Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The blood trickling down the side of his neck had soaked into Zhou Xiangzhe's combat suit, giving off the smell of iron.

After handing Shen Wang the candy, Zhou Xiangzhe pressed a hand over the wound. But a moment later, when he lowered his hand, the wound had already closed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Having used Devour on the Deer God Entity, Zhou Xiangzhe had indeed paid an enormous price — but he'd also gained some advantages no human could possess.

Like an extremely fast healing rate, and part of the Deer God Entity's Contaminated Talent.

An equivalent exchange, like something dangling at the edge of a cliff.

Though he hadn't asked about it, Zhou Xiangzhe was deeply puzzled that Shen Wang had bitten him — so much so that the questions kept looping through his head.

'Why did he bite me?'

'Since when does he bite people during an episode? Has he bitten anyone besides me?'

'…Does biting make him feel a little better?'

It really was hard to understand. Zhou Xiangzhe knew about Shen Wang's condition — knew that during an episode he'd fall into an uncontrollable state of ravenous hunger and turn fiercely aggressive. But back at the Orphanage, Shen Wang had never grabbed someone and bitten them during an episode. He'd only snatch the food out of everyone's hands and cram it into his stomach.

It wasn't a good habit — it scared the other kids, and it made Shen Wang eat too much and wreck his stomach. So the Principal would lock Shen Wang in solitary confinement, providing him only the standard three meals a day. And of course, it was always Zhou Xiangzhe who brought him the food.

At first Shen Wang would attack him, but later he stopped, because Zhou Xiangzhe never brought a single extra bite of food beyond the meal he was supposed to deliver.

It wasn't until the world stabilized and conditions at the Orphanage improved a little that Zhou Xiangzhe started saving up the candy he was given, then secretly slipping it to Shen Wang during his episodes.

And now, the only conclusion Zhou Xiangzhe could draw was that Shen Wang had probably developed this issue during all the time they'd been separated — some kind of pica, born from an appetite his episodes left unsatisfied?

Right. That was the only way to explain it.

'Once we're out, let's find him a good doctor.'

Zhou Xiangzhe thought, calmly, in the end.

If Shen Wang had known what he was thinking, he'd have frowned in the strangest way.

You've gone all the way to pica and you still don't suspect it's about you — just how much do you love me?!

Once he'd confirmed the wound on the side of his neck had healed and Shen Wang had calmed down considerably from before, Zhou Xiangzhe finally went back to studying that painting on the wall. His sight had only just returned, but luckily the light in this run-down Gallery was dim enough that it didn't sear his eyes.

Shen Wang watched Zhou Xiangzhe's back with the candy in his mouth, doubt in his black eyes.

Sometimes Zhou Xiangzhe's attitude toward him was genuinely too intriguing to read. Was Zhou Xiangzhe really this tolerant a person? But could someone who'd risen to the position of Central City's God of War truly be this kind?

Bringing him songs, bringing him candy, fine with getting bitten — not even a single question.

It couldn't be that Zhou Xiangzhe actually liked him, could it?

Shen Wang mused idly: I wonder if Lan's Premonition talent could double as fortune-telling. Gege, hurry up and figure out what this Zhou Xiangzhe's deal is.

'So there are leftovers after all.' Zhou Xiangzhe said to Shen Wang, 'Three paintings have numbers on them.'

Shen Wang walked over. He looked at the number ① beneath the first intact painting, then followed Zhou Xiangzhe's gesture to the other numbers, and finally confirmed that in this enormous Gallery only three shattered frames bore numbers — that should be the number of paintings they needed to enter.

'So it's a random pick of paintings in this Gallery,' Shen Wang said, the candy making his words a little muffled, 'but the positions of these paintings match the Gallery out there.'

'Which means: those portrait paintings in the Gallery are people who got Contaminated and died inside their corresponding paintings.'

Zhou Xiangzhe reached out and touched the worn-out empty frame numbered ②.

'Remember, our purpose this time isn't to clear out the Class A Contaminant [Hundred Eyes]. Our original goal was to find the Academy's distress-call test subjects and bring back the precious data in their hands — that's our first objective.'

Shen Wang made a sound of agreement, but inside he thought: absolutely not.

He'd come back to Central City to scavenge an easy score in the first place, and now he was mid-episode. If he didn't eat the thing, it'd be an insult to all the suffering he was going through right now.

/

The second painting was different from the first. After Zhou Xiangzhe entered, he wasn't struck blind again, and he quietly breathed a sigh of relief at that.

Blindness was simply too awful for him — especially for someone like him, a normal person suddenly unable to see his surroundings. Even after adapting, it was extremely inconvenient.

'Shen—' Zhou Xiangzhe called Shen Wang's name, but stopped after a single syllable, because he realized he was the only one here. Shen Wang wasn't with him.

Zhou Xiangzhe frowned and looked around.

This seemed to be a human residence, but unlike the centralized, fully-allocated communal housing of the post-apocalypse, it was more like one of the little villas from the old era. He was standing in a not-very-large room, and from outside came faint sobbing — someone was crying, the sound soft and small, a woman.

Zhou Xiangzhe took a step toward the door, but heard the rattle of a chain, and only then looked down.

One of his ankles was clamped in a shackle, the shackle joined to a long thin chain — he looked just like a prisoner. Zhou Xiangzhe felt a fine, needle-prick sting in his arm. When he rolled up his sleeve, he saw a fine layer of soft down sprouting along his arm, like the fluff of a fledgling bird.

He lowered the sleeve and surveyed his surroundings. Metal birdcages hung throughout the room like decorations — but the cages weren't empty; each held a dead bird.

Brilliantly colored birds had died in all manner of poses, leaving only stiffened corpses behind, forming a tomb-cluster both beautiful and eerie.

If you looked closely, you'd notice these birds were all wearing clothes, their tiny eye sockets hollow and empty — every bird had had its eyes gouged out.

For no clear reason, Zhou Xiangzhe recalled material he'd once read.

In the old era, humans kept birds as pets. To stop them flying away, they'd clip the birds' feathers; some would even tether one of a bird's legs and keep it caged.

And a 'caged bird' didn't just mean a pet bird — it was also a figure of speech, a metaphor for a person with no freedom.

Zhou Xiangzhe crouched to examine the shackle on his ankle. There was no keyhole and no seam, as if it had grown there naturally. The shackle was hard to deal with, but the chain could still be broken. Zhou Xiangzhe aimed his sidearm at the chain; the bullet shattered the thin links, and for the moment he was free.

He rose again and headed for the door. The sobbing outside continued. Zhou Xiangzhe tried the door and found it locked.

Just as he was about to use a bullet to break the lock, his arm suddenly began to sting like it was on fire.

Zhou Xiangzhe hesitated. He put the gun away and rolled up his sleeve again — the exposed skin was now completely covered in feathers, and this time they were obviously much longer than before.

They were growing.

Calmly pulling the sleeve back down, Zhou Xiangzhe endured the prickling and fired at the door again.

'Where did Shen Wang go?'

'I need to find him first.'

Meanwhile, the Shen Wang being fretted over was striding outside, into what looked like a living room — a sofa, an old-era television, shards of broken porcelain everywhere, and birdcages hung throughout the whole room.

Behind Shen Wang, the female Pollutant lay collapsed on the floor, blood welling out without stopping — the very picture of a 'murder scene.'

Rewind time, ten-some minutes earlier.

Shen Wang couldn't be called thrilled about entering the painting, but he did want to find [Hundred Eyes]'s true body fast, so he entered the unknown painting numbered ② at the same time as Zhou Xiangzhe.

When he opened his eyes again, he found he'd been separated from Zhou Xiangzhe. He had no idea where Zhou Xiangzhe was, but he could tell he was locked in a small, cramped room.

His condition wasn't great, his mood wasn't good either. There was still the clean sweetness of candy in his mouth, but the candy was gone — only the taste remained, just barely letting him recall what it felt like to have food in his mouth.

Irritable, anxious, weak, hungry…

The room was quite dim, papers scattered everywhere, covered in messy stick-figure sketches that sprawled across the whole floor. The curtained window had been bricked over with red brick. Birdcages of all sizes hung throughout the room, every one of them holding a bird's corpse.

This time, again, Shen Wang showed no abnormal reaction. He couldn't tell whether this painting just had no special setting, or whether he was immune again.

Most likely the latter.

The room was so dark because there was no light source. Shen Wang started looking for a light switch — since you'd be painting here, there had to be a lamp without a light source.

Sure enough, Shen Wang found the switch by the door. He pressed it down — click — and the lamp in the room didn't come on.

Pat-pat, pat-pat — but from outside came a flurry of hurried footsteps.

'You're in there, aren't you? I heard your voice.' It was a very gentle, very soft voice, a woman's, and she was standing right outside, just one door away.

Shen Wang arched a brow slightly. He asked, 'Who are you?'

The woman outside knocked lightly on the door. 'I'm Mother. Will you open the door for Mother?'

'Mother knows you're upset, but Mother is really so worried about you. Locking yourself in your room like this — it's going to make Mother sick with guilt.' As she spoke, the woman outside began to sob, her voice growing ever softer, ever more sorrowful. 'Mother's cried so much her eyes are going blind.'

'Open the door for Mother.'

'Mother is really so worried about you.'

Mother? A mother? Shen Wang, who'd had no parents since childhood, felt next to nothing about the word. To him, what was outside was just a Pollutant.

A Pollutant that called itself a mother — but one with the ability to think. Conservatively, Class C.

Shen Wang didn't bother responding to her. Instead, he made a note of the probably-important features first.

The window walled up with red brick, the painting paper strewn messily across the floor, the hanging birdcages and the bird corpses inside them. The switch couldn't turn on a light, but it could draw the Pollutant outside — that is, [Mother] — over.

Works created around a parent, a child, and a birdcage were usually a coded metaphor in the old era for 'failed upbringing' and 'a child's lost freedom.'

Was this a pre-apocalypse painting?

It seemed Shen Wang had gone too long without replying, and the person outside finally ran out of patience.

She fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a halting, faltering voice. 'Do you hate Mother that much?'

'Mother knows — Mother pushed you to study, pushed you to work hard, but Mother did it for your own good. Mother only wanted you to succeed and make a name for yourself.'

'Everything Mother did was for your own good.'

Shen Wang, the orphan who'd had no father or mother since childhood, didn't quite understand that line. He'd only recently learned he actually had relatives — a gege, and parents who'd mysteriously vanished. But growing up, no one had ever really managed him; it was only the Orphanage Director who'd locked him in solitary when he was small, and always during his episodes.

Seeing that Shen Wang still wasn't speaking, the one outside grew frantic.

'Are you trying to drive me to death?!'

The woman's soft voice abruptly turned shrill.

'Mother never treated you badly! You came out of Mother's belly, so you're my possession! You have to listen to me!'

'You won't obey! You won't study! Do you have any idea how much Mother has suffered because of you?! It's because of you that your dad decided I was useless, that I never gave him a useful child — that's why he hit me and divorced me!'

'This is all your fault!'

'My child, my child, save me — Mother will die without your dad!'

'I'm begging you, I'll kneel down to you!'

'You're the truly useless one! You studied painting all those years and all you can produce is this garbage — no one likes it, no one buys your paintings. What can you even do?! Mother raised you for nothing!'

'You're a failure, you've achieved nothing! That's why Dad doesn't love you, and doesn't love me either!'

'It's all your fault, all your fault!!'

The woman hurled hysterical insults, then suddenly begged in a grief-stricken voice — for all the world like a lunatic.

'So you won't come out, will you? You want to watch Mother die, don't you?! Mother will never let you have your way!'

Shen Wang heard her leave quickly, but she was soon back — and then he heard the sound of a lock being pried.

Scratch, scratch — the sound rang out in the empty room.

As she pried at the lock, the woman kept muttering under her breath, letting out a little laugh now and then.

'Now I'll drag you right out.'

'You want Mother dead — you unfilial child!'

'Mother can't go without Dad. Dad is Mother's everything, and you ruined all of it.'

With a crisp click, the door's lock sprang open, and Shen Wang heard the woman's deranged laughter outside.

'It's open!'

With a creak, the door was pushed in.

First came the moon-white hem of the woman's long dress, then her slender, pale wrists and ankles. She was well-kept but on the thin side, fine, delicate bracelets at her wrists and anklets at her ankles. Finally she poked her head in — a face caked all over with white powder, pale as a corpse.

She was utterly fragile, an air of frailty oozing from her whole body, as if one bend would snap her with a crack.

The woman's gaze swept the room, searching for Shen Wang's figure, like a weightless ghost.

The ghost hummed softly, 'Mother's here.'

Lamplight streamed through the door's gap, forming a slit of light. She looked around but didn't find the person she'd expected, and froze for a moment.

'Where is he? Where'd he go?'

'Impossible — he's in here. I didn't mishear!'

'Where did he hide?!'

She gnawed nervously at her fingernails, the nails making a grinding crunch. As she scanned her surroundings in a panic — right then, a very, very soft breathing sounded by her ear.

The woman froze. Slowly she turned to look beside her — to be precise, behind this very door.

Shen Wang had his hand braced high against the door's edge, his pitch-black eyes mirroring the woman's face. Their eyes met, no more than twenty centimeters apart. The woman's eyes went wide — it seemed she'd never imagined Shen Wang would be standing behind the door, looking for all the world like he'd been waiting for her to find him.

And Shen Wang was even smiling, his peach-blossom eyes full of tenderness — yet at the bottom of those eyes, mockery brimmed over.

No one ever stands behind a door waiting for the person prying it open.

Such a contrast, so unimaginable, so bizarre…

He said, 'Surprise.'

Thorns burst up from beneath the woman's feet, and in an instant strung her whole body up in the air, the brambles climbing the walls. She opened her mouth wide, terror slowly creeping into her eyes.

Shen Wang simply looked up, watching the woman hang in the air, blood running down from her wounds, pooling into a small red puddle right at his feet.

'Got nothing to do, why not look harder for your own faults,' Shen Wang said. 'I never did a single thing wrong.'

'And I'm not about to take the blame for you either.'

'You're a Pollutant now — could you have a bit of self-awareness? Blame yourself a little more, show others a little understanding.'

The woman stretched out a hand, the bones jutting visibly from her bone-thin pale wrist. She opened her mouth but said nothing — instead, she slowly bared an utterly vicious smile at Shen Wang.

'Hee-hee.'

With a wet rip, the thorns tore out from inside her body, and the female Pollutant dropped to the floor and stopped moving.

Shen Wang paid her no mind and walked out of the room.

Where had Zhou Xiangzhe gone? Was it possible he hadn't entered the same painting?

Just as Shen Wang was wondering, bang — a muffled gunshot came from beside him. Shen Wang turned to look at the door next to him. The lock had been completely shot apart, and the person inside pulled the door open and met Shen Wang's gaze head-on. Those beautiful golden eyes told Shen Wang: this time, Zhou Xiangzhe could see.

Tch. Doesn't that mean he can't use his Contaminated Talent in front of Zhou Xiangzhe anymore.

Seeing Shen Wang, Zhou Xiangzhe breathed a sigh of relief. 'There you are.'

He stepped out of the room, and with every step there was a faint, crisp clink about him.

Hearing the sound, Shen Wang instinctively looked for its source — and then he saw the shackle that shouldn't have been on Zhou Xiangzhe's ankle, with a short length of chain trailing from it.

Shen Wang: …?

His expression instantly went very strange.

Noticing Shen Wang's gaze, Zhou Xiangzhe glanced down too. Not particularly bothered, he fished out another piece of candy and placed it in Shen Wang's hand, then explained.

'This seems to be a hard requirement of this painting. But seeing it like this, you should understand why I went to have other models of Pollution Inhibitor custom-made.'

'A shackle-type Pollution Inhibitor tends to make people think of unpleasant things.'

It had to be said — that explanation from Zhou Xiangzhe was quite convincing to him.

Shen Wang unwrapped the new candy and put it in his mouth, the clean sweetness filling his mouth once more, holding his frenzied appetite at bay for the moment.

Zhou Xiangzhe looked Shen Wang up and down, and only after he'd gotten the candy in his mouth said, 'Once we leave this place, go test your talent again.'

Shen Wang blinked. 'Hm?'

'You weren't affected this time either. Maybe your talent isn't Fear Intimidation.'

'Then what would it be?' Shen Wang asked him, feigning surprise.

Zhou Xiangzhe thought it over. 'More than Fear Intimidation, it looks like the Class A talent — Contamination Immunity.'

The Class A talents the Academy had cataloged weren't many. Of course, with so many talents in the world, it was normal for some to go unrecorded or underestimated. But once it had confirmed Contamination Immunity, the Academy placed it firmly in the Class A ranks — quite near the top, even.

Talent A-005, Contamination Immunity: a passive talent power, granting complete immunity to a Pollutant's Contaminated Talent.

A Mutant with this talent wouldn't undergo Distortion, and certainly wouldn't suffer Mental Pollution. He or she would be the strongest pathfinder for handling high-level Pollutants.

Oh.

Shen Wang thought: this talent seems even handier than the last one. More excuses, too. Not bad at all.

'So you mean — something's gone wrong with your body again?'

'Mm, a bit.' Zhou Xiangzhe answered. 'Besides the chain that suddenly appeared on my ankle, there's also something non-human growing on my body.'

Shen Wang looked at him curiously. 'Something non-human?'

Zhou Xiangzhe rolled up his sleeve to show him the feathers growing on his arm. They weren't very long yet — fine platinum-gold down, arranged in a row along his arm, looking quite fuzzy and a touch cute. But the moment you remembered Zhou Xiangzhe was a perfectly proper human, it turned a bit unsettling.

'These are bird feathers,' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'The same as the birds in these cages.'

Shen Wang withdrew his gaze. 'You mean that in this painting, people slowly turn into birds?'

'Then…' Shen Wang looked at the birdcages hung all over the living room. 'Every one of these cages holds a person who's been Contaminated?'

'Over an eighty percent probability.' Zhou Xiangzhe nodded.

'But the feathers' growth must have some condition. First, rule out time — they've already grown once. If they grew once every ten-some minutes, a person would turn into a bird within two hours, which doesn't make sense.'

Zhou Xiangzhe asked again, 'Did you run into anything strange?'

'Anything strange?' Shen Wang thought for a moment. 'Doesn't seem like it. Everything I ran into fit the features of a Pollutant's lair.'

It was, indeed, a strange thing.

Zhou Xiangzhe was certain the growth of the feathers on his arm had some condition — but he couldn't find what that condition was.

As he thought it over, he looked at Shen Wang — and right then his brow furrowed slightly, his eyes fixed on Shen Wang's collar. He reached out and grabbed Shen Wang's wrist, the motion a little abrupt.

With his other hand, Zhou Xiangzhe lightly tugged at Shen Wang's collar, where there was a bit of still-damp blood.

'Where's the blood from?'

Shen Wang blinked. He bit down on the candy in his mouth and recalled — this seemed to be blood that had dripped down when he'd strung the female Pollutant outside the door up in the air. He hadn't dodged at the time, and it had somehow landed on him.

'I dealt with a Pollutant just now. Around Class C, female, called herself Mother.'

Zhou Xiangzhe let go of Shen Wang's hand and worked out the timing — and found it lined up exactly.

Shen Wang wasn't stupid. He immediately grasped what Zhou Xiangzhe meant.

'You mean: I killed that Pollutant, and that's why the feathers on you grew another stretch?'

'Not necessarily — the timing's just very close.' Zhou Xiangzhe asked him, 'Where's the Pollutant you killed?'

'Right over—'

Shen Wang pointed ahead, but in that very moment he realized the dead female Pollutant at the doorway had actually vanished — there wasn't even a trace of blood left on the floor.

'It's gone?'

They exchanged a glance and walked together toward the small room Shen Wang had left.

The door still looked as it had when pried open, the screwdriver still stuck in the keyhole, the marks of forced entry fresh — proof enough that Shen Wang hadn't lied. Given his temper, with a Pollutant recklessly prying at his door, it'd be a wonder if he didn't kill it on the spot.

Pat-pat, pat-pat — a string of footsteps came.

The two of them turned to look behind them.

Out from the head of the stairs came a frail, beautiful woman, wearing a moon-white long dress, the bones showing through her thin wrists. She looked utterly fragile, like a rose with its thorns plucked out.

'Is it her?' Zhou Xiangzhe asked Shen Wang.

'Yes.' Shen Wang arched a brow slightly. 'I'm certain I already killed her.'

'A Pollutant of special nature — above Class C, possibly even reaching Class B.' Zhou Xiangzhe watched her.

The woman walked down the steps one at a time, gazing at Shen Wang with sorrowful, grief-stricken eyes.

'I'm sorry.' She was crying as she apologized.

'Mother didn't control herself well. Mother was wrong. Can you forgive Mother?'

'Mother will never treat you that way again. Forgive Mother, won't you?'

'Mother was just so sad.'

'Mother loves Dad, but Mother loves you too. Mother just had no choice. How could Mother not love you?'

Shen Wang frowned. 'What's her setting supposed to be?'

'No idea.' Zhou Xiangzhe thought about it. 'A mother riddled with guilt?'

The two who'd grown up in an Orphanage exchanged a glance, then looked away at the same time.

They thought to themselves: this is bad — this isn't going to be a painting about a mother's love, is it?

Neither orphan had ever been through the baptism of a mother's love.