Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
Since Liu Chuanyang had collapsed right beside Shen Ji, everyone naturally handed the contamination suppressant to him for administration.
Shen Ji didn’t refuse.
He lifted Liu Chuanyang’s arm and rolled up the sleeve, only to feel a chilling cold. Liu Chuanyang radiated frost like a freezer, with his arm as hard as ice. Looking around, everyone else had started shivering, instinctively reaching for coats and blankets.
"Classic contamination symptoms. He must already be at Stage II," remarked the elderly doctor, Cheng Gu, who was wrapping himself in a coat. "To reach Stage II so soon after exposure—that’s terrifyingly fast."
"Can the needle even pierce his skin?"
Shen Ji tried inserting the needle, only for it to snap with a crisp crack, failing to even break Liu Chuanyang’s skin.
Shen Ji: "..."
"Bring out the specialized needles," Cheng Gu called to the doctor behind him—likely his student. A woman dressed in practical clothing, her hair tied in a ponytail and wearing thick glasses that marked her as severely nearsighted, unlike Shen Ji’s own.
"We came prepared this time. We’ve got every type of needle you could need."
The student handed the specially prepared needle to Shen Ji, who switched out the needle without needing to re-sterilize it—mere bacteria were like dust compared to contamination.
The needle successfully pierced Liu Chuanyang's arm, and Shen Ji began the injection.
[Release some of your mycelium. We need to familiarize ourselves with the Undertaker's contamination as quickly as possible. Only after becoming familiar can the mycelium track it by scent.]
‘Sounds like a dog.’
[Fungus-dog is totally fine. I support your dog-personification.’
This system seemed broken.
Shen Ji mentally and rather rudely mocked the system while simultaneously mixing the mycelium from his fingers into the contamination inhibitor. However, he still encountered a problem during the injection.
The mycelium refused to go in.
As contamination from Hui, they weren’t independent entities, but because Hui’s contamination had manifested as mushrooms, they had a slight consciousness of their own—including a strong desire to devour, a love for food, sunlight, and moisture, which made them particularly averse to cold.
This might be Hui’s only minor weakness.
After much coaxing, the mycelium reluctantly moved forward, but halfway through the injection, the contamination inhibitor stopped flowing. The people around noticed.
“Is there difficulty with the injection?” Dr. Cheng Gu asked Shen Ji in a kindly voice. “It’s alright, we have more specially prepared needles here. If this one fails, we can use a new one.”
“It’s fine, just a minor obstruction,” Shen Ji replied reassuringly. He pretended to adjust the needle’s position while actually trying to persuade the mycelium to hurry up—this level of cold wouldn’t harm a single strand of the mushrooms.
Finally, the mycelium grudgingly crawled into the Siberian-level freezer, and Shen Ji injected the remaining contamination inhibitor in one go.
Everyone present breathed a sigh of relief.
Seeing the inhibitor successfully injected, Cheng Gu gestured to the student behind him.
“Shouzhen, check Liu Chuanyang’s contamination level now.”
The student immediately took out a contamination monitor and tested Liu Chuanyang’s contamination. She pricked his finger to draw blood for the test, and Shen Ji recalled her name—Cheng Shouzhen, Dr. Cheng’s daughter.
The contamination level appeared instantly.
“52?!” Cheng Shouzhen stared at the number in shock. “This is already at the edge of Stage II, almost reaching Stage III!”
“Such rapid deterioration—we’ve only been trapped for seven or eight hours, and he’s a Mutant. Why is there such a fast contamination response?”
[Mutants aren’t completely immune. They’re just less susceptible to contamination, but if they encounter high-level Pollutants, they can still be affected. Liu Chuanyang is an ordinary E-class Mutant, only slightly better than a normal person. And he has one particularly bad trait.]
‘What trait?’
[He’s deeply emotional and highly empathetic.]
[The Anti-Contamination Control Center discovered that after losing the Death Messenger Bird, the Undertaker’s contamination undergoes a mutation—shifting from pure fear to the fear of ‘losing a loved one.’ The more empathetic a person is, the more vulnerable they become. In early Undertaker contamination incidents, the first to be affected were writers.]
Liu Chuanyang, who was deeply attached to his mother and highly empathetic, had thus become the first to be contaminated.
Shen Ji raised an eyebrow slightly and, a few seconds later, asked a question. ‘Why did the Undertaker target us?’
[It didn’t target all of you—just you.]
[You've devoured the contamination of the Death Messenger Bird. The Bird and the Undertaker share a dual contamination as one entity. It traced the contamination of its other half to find you, yet couldn't locate its counterpart. The only option was to seal off the area around you in its search. In other words: It's gone mad from losing its other half, and the scent emanating from you feels familiar.]
‘So that means: Its true form is nearby?’
[Exactly. That's why I urged you to quickly familiarize yourself with the Undertaker's contamination.]
Shen Ji crouched down to look at Liu Chuanyang, who was still unconscious. He placed a finger on Liu Chuanyang’s forehead, sensing the mycelium within his body.
Sure enough, the lazy mycelium, once banished to the Siberian freezer, had no desire to work. They slacked off and even lost their appetite—until Shen Ji threatened, "If you don’t work now, you're fired!" Scared into action, they immediately began devouring the contamination inside Liu Chuanyang.
Not far away, Dr. Cheng quietly observed Shen Ji’s every move, not missing a single detail.
When he’d learned from the old-timers that their containment facility had produced a Healing-type Mutant, he’d been utterly shocked. While cursing them for keeping it from him, he couldn’t stop himself from taking deep breaths to suppress his rising grin.
A Healing-type Mutant!
The facility had cured one contaminated patient, with another close to recovery—not to mention the cured one even awakening as a Sensory-type Mutant. Even the slightest perceptive doctors in the facility sensed something was off, but only he had been sharp enough to corner the old-timers and uncover their secret.
Who would’ve thought such exhilarating news awaited him?
This Healing-type Mutant was hiding his identity for some reason. Dr. Cheng couldn’t afford to expose him and ruin things, so he pretended to know nothing, not even telling his own daughter.
But curiosity gnawed at him—about the mutant’s methods, his abilities, the patients’ reactions.
Was he treating someone now? Using his powers? Would the contamination levels drop after he used them?
Lost in his thoughts, Dr. Cheng watched as Shen Ji withdrew his hand and returned to his spot, forcing him to stifle his curiosity.
“It’s so cold.”
Someone spoke up while being wrapped in a small blanket and sitting close to Liu Chuanyang. Shivering, he asked, “Doesn’t it feel freezing to you?”
“Liu Chuanyang’s contamination trait is ice… achoo… cold,” Zhang Qingli said as he covered his nose. “Contaminated patients can… achoo… alter their surroundings due to their traits. It’s normal… achoo.”
“Zhang Qingli always overreacts,” the man sighed, eyeing him. “It’s probably just high environmental contamination. Maybe we should isolate Liu Chuanyang outside the vehicle for now.”
“It’s too cold for everyone to handle.”
Everyone present agreed with the suggestion. Keeping Liu Chuanyang inside the vehicle was impractical—either he stayed alone inside, or he was placed outside.
Zhang Qingli raised his hand. “I’ll move him out.”
He hooked his hands under Liu Chuanyang’s armpits, trying to drag him out. But just then, Zhang Qingli froze.
“Wait a second?” He shook Liu Chuanyang’s body. “Why is he… soft?”
“Dead?”
"Are you stupid? Dead means stiff."
"So does being soft mean he's alive?"
The moment these words were spoken, the car fell into dead silence for several seconds.
Then they suddenly remembered—when they knocked Liu Chuanyang unconscious, he had shown an intense contamination reaction and his entire body was as hard as millennia-old black ice.
He had been stiff. Now he was soft again?
Damn it!
The nearest person was the first to bolt into action. He swiftly pulled out a contamination detector from his pocket and jabbed it into Liu Chuanyang’s arm. Blood immediately welled up—red. Smearing the red blood onto the detector, the device beeped before displaying his current contamination level.
"Contamination level 34?!"
Dr. Cheng glanced at Shen Ji, who was sitting steadily in his seat without a trace of surprise, utterly composed.
Shen Ji was leaning back in his seat and slightly bowing his head as he played with his phone. The screen's glow reflected off his glasses, lending him an air of mysterious authority—the kind that radiated reassurance no matter how you looked at him.
Then Dr. Cheng turned his gaze to the group of shocked youngsters.
Silently, he thought: Go ahead, be shocked. I was just as stunned back then.
………
"The containment facility just sent a message."
Zhou Ye listened to the communication device while glancing at Li Zhiyan beside him. "They're urging us to find the missing medical staff as soon as possible."
"Mhm." Li Zhiyan replied without much emotion. "Are the Sensory-type Mutants almost here?"
"I’ve contacted them. They said they’ll arrive in the East District soon."
Three minutes after the medical staff lost contact, the security team immediately noticed something was wrong. They reported it to the Anti-Contamination Control Center, which promptly called Li Zhiyan. Right after hanging up, the containment facility called as well.
Clearly, they had also discovered the disappearance.
The security team reacted swiftly as they dispatched personnel to search the vehicle’s planned route and the last known location the moment contact was lost, determined to find any trace of them.
However, the situation was dire—they found no leads. In the end, they had no choice but to deploy Sensory-type Mutants.
Zhou Ye crouched on the ground, his uniform already dirtied and his face smeared with grime as if he’d rolled around in the dirt several times.
"The containment facility seems to value their staff highly. The deputy team leader told me it’s because they’ve lost too many people in recent incidents—they’re on the verge of collapse. If they lose more this time, the facility will be completely crippled."
"The Anti-Contamination Control Center is urgently transferring doctors, but the containment facility still wants to save this batch."
Li Zhiyan tilted his head to gaze at the sky, his pale blue eyes seemingly glowing in the night. "Under these circumstances, it’s practically impossible to bring everyone back unharmed."
"Unless..."
Zhou Ye frowned. "Unless what?"
Li Zhiyan mused, "Unless there’s a Healing-type Mutant among these doctors—one capable of purifying all the contaminated medical staff."
"Hmm." Li Zhiyan fell into thought again.
Zhou Ye swallowed hard. "Don’t tell me... there really is a Healing-type Mutant? That kind of rare existence has actually appeared?!"
Li Zhiyan didn’t answer, still deep in contemplation.
A few seconds later, he nodded slowly.
"Exactly. Our team is missing a Healing-type Mutant. Preferably someone very serious and reliable, the kind who makes our team appear stable and trustworthy at a glance."
Zhou Ye: "..."
So you’re planning to poach someone!
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
Advanced chapters are now available up to chapter 105 (End of Main Text) on my Ko-fi page!
If you appreciate what I do, please consider supporting me on kofi. Thank you!
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•