Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
The Containment Facility conducted intensive treatment for medical staff exposed to contamination.
Some patients with mild contamination responded exceptionally well, meeting recovery standards after just three days of treatment and three days of observation.
For this reason, Director Wen Jingyu released another explanatory video, announcing the successful application of the new specialized medication.
Shen Ji sat in the cafeteria, yawning and across from him was Zhang Qingli, who was watching the video while gnawing on chicken breast.
"Didn’t sleep well last night?" Zhang Qingli glanced at him.
"It was alright," Shen Ji closed his eyes. "Just a bit noisy."
"Nighttime disturbances? You should report that to the dorm supervisor and have them handle it."
But that wasn’t the case.
Shen Ji had begun treating Chu Ye. The contamination within Chu Ye’s body was deeply entrenched, making eradication extremely difficult—but that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was: the contamination was irresistibly attractive to the little mushrooms.
They couldn’t help but voraciously consume the contamination, placing an immense burden on Chu Ye’s body. During treatment, the mycelium repeatedly transmitted cheerful thoughts like, "So spicy! So appetizing!"
Shen Ji: "..."
The little things even had a taste for spice.
So, Shen Ji imposed strict sanctions and threatened to cut off their contamination supply if they misbehaved. In retaliation, they burrowed into his blankets at night, exploding mushroom spores and claiming his entire bed as their own, fiercely defending their right to feast on contamination.
They had already seen through their master’s "sharp tongue but soft heart" nature and knew he wouldn’t truly punish them no matter what they did.
It left Shen Ji fuming and sleepless all night.
"I wonder when the Undertaker’s corpse will arrive," Zhang Qingli mused between bites, still preoccupied with the Pollutant remains. "The security team said it should be within the next couple of days. I can’t wait."
Shen Ji picked up a strand of noodles.
"Just don’t make me observe it. I’d rather go back to the dorm and sleep than stay up late for overtime again."
Zhang Qingli shook his head helplessly. "You have so much talent, yet you put in zero effort."
Shen Ji thought to himself: The Undertaker’s corpse has already been stripped clean of contamination—there’s no value in wasting effort on it
But if the Containment Facility is so efficient, why hasn’t the Anti-Contamination Control Center approved Pollutant remains for research?
He was curious.
[Because Pollutant corpses, like living Pollutants, uncontrollably emit pollution—like radioactive material. When in close contact, even for Mutants, carries a high risk of contamination. Containing this contamination requires special measures, taking anywhere from months to a year or two.]
[At the same time, contamination diseases have a short window of relevance. Two months is enough for all affected patients to either die or mutate.]
[Either cured quickly, or dead quickly—that’s the fate of contaminated patients.]
[This time, the success was purely because you were involved.]
Shen Ji slurped another mouthful of noodles.
In fact, most contamination incidents have very short durations. Except for special Pollutants like the Undertaker, the majority of contamination outbreaks occurring within a specific timeframe are suppressed by the security forces and typically concluding within a month. Afterward, the same type of contaminant never reappears. Therefore, spending one or two years researching a contamination disease that will never occur again is truly an unwise investment.
Probably only someone like Zhang Qingli would persistently apply to both the security forces and the Anti-Contamination Control Center for Pollutant corpses.
After breakfast, Shen Ji placed his tray back in its spot and left the cafeteria with Zhang Qingli to return to the ward.
The sun outside was bright, but the wind was strong—it was already mid-autumn, and the gusts carried a biting chill.
Just as they stepped out of the cafeteria, the communicator in Shen Ji’s pocket suddenly buzzed to life. Zhang Qingli, mid-yawn, nearly choked on the abrupt noise.
“Wh-what’s going on?!”
Every medical staff member at the facility was equipped with a specialized communicator, designed to alert the primary attending doscor—as well as the senior doctors at the top—whenever a patient’s contamination levels spiked.
“Warning! Warning!” The mechanical voice blared from the device.
“Patient Ⅱ-C3-05, contamination levels increased by 30!”
“Warning! Contamination levels increased by 40!”
This surprised Zhang Qingli, because he had never heard Shen Ji’s communicator go off before.
Shen Ji’s patients had always been obedient. Whether it was their attitude toward medication or their recovery rates, even the most unruly, contaminated individuals under his care turned as docile as house cats the moment they faced him. They took their medicine without protest, and the results afterward were consistently outstanding.
He had almost started to believe that Shen Ji’s patients would never have an issue.
Zhang Qingli was stunned, but Shen Ji barely reacted to the numbers. He didn’t even furrow his brow, remaining perfectly calm—as if he had already anticipated a spike in one of his patients’ contamination levels.
“Need any help?” Zhang Qingli asked.
“Clear out a containment room for me,” Shen Ji replied. “Any ward will do. I’ll be transferring a patient shortly.”
“Got it.” Zhang Qingli nodded.
Contamination spikes among patients in the facility were common, and most medical staff had their own protocols for handling them, so Zhang Qingli took the request in stride.
Meanwhile, Shen Ji headed straight for Chu Ye’s temporary quarters.
Yes—Patient Ⅱ-C3-05 was Chu Ye.
When he arrived at the medical training base, Shen Ji found that everyone inside had already been evacuated. The staff were waiting for the facility’s response team to arrive.
“They cleared out this fast?”
[You forgot who lives next door to him, didn’t you?]
Shen Ji turned and saw a little girl sitting on the ground, absorbed in a book. Chen Guo was engrossed in her fairy tale with her mother keeping her company nearby.
When she noticed Shen Ji, Chen Guo flashed him a bright smile.
She had grown very attached to him. Over the past few days, whenever he came to deliver Chu Ye’s medication, he would run into her. Each time, she would cling to his arm and pester him for a while.
The system’s explanation for this was: The mycelium consumed the contamination inside her. Even though it’s gone now, the residual influence still makes her feel close to you.
And when children felt close to someone, their first instinct was always—cling to them!
[Chen Guo’s talent has progressed rapidly. She’s already at the edge of C-class, and with a little more accumulation, she’ll advance to B-class. As a near-B-class Sensory-type Mutant living right next door, she must have sensed something wrong before Chu Ye’s contamination erupted—and evacuated everyone here.]
Shen Ji wasn’t the only one who had gone from a contaminated outcast to a savior.
Moving through the crowd, Shen Ji reached Chu Ye’s room. He tried pushing the door open, but it was firmly locked from the inside. The contamination detector on his person was blaring a shrill, high-level warning.
“Chu Ye.” Shen Ji knocked on the door.
There was no sound from inside, but a few seconds later, Shen Ji's communicator rang. When he pulled it out, he saw it was Chu Ye calling.
He answered, "Chu Ye? How are you holding up?"
"Dr... Dr. Shen." Chu Ye's voice was horribly strained, like someone who'd trekked through the desert for three days without water. His throat was hoarse and his breathing so labored he seemed to be on the verge of passing out. "I feel... really bad right now."
"Don't panic. Remember what I told you? Your contamination levels will fluctuate during treatment."
"Fluctuate by jumping 50 points straight to... 88?"
Shen Ji nodded solemnly without batting an eye. "Exactly right."
Chu Ye: "..."
He sighed helplessly. "So what... should I do now? My body feels heavy, I can't move, and everything hurts."
Having worked on the frontlines so long, he'd been injured before and collapsed from exhaustion, but never had he experienced such excruciating pain. It felt like someone was slicing his flesh with knives, then gouging out his bones and smashing them to pieces before forcibly stuffing them back in.
He thought he might die from the agony.
"My colleagues will arrive shortly. We'll temporarily transfer you to an isolation room at the Containment Facility. As for why your contamination spiked—it was always this high."
Leaning against the doorframe, Shen Ji calmly explained the truth over the phone. His voice never wavered, remaining composed from start to finish. That steady tone made Chu Ye unconsciously relax.
"I don't know if you've seen other doctors or what conclusions they gave you, but your previous contamination readings were falsified. It was never as low as 39—from the beginning, it should have been around 90. Somehow, it was concealed."
"Now you're just returning to your true contamination level. This is good—it means your condition is normalizing."
Chu Ye had long suspected his contamination was abnormal. If it were ordinary, the Healing-type Mutants at the Anti-Contamination Control Center wouldn't have been powerless to treat it.
But he never imagined his contamination would be as high as 90!
90—no matter where you were, that was a number warranting immediate death sentencing and transfer to the Contaminant Disposal Center.
Gritting his teeth, Chu Ye forced himself up and endured the pain to open the door for Shen Ji.
With his last conscious breath, he told Shen Ji:
"If it can't be treated... send me away. Don't let me harm any innocent people."
………
Chu Ye's sudden contamination spike alarmed even the facility director and several senior doctors.
The old doctors marveled at the staggering contamination numbers outside the isolation room.
Following protocol, they questioned Shen Ji about the situation. After hearing his explanation, they asked for his assessment.
When Shen Ji said "It should be fine," the senior doctors left while still shaking their heads in amazement.
Indeed, they weren't worried at all.
If Shen Ji said it was fine, they had full confidence it would be fine.
After all, the last person whose contamination levels suddenly surged uncontrollably was Chen Guo!
Chen Guo's contamination level spiked to 60 in a short time, sending them into panic. But before they could even transfer her to the quarantine ward, she miraculously recovered on her own and not only did her contamination drop to normal levels, but she also awakened as a C-class Sensory-type Mutant, and was now teetering on the edge of B-class.
Perhaps Chu Ye would be like Chen Guo, with his contamination plummeting soon and returning to normal. His original talent level was B-class, and after recovery, he might even ascend to A.
This was how blindly they believed in Shen Ji.
On the other hand, Chu Ye wasn’t as fortunate as Chen Guo.
The excruciating pain from his contamination surge knocked him unconscious, only for him to be jolted awake by the agony again. When he came to, he found himself already placed in an isolation room, with Shen Ji, the medical staff assigned to him, present as well.
Shen Ji didn’t seem to notice he had woken up, keeping a hand pressed against his chest. Chu Ye could feel the faint coolness of his palm.
The pain was so intense he couldn’t even make a sound.
"Your heart’s already been eroded," Shen Ji remarked casually as he delivered a statement that nearly shocked Chu Ye into full alertness. "A few days later, and you’d really be headed for the Contaminant Disposal Center."
[His willpower is decent—enough to let him successfully off himself during the contamination surge. Also: he’s awake.]
Shen Ji glanced down at him. "Don’t move or struggle if you’re awake. I’m examining you."
"Don’t worry. If I can’t cure you, I’ll prepare a coffin for you. How about an ice coffin?"
Chu Ye: "..."
This sudden dark humor in a serious situation inexplicably reminded him of Li Zhiyan.
But unlike this stern doctor, Li Zhiyan was someone who could be utterly absurd in any situation—not only did he not look human, but his behavior wasn’t human either… Why was he thinking about him now? Still, if it were Li Zhiyan, he’d probably collect his corpse. He wondered where Li Zhiyan would bury him.
Given Li Zhiyan’s personality, he might bury him under a tree—because Li Zhiyan loved plants, whether flowers, grass, or trees.
While Chu Ye’s mind wandered, Shen Ji was directing the fungal filaments to wage war inside his body.
Chu Ye’s body was a fragile battlefield. The slightest misstep could shatter his internal organs.
No matter how strong a person was, their insides were always soft. The fungal filaments could navigate around those delicate organs, but the contamination that had first taken root in his body wouldn’t.
It was like a beast, with its claws tearing countless wounds. It saw Chu Ye as its reserve food, and so was unwilling to let others take a bite.
It would rather kill this "reserve" before the fungal filaments could devour all the contamination—if it couldn’t eat, no one else would either.
The little mushrooms had always loved spicy things, and now their opponent was going berserk. To them, this was an exhilarating game with prizes on the line.
Their hunting instincts were roused by this beast.
The fungal filaments surrounded it from all sides to form a semi-enclosed cage while watching maliciously as the beast growled in threat, trapped.
The stalemate lasted a full half-hour.
Finally, Shen Ji pressed a finger against Chu Ye’s heart and commanded, "Eat."
The fungal filaments surged forward, capturing the beast and devouring it alive. The beast fought back desperately, but without its master present, it was left isolated and helpless—until it was completely consumed.
The moment the contamination was devoured, Chu Ye couldn't help but let out a scream. The excruciating pain forced him to use his last ounce of strength, yet all he could do was cry out in agony.
In his final moments of consciousness, Chu Ye seemed to feel something enveloping his entire body—cool and slippery, like a living silk quilt.
Meanwhile, Shen Ji abruptly opened his eyes.
His pupils instantly turned a vast, pale white.
The contamination detector in the isolation room emitted a single tone before short-circuiting with its screen going completely black.
Fine fungal filaments sprouted from Shen Ji's temples that exuded a thick, oppressive aura of contamination.
[Shen Ji?!]
The system was startled. [Pull back the contamination!]
Shen Ji glanced at the ruined detector, and the fungal threads swiftly wrapped around the entire isolation room, forming a translucent pink cocoon. They tightly sealed Shen Ji's contamination within the confined space, not allowing even a wisp to escape.
Only then did Shen Ji stand up. His heterochromatic eyes—one red, one white—fixed on the unconscious Chu Ye. While devouring the contamination within Chu Ye, he had glimpsed a pair of eyes.
Those eyes were green and engraved with the shapes of stars and moons, like those of an ancient deity gazing down upon mortals from the heavens.
They seemed to be watching from somewhere incredibly distant, yet through the contamination in Chu Ye, they had connected here, confronting Shen Ji across the void.
[This presence…] The system also detected something. [Is it really a Level S Pollutant?!]
Ding-ling-ling—
A phone ringtone that was impossible to ignore, pierced the silence of the isolated, signal-blocked room. Shen Ji glanced at the screen. The caller ID displayed four words:
[Shady Gardener]
A pungent odor lingered at the tip of Shen Ji's nose. Unlike their usual ravenous hunger for other Pollutants, the fungal threads now moved warily through the room, on high alert.
The overwhelming contamination told them—this was no prey.
This was a rival.
The phone kept ringing.
Shen Ji narrowed his eyes slightly before answering the call.
"Who are you?" came the voice from the other end.
It was an utterly bizarre voice—frail and aged yet tinged with childish innocence, like an asthmatic patient gasping their last breath or a newborn wailing into existence.
The strange voice crackled with electromagnetic interference, making Shen Ji suspect that his phone might short-circuit any second.
Yet his phone proved remarkably resilient and dutifully transmitting the distorted voice despite the heavy static.
"I've never seen you before. When did you appear?"
"Where are you?"
After a pause, the eerie voice added, "And why did you steal my seed?"
...Seed?
Shen Ji glanced down at the unconscious Chu Ye. Was this its seed?
[I see. Chu Ye is bait—a Level S Pollutant released for hunting, a cultivated delicacy. That’s why his contamination level has been strictly kept below 40, like free-range poultry—unnoticed and free to roam.]
The system’s explanation unsettled Shen Ji. His brow furrowed slightly.
Shen Ji’s features were naturally cold—handsome, but in a sharp, unyielding way. He had always tried to soften his edges, but now, paired with his already icy demeanor, that slight frown made him look utterly ruthless.
"You should be the one answering that," Shen Ji replied. His tone detached and aligned perfectly with the original story’s merciless depiction of Hui.
"If he’s your seed, why did he grow legs and wander into my territory?"
"If he dared to enter my domain, then he’s mine now.”
Silence.
The phone’s static persisted.
The fungal tendrils remained tense as the strange aura of another Pollutant lingering.
After several seconds, the voice finally spoke again.
"If he entered your territory, then the fault is his. You may dispose of him."
"So then… who exactly are you?"
[In the original work, Hui was the most elusive Pollutant—capable of fully masking its contamination to pass as human. Or perhaps, in the author’s outline, Hui was always the final villain. But because the story was rushed, the author dragged it out prematurely, exposing Hui.]
[It seems even in reality, Hui is an invisible figure among Level S Pollutants.]
"I’m a journalist," Shen Ji ventured, recalling the contact name on his phone.
"Journalist? Humans named you Journalist?" The voice seemed puzzled by the term. After a long pause, it asked curiously, "Is it like Gardener?"
"Humans call me Gardener. They told me it’s their word for those who tend to plant. I like that name."
Shen Ji’s gaze sharpened. "You’ve interacted with humans?"
"Occasionally, some humans wander into my nursery for reasons I don’t understand. Sometimes I let a few go, sometimes I keep them. They got excited and kept shouting 'Gardener!' at me. Some even attack me or uproot my seeds. That makes me angry, so I kill them."
"Occasionally, there are humans suitable to serve as seed incubators. In such cases, I let them carry the seeds away."
[...Truly worthy of being called a shady gardener.]
The Gardener was a Level S Pollutant mentioned in the original novel. This Level S Pollutant remained uncleared by the story's conclusion—unsurprising, given the author's rushed ending.
In the original work, The Gardener possessed an enormous plantation, and his contamination zone was called [Horror Botanical Garden].
Alongside [Abyss Zero], [Time Thicket], and [Moth Valley], it was known as one of the four forbidden contamination zones.
Why would a plantation bear such a horror-movie-like name? Because it contained nightmarish entities straight out of a horror film—seeds growing from human bodies, humanoid plants rooted in the ground and even trees sprouting human heads.
If you could imagine it, the plantation had it.
The original novel described the Gardener as 'the most terrifying Level S Pollutant in methodology.'
"I quite like the name 'Journalist’ too," Shen Ji said. "Where are you now?"
"I'm in my plantation," Gardener replied. "Why ask about my home? Planning to visit?"
Shen Ji responded with gentle politeness: "That could be arranged."
Once I locate your place, I'll raze your entire plantation to the ground! I'll dig up the very soil and turn it into farmland!
"You're strange," The Gardener's voice suddenly turned eerie and obsessive, their androgynous tone dripping with underworld menace.
"Don't you have territory of your own? Why encroach on another's domain?"
"Are you here to steal my land? If so, neither I nor my seeds will permit it!"
Dense contamination swirled through the isolation chamber. Had Shen Ji not preemptively enveloped the area with fungal filaments, the entire Containment Facility would have been affected. The slightest gap in his defenses might have made the contamination detectors on this floor explode.
Such was the terrifying contamination capacity of a Level S Pollutant.
[High-level Pollutants are territorial. They mostly remain in their contamination zones and rarely appear in cities. Your mention of finding his plantation has agitated him.]
"I'm not after your territory, but your seeds did invade mine," Shen Ji said, his tone decidedly unfriendly. "Care to try spreading more contamination this way?"
Silence fell on the other end.
The contamination presence seemed to freeze momentarily before the line clicked dead and the contamination fled as if this could erase the 'facts'.
Shen Ji:...
Exhaling softly, he retracted the fungal filaments from the isolation chamber and at the same time, his pupils returned to their normal black.
[To think Chu Ye was contaminated by the Level S Pollutant Gardener. In the original novel, no cure could be found and he ultimately died in the contamination zone.]
Shen Ji remained silent.
After confirming that it was at a normal contamination level, he exited the chamber.
Inspecting the ruined contamination detector and confirming it beyond repair, he summoned maintenance staff.
The prolonged silence grew heavy enough that even the system dared not speak.
Shen Ji's temperament was generally good-natured. Despite his cool appearance, he was fundamentally kind and often speaking nonsense but consistently acting more than talking.
Yet when this version of Shen Ji fell silent, he became genuinely terrifying—his eyes behind glasses turning icy and radiating an unapproachable aura.
"I can't treat fiction and reality as the same thing."
Suddenly, Shen Ji spoke up just like that.
[What do you mean?]
"In the novel, Chu Ye's sacrifice was just a few brief lines. I read it and moved on—I might have felt a slight emotional ripple for his sacrifice at the time, but ultimately, I knew it was just a story, not reality. But now that I'm here, I've met real people."
Whether it was Zhang Qingli, Wang Anle, Chu Ye, or even Wen Jingyu—who persisted in research despite his age and still worked at the lab bench—they were all living, breathing people.
Shen Ji repeated, "I can't conflate fiction with reality."
[So you saved them.]
Despite being a mechanical voice, there was an unmistakable tenderness in its tone—it was trying its best.
[Little journalist, you're no villain now. In the eyes of everyone at the facility, you're the savior who rescued countless lives.]
[You're the savior!]
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