Art Gallery

Chapter 29

The first time Shen Wang met Lan, he clocked the wildness buried in him.

Even wrapped in that gloomy air of his, looking at people like they were ghosts, always in those sack-like clothes, barely talking, voice flat as still water whenever he did —

it was precisely because he said those terrible things so casually that the real recklessness in him showed through.

'Come walk with gege for now.' Lan said.

Shen Wang didn't argue. He fell into step beside Lan, and after a moment asked, 'Do you know where Zhou Xiangzhe is?'

Lan didn't answer. He just kept flipping through the wordless book in his hands.

'Lan.'

'Call me gege.'

Shen Wang shrugged — no real resistance there. 'Gege. Where's Zhou Xiangzhe?'

Lan sighed and closed the book. 'We finally find each other after all this time, and instead of leaning on your gege, you keep asking about some outsider.'

'Gege's feelings are hurt.'

'You're jealous?'

'Of course. We're brothers — we were supposed to grow up together. If it weren't for the Science Academy, you never would've—' Lan's expression turned vicious, but he shut his eyes quickly, reining it in. A long, slow breath. Like he didn't want his little brother to see that side of him.

He said, 'I just want us to be closer.'

Shen Wang smiled at that — a light thing, effortless. Those pretty peach-blossom eyes of his only looked more tender for it, the kind of warm that made you think he was deeply fond of whoever stood beside him.

Even as brothers, Shen Wang and Lan couldn't have been more different.

Shen Wang grew up in a hospital, watching every flavor of human drama pass through. It made him into someone who smiled often but never meant it — his smile was courtesy, deflection, a social tool he'd long since mastered.

Lan was different. He'd lost his little brother by accident, then been locked inside the Science Academy and stripped of his freedom. Whatever feelings he'd had were ground down to almost nothing over time. He didn't have strong emotions for anyone anymore. The only thing left was a burning hatred for the Science Academy.

Maybe Shen Wang was the one person who could still make him smile.

Shen Wang walked beside him. 'Where'd you stash Zhou Xiangzhe?'

It wasn't an offhand guess. He genuinely believed it.

As a wanted criminal sitting at No. 2 on the Wanted List, Lan would never show himself openly in front of Zhou Xiangzhe—because Zhou Xiangzhe was a Grade S Aberrant, and crossing him before the objective was met was genuinely a bad idea, especially when the brother he treasured was right there inside 【Polaris】 under Zhou Xiangzhe's command.

Even if not for his own sake, he'd have kept clear for Shen Wang's.

The fact that Lan was out here now meant he was certain Zhou Xiangzhe couldn't reach him — at least not yet.

Sure enough, Lan answered the question with complete seriousness.

'Fine. I locked him up.'

Shen Wang's brow went up. 'Locked him up?'

'Yeah. I don't have anything personal against him, but he's a Grade-S Aberrant — hard to deal with.' Lan opened his book again. 'You came here for the data, I came here for the data. We're on opposite sides. Too much hassle.'

'So I put him somewhere out of the way. Keeps him from ruining things.'

Lan said it the same way you'd discuss the weather: 'Try to wipe out the Science Academy people before he gets out.'

The tone was way too breezy. It gave off serious final-boss energy.

Then again, to the Science Academy and the Anti-Contamination Center, calling him the final boss wasn't wrong.

'That's not important right now. There's actually something I need your help with.'

Lan looked down at the book and pointed to a page for Shen Wang to see. From where Shen Wang stood, it was just blank paper.

Lan continued like he had no idea, 'Right here — look. News about Mom and Dad.'

'The Divine Vanishing Incident.'

Shen Wang looked at the page and looked away. Nothing to see.

But he'd never heard of the Divine Vanishing Incident.

Polaris had high internal clearance, and Shen Wang had gone through the files when he first joined — everything up to the highest level his access allowed.

His memory wasn't as good as Zhou Xiangzhe's, but he was sure he'd never seen that name.

'It's an incident the Anti-Contamination Center has buried for a long time. Goes back over twenty years — yeah, right around when our parents disappeared.' Lan tapped the blank page lightly. 'My talent is Precognition, but Precognition doesn't just run on demand. There are conditions. I need to know more people to get more information.'

'It wasn't until I found you that I started to see pieces of how it began and ended.'

Shen Wang frowned. 'If the Anti-Contamination Center's been sitting on this for decades, I probably don't know anything either.'

'But Zhou Xiangzhe definitely does.' Lan said it like it was obvious. 'He has the highest clearance. Probably knows more than you'd expect.'

Shen Wang looked at him. 'You think he'd tell me?'

'Why wouldn't he?' Lan seemed genuinely puzzled. 'You were asking me where he is. He clearly matters that much to you. You ask him one question and he won't answer? Didi, he hasn't been playing you, has he?'

Shen Wang: ...

Somehow Lan's logic had taken a very strange turn.

And because his talent was Precognition, Shen Wang really wanted to know what had led him to that conclusion.

Catching the odd look on Shen Wang's face, Lan calmly glanced away and picked up where he'd left off, as though nothing had happened.

'The Divine Vanishing Incident is connected to a certain Grade-S Aberrant. That Aberrant collaborated with the Science Academy — together they carried out an operation unlike anything before it. The effects are still active today. And the Anti-Contamination Center buried every trace of it.'

'The one thing I know for certain: this event caused nearly every Grade-S Aberrant to vanish and every Grade-S Contaminant to disappear underground, all within the space of twenty years ago.'

'Zhou Xiangzhe is a Grade-S Aberrant who emerged in those twenty years since. No predecessors. Almost no peers at the same level. That's how he became the top in Central City — and the whole country.'

'And: the Divine Vanishing Incident wasn't just this country. It was a globally coordinated event.'

That was the part that got uncomfortable.

A nationwide — worldwide — operation, buried by the Anti-Contamination Center after the fact. It had every smell of a conspiracy.

'Your Precognition can't show you the specifics?'

'No. Because I haven't been able to reach anyone directly involved.' Lan answered with full sincerity. 'So please believe me when I say I'm not going after the Science Academy just because I hate them — I'm looking for those people.'

Sure. And believing that would make you an idiot.

'It has to be Zhou Xiangzhe?'

'The other two Grade-S Aberrants would probably know as well.' Lan turned a couple of pages as he answered. 'If you want to go ask them, gege can give you their current locations.'

'Those two, though — their Contamination Level is high enough that their minds are basically gone. Not as easy to talk to as Zhou Xiangzhe. And they don't like you the way he does.'

Shen Wang: ...

Tch. Zhou Xiangzhe likes him?

'Fine. Once I find him I'll try asking.' Shen Wang sighed and gave in.

Lan nodded with evident satisfaction, a faint note of pride creeping into his voice. 'Good didi. Having a little brother really does make all the difference.'

They kept walking. Past a corridor and into a new gallery hall, and then Lan stopped dead.

It was abrupt — like something had snagged his attention. Shen Wang stopped too. As a Grade-S Aberrant with Precognition, a sudden halt like this meant he'd seen something coming.

Shen Wang scanned the corridor. It looked the same as the others. The only difference was the painting on the wall directly across from them — still all grey, like the rest, but this one had a vaguely human shape inside it. A silhouette, with a hand pressed flat against the glass frame, like something looking out from the other side.

The shape gave Shen Wang a strange sense of familiarity, like he'd seen it somewhere before.

'Nothing wrong here.'

Shen Wang turned to look at Lan.

Lan glanced briefly at the frame on the wall, then turned to Shen Wang. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly level, not a ripple in it.

'But before we go any further, I need to settle something with you first. Listen carefully.'

'The Anti-Contamination Center has a provision that allows personnel to follow the directives of a senior Aberrant in special circumstances. Your squad leader is missing — but that's fine. I'm a Grade-S Aberrant. So you follow my orders.'

'Understood?'

Shen Wang didn't say anything. He didn't know how to answer. He just looked at Lan with an extremely strange expression.

'Don't worry. I told you I'm a Grade-S Aberrant — of course I'll keep you safe. I'm not going to hurt you.'

Shen Wang tilted his head slightly. His already harmless face went even softer with the confusion.

What kind of game was he playing?

/

Zhou Xiangzhe had been inside the picture frame for a long time.

Standing in there was deeply uncomfortable. It was too narrow to even crouch down. He could tell well enough that this was a spatial talent at work, but he couldn't break out of this kind of space trap in a short amount of time.

Whoever had put him here — Xu Yue, or someone else — spatial-type users could always conjure cages like this out of nowhere. There was no defending against it.

Fortunately, he'd always been comfortable with solitude. Long stretches on the front lines had gotten him used to far worse conditions than this.

He found a piece of candy in his pocket. Zhou Xiangzhe unwrapped it and put it in his mouth. A clean, sweet fruit scent filled his nose, but his tongue tasted nothing.

Unlike Shen Wang, his sense of taste had been mostly gone since something happened three years ago. He didn't enjoy eating much because of it — putting flavorless things in your mouth was its own kind of misery.

So those candies — he'd gotten them for Shen Wang. He just hadn't expected them to be separated so suddenly.

Zhou Xiangzhe held the tasteless candy in his mouth and thought: should've given Shen Wang more of them.

Keeping them here was a waste.

Had Shen Wang been locked up somewhere too?

The thought had barely finished when he heard footsteps, and then there was Shen Wang — the one he'd been thinking about — appearing right in front of him.

Before the relief could even register, Zhou Xiangzhe's brow creased. He moved as close to the front as he could, pressing his hand against the transparent wall, watching the person standing beside Shen Wang.

The man had cyan hair and pale, almost colorless pupils — a strange, distinctly inhuman look. But Zhou Xiangzhe noticed, more clearly than anything about his face, that the oppressive aura around him was somehow even more unsettling than his appearance itself.

Standing there, he was somehow more terrifying than a Grade A Contaminant.

'Wrong.' Zhou Xiangzhe stared at him. 'He wasn't in our combat unit for this mission.'

Zhou Xiangzhe's memory was excellent. He knew every single person on this operation.

'Contaminant? Aberrant? Who?'

Shen Wang seemed puzzled by the sudden stop, and started looking around. It didn't take long before his gaze landed on this particular frame, the one that stood out from all the others.

Their eyes met. Zhou Xiangzhe pressed his hand to the transparent glass, golden eyes filled with guarded alertness.

'Shen Wang.' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'Careful. Something's wrong with him.'

Shen Wang couldn't hear him, but the frame's wrongness had caught his attention anyway, and they were looking at each other.

Zhou Xiangzhe caught his own reflection in those eyes—the same grey picture frame as always, a human-shaped Shadow seemingly at its center. Who would ever guess that a person was locked behind a frame like that?

'Nothing wrong here.' The man in front of Shen Wang spoke.

Shen Wang turned toward him.

The man's aura was oppressive, his voice not warm at all — borderline unsettling, actually, because it was pitched so low.

He said, 'But before we go any further, I need to settle something with you first. Listen carefully.'

'The Anti-Contamination Center has a provision that allows personnel to follow the directives of a senior Aberrant in special circumstances. Your squad leader is missing — but that's fine. I'm a Grade-S Aberrant. So you follow my orders.'

The look on Shen Wang's face was complicated, but he didn't push back. Zhou Xiangzhe felt like a weight had been dropped on his chest.

If he wasn't lying, this was extremely bad.

Grade-S Aberrants weren't common. Nationwide, the documented count was four. Besides Zhou Xiangzhe, two others were affiliated with the Anti-Contamination Center — he knew all of them. Only the last one he'd never encountered.

'Dual-talent Grade-S defector: Lan.'

Zhou Xiangzhe murmured it under his breath, a cold edge settling behind his golden eyes.

'That tracks. The Science Academy lab's destruction — that was Lan's doing. He wrecked the lab but a Researcher got out with the data, so Lan came to finish what he started. The Anti-Contamination Center somehow missed that entirely.'

'Humans really are smarter than Contaminants. Locking a door is nothing compared to locking me in here.'

Lan glanced toward the frame as if he'd heard that, pale eyes showing nothing at all.

He didn't do anything — just looked at Shen Wang and said, 'Remember to do as I say.'

Zhou Xiangzhe: ...

He narrowed his eyes slightly. His right hand, hanging at his side, closed into a fist without him noticing. Something dangerous stirred deep behind his eyes.

'When did you join—' Shen Wang started to ask, brow furrowed.

Lan quickly made a shushing gesture to cut him off, then spoke in his usual even tone. 'Walls have ears. Don't go saying things carelessly.'

He glanced once more at the grey frame on the wall. 'Walls have ears.'

Lan's face was blank — not even an extra flicker of expression — but somehow it radiated smug satisfaction, a whole chest of scheming too full to hold back.

Zhou Xiangzhe slammed his palm against the invisible wall. The candy still in his mouth, not yet finished — it was like he could suddenly taste it, a bitterness that went all the way down.

When the Science Academy confirmed that test subject Lan had awakened a Grade-S Precognition talent, they'd crowed about it: 'In front of an Aberrant with Precognition, no one has secrets,' and 'He will be the uncrowned king who sees through the weakness of every Contaminant.'

Now it had become an ironic truth.

Only he wasn't seeing through Contaminants' weaknesses. He was seeing through the Anti-Contamination Center's — and the Science Academy's.

Zhou Xiangzhe watched helplessly as Lan led Shen Wang away. He stared after them, expressionless, and then — crack — the hard candy in his mouth snapped between his teeth, crumbling to pieces. The bitterness hit harder.

In that moment there was only one thing in Zhou Xiangzhe's mind.

'Shen Wang's been taken.'

'Shen Wang's been tricked by someone dangerous.'

'Can't let him go off with this person.'

'He's dangerous.'

A few seconds later, Zhou Xiangzhe reached up and pulled his silver hair into a high ponytail. The silver tail fell against his black combat uniform, cleaner and sharper for it.

As he raised his arm, the sleeve slid down under its own weight and exposed the delicate Contamination Suppressor on his wrist.

When the ponytail was done, Zhou Xiangzhe began methodically removing the Contamination Suppressors from his fingers and wrist. He tucked each of the small, ornate pieces into his pocket without any expression, his golden eyes completely cold. If Shen Wang were here, he probably wouldn't think this was the same person who seemed so different from the war god in all those reports.

The Central City's guardian — ruthless, unyielding, the kind of presence that made anyone who stood before him feel no fear was possible. The Zhou Xiangzhe who was both revered and feared.

Zhou Xiangzhe pressed his palm back against the transparent wall. He didn't need to check. He already knew his Contamination Level had hit its limit.

That was exactly what he wanted.

'Lan.' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'You've actually gone and provoked me.'

...

After leaving the corridor, Lan let out a long, unprompted sigh — the look on his face somewhere between strange and put-upon.

'What's with that face?' Shen Wang frowned.

'It's the face of someone who got their revenge and immediately realized it made everything worse.' Lan answered plainly. 'I have learned a very important lesson today: don't act on impulse.'

'But when it comes to ownership of one's little brother, no one can help acting on impulse.'

He lowered his head and went back to flipping through the book. 'Why does my dear little brother have to leave his family for someone else?'

Shen Wang genuinely couldn't parse what Lan was saying. It seemed to be about him, and also somehow not about him at all.

All you could really say was that Lan was, in some sense, a self-styled oracle — and the Precognition talent had only sent him further down that road.

'Say something I can actually understand.'

Lan glanced at Shen Wang, his expression toward his little brother full of long-suffering resignation. A quiet, brief laugh — and then he looked back at the book.

'Then let me go over the Rule for this exhibition hall.'

'This is the center of the gallery — the last painting, where Hundred Eyes herself resides. The final destination of the Art Gallery.'

Shen Wang followed Lan to the end of the corridor, where a stairwell opened up with a winding flight of stairs leading to the second floor.

'The Art Gallery has three levels. First is this one.' Lan said. 'It's the main exhibition hall. Open to everyone, entry fee being your eyes. Anyone who dies inside a painting becomes an exhibit. The rest can slip in easily enough — so it's the lowest tier.'

'Getting to the second floor is a different matter.'

Lan stepped up, Shen Wang falling in behind him.

He kept talking as they climbed.

'The Art Gallery runs on a membership system. The second floor is the VIP zone. In other words: only those who've made a contribution get to go up.'

'The way it works here: you can only earn access to the second floor by bringing more people into the gallery and getting more eyes for Hundred Eyes. Do that, and you qualify as a VIP. VIPs don't have to linger on the first floor — no risk of dying, no risk of having your eyes gouged out and becoming an exhibit.'

As he spoke, they reached the top of the stairs. Two Contaminants stood at the entrance to the second floor, arms spread wide, blocking the way.

'Please stop there.'

'This floor is VIPs only.'

'Please present your VIP card.'

Lan sighed quietly. 'Figured as much. I already saw how this was going to go.'

Shen Wang stood beside him. 'And did you see the solution?'

'Of course.'

Lan recited to the two Contaminants what should have been a desperate plea, delivered so flatly it was almost funny.

'We don't want to die. We want a chance. Please let us become members of the VIP zone.'

Shen Wang: ...

But somehow, improbably: the two Contaminants exchanged a look — and stepped aside.

Right. Low-level Contaminants. No brain to speak of.

'Hundred Eyes is a unique Contaminant. She has her own system — she's delegated the work of spreading Contamination to ordinary humans.'

Lan stepped onto the second floor. 'You know what that means? It means she has a pool of non-Contaminant Contamination spreaders. You can call them: humans.'

'Humans can move freely Inside the High Wall, which means they can help her spread Contamination from the inside. If they express intent to reach the second floor, they get one visit. Anyone who goes up gets marked by Hundred Eyes and released. Bring back enough people, and you qualify for VIP status on the second floor.'

'Finding her isn't a bad thing, all things considered. She's a tumor that needs removing.'

Lan kept flipping through the book as he spoke. 'That Science Academy Researcher is on the second floor. And that teammate of yours — the one called Baihe — she's here too.'

Shen Wang was caught off guard. 'She's here?'

'And she didn't contribute a single thing.' Lan looked like he'd found something genuinely entertaining. 'Her talent, Empathic Resonance, makes her sync closer and closer to the Contaminant's core — so she ramped up her synchronization probability at the second-floor entrance, and these brainless guards assumed Hundred Eyes herself was coming back. They just let her through.'

Shen Wang: ...

Genuinely hadn't seen that coming.

'And the third floor is where Hundred Eyes actually is. The whole level is her territory.'

Lan closed the book as he finished.

'I haven't seen her directly so I don't know the specifics. Ask your teammate — once you've pinned down a weakness, I can help you deal with her.'

'Make sure you eat her properly.'

Shen Wang looked at him. A few seconds passed before he spoke. 'Gege.'

'Mm?' Lan clearly warmed to being called gege — every time it happened, his expression opened up a little, like sunlight breaking through.

'Don't you need a Contaminant yourself?'

'Me?' Lan held his gaze for a long moment before answering. 'I don't need them anymore.'

'Early on, inside the Science Academy, the experiments were relentless. I was forced into the same room as multiple Contaminants. They never cared whether a child could handle that. Only those who could hold their own against Contaminants got to stay.'

'As long as the experiments kept going, there was always another Contaminant.'

That history had, unexpectedly, eased Lan's symptoms. He'd disguised every Contaminant he consumed as a talent-based kill — and had never once revealed his innate condition. Somehow he'd kept it hidden, all that time.

He ate so much, for so long. That accumulated power settled into his body, building and building, until the day he awakened.

A Grade-S Aberrant from the moment he awakened. A terrifying one.

The Science Academy had been thrilled, certain they'd created their most perfect work. They ran every test on his talent and declared he would surpass Zhou Xiangzhe to become the top Aberrant.

But all Lan wanted was to leave. To make them pay. To take the entire Science Academy down with him.

'Once your talent awakens, it won't be like this anymore.' Lan smiled at Shen Wang, a gentle reassurance. 'The hunger is just your body calling for energy. Your talent wants to wake up.'

'That's not a bad thing.'

'One day you'll be stronger than gege. Stronger than Zhou Xiangzhe.'

'Don't doubt it — because as children of The Tyrant, we were always going to have that in us.'