Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
A downpour swept through City Q.
Yes, you guessed it—artificial rain again.
Heavy rainfall severely disrupted pollen dispersal, washing airborne particles straight to the ground. After deliberation, the Anti-Contamination Control Center waved their hand grandly: Make it rain over City Q!
Li Zhiyan, clad in a raincoat, stared up at the pouring sky with his disdain impossible to hide.
Jiang Ying rushed over through the rain while clutching a laptop in her arms.
"Captain!" she said. "You've been waiting a while, haven't you? Let's hurry inside."
"You didn't wear a raincoat?" Li Zhiyan looked at her. "Your clothes are soaked. Aren't you cold?"
"It's fine. Mutants have strong physiques—a little rain won't make me sick." Jiang Ying opened her laptop. "Let's hurry inside."
Li Zhiyan sighed.
He took off the raincoat he had practically welded to himself, then removed his guard team uniform jacket and draped it over Jiang Ying's shoulders before putting the raincoat back on. Finally satisfied, he said,
"Let's go."
Jiang Ying froze for a moment. She glanced at the jacket on her, then at the man swaggering ahead in his raincoat, a faint smile flickering in her eyes.
If Li Zhiyan weren’t such a good person, who’d bother working for such an eccentric guy?
This was the guard team’s dormitory area.
Everyone who joined the team was assigned housing, but during emergencies, they had to stay in temporary dorms, just like in the facility.
The victim had been discovered by their roommate in one of these dorms.
The moment they stepped inside, the thick stench of blood hit Li Zhiyan’s nose.
The bedding was drenched in blood, and the corpse was mutilated beyond recognition. The victim seemed to have died from excessive blood loss after having their limbs brutally hacked off as a severed arm lay on the floor, stiff and deathly pale.
"Five similar cases were reported today, and residential areas are still sending updates—there might be more," Jiang Ying said as she photographed the body for records. "There are no signs of struggle on the corpse, which is strange. How could someone not resist while being dismembered alive?"
Li Zhiyan glanced at the neighboring bed. "Did the roommate notice anything?"
"Not a sound. They said they’re a light sleeper—any noise would wake them—but they slept peacefully tonight. They only noticed when they woke up to use the bathroom and smelled blood."
A mysteriously appearing peach blossom tree and no detectable contamination levels, yet the deaths were horrifically brutal.
Li Zhiyan thought for a moment. "Aside from confessing their feelings to someone during the day, did this person do anything else unusual?"
"Unusual?"
Jiang Ying pondered, then pulled up the records. After reviewing them, she hissed in surprise.
"Does successfully confessing count?"
"Their confession was accepted?"
"Exactly. It’s rare for someone to succeed after being affected." Jiang Ying pulled up the confirmed victim list, her eyes widening slightly in shock.
"Every single victim had their confession accepted."
Li Zhiyan nodded. "Then we’ve identified the contamination pattern. Find and protect everyone who succeeded in their confessions."
"Understood."
Jiang Ying immediately relayed the orders.
The peach blossom tree’s influence was too widespread for the Anti-Contamination Control Center to monitor the entire area at once.
Different guard teams were assigned zones and recorded affected individuals in their sectors. With Jiang Ying’s command, all units would mobilize immediately.
Li Zhiyan crouched down before dipping his fingers into the victim’s blood. Soon, the blood transformed into blue specks of light that circled the corpse twice before vanishing.
This meant the blood contained a trace of contamination but was too minimal to trace its source.
"Captain, new lead." Jiang Ying, wearing a wireless earpiece, leaned in. "Many people reported having strange dreams last night."
Li Zhiyan looked at her. "What kind of dreams?"
"They said they dreamed of a peach blossom tree, with a familiar person standing beneath it waving at them. About 80% of our security team had similar dreams."
Jiang Ying rubbed her temples. "I didn't have that dream because I didn't sleep last night."
"Captain, did you have it?"
Li Zhiyan responded, "Yes, and I remember it quite clearly."
The person lying beneath the peach tree reaching out to him, disheveled clothes revealing a glimpse of pale... jade-like skin... He wondered if this person looked the same without glasses as in the dream.
"Confirmed—everyone who slept within the affected area had this dream, including high-level mutants." Jiang Ying recorded this clue.
Though they didn't know what the dreams signified, they had to stay vigilant.
Several had died inexplicably on the first day. If they couldn't find more clues, tonight's death toll might be higher.
Even a peach blossom calamity wasn't this sinister.
As she wrote, Jiang Ying glanced at Li Zhiyan standing by the window watching the rain, his raincoat still damp, looking as if he might jump at any moment.
"Boss," Jiang Ying asked, "who did you dream about?"
Li Zhiyan turned to her. "Who do you think?"
"Definitely not someone from our team." Jiang Ying pondered. "Butterflies? The plants you tend to? Or that Dr. Shen?"
At the mention of Dr. Shen, she noticed his gaze flicker slightly.
Well, it was Dr. Shen then.
Though she'd never met this Dr. Shen, Jiang Ying was already impressed. In such a short time, he'd managed to handle their terrifying Captain Li—no small feat given Li Zhiyan's notoriously abstract personality that drove everyone mad.
Anyone who could interact normally with Li Zhiyan was practically a saint!
"Dreaming of anyone would be the same," Li Zhiyan said. "But he's different."
Jiang Ying: "..."
That made no sense at all.
"How is he different?"
"He's good-looking." Li Zhiyan said with utmost seriousness. "So good-looking I almost thought he was a Pollutant."
"Dreaming about him is perfectly normal. Anyone who's seen him would dream of him at night."
Jiang Ying: "..."
She shouldn't have asked.
……..
Shen Ji arrived at the Containment Facility after waking up but immediately noticed a group discussing something, with Zhang Qingli among them.
As he approached, he caught snippets about 'dreams.'
"Xiao Ji, you're early today," an older doctor greeted him.
Shen Ji nodded. "I slept early last night."
"Did you dream last night?" the doctor asked curiously. "Who did you dream about?"
"A dream..." Shen Ji remained composed but hesitated slightly, though he had no idea what they were talking about. Given how many were discussing it, it must have been a shared strange dream.
'What dream?' Shen Ji asked his system. 'Omniscient System, do you know?'
[I—I don't know! Hold on, stall them while I check the surveillance!]
"There's no need to be embarrassed. Everyone's dreams have been strange—we were just discussing it earlier," the doctor said, mistaking Shen Ji's silence for shyness and trying to reassure him. "The security team called earlier and said dreaming is a normal phenomenon. Most people in the affected area had dreams."
"Really? But I still feel..." Shen Ji glanced at Zhang Qingli, his eyes pleading for help.
Seeing someone usually composed and unflappable become so flustered over being questioned about a dream—even resorting to asking for assistance—made him seem all the more pitiful.
Zhang Qingli couldn't hold back any longer. "Alright, if Shen Ji doesn't want to talk about it, let it go. Stop prying into others' privacy."
[You're really tricking poor Xiao Zhang into charging into battle for you like this.]
'What trick? I am genuinely pitiful here. I have no idea what dreams they had, yet they're pressuring me to explain,' Shen Ji retorted righteously. 'Time to guilt-trip them!'
[...]
[Anyway, I checked the surveillance footage earlier and found their previous conversation.]
[Last night, nearly everyone in the facility had a bizarre dream about a massive peach blossom tree in full bloom, with a familiar figure standing beneath it waving at them. Though the person varied, the fact that everyone dreamed this simultaneously is highly suspicious.]
[Ah, it wasn’t just the facility—people outside had the same dream too, and in staggering numbers.]
Shen Ji asked curiously, 'How do you know?'
[I’m the system. The security team’s defenses are like paper to me. Let me see... Hmm, several people who successfully confessed their feelings yesterday died, but there’s no trace of contamination. No clues at all. The peach blossom tree is just an ordinary one, yet it can’t be removed...]
Listening to the system, Shen Ji murmured, "So it really is a peach blossom calamity."
Zhang Qingli overheard him. "You dreamed about the subject of your peach blossom misfortune?"
Shen Ji: "..."
What was the point of having such sharp ears?
"I dreamed of someone... complicated," Shen Ji sighed. "Actually, I woke up early because of this dream. The emotions were so intense they startled me awake."
[After being fooled by you so many times, Zhang Qingli still hasn’t grown suspicious. He’s practically a saint.]
Ignoring the system’s jab, Shen Ji asked, "Who did you dream about?"
"I..." Zhang Qingli looked queasy and hesitated for several seconds before answering, "Director Wen."
Shen Ji: "..."
He pictured Director Wen—always smiling with those crescent eyes and waving at him from under a peach blossom tree.
What a horrifying image.
Reading the emotion in Shen Ji’s eyes, Zhang Qingli covered his face. "So I woke up terrified and didn’t dare sleep again. I just can’t imagine Director Wen waving at me under a peach blossom tree. It’s so bizarre it’s practically a nightmare."
Shen Ji patted his back sympathetically. "It’s alright. It was just a dream. None of it was real."
"So who did you dream about?"
"Ah, I..." Shen Ji hesitated, then opted to fabricate a name. It had to be someone familiar but not too close—someone whose background he knew well enough to justify later.
"Li Zhiyan."
[Wait—who did you just say?!]
'What else? Li Zhiyan is the protagonist of this novel. If I’m going to claim familiarity with anyone, of course it’s the protagonist. It’s not like I know Director Wen better than Li Zhiyan, right?'
["I-is that so?] The system hesitated.
Zhang Qingli nodded. "I've figured it out now."
Shen Ji looked at him in confusion. "Figured out what?"
"Your standards for acquaintances are different from normal people, just like how your definition of jokes differs from others." Zhang Qingli seemed to have an epiphany. "Even if you're not close to Li Zhiyan, you can dream about him at night. Even if your jokes are terrible, you confidently believe everyone will love them."
"I completely understand now."
Shen Ji: "..."
That was some filthy language.
After collecting the medications they needed to distribute that day, they headed to Zone I. Having slept poorly the night before, Zhang Qingli kept yawning as they walked.
"How's that patient of yours doing?" Shen Ji asked, referring to the one who had escaped last night to confess to Zhang Qingli.
Rubbing his eyes, Zhang Qingli replied, "We adjusted the dosage and ratio. Since this patient appears to be affected by the peach blossom tree, we're administering separate medication for now."
"Speaking of which, I'm actually delivering her meds this time. Come with me—I'm worried she might escape again."
Shen Ji quickly calculated his remaining workload and confirmed it wouldn't delay his off-duty time before nodding. "Of course, no problem."
"We're colleagues after all. Helping each other out is only natural."
"I knew you'd agree," Zhang Qingli sighed. "But don't overdo it with the help—don't exhaust yourself."
[...Though he should thank us, I'm seriously impressed by your ability to talk the talk with anyone.]
'That's called communication skills. You wouldn't understand, being an AI.'
[True enough. Most people couldn't pull that off.]
When they reached yesterday's isolation room, the patient seemed to still be in bed and was completely buried under blankets with no visible trace of her at first glance.
Zhang Qingli first pressed the medication delivery alert, but there was no response from inside. With a slight hiss, he activated the contamination detector.
The contamination levels appeared normal and unchanged from yesterday, so he checked the other readings. After a moment, his gaze lingered on the life-sign monitor beside it, hesitating for several seconds.
Shen Ji, standing beside him, also saw the reading: Life signs fluctuation—0.
This wasn't unusual for contaminated patients. The contamination caused all sorts of mutations, rendering traditional detection methods unreliable. As a patient contaminated by the Decaying Organism, her life signs were already minimal due to the wood transformation.
"Should we go in?" Shen Ji asked.
Unless absolutely necessary, medical staff rarely opened isolation room doors—both to protect the patients and prevent secondary contamination.
After a brief silence, Zhang Qingli said, "I'll check inside. Keep watch at the door for me."
With that, he entered the security code and identification then unlocked the isolation room door.
Fully suited in protective gear, Zhang Qingli stepped inside.
The patient who had confessed to him last night lay quietly in bed. Reaching out to wake her, he barely touched the blanket's edge when a limb dropped off.
Wood-transformed patients didn't bleed—there was no metallic scent, just a faint woody aroma as the limb hit the floor with barely a sound.
Zhang Qingli froze with his hand suspended midair for several seconds before he pulled back the covers.
Beneath lay was scattered wooden fragments vaguely shaped like human limbs, with the patient's eyes peacefully closed as if in serene sleep.
...She was dead. Right here in the Containment Facility's isolation room.
Shen Ji rushed in to pull him out and immediately called Wen Jingyu, who took the matter seriously and promised to come at once.
For now, the two waited in the lounge area.
Zhang Qingli sat slumped in a chair, head bowed. After a long silence, he finally spoke.
"I should have paid more attention to her," Zhang Qingli said. "I knew she was affected. If only I'd spent more time observing..."
"You couldn't have known this would happen. We have so many patients to care for—where would we find the extra time?" Shen Ji handed him an opened bottle of mineral water. "Drink some water to clear your head."
Zhang Qingli accepted the bottle. "Thank you."
'But didn't Zhang Qingli reject her confession? Why did she die?'
[I checked the surveillance footage—one advantage of the facility is that every isolation room has cameras capturing every detail clearly.]
[Yesterday, before attacking Zhang Qingli, she had confessed to a patient in the neighboring isolation room—a middle-aged man who couldn't find a wife. He accepted her proposal and planned to marry her after recovery.]
Shen Ji fell silent for three seconds and frowning as he struggled to process this information.
What an unjust way to die.
Soon, Wen Jingyu arrived with a team. He instructed them to collect the body and temporarily store it in the special processing unit, to be sent to the Containment Headquarters after the peach blossom tree incident was resolved. Wen Jingyu also comforted Zhang Qingli, informing him that there had been cases of sudden deaths occurring outside the facility at night.
The security team was still investigating, so he shouldn't feel burdened.
Finally, Director Wen alerted all staff about the incident and instructed the medical personnel to check whether any of their assigned patients had mysteriously died due to unforeseen events.
Shen Ji verified each of his patients one by one—no issues found.
[It wouldn't dare. Even if there are no signs of contamination now, such bizarre incidents are undoubtedly linked to it. Since it's Pollutant, they wouldn't dare act under your mycelium's watch.]
[Your patients will be fine.]
Shen Ji slipped his hands into the pockets of his white coat and walked to the facility's entrance to gaze outside.
There had been heavy rain that morning, making the weather even colder.
Reportedly, the Anti-Contamination Control Center had initiated artificial rainfall to suppress pollen dispersal.
But artificial rain had its limits—only so many rain clouds existed. The air was damp and the ground was muddy, yet the distant peach blossom tree continued to bloom quietly.
Standing at the facility's entrance, he could still catch the faint, sweet scent of peach blossoms in the air.
Artificial rain was only a temporary solution.
'Is Li Zhiyan braving the rain to work again?' Shen Ji mused. 'Does the Anti-Contamination Control Center have a grudge against him? Every time there's a contamination incident, they resort to artificial rainfall.'
[Given Li Zhiyan's style, it's highly likely he's doing this deliberately. The Anti-Contamination Control Center is completely under his thumb—they resent it but dare not speak up and only express their dissatisfaction in these petty ways.]
In the original story, as a Mutant with the "Mimicry Butterfly" ability, Li Zhiyan detested rain—one of the few quirks that revealed his abstract personality.
Whenever it rained, he would stand at the doorway in a raincoat while staring at the sky and declaring, "The rain will wet my wings."
Even though he had no wings.
No sooner had this thought crossed Shen Ji's mind, a light drizzle began to fall again—how fitting.
As he turned to leave, he spotted a familiar figure.
Li Zhiyan stood in the drizzling rain as usual and was wearing his transparent raincoat with the hood up, silently watching him. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been standing there as his raincoat was already covered in droplets, yet he hadn't made a single sound.
'...When did he get here?'
[...No idea.]
"Mr. Li here to supervise work again?" Shen Ji finally chose to speak first.
"No. Came to see you." Li Zhiyan walked over in his raincoat. Despite the full-body coverage, he'd still gotten somewhat damp as his long white hair clumped together in wet strands.
He didn't seem to mind though and just simply pulled back his hood with a casual flick.
"Here for your flowers?"
"Sort of." Surprisingly, Li Zhiyan was being unusually brief today.
The man wasn't normally taciturn—in the original story he appeared quite reliable, while in reality he was absurdly eccentric and rather talkative. This was the first time he'd limited himself to just two sentences when meeting Shen Ji.
But truthfully, Li Zhiyan just couldn't be bothered to speak.
Rainy days were awful, putting him in a foul mood. Yet the moment he saw Shen Ji, he couldn't help recalling that dream. He'd even found himself staring at Shen Ji in the rain and gradually merging the two figures in his mind.
So he stood there watching while internally wrestling with himself.
No, that was just a dream. The real Shen Ji would never reach out to him—he'd be too busy being disgusted.
But he does look good all properly dressed.
So Shen Ji's the serious type who'd never let his clothes get so disheveled—at least on the surface.
Yet he looked equally good in disarray...
After all these years, Li Zhiyan was discovering for the first time that he might actually be a sucker for good looks.
Or maybe it was because Shen Ji's personality perfectly matched his ideal standards, with the handsome face being an enormous bonus.
"The flowers are at my dorm. Come with me to get them." Shen Ji didn't question his strange silence.
The facility's dorm required keycard access but didn't restrict guests. After swiping his card, Shen Ji led Li Zhiyan inside, who obediently followed behind. Of course, Li Zhiyan's distinctive appearance still drew recognition from several residents along the way.
Upon reaching Shen Ji's room, the door unlocked with a fingerprint scan.
Shen Ji gestured to the sofa.
"Make yourself comfortable."
The mycelium had fled at lightning speed before Li Zhiyan even entered—they remembered to avoid this person, though they couldn't understand why their master would bring the enemy into their territory...
'Is this a tactic to lure the enemy in deep for complete annihilation?!'
Feeling the mycelium's excited vibrations, Shen Ji silently ordered them to hide properly and not let Li Zhiyan notice them.
The mycelium reluctantly retreated into the cracks, sulking.
Hospitality still mattered so, Shen Ji rummaged through cabinets and produced a can of aged tea leaves, likely left behind by some previous roommate.
Well, if poisonous mushrooms couldn't kill Li Zhiyan, some expired tea shouldn't be a problem.
While Shen Ji prepared the tea, Li Zhiyan surveyed the temporary living space.
The room was impeccably neat without a single item out of place, save for a few open books on the coffee table. Though temporary, it was clear Shen Ji maintained it regularly.
On the windowsill sat two potted plants—the half-bloomed flower had now fully opened with its faint blue glow illuminating the sill, while the smaller bud had also raised its head.
Shen Ji had nurtured them well.
"What's the situation with that sudden contamination incident?" Shen Ji placed the teacup in front of Li Zhiyan. "We lost a patient at our shelter who was confessing their feelings."
"Jiang Ying is investigating the details, but that's actually why I came to see you."
Li Zhiyan didn't drink the tea, he just looked at Shen Ji. "I might confess my feelings to you."
Shen Ji: ...???
[...Huh?]
"What?" Shen Ji nearly jumped back three meters. "No no no, there's no possibility between us!"
Li Zhiyan: ...
He looked slightly hurt, but explained seriously, "Not in that sense. I mean the act of 'confession' itself."
"If we can't identify the contamination method, high-level Mutants will attempt this behavior to locate the contamination source. We'll confess our feelings and have the recipient agree to fulfill the condition."
"I see." Shen Ji sighed in relief. "Then why me?"
Li Zhiyan gazed at Shen Ji, taking several seconds before speaking solemnly.
"Jiang Ying's analysis shows that everyone affected by the pollen had a dream featuring someone familiar to them—a kind of delusion. If they show signs of mental contamination, they'll most likely confess to the person they dreamed about. So targeting the dream subjects is the safest approach."
Shen Ji: ...
[Is he implying that he dreamed about you last night?]
‘Isn’t it obvious? Don’t ask!’
[No, why would he dream about you?!]
The system let out a shrill scream, [Shen Ji, you must not agree to this! Reject him harshly, now!]
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