Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
Contamination has an outbreak period, much like the flu, where explosive cases appear in specific seasons, and after that time, things settle down.
At this moment, Q City has finally welcomed a relatively calm period.
Li Zhiyan is still in the East District, the Undertaker incident has completely ended, the surrounding Pollutants have been cleared, and ordinary people without issues have returned home to continue their lives. The security team is also in the process of full withdrawal, and Li Zhiyan is waiting for everyone from the security team to leave before he departs.
Zhou Ye is squatting beside him, keeping watch over the city.
“Boss,” Zhou Ye, feeling bored, gossips with Li Zhiyan, “Haven’t you sorted out the new team members yet?”
Hearing this, Li Zhi6an glances at Zhou Ye and then at the ignored photography he has been sending almost daily—pictures of flowers and plants. But Shen Ji only responds with an emoji, clearly giving off the vibe of ‘I’m not ignoring you, but I’m just humoring you.’
Finally, as if tired of it, Shen Ji engages in a somewhat serious conversation with him.
【Prestige Figure No.1: Mr. Li, do you love flowers and plants so much because of the butterfly genes at play?】
【Li Zhiyan: No, actually I have a dream of photography.】
【Prestige Figure No.1: …】
Then it returns to the routine of exchanging a photo for a yellow bean emoji.
Recruiting new team members is a long and arduous task.
At that moment, Li Zhiyan’s communicator vibrates, and a message comes through. He opens it.
The sender is Jiang Ying.
Jiang Ying, the Vice-captain of the Special Task Force Sixth Team and a spirited woman whom Li Zhiyan values and promoted to vice-captain of the team. Her main task is to stay at the Anti-Contamination Control Center and spar with the old geezers above. Don’t be fooled by her gentle demeanor; in theory, no one can out-argue her.
In a contamination-free world, she would have been a great debater.
【Jiang Ying: Captain, Mr. Chu has come again.】
Zhou Ye leans over to see the message and hisses, “Did his treatment fail again?”
Mr. Chu, whose real name is Chu Ye, is a high-ranking Commander at the Anti-Contamination Control Center and also a B-class Mutant. In some emergencies, he goes to the battlefield to fight against Pollutants, leading the security team to eliminate dangers. Zhou Ye rarely admires anyone, but he respects Chu Ye.
Chu Ye and Li Zhiyan have a good relationship and often collaborated on missions in the past.
Until one time, he led the security team to a mysterious contamination zone. Inside the contamination zone, he found nothing unusual, but upon leaving, he was shocked to discover that all his team members had vanished. He even turned back to search for them but found nothing; he was the only living person in the desolate contamination zone.
After returning to the Control Center, he was found to have a contamination level of 37, officially diagnosed as a contaminated patient.
One can only imagine how dangerous a contamination zone must be to allow a B-class Mutant to become contaminated.
Chu Ye’s special status means that the contamination did not affect his mental state, and there was no contamination leak, so he was not isolated in a containment facility like other contaminated patients. However, due to this contamination level, he lost the opportunity to go to the front lines.
For this reason, he has been seeking treatment.
Once the necessary members of the security team left the East District, Li Zhiyan got into his vehicle and returned to the Q City Control Center branch, which he hadn’t visited in a long time.
As soon as he walked in, he saw a man sitting in his office chair, sighing heavily.
Upon seeing Li Zhiyan return, he stood up. “You’re back.”
“If it’s about your treatment failing again, don’t bother.” Li Zhiyan casually sits down in the chair opposite him.
“You complain about this to me seven times a month.”
Chu Ye: …
What a sharp tongue; this friend is really getting on his nerves!
“But now I don’t know who else to talk to. I’ve searched so many places with no results, and my contamination level has reached 39. I’m about to hit the next stage.” Chu Ye still forced himself to say, “I can’t just get sick and die like this. I still have things to do; I still need to…”
“You still need to find that contamination zone and retrieve the people who went missing back then.” Li Zhiyan directly interrupts him, continuing his sentence.
“You’ve told me that ten or twenty times.”
Chu Ye lets out a heavy sigh. “No matter how many times I say it, I can’t let them just disappear for no reason.”
Li Zhiyan yawns, leisurely pours himself a glass of water, and then offers Chu Ye an empty cup.
Chu Ye is already used to Li Zhiyan’s ways; he takes the empty cup and goes to fill it himself without hesitation.
After taking a sip of water, Li Zhiyan settles into his chair for a few seconds before speaking, “Why don’t you try the Containment Facility?”
“The Containment Facility?” Chu Ye didn’t expect Li Zhiyan to say that; he was extremely surprised. “But those Healing-type Mutants can’t cure me; how can the Containment Facility do it? The average healing rate there is only 8%!”
“Li Zhiyan, don’t joke with me. I’m not in a good mood right now.”
Li Zhiyan takes another sip of water. “Just give it a try; go to the Q City Containment Facility.”
“Why?” Chu Ye is puzzled. “I remember that this contamination leak incident in Q City started from your Containment Facility.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Li Zhiyan doesn’t even blink, his azure eyes fixed on Chu Ye. “But it’s different now, so I suggest you give it a try.”
“I wouldn’t harm you.”
Chu Ye looks at Li Zhiyan in confusion.
This complaint journey ends in such a bizarre manner, and he can only gulp down a glass of water.
On the way back, Chu Ye sits in the back seat of the car and watches the contamination detector on his wrist while deep in thought.
Although Li Zhiyan is abstract and eccentric, he rarely lies. The fact that he suggests going to the Containment Facility means he genuinely believes it can help him.
What? Did the Q City Containment Facility drop some miraculous medicine?
He mutters to himself.
The driver, one of his subordinates and team members, hears him and chimes in.
“Speaking of the Q City Containment Facility, it seems they’re going to announce something today. They already coordinated with the Anti-Contamination Control Center yesterday for a citywide report. Captain, do you want to see what the report is about?”
“Is that so?”
Chu Ye opens his communicator in the car and clicks into the Anti-Contamination Control Center’s announcement webpage.
Usually, the types of Pollutants that can be released are posted on this site, including research reports from the Academy of Sciences and treatment plans from the Containment Facilities.
Indeed, upon entering, he finds the page’s refresh rate is extremely high, with many people waiting for news from the Containment Facility.
He enters just in time, and soon the official account of the Containment Facility releases a video.
Chu Ye recognizes the squinty-eyed old man on the video cover as Wen Jingyu, the Director of the Q City Containment Facility.
This report actually requires the director of the Containment Facility to appear?
Curious, he continues watching.
Wen Jingyu isn’t standing at a podium; he is fully armed in a white protective suit and flanked by similarly dressed medical staff, clearly identifiable as personnel from the Containment Facility, with the background unmistakably from the patient area of the facility.
“Today, the Q City Containment Facility announces that we have successfully developed a special medicine to counteract ‘Decaying Organism’ contamination.”
With that one sentence, Chu Ye’s eyes widen, and the driver, surprised, swerved the steering wheel, nearly throwing Chu Ye out of the back seat.
Chu Ye doesn’t have time to complain; he quickly steadies himself and continues watching the video.
Wen Jingyu reaches for a vial of medicine on the tray. “Now I will conduct a live experiment.”
This is the first time the Containment Facility has publicly revealed the status of occupationally exposed medical staff.
Inside the isolation chamber, a medical worker lies in a coffin-like apparatus, with multiple signs of decay on his body and even showing white bones. The isolation detector beside him displays the patient’s contamination level: 67.
This is a Stage III contaminated patient.
Wen Jingyu opens the isolation chamber door and injects the medicine into the patient’s body. Soon, the patient’s body visibly begins to recover; the signs of decay improve. Although not fully healed, the improvement is clear, and the contamination detector’s reading drops to 64.
It’s evident that this special medicine has succeeded, and the success is very apparent!
“Lastly, I want to say that this special medicine is only for the contamination disease ‘Decaying Organism’. After using the special medicine, it can significantly limit the progression of this contamination, and the healing rate will increase by 30%.”
“The quick announcement is to tell everyone: our Containment Facility has not given up, we have not given up on saving everyone, nor have we given up on our patients.”
“We hope everyone can continue to believe in us.”
As the video ends, Chu Ye finally lifts his head. He is certain this video will create a huge stir.
At this stage, contamination diseases are still considered terminal illnesses, and the healing rate for contamination diseases is very low. Even among that 8% who have already healed, most are Mutants, who inherently have resistance to contamination and are more likely to recover during treatment. But now, the Q City Containment Facility has actually conquered one type of contamination disease.
Don’t underestimate that 30% healing rate; the previous healing rate was only 8%!
“Turn around!” Chu Ye shouts. “We’re going to the Q City Containment Facility!”
“Already turned!” the driver chuckles. “As soon as I heard the special medicine research was successful, I made the turn!”
The more Chu Ye thinks about it, the more feasible it seems. He quickly opens his communicator and sends a message to Li Zhiyan.
【Chu Ye: Good brother! I knew you were genuinely looking out for me!】
Before long, Li Zhiyan replies to the message.
He directly ignores Chu Ye’s response and throws him a photo of flowers and plants.
【Li Zhiyan: Pretty, right?】
【Chu Ye: Brother, are these your flowers? Why do they look so wilted? Are they infested with bugs?】
【Li Zhiyan: These aren’t my flowers.】
【Chu Ye: Whose are they?】
【Li Zhiyan: I sent my perfect photography to someone, and that someone replied with this photo. He told me he’s a plant killer and can only grow flowers like this. What does he mean?】
【Chu Ye: … Uh, asking you for flower-raising tips?】
In the office, Li Zhiyan looks at this message with disdain.
“Didn’t expect Chu Ye to have such low emotional intelligence; it seems I can’t chat with him in the future. What if I get dumbed down?”
………
The phones at the Q City Containment Facility are overwhelmed; Chu Ye can’t get through, but he figures it’s because various cities are calling to inquire if the video is true.
Fortunately, Chu Ye’s status is indeed special; even though he is currently restricted in activity, he is still one of the high-ranking officials at the Control Center.
Using his status, he enters the Containment Facility.
Wen Jingyu, the Director of the Q City Containment Facility, receives him. In fact, when he heard Chu Ye was coming, Wen Jingyu already knew what he meant.
After all, the news of Chu Ye’s contamination had spread widely, and everyone knew he had been looking for a doctor who could treat his contamination. He had been holding onto a grudge, hoping to return to that mysterious contaminated zone to search for the missing members of the security team once he recovered.
However, it was somewhat surprising for Wen Jingyu that Chu Ye would come to seek treatment at an ordinary Containment Facility.
Or could it be… he is actually an informed person who got the news through some channel and is specifically coming for someone?
Thinking of this, Wen Jingyu straightens up while pondering his wording.
"You don't need to state your purpose—I already know."
When meeting with Chu Ye for discussions, Wen Jingyu remained as composed as ever, his eyes slightly narrowed. The elderly man looked quite serious. "However, I hope you won’t publicize this matter. Our shelter no longer wishes to add to his burden."
Chu Ye was momentarily confused, but it wasn’t a secret that he had been seeking medical help everywhere, so Wen Jingyu’s awareness wasn’t surprising.
As for keeping it quiet—did it mean he shouldn’t disclose that he was receiving treatment at the facility? That made sense. If word got out that he was using his privilege to receive treatment here, it wouldn’t reflect well on either him or the facility.
"Of course," Chu Ye replied after piecing it together, offering a polite smile. "Since I’ve chosen this place, I’ll naturally abide by its rules."
Wen Jingyu seemed to relax slightly. "Then let me take you to the attending doctor.”
Chu Ye was a model patient. Though his treatment had shown little progress, he always followed the doctor’s instructions without question—taking medication on time, receiving injections, and willingly trying new experimental drugs.
So when Wen Jingyu told him to go, he went. Even if he were asked to enter an isolation ward, he would comply without hesitation.
Passing through office areas and various examination zones, they ventured deeper into the contaminated disease zones. The elevator descended, and soon, a soft ding announced their arrival.
Chu Ye saw the sign outside the elevator: Zone I.
"Xiao Ji," Wen Jingyu suddenly called out a name.
Chu Ye looked ahead and spotted a young man in a white lab coat.
He appeared very young, especially standing next to Wen Jingyu—likely in his early twenties. His coat was immaculate, and behind black-framed glasses, his dark eyes held a certain coldness and even his expression barely shifted. The name tag on his coat read: Shen Ji.
When Shen Ji noticed Wen Jingyu, he simply greeted him with "Dr. Wen" before falling silent again.
First impressions: a seemingly reliable but rather taciturn young doctor.
"This is Chu Ye," Wen Jingyu introduced him to the young doctor. "He’s also a contaminated patient, though his contamination doesn’t leak, so he doesn’t require facility confinement. I’ve arranged special accommodations for him. Starting today, you’ll oversee his contamination treatment."
The young doctor gave Chu Ye a strange look before turning back to Wen Jingyu. "A patient this unusual? And you want me to handle it?"
"He doesn’t need isolation, but otherwise, he’s no different from other patients. There’s nothing particularly special about him."
The young doctor studied Chu Ye again, then nodded.
Chu Ye stared at him, lost in thought. Wait—this is the doctor in charge of my treatment? He’s so young?
But in reality, Chu Ye wasn’t the only one deep in contemplation—Shen Ji was too.
'Chu Ye… That name sounds so familiar.' Shen Ji was conversing with his system.
[Chu Ye, the tragic supporting male lead of the entire story. A man who used his own suffering to wrench tears from readers—a true man who endured till the very end.]
At that, Shen Ji finally remembered.
The final arc of the novel had gradually devolved into a mess, so Shen Ji had skimmed through it, leaving few distinct memories. But Chu Ye had indeed played a prominent role in that section.
He was once the collaborator of the protagonist Li Zhiyan, a highly strategic commander with exceptional foresight. However, he contracted a contamination-related illness during an operation and withdrew from the front lines. It wasn't until the final arc when mysterious Pollutant emerged and trapped the protagonist in an unprecedented manner, that Chu Ye stepped forward.
Leading a team, Chu Ye pushed through using his contaminated body to find the protagonist. He tore open a breach in the contamination zone and was ultimately buried in that unknown contamination zone alongside the subordinates he had been searching for all along.
Due to the story's rushed ending, this plot point was written rather plainly. Yet the image of Chu Ye sending Li Zhiyan out of the contamination zone while standing there and smiling at him still gave Shen Ji a small shock. In the end, Chu Ye fulfilled his long-held conviction: to find those team members who had disappeared in the contamination zone.
'Wait? I remember he held a high-ranking position. Why is he coming to the facility? Doesn't the Anti-Contamination Control Center have several Healing-type Mutants?'
[If they were truly effective, he would have recovered long ago. He must have tried everything before coming to Q City facility's special medicine as a last resort.]
'Speaking of which, those veteran doctors are amazing to have developed a special treatment in such a short time.'
[It was obviously you secretly suppressing the contamination. Otherwise, just addressing this personal safety issue would have given the facility headaches for half a year.]
'I observed the special medicine research to feed the mushrooms. They were so hungry that they cried in my ears at night, nearly driving me to a nervous breakdown.'
[You starve the little mushrooms and even make them cry. You're evil!]
Shen Ji couldn't be bothered with his self-entertaining system.
Perhaps life had been too peaceful lately, so the system was gradually losing its mind. Shen Ji officially diagnosed it as mentally ill.
[...]
[The mentally ill one isn't me—it's the protagonist, right?]
'Huh? Isn't it our consensus that he's crazy?'
This topic made Shen Ji furious.
Having worked as a journalist for many years, braving all kinds of weather and handling everything meticulously, he should have been very adept at understanding people's hearts. Yet he couldn't comprehend what kind of oddity Li Zhiyan was.
Ever since the 'exploding petals incident' was discovered, Shen Ji had stopped ignoring Li Zhiyan's messages, though he only responded with perfunctory emojis.
But Li Zhiyan persistently sent him messages—flowers, plants, all sorts of inexplicable things flooding his phone. Every time he received one, Shen Ji considered blocking him.
'Next time, I'll send him a potted plant sprayed with a lethal dose of herbicide to poison him,' Shen Ji declared.
[Given his immunity to poisonous mushrooms, I doubt herbicide would kill him. It'd just expose you. Better drop it.]
'Then I'll send him a potted plant sprayed with lethal amounts of super glue to seal his mouth shut,' Shen Ji persisted.
[...]
No normal person would put super glue in their mouth, right?
Every time Shen Ji said such things with a straight face, the system needed time to process it.
Outwardly, he appeared so composed and reliable—the very image of a dependable elder trusted by juniors. Yet inside, he was more abstract than anyone, spouting nonsense as if it cost nothing.
"Then I'll send you Mr. Chu's address shortly," Dr. Wen said with a smile.
Shen Ji acknowledged with a serious, responsible tone. His dark-framed eyes exuded quiet warmth that made people instinctively want to trust him.
The entire facility had already been charmed by him and convinced that he was just such a kind and gentle soul.
Only after Wen Jingyu and Chu Ye had left did the system speak up.
[Should we treat him?]
"You mean Chu Ye?" Shen Ji turned and walked toward the Zone—his work for the day wasn’t done yet. "Not really interested in getting involved. He’s connected to the protagonist, and if I treat him, the protagonist will just find another excuse to harass me."
[But because the original story was rushed, Chu Ye died abruptly. His plotline wasn’t fully explored, and we still don’t know the details of that mysterious contamination zone.]
Shen Ji understood what the system meant.
Authors weren’t gods—they had memory lapses too. Sometimes they’d forget foreshadowing they set up earlier, or their worldbuilding would contradict itself, or they’d just rush the ending. But once a novel became a real world, those flaws became real problems.
Like the two Pollutants mentioned in the author’s notes—they had appeared.
This contamination incident, which was only hinted at but never expanded upon, might very well erupt in the future.
"Treating him wouldn’t stop him from entering the contamination zone, right?" Shen Ji pondered. "What if we take a different approach? We get on good terms with Chu Ye, then use concern for his safety as an excuse to accompany him into the zone. We disrupt his focus before he finds Li Zhiyan, then trap the protagonist inside to die."
"Then we’d truly be free."
[...That’s an evil plan. Shen Ji, are you sure you don’t have a side gig? Like, as a murderer or a con artist?]
Shen Ji: "..."
"If you weren’t a system without a physical form, I’d sue you for defamation and squeeze a hefty settlement out of you."
"Let’s treat him for now," Shen Ji sighed. "It’s about time we discharged some patients anyway. If this keeps up, we’ll go from working dawn to dusk to round-the-clock shifts."
[Overtime doesn’t affect a Level S Pollutant.]
"Of course, an AI wouldn’t get it." Shen Ji slowly adjusted his black-framed glasses, looking every bit the professional. "Humans normally need eight hours of sleep. A few special cases and elderly people can manage with six. But right now, in everyone else’s eyes, I’m getting less than four."
"Everyone at the facility is running ragged like pandas, but I’m the only one who still looks flawless—not even dark circles. What does that say?"
"It says something’s off. Chronic sleep deprivation with no visible effects? That’s the kind of weirdness that gets linked to contamination real quick."
[...I didn’t even think of that.]
[I have to admit, you really do consider everything.]
"That’s why I was a journalist." Shen Ji mused as he walked. "Anyway, now that we’ve developed the targeted treatment, we should stabilize the contamination levels of the medical staff who’ve been exposed. Ideally, those with mild symptoms can recover and return to work, lightening the overall workload and extending rest periods."
"I really don’t want to buy makeup just to paint dark circles under my eyes."
Black fungal tendrils emerged from Shen Ji’s neck, swaying in front of him as if to offer themselves.
Shen Ji coldly rejected them. "And I don’t want to bury fungal strands under my eyelids to fake dark circles either."
The little black mushroom vanished, dejected.
[...]
The man holding the villain’s script was already strategizing how to control the facility’s recovery rates to fine-tune work schedules and rest periods.
People who've worked as journalists... can be somewhat terrifying.
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