Pollutant Disguise Plan (POLLUTANT)
Night amplifies unease, and unease leaves openings for contamination to creep in. That’s why the Anti-Contamination Control Center advises all residents to stay indoors after 10 PM.
It was currently 8:55 PM.
Dim yellow streetlights illuminated the road and the weathered signpost standing beside it.
The factories and office buildings lining the street had all gone dark. The looming silhouettes of those massive structures exuded an overwhelming sense of oppression and dread.
In front of the signpost stood the only three night-shift workers still out—all dressed in identical company uniforms with labels pinned to their chests. Their dark blue outfits were smudged with traces of oil and dust, making them look like a trio of machine maintenance workers.
Of the three, one sat on the waiting bench, another crouched by the roadside, and only one stood firmly upright.
And it was this steadily standing figure who maintained an impeccable presence. Even the grimy dark-blue janitor uniform couldn’t dull his striking aura.
"So... will this actually work?"
"As long as you keep that white hair hidden—tuck it into your cap, now." Chu Ye, crouching by the road, shot Li Zhiyan an accusatory glare.
Who was the hardest to disguise among the three? Without a doubt, it was Li Zhiyan.
Not only did this guy have blue eyes, but he also sported a head of unruly white hair—long, conspicuous, and impossible to ignore.
But they couldn’t leave Li Zhiyan behind. They were heading to the Gardener’s plantation, and Level S Pollutant could only be handled by S-class Mutants. Chu Ye wasn’t arrogant enough to think his B-class abilities could stand against a Level S threat.
Which meant the real challenge was figuring out how to smuggle Li Zhiyan onto the bus.
After criticizing Li Zhiyan for skipping work and the clothes Shen Ji bought, the reliable Chu Ye quickly contacted a company near the bus stop to procure three work uniforms. These uniforms even came with hats—wearing them not only covered their hair but also hid their eyes as long as they didn’t look up.
It was practically the perfect choice for concealing their identities!
Shen Ji stood nearby, calmly announcing the time. "Three minutes left."
"So why is Dr. Shen here?!" Chu Ye continued squatting by the roadside and kept glaring at Li Zhiyan. "Shouldn’t Dr. Shen be at the facility right now?"
"You don’t want to bring him along?" Li Zhiyan shrugged. "Think carefully—if you get contaminated by the Gardener again, I won’t be able to cure you."
Chu Ye was momentarily speechless.
"But... it’s dangerous."
"Overthinking it, aren’t you? Dr. Shen saved you from the Gardener’s contamination. Do you really think someone capable of that would be in danger?"
"I thought you admired and valued him?"
"Exactly because I admire and value him that I’m bringing him along. Endless protection is just discrimination."
Shen Ji’s voice remained composed. "Two minutes left. Can you two finish arguing by then?"
"Dr. Shen, did this guy trick you into coming?"
"Of course not," Shen Ji replied, his tone gentle yet firm. "As a medical worker at the facility, I share the same duty as you to protect civilians. If I can help, I’m more than willing."
"There’s no such thing as trickery when it comes to saving lives."
Chu Ye was silenced again.
Li Zhiyan spread his hands while giving Chu Ye a look that said, See?
Chu Ye felt a twinge of shame at Shen Ji’s words.
Right. Though he’d never shown it, Shen Ji was also a high-level Mutant. He had refused to join the Anti-Contamination Control Center for protection, choosing instead to stay at the facility—even a branch location—to treat contaminated patients. He worked overtime like any other doctor, without seeking special privileges, all for the sake of helping others.
His earlier remarks had practically been an insult.
[...You two are terrible. One says things just for show, and the other knows full well it’s just talk—yet neither tells Chu Ye the truth and instead teaming up to deceive him.]
‘Because explaining is troublesome, and lying is troublesome too,’ Shen Ji justified unapologetically. ‘This way, shutting him up is just right.’
‘Li Zhiyan playing along means he gets me.’
[...Sigh. The protagonist can’t be with the antagonist. Just can’t.]
"One minute left."
As soon as the words were spoken, headlights flickered at the end of the road.
The lights were barely brighter than the streetlamps, their dim glow barely piercing the night. If not for the surrounding darkness, they might not have even noticed the approaching bus.
As it drew closer, its appearance became clear.
The bus was painted in faded green, and its body mottled with rust. A layer of grime coated the windows, making it look so dilapidated it might fall apart at any moment. Shen Ji frowned slightly at the sight—it was a model he recognized all too well.
Indeed, it was a common modern bus design, down to the identical paint job.
[Novels are written by people. The author is a modern human—they can’t fabricate an entire world from scratch, so of course they draw from reality. Besides, the story’s setting is a modern society suddenly plagued by Pollutants.]
‘Quite nostalgic,’ Shen Ji sighed. ‘I once did an interview program where I randomly asked people on buses what happy things had happened to them that day. I filmed for three straight days and rode buses continuously for three whole days—it nearly made me carsick.’
With a hiss, the bus came to a stop at the station before its doors swiftly slid open.
The vehicle was completely empty, its interior eerily desolate.
Chu Ye, being the closest to the door, stood up from the roadside and boarded first, followed by Li Zhiyan, who kept his head lowered. Shen Ji was the last to step on.
Once inside, he made a show of swiping his bus card and also glanced at the driver as he did so.
The driver was clad in a standard bus operator’s uniform, his head bowed at an angle that obscured his face. Only his skeletal, withered hands gripping the steering wheel were visible, resembling nothing more than bare bones.
Shen Ji found a seat and had barely settled in when the bus lurched forward.
Almost instantly, the speed surged, nearly throwing all three passengers off balance. Li Zhiyan barely managed to keep his hat from flying off by pressing a hand firmly onto it.
Steadying himself, Chu Ye frowned and called out, "Driver, you’re going too fast. Do you even know what safe driving means?"
The system quipped: [Chu Ye’s kind of hilarious, asking a Pollutant if it understands safe driving.]
The driver remained silent, only accelerating further.
"Welcome aboard Fangbei Bus Line 7," crackled the announcement, its voice hoarse and distorted from years of neglect. "Next stop: Giant Rabbit Contamination Zone."
Not the Gardener’s Plantation.
Of course, they’d never expected to be lucky enough to land directly in the plantation.
Bus 7739 appeared randomly in cities and indiscriminately ferrying passengers to various contamination zones—the Gardener’s Plantation being just one of them.
Prior to this, Chu Ye had conducted extensive research and even interviewed surviving victims. Aside from the fact that this driver dumped passengers in contamination zones, the Pollutant behaved like an ordinary bus operator. After careful analysis, Chu Ye concluded that it, too, was bound by lingering obsessions and rules.
Even as a Pollutant, it adhered to certain driving regulations.
Chu Ye rose from his seat and approached the driver, standing directly in front of him.
"Excuse me, driver," he said politely, "could we change the next stop? We’d prefer not to go to the Giant Rabbit Contamination Zone."
Clearly taken aback by the interaction, the driver stiffened before slowly turning his head like a marionette to meet Chu Ye’s gaze.
His face was as gaunt and desiccated as his hands, resembling a mummified corpse with only a thin layer of hardened skin stretched over bone. His hollow eye sockets held no visible pupils.
"Passenger, our route is fixed," the driver rasped in an aged voice. "Please do not interfere with my driving."
"We have urgent business elsewhere," Chu Ye pressed.
"No," the driver intoned. "Against regulations. Can’t."
Chu Ye pulled out his credentials. "Fine. I am a Commander, and I’m commandeering this bus. Can we change the stop now?"
The driver fell silent. Just as Chu Ye was gauging the likelihood of compliance, the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes.
Caught off guard, Chu Ye nearly crashed into the windshield.
"It’s all your fault…"
The driver’s hollow eyes bore into him. "If you hadn’t forced me to break the company rules, I wouldn’t have been fired! If I hadn’t been fired, I wouldn’t have died!"
"And now you still want me to break the rules?!"
"You all deserve to die!"
The contamination exploded rapidly inside the vehicle.
Onlookers Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan: ...
Li Zhiyan silently took off his hat to cover his face. Not only had this guy failed to use the rules to get the driver to take them to the plantation, but he'd also triggered the driver's obsession point. Now they were in trouble.
He moved from the back to sit beside Shen Ji. "Who would've thought he could become a high-ranking official at the Anti-Contamination Control Center?"
Shen Ji replied politely, "Mr. Chu must have exceptional qualities to hold such a position."
"Li Zhiyan, no one would mistake you for mute if you kept quiet!" Chu Ye struggled to get up from the floor while pressing against the front window. His gaze fixed on the driver, eyes smoldering with anger.
"I wanted to talk this through properly, but you don't seem interested in civilized conversation."
In an instant, the gun muzzle pressed against the Pollutant creature's forehead. The driver froze completely, even the spreading contamination pausing momentarily.
Chu Ye stared at him expressionlessly. "Use that mutated brain of yours to think carefully before speaking."
[Chu Ye, B-class Mutant, High-ranking Commander of Anti-Contamination Control Center. Talent: 'Precision Sniper'. He can hit Pollutants with 100% accuracy within 300 meters. This might sound like an ordinary ability because good marksmen could do the same. But what if his bullets have extraordinary effects on Pollutants?]
[A single bullet from him can easily corrode an ordinary Level D Pollutant, eliminating the need to send the corpse to the Contaminant Disposal Center.]
[The contamination-suppression bullets currently used by security teams were developed and mass-produced by the Academy of Sciences after studying his ammunition.]
"Now, change the destination," Chu Ye commanded. "Take us to the Gardener's plantation."
Even without visible eyes in the driver's hollow sockets, Shen Ji could sense its growing shock and confusion.
What? A Pollutant is being threatened by a human?
What? This human didn't want to go to a low-level contamination zone because he preferred a high-level one?
Incomprehensible, but…
"No one can make me change my route!"
The bus doors flew open as a sinister wind rushed in.
It was a strange sensation—Shen Ji felt he should remain seated, yet the wind blew him straight off his chair.
Li Zhiyan grabbed him, and both tumbled out through the rear door, while Chu Ye was thrown out the front.
"It's the rules," Li Zhiyan explained. "The driver has complete control. He can eject us regardless of anything."
Chu Ye stood up and attempted to shoot at the bus, but the doors snapped shut. The vehicle sped away with its cheerful horn echoing through the darkness.
[Yes, exactly this.] The system quickly popped up to explain. [This is the same horn sound victims hear when abandoned by the bus in contamination zones.]
Shen Ji: ...
We didn't need your explanation!
[What explanation? I'm here to mock you—two high-level Mutants and one high-level Pollutant, dumped in the wilderness by a bus.]
[Hilarious.]
Shen Ji: ...
I'd prefer the explanation.
"What now?" Chu Ye dusted himself off. "Do we chase that bus or not?"
He showed no panic, only the calm of someone who'd anticipated this outcome.
The Gardener's plantation had been wreaking havoc for so many years, and the Control Center had certainly considered cleaning it up. But helplessly, apart from the regularly quaking Abyss Zero, other forbidden contamination zones remained extremely mysterious—not just their exact locations, but even which regions they were in remained unknown.
They were mostly testing Bus No. 7739.
"But where is this place?" Shen Ji asked. "It's so dark."
"Yeah," Li Zhiyan looked up at the sky. "So dark it's making me sleepy."
"Don't fall asleep!" Chu Ye took out his phone, trying to locate their current position.
Shen Ji comforted Chu Ye in a gentle tone, making Chu Ye marvel at how considerate Shen Ji was while cursing Li Zhiyan: "You abstract piece of work, don't you dare actually lie down to sleep!"
Amid the chaos, Shen Ji glanced into the distance.
A flash of white passed through his pupils, and a faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
How could he be so easily thrown off by a bus? Right, little mushrooms?
Right-o!
The mycelium condensed on the windows, sprouting clusters of mushroom caps.
The driver didn't notice the extra additions to his bus. Laughing hoarsely as he drove, he ranted:
"Hahaha! Serves you right!"
"Trying to stop me from driving! Messing with my route!"
"Get lost, all of you!"
He accelerated further with the horn blaring incessantly. Thick contamination permeated the entire bus, which only made the mycelium happier. They extended their tendrils and kept multiplying rapidly, covering the entire passenger area in mere seconds.
The driver heard a faint cracking sound. Instinctively, he checked the rearview mirror—the moment he saw clearly, his twisted grin froze on his face.
Plump mushrooms had inexplicably overrun the bus that were still multiplying and rolling gleefully in the contaminated air.
Realizing they'd been spotted, the mycelium stopped hiding. They lunged at the driver's seat.
This was the main course!
But Master said we could only beat it up, not eat it.
Maybe just a tiny nibble? It won't die, it won't die!
We'll be sneaky, Master won't notice...
Eep! Caught.
Dejectedly, the mycelium spat the bus driver back out. By now, the driver was as terrified as a rabbit as he huddled in his seat covered in reluctant-to-leave fungal threads. The Pollutant's ingrained survival instincts screamed that this was an unwinnable fight.
"What do you want!" the driver shrieked at the mycelium. "Stay away!"
"What?!"
The mycelium clung to the doors and extended a tendril to point insistently in one direction.
Their meaning was clear: Drive us back! How dare you defy our Master!
Disobedient snack!
……..
"This place is pretty far from F City, and there's no signal."
Chu Ye studied the map in the darkness. "If we head south for a while, we should reach inhabited areas."
"It's so dark, can't we just sleep here for the night?"
"...Do you think Dr. Shen and I are as invincible as you, able to sleep in snow during winter without freezing to death?"
Li Zhiyan yawned, then turned his head slightly with a raised eyebrow.
"Hmm?"
“What’s wrong with you now?”
Chu Ye looked at him, then followed Li Zhiyan’s gaze into the darkness, where a single point of light flickered.
The light rapidly approached with the wind from its speed brushing past them—and in the next moment, a familiar bus screeched to a halt before them.
With a hiss, the doors slid open.
The bus driver stared at them with hollow, resentful eyes. His already withered skin seemed even more sunken.
Chu Ye: “…?”
“Bus No. 7739? It came back?”
By the time the bus arrived, the fungal tendrils had already silently retracted. The vehicle was still eerily empty, appearing devoid of anything inside. Yet for some inexplicable reason, it had returned.
Shen Ji feigned confusion as he asked Li Zhiyan, “Why did it come back? Is there some new rule at play?”
Li Zhiyan pondered for a moment before nodding solemnly. “Aside from being batshit crazy, I can’t think of any other reason.”
The driver slammed on the horn, his pitch-black eyes brimming with even deeper resentment.
“Let’s just get on,” Chu Ye said. “We’ll figure it out once we’re inside.”
Shen Ji boarded last.
Both Li Zhiyan and Chu Ye were slightly more tense about the unexpected situation, and even the usual drowsiness in Li Zhiyan’s eyes had vanished, replaced by sharp scrutiny fixed on the driver.
Shen Ji made his way to the back of the bus. After sitting down, he casually stretched out his hand to the side.
Tiny mushrooms stealthily crawled into his palm, then slipped up his sleeve, hiding beneath his clothes.
Good job, little ones. Extra snacks later!
“The contamination’s thinned,” Li Zhiyan suddenly remarked.
Shen Ji glanced at him. “Huh?”
“The contamination on it has thinned,” Li Zhiyan repeated. “Almost like… something forcibly licked off a layer of it.”
Shen Ji: “…”
The fungal tendrils guiltily burrowed deeper into his sleeves.
“That's strange?” Shen Ji continued playing dumb. “Could something like that even exist?”
“It’s a contamination event. Nothing’s off the table,” Li Zhiyan replied before turning to look at him. “Honestly, the fact that this thing reversed back to us is already bizarre enough.”
Overhearing their conversation, the driver angrily honked the horn again in frustration.
Unlike the cheerful blare when he’d abandoned them earlier, this honk was laden with resentment, fury, and a stifled sense of powerlessness.
After observing for a while longer, Li Zhiyan abruptly spoke up. “Chu Ye, let’s recruit it.”
“Recruit?” Chu Ye, who had been silent until now, gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“This thing has its uses. It can locate contamination zones we can’t find—like that Giant Rabbit Contamination Zone from earlier. I remember it once disrupted W City before vanishing. But leaving it unchecked would cause problems, so recruiting it is the better option.”
The more Li Zhiyan thought about it, the more convinced he became. “We’ll make it the Anti-Contamination Control Center’s dedicated route mapper for contamination zones.”
Chu Ye: “…”
Only Li Zhiyan could say something like this.
The Anti-Contamination Control Center’s stance on contamination had always been “Better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one escape.” High-level Pollutants could genuinely slaughter tens of thousands, and every last one was on the Control Center’s eradication list.
But Li Zhiyan was different. Instead of killing every Pollutant on sight, his first thought was: Can this thing be useful?
So he cultivated an entire yard of contaminated flowers, and now he even wants to nationalize Bus No. 7739.
"Not until we confirm it's harmless," Chu Ye refused. "Who knows if it might suddenly dump passengers mid-route and skip work to contaminate ordinary people?"
"Beep!" The driver honked the horn with exaggerated fury.
Tonight had been disastrous—it had picked up three lunatics.
One was covered in mushrooms and beat it so hard its contamination peeled off, all just to force it to return and drop people into an S-class contamination zone.
Another was outright insane, trying to recruit it as a government employee on the bus. Like hell it would become some overworked beast of burden!
And the last one badmouthed it! That was the worst!
Shen Ji's expression remained unchanged, though internally he was already complaining to his system.
'Li Zhiyan's personality is wasted as a protagonist. He should've been a ruthless capitalist—he'd definitely save enough to become a millionaire.'
[...You're not much better yourself.]
[Bus No. 7739's contamination ability is likely spatial in nature. It can connect multiple cities and contamination zones, with the bus itself acting as a unified entity. Though not highly aggressive, its ability ranks exceptionally high—like a specialized portal. So Li Zhiyan's idea isn't bad, provided we ensure the bus won't flee.]
[Right now, it's only behaving because your fungal threads beat it into submission. The moment you leave, I guarantee it'll revert to its original, antisocial vehicular personality.]
Just then, the bus lurched violently.
Chu Ye braced himself, thinking the driver was about to eject them again, and frowned as he prepared to react.
But the next moment, the sky began to brighten.
Chu Ye froze before turning to look ahead.
The light was strange—neither sunlight nor artificial, but a shimmering, crystalline glow that grew more dizzying the longer one stared. Beyond it stretched wooden fences, with white mist drifting in the air behind them.
A peculiar dog was tied outside the fence, utterly indifferent to the bus's arrival—it didn't even glance their way.
With a creak, the bus stopped, and its doors slowly opened.
"Get out," the driver snarled while glaring at them. "Your stop's here. Move it!"
The three stepped off, and Bus No. 7739 sped away without a trace of exhaust.
Standing before the wooden fence, Chu Ye's gaze wavered momentarily, as if he'd glimpsed something.
A familiar voice echoed in his ears—his adjutant's.
"Captain!" the voice shouted. "There's a sign up ahead! It says—"
"Says what?"
"Come see for yourself!"
Chu Ye sprinted in one direction.
Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan exchanged a glance before quickly following.
Among the three, only one might have ever visited this botanical garden before: Chu Ye.
Once, he'd led his team into the garden by mistake.
All his teammates were lost within, and he alone returned to reality but riddled with contamination disease—having lost not just his entire unit, but also his memories.
Now, Chu Ye was back.
And those buried memories were finally resurfacing, piece by piece.
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