Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
In Q City, it is a chilly autumn, with cold winds making people shiver, and everywhere is filled with individuals hurriedly leaving, wrapped in coats.
It is dusk, the sky dimming, and after a recent rain, the ground still bears water stains. Neon lights reflect off the puddles, dyeing the ground in vibrant colors.
In the bustling central street, a crowd has gathered unexpectedly. The people, of various ages and genders, all look up at the enormous screen hanging from the skyscraper. The screen does not display celebrities or advertisements, but rather a figure in full white protective gear with their face obscured and the voice muffled by the mask.
"The Anti-Contamination Control Center has issued an emergency lockdown order. A contamination leak has been unexpectedly discovered in the Q City shelter. The contaminated staff due to occupational exposure have been initially controlled, and the specific cause of the contamination leak is still under investigation."
"Starting today, the guard team will conduct multiple range checks in the city center. Citizens need not to panic."
Seemingly accustomed to such events, the gathered crowd remains silent, showing no intention of discussion. This quietness makes the entire scene feel somewhat eerie.
Among the crowd, a man in a black long coat stands at the back.
He is undoubtedly a handsome man, with short hair, sharp brows, and thin lips. His black coat is impeccably tailored, paired with a white shirt and a black tie. Black-rimmed glasses rest on his nose, and his slightly silent expression, along with the dark pupils beneath the frames, gives him an ascetic aura that made him appear rational yet not entirely approachable, like a serious NPC in a game.
At this moment, the NPC is just like everyone else, with all his attention focused on the big screen.
The image on the screen changes, revealing a massive crack gaping in the earth.
Surrounding the crack are remnants of human buildings, lifeless and ghostly due to long abandonment. Drones hover in the air, and numerous large and small detection instruments are set up around the crack. If one looks closely, they might spot humans in deep blue protective suits working like ants.
The contamination rift, a bizarre chasm that appeared in the city after the blood mist incident, continuously spawns unknown substances that transform humans into terrifying monsters, both physically and mentally.
Even more frightening is their infectious nature, akin to a virus; once one person is contaminated, those nearby quickly exhibit the same symptoms, leading to a continuous spread.
The Anti-Contamination Control Center refers to it as: Contamination Disease.
Shen Ji turns away from the crowd, and people also disperse, returning to their homes. Some are already planning to buy more groceries at the supermarket, preparing for the possibility of worse events to come.
[Now do you believe it? I didn’t lie to you; you really have transmigrated, and you’ve ended up in the post-apocalyptic novel you’ve read.]
A mechanical voice echoes in Shen Ji's mind. He ignores it and follows the crowd across the street, heading in a specific direction.
As he walks, Shen Ji habitually lowers his head slightly. The artificial light on the road reflects off his glasses, casting a bright glare that shields him from being observed.
[You’re going the wrong way; your home is in the opposite direction. If you continue forward, even if the Earth is round, you won't be able to return home.]
"I’m not going the wrong way." Shen Ji finally speaks as he pushes his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. His voice carries a clean tone, much like his appearance.
Unfortunately, both his voice and demeanor are nothing but a facade.
It’s as if he doesn’t need glasses at all, yet he insists on wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses to present himself as composed and honest.
Shen Ji responds to the system with certainty: "Didn’t you say I’m the villain? I’m going to the Anti-Contamination Control Center to turn myself in."
[You will be executed immediately; you’ll be dead before the original story reaches its conclusion. After all, the ‘contamination leak incident' you just saw on the news was caused by you.]
Shen Ji halts, pressing his fingers to his temple and sighing silently.
"I told you, that wasn’t me."
Transmigration, a hot trope that only appears in web novels, has unexpectedly manifested in reality, and on him.
Shen Ji feels a mix of disbelief and resignation.
He considers himself an ordinary person. The only thing he could boast about since childhood is his intelligence and academic prowess. He got into a decent university and became a junior reporter after graduation, often following up on stories and traveling for work, leading to a life of disrupted day and night.
Just as he was contemplating quitting to start a media venture, he was assigned to investigate a medical dispute. Who would have thought that he would never return from that assignment?
Fools harm themselves and others; the medical dispute perpetrators wanted to prevent the television station from reporting the incident but didn’t know how to stop it. So, they went all out and stabbed Shen Ji twice in one night.
In the end, he died on the operating table.
When he woke up, he found himself here, with a mechanical voice in his head constantly speaking and informing him that he had transmigrated, and now he was the infamous final villain in this novel.
Shen Ji still remembers this poorly concluded novel and the final villain in the novel, "Pollutant Hui."
Pollutant Hui is the first pollutant in this novel to gain rationality; however, his rationality does not include emotions. He harbors only an invasive consciousness towards humanity.
To him, humans are both food and competitors; his sole purpose is to assimilate humanity into pollution.
The final outcome is, of course, a confrontation between the story's protagonist and the final villain. Unfortunately, this is a poorly concluded novel, and in the last chapter, Hui dies in a bizarre manner, after which the author abruptly declares the book finished.
Authors who leave their stories unfinished should be locked away for life!
At the next intersection, Shen Ji turns down a side street with his hands in his pockets.
[Taking a shortcut?] The system reacts, [You’ve familiarized yourself with the nearby routes in such a short time.]
"Of course, upon arriving, I need to find the best escape route. Who knows if you’re a system or part of a scam ring."
[……]
The system wants to retort but hasn’t had the chance to speak when a person walks out from a nearby corner. Their appearance is so peculiar that Shen Ji’s attention is immediately drawn.
The man is dressed in the guard team’s uniform.
A black-blue outfit that hugs his tall frame. In reality, he is indeed very tall; Shen Ji himself is tall, yet this man is even slightly taller. What’s most striking is that he has long silver hair, and even his eyelashes are white, with his pupils showing a faint gray-blue.
A stylish punk?
[Do not compare the people of this world with your real-world common sense; this is a very obvious characteristic of a mutant.]
Shen Ji raises an eyebrow slightly; so this is what a mutant looks like.
In the original text, not everyone who is contaminated becomes a pollutant. A small portion of the population develops antibodies to the pollution and gains abilities similar to it.
The Anti-Contamination Control Center refers to them as: Mutants, and the abilities they acquire are called: Mutant Talents.
Mutants are also currently the only absolute force capable of countering pollution.
[Li Zhiyan, S-Class Mutant, Talent: Mimicry Butterfly. Captain of the Special Task Force's Sixth Team, the actual authority of the Q City Anti-Contamination Control Center, the protagonist of this text, awakened with an S-Class talent, possessing some unknown secrets, often criticized by the Anti-Contamination Control Center for being lazy and slacking off.]
[A very suitable candidate for turning yourself in; the moment you do, you'll be sent to your demise.]
[Strange, although this is the protagonist's jurisdiction, encountering him so casually is too coincidental, isn’t it?]
Shen Ji: …
He lowers his head again and avoids eye contact with the man.
The other seems indifferent as he walks swiftly. Before turning the corner, Shen Ji glances back at Li Zhiyan’s silhouette. The silver-haired youth tosses the keys he holds into the air and catches them, appearing to be aimlessly slacking off.
"He’s gone and even leaving so decisively."
Shen Ji strokes his chin thoughtfully, "Is there a possibility that I’m not the villain, but actually just an ordinary human?"
"Look, even the protagonist doesn’t think I’m a Pollutant."
[Don’t deceive yourself; you’ve read the novel. Hui concealed his pollution to deliver a heavy blow to humanity while hiding among them. Unless he willingly releases his pollution, no one can discover his true identity. That is the terror of the final villain.]
Alright, alright, you say what you want.
Shen Ji shrugs and continues forward and passes by a grocery store where nearby residents are scrambling for supplies. He merely glances inside before moving on, not participating in the fray.
Because he has no money.
"At least when hiding among humans; he should have a penny." Shen Ji’s voice carries a hint of subtlety, "How does that count as a qualified human?"
"No one can survive without eating, drinking, or buying daily necessities. I deduce that he will be found by the Anti-Contamination Control Center within a week."
[…… No, he has found a job.]
Shen Ji is somewhat surprised.
Since transmigrating, he has developed a strong stereotype about this "Pollutant Hui."
Brutal, arrogant, insane, narcissistic and extremely narcissistic.
His temporary residence is empty except for a bed, yet a massive mirror stands awkwardly in the room that is two meters wide and reaches the ceiling. Upon waking up, he can see his hazy sleeping face reflected, which to outsiders clearly screams, "I’m not a normal person."
As if that weren’t enough, he prides himself on being a pollutant as he refuses to eat or drink, avoiding supermarkets and markets, leaving no transaction records, and engaging in no human interactions.
Shen Ji is utterly speechless and directly labels him as "stereotypically inhuman," yet the system claims he has found a job.
"What kind of job?" Shen Ji asks curiously.
[The novel doesn’t delve into such trivial details; it merely mentions that he took a job to facilitate hiding.]
"You don’t even know where he works?
[Just wait for the boss to call you.]
Shen Ji: …
Absent without filing a leave, the merciless termination awaiting him is the law of humanity.
Just as he prepares for this impending dismissal disaster, his phone rings at that moment.
He pulls it out of his pocket while noting: this is Pollutant Hui’s phone. This guy, after observing the crowd for a day, determined that a phone is an essential item for every human, and thus used pollution to acquire one for free.
It was strange that he actually got this right.
Staring at the note on his phone screen, Shen Ji curiously rubbed his chin.
"Object D?"
"Can you explain what this note means?"
[I already told you, novels don’t bother with such trivial details, not even the final villain’s minor verbal habits.]
"How come you don’t know anything?"
[Because the current timeline is during the author’s rushed ending phase. Both the plot and the setting are collapsing without foreshadowing, making it impossible to deduce future developments based on earlier content.]
Fine, blame the author for the rushed ending.
Shen Ji answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Xiao Ji, where are you? Why aren’t you back yet?"
Shen Ji glanced at the note again, puzzled, and kept trying to guess who the caller might be.
Fortunately, the other person didn’t stop talking.
"Q City is about to go under lockdown. There’s a curfew at night. I knocked on your door and found you weren’t home. Hurry back before the gates are locked."
Given Hui’s inhuman social habits, Shen Ji doubted this was someone particularly close to him. After some thought, only one person came to mind—the landlord.
So Shen Ji tentatively replied, "Thanks, but was there something urgent that made you knock at this hour?"
"No, no, as a landlord, it’s my responsibility to look after my tenants. With all the trouble in Q City lately, you need to be careful!"
"Come back as soon as possible and stay home. Don’t go anywhere else."
With that, the call ended.
Shen Ji stayed silent for two seconds before exiting the call screen and opening his contacts list, where he found many other strange notes.
For example: [Nightmare A], [Object C], [A Fish]…
[I get it now!] The system suddenly spoke up. [Pollutants don’t have strong familial bonds with humans, so he must have labeled them by species. That’s it—it has to be species!]
Object D… a Level D Pollutant?