. Once mutated people lose their minds, all they have left is the instinct to eat. They say a person is made of their memories. By then, I won’t be ‘me’ anymore. So I don’t think it matters if this body dies in the shelter.”
　　“I can’t see where I’ve mutated, but it’s not as though nothing has changed. Dr. Lu, I wanted to warn you… You smell different from normal people. Very fragrant. You have to be careful. They’ve already begun testing district by district, but it’s chaotic outside. You’d better not leave home. I already deleted the surveillance footage from that night for you. As long as you’re all right, that’s enough.”
　　As though giving his final instructions before death, Shen Qingyang rambled on for a long time.
　　“And… thank you, Dr. Lu.”
　　Shen Qingyang came from the countryside and had dropped out after middle school. Later, he worked carrying bricks at a construction site and fell, breaking one of his legs. Lu Yan had been responsible for his surgery.
　　His life was saved, but the injury left him with a limp, and he could no longer return to that work. Lu Yan happened to see a recruitment notice downstairs and recommended the job to him.
　　At that moment, Shen Qingyang’s stomach made several inappropriately loud gurgling noises from hunger.
　　He was still eating normally, but food could no longer make him feel full.
　　That morning, after waking ravenous, he had even secretly cut a piece of flesh from his own body. Unexpectedly, it had not hurt very much.
　　Shen Qingyang took one last look at the door of Lu Yan’s home, then turned and left.
　　Afterward, under the supervision of staff from the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center, he would be taken to a shelter.
　　Seven people from this residential complex were being sent there.
　　Far more people in K City had been contaminated than expected, so beds were in extremely short supply.
　　The shelter provided one room per person. The rooms appeared to have been built through hurried conversion and were exceptionally cramped, separated in the middle by sheets of metal, like sleeping berths on a train.
　　Naturally, there was no soundproofing to speak of. You could hear someone next door chewing an apple with perfect clarity.
　　Fortunately, Shen Qingyang had endured hardship all his life and did not find the conditions unbearable. He was simply a little worried about Dr. Lu, who remained back at the residential complex. So he had some trouble sleeping that first night.
　　*
　　W City, adjacent to K City.
　　A black-robed figure stood in the suburbs, gazing from afar at the earthen wall outside K City.
　　The towering wall did not merely block the land aboveground. It extended downward as well, cutting off the river.
　　A specially formulated agent designed to kill fish eggs had already been released into the water. In roughly two days, it would poison every Pollutant in the river.
　　The black robe concealed whether the figure was male or female, covering the entire body completely.
　　“The shelter is the best possible hatchery. Only through devouring can one achieve a better evolution. Sometimes, I’m genuinely grateful for the brighter aspects of human nature. At least they built a shelter instead of simply killing everyone, didn’t they?”
　　The black-robed figure did not move. There was no one else nearby.
　　Strangely, the speaking voice came from the back of the figure’s head.
　　“I wonder which lucky person will end up with that King Fish egg… For this hatching, I even deliberately stirred up chaos in H City first. Headquarters is overwhelmed, so naturally they have no spare strength to deal with this place.”
　　“Yes, I know. Your son is still in K City. But that doesn’t matter, does it? And don’t tell me you still possess something like paternal love.”
　　“Naturally, there will be many sacrifices during this process. But every sacrifice is for the descent of the great god.”
　　The wind blew past and happened to lift the hood from the robe.
　　The figure’s front face bore only a single vertical eye and no mouth. The white of that eye was webbed with blood vessels. On the back of its head was a constantly changing human face, sometimes male, sometimes female.
　　“K City is only the beginning. Sooner or later, this world will be covered in the relics of gods!” The shifting face was filled with fanaticism before suddenly becoming calm. “And we will be the creators who create those gods.”