Art Gallery (End)

Chapter 32

[Hundred Eyes] had never met a real match.

She was a Class A Pollutant — talentless, the kind of [Hundred Eyes] who could only keep up appearances by leaning on other people. She hid behind a whole crowd of them. No. 1, No. 2, the ones she flung out to spread Contamination — all of them just tools to her. And she sat safe in the Gallery she'd built, spinning out her own little story.

No one discovered her. No one could beat her.

So she grew more and more arrogant, even setting her sights on Class S Mutants.

“Asking someone what they are—that's pretty rude.” Shen Wang pulled his hand back from the wall. “Didn't you already say it? I'm human.”

“No human looks like this.” Hundred Eyes watched him coldly. “But it doesn't matter.”

“Even if you're a Contaminant, you're still low-level. A you who can't resist Contamination has no survival value. Better become one of my paintings!”

Following her words, more and more character marks drifted over, and a blank sheet of paper floated up from the ground to hover in front of Shen Wang.

“I want your eyes, your life, and your identity.”

Colors surged onto the white paper like it was absorbing water, the pigments churning together chaotically, like splashed ink.

Hundred Eyes' purple eyes stayed locked on the painting.

She had a very bad Premonition. The feeling appeared the moment Shen Wang changed form, and she was starting to panic, unable to look away from the painting.

Even so, her heart that had long stopped beating felt like it was alive and pounding, the sound so loud she could barely control it.

The last time she felt this panicked was when Hundred Eyes No.1 turned into a Contaminant and attacked her.

It'll be fine, definitely fine. Just a low-level Mutant, at most a weird-looking low-level Mutant.

She comforted herself.

A ripping sound—she widened her eyes slightly.

A hole tore open in the center of the white paper. Thorns ripped through it and lunged forward, but Hundred Eyes dissolved into the air. The thorns missed and retreated to Shen Wang's side, looking wronged.

'The prey ran!'

'Whoosh and it was gone!'

'Want to eat it.'

'Hungry hungry, chomp chomp!'

Shen Wang reached out and gently patted the thorns' antennae. His red eyes looked toward the long table ahead, and sure enough, Hundred Eyes had reappeared on it, watching him with icy eyes.

“Impossible.” Hundred Eyes nearly screamed. “Why aren't you being contaminated?!”

“Impossible! Even Class S Mutants wouldn't be unaffected by Contamination!”

“What the hell are you?!”

“Monster!”

“Told you, you're really rude. A monster calling someone else a monster.” Thorns sprouted from beneath Hundred Eyes' feet.

Hundred Eyes vanished again, reappearing beneath the three portraits.

She started having second thoughts, wanting to run.

But Shen Wang was blocking the door. Thorns tangled together, completely covering it. Shen Wang smiled at her, his beautiful peach blossom eyes seeming to overflow with tenderness—if you didn't look at his white hair or red eyes, you'd think he was a gentle person.

“How did it come to this...” Hundred Eyes murmured.

The thorns lunged again eagerly, and Hundred Eyes switched positions once more.

She couldn't let those thorns touch her because she'd already foreseen what would happen.

When they appeared, they ate the bloody writing on the corridor. They greedily wanted to devour everything around them. Hundred Eyes was a Class A Contaminant, but not one with powerful offensive abilities—her Contaminated Talent only let her quietly devour many ordinary people.

Once faced with someone immune to her Contamination, she had no other options.

In the past she could have controlled large numbers of linked Contaminants to come attack Shen Wang, but now, to stop the two Class S Mutants below from reaching the third floor, almost all the linked Contaminants had been stationed at the stairway, just so she could safely impersonate Shen Wang.

But unexpectedly, this became her worst move.

“You're pretty good at dodging.” Shen Wang looked at her expressionlessly. “Think you can avoid it like this?”

The thorns expanded instantly. Hundred Eyes hadn't expected them to grow so fast—she was nearly cornered. The entire small room was thorns, no place left for her to stand.

“Reproduction this insane—you're Class A!” Hundred Eyes stared at Shen Wang in terror. “You're a Class A Mutant?!”

Shen Wang smiled and said in a voice as warm as spring breeze: “Wrong.”

“I'm just an ordinary Class C Mutant.”

Hundred Eyes: ...?!

Yeah, right!

If he were one level below her, she'd feel she could try to fight, but the moment she learned Shen Wang was Class A, she understood she'd underestimated him this time.

Her face went deathly pale. The thorns had already crept up to her ankles.

Just as the thorns were about to climb her body, she suddenly hurled a painting at Shen Wang. The painting tore open in midair, and in an instant Shen Wang found himself seemingly falling into another Space.

He saw Lily—this should be the real, dead Lily.

A woman in combat gear stood in a sealed room, her eyes cold and sharp as she watched her surroundings. Every wall was like a mirror, reflecting her image.

“I know what you're trying to do.” Lily spoke.

“I didn't expect you could turn other people's lives into your paintings. That makes you my nemesis Contaminant, because shared resonance would let you instantly take my life.”

The shadow in the mirror grinned at Lily—it wasn't Lily's shadow but Hundred Eyes disguised as Lily's shadow.

“You want to steal my life and impersonate me to deceive my teammates and my captain. You think this way you can make sure we never return.”

“You can't do it. No one will believe you, no one will be deceived by you. You stole my identity but you're still not me.”

Lily released the safety, the muzzle aimed at the mirror in front of her. “Polar Star people never give up hope.”

The bullet shattered the mirror in front of her. At the same moment, a spear shot out from the broken mirror, instantly piercing Lily's body. Lily vomited blood but still tremblingly fired the next shot.

Shen Wang spun around sharply, thorns shooting out to grab the spear coming from behind him.

The spear hit the ground with a crisp sound.

Shen Wang clicked his tongue.

“Using a teammate's death recording to distract me, then shooting from behind—truly a despicable Contaminant.”

The thorns tore open the painting in front of him, eating as they ripped. By the time Shen Wang got out, Hundred Eyes had already fled.

She was just too cunning. They'd been in this Gallery so long without her showing herself. The moment she finally appeared before Shen Wang, she realized she couldn't handle him and immediately turned to run, without the slightest hesitation.

Shen Wang thought: probably her Gallery moving all over the world wasn't to collect different eyes at all—it was because she sensed she was about to be discovered and quickly changed locations.

A cowardly, insecure yet arrogant twisted mind, the most paranoid of all.

Just as Shen Wang thought, Hundred Eyes kept changing locations precisely because she had no sense of security, opening her Gallery in completely different places, and the moment she found herself at a disadvantage, she'd immediately run.

While Shen Wang was trapped in the painting, she'd already fled to the third-floor stairway.

She thought: it's fine, as long as she could escape.

As long as she still existed, she was still a Class A Contaminant, still able to reopen her Gallery somewhere far, far away.

She had so many paintings, could transform into one victim after another.

But the moment she stepped on the stairs, her feet froze. Her body stiffened in place because a terrifying Contamination aura rose up that struck fear into her very core.

All the linked Contaminants she'd stationed at the third-floor stairway were dead or wounded. That terrifying Contamination aura was like poison corroding into her shell, making her uncontrollably tremble.

Footsteps came. Someone was coming up.

Hundred Eyes didn't dare move. She stood trembling in place, then quickly disguised herself.

Pitch-black combat gear covered her body. She once again disguised herself as Lily.

Just as she barely finished her disguise, Zhou Xiangzhe came around the stairway corner and locked eyes with her.

Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes held no warmth. The black sclera and golden pupils made him look extremely bizarre. Thick Contamination corroded everything around them bit by bit. Hundred Eyes felt her skin aching, as if her whole body was rotting.

Hundred Eyes forced a smile to look more like Lily.

She called out: “Captain, I finally found you.”

Zhou Xiangzhe raised his head to look at her. He didn't say a word, just put his hand behind his back.

“Captain, your coming is really great, Shen Wang he...”

Bang. A bullet pierced Hundred Eyes' abdomen.

Hundred Eyes' eyes widened. She let out a miserable scream.

Zhou Xiangzhe watched Hundred Eyes with cold eyes. He pulled the trigger without mercy. Two more bullets pierced her body.

“Why, why?! Captain! It's me! I'm Lily!”

“I can recognize my own team members.” Zhou Xiangzhe watched her. “You're not Lily.”

Hundred Eyes screamed, crawling upward continuously. “No, I'm Lily, I really am Lily! Captain, do you remember? When we came...”

Zhou Xiangzhe fired again.

“You're not.”

Hundred Eyes finally understood that deceiving Zhou Xiangzhe was impossible. She could fool Shen Wang only because Shen Wang didn't know Lily—Lily was just a stranger to him. But Zhou Xiangzhe was different. He was Lily's captain, someone who'd fought alongside Lily for years.

He wouldn't be deceived by Hundred Eyes.

The Contamination from Deer God Entity was naturally stronger than a Class A's. That corrosive Contamination ravaged her body. Where the bullets had pierced, eyes began to fall out one after another.

Zhou Xiangzhe had realized something might be wrong with Lily the moment he saw her. He was also worried about Shen Wang, but what could threaten Shen Wang was the Hundred Eyes in front of him.

As long as Hundred Eyes was killed, he could continue seriously searching for Shen Wang.

Just as he was about to deliver the final blow, the bullet hit a transparent barrier again. The barrier blocked his Contamination, and Hundred Eyes took the chance to stumble back up to the third floor.

Zhou Xiangzhe looked coldly to the side.

“What do you mean?”

Lan stood nearby flipping through his book, not even raising his head. “Nothing much.”

“Just think you're really annoying. You came up here and provoked me, so if I don't give you some grief, I'm the one who's unhappy.”

Lan thought: should be about right.

Zhou Xiangzhe had beaten her into a critically wounded near-death state, his didi was on the third floor, taking care of a dying Class A Contaminant would be simple.

As long as he held Zhou Xiangzhe here and gave his didi enough time, that was enough.

He really was a perfect gege.

/

Hundred Eyes supported herself against the wall, walking forward step by step.

She couldn't go to the second floor. The stairway was blocked by two Class S Mutants. Zhou Xiangzhe didn't believe her. Going down was a dead end.

She had no choice but to return to the third floor.

The third floor was large. As long as she carefully avoided Shen Wang, as long as she wasn't discovered...

Hundred Eyes' calculating expression froze on her face because she saw thorns covering every wall.

Blood-colored thorns climbed the corridor walls, blooming bright flowers. The moment Hundred Eyes appeared, all the thorns raised their spines. Every single one of them stared at Hundred Eyes hungrily, because Hundred Eyes was the food they'd marked long ago.

Shen Wang stood in the center of the corridor watching her, his red eyes full of mockery.

“Was the outside world fun?”

Hundred Eyes tried to retreat, but behind her was the third-floor stairway, and below it were Zhou Xiangzhe and Lan.

She was trapped. Death in front and behind.

Her face went deathly pale as she looked at Shen Wang.

“Cough, cough.” She coughed from panic, but what came out wasn't saliva or blood—half-corroded eyes.

The Contamination from Deer God Entity was terrifyingly powerful, with extreme exclusivity. As an embodiment of faith, it could even forcefully push out other Contaminants' Contamination, turning them into its believers.

Hundred Eyes was going through this stage.

She clutched her throat, coughing up broken eyes continuously. Her pupils changed from purple to dotted with gold, and over time the gold threads increased.

“No, no.” She weakly cried: “I don't want to die! I don't want to die meaninglessly like them!”

Unfortunately, Shen Wang was never someone who sympathized with others.

The thorns' antennae perched on Shen Wang's shoulder, drooling over this dying Class A Contaminant.

'Tasty prey!'

'It's got sauce! It's that tasty human from before!'

'Can we eat it now?'

'Master, hungry! Eat something!'

Shen Wang showed a slight smile. “Of course you can.”

Thorns surged forward en masse. Shen Wang finally had his first meal since entering the Gallery.

Food filled Shen Wang's empty stomach, and he couldn't help but let out a satisfied sound.

All the discomfort from his episode was soothed. His body returned to normal. One Class A was enough to keep him stable for a very long time.

After finishing everything, Shen Wang withdrew the thorns.

Shen Wang, returned to his human state, stared at his palm.

“Portrait Transmutation.”

Shen Wang said: “New talent... need to test how to use it when I have time.”

“For now, let's just leave here first.”

……

Confronting Zhou Xiangzhe wasn't Lan's original plan. He came here only for the Academy's experimental results.

Now that the goal was achieved, his didi had also mostly finished eating, it was time to leave.

Of course he knew it was because he'd foreseen this in advance, so he'd calculated the timing where he wouldn't be discovered by Zhou Xiangzhe but could still cover for Shen Wang.

“Suddenly realized I have things to do, no time to waste here with you.” Lan looked at his book. “So, see you next time.”

“No, forget it, better not meet again.”

Lan said: “Don't want to see you at all.”

So in Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes, this defector Lan was like a lunatic who suddenly blocked him, then after blocking him for a while suddenly said he had things to do and turned and ran.

Hard to understand his logic.

But Zhou Xiangzhe also had no time to chase. Hundred Eyes and Shen Wang were both on the third floor. He still needed to confirm Lily's current situation.

Zhou Xiangzhe quickly went upstairs. During the climb, the black in his sclera faded. Even though Contamination still affected him, it wasn't as bizarre as before. After going up, he slightly furrowed his brow.

Because the third floor was too clean.

The dark corridor had nothing in it, emanating a hollow coldness. He couldn't sense any Contamination aura from Hundred Eyes, as if there wasn't a single Contaminant on the entire third floor. Zhou Xiangzhe looked around and walked forward, searching for traces of Shen Wang and Hundred Eyes.

After walking a few more steps, he saw Shen Wang standing at the far end of the corridor.

Zhou Xiangzhe walked to Shen Wang's side and looked at where Shen Wang was looking. In the small room, Lily lay quietly. Her eyes were cloudy but peaceful.

At the sight of the corpse, Zhou Xiangzhe let out a slight sigh. The worst-case scenario he'd anticipated had become reality.

“I never got the chance to know her.” Shen Wang said: “And now there's no chance anymore.”

“That's really awful.”

Zhou Xiangzhe walked to Lily's side, knelt on one knee, and gently closed her eyes with his hand.

He said: “This is what it's like in the Dispatch Team, even Polar Star. Everyone faces danger, faces death.”

“What about you? You're okay?”

Shen Wang shook his head. “I'm fine, not hurt. Hundred Eyes' Contamination has no effect on me.”

“Looks like your talent really is more like Contamination Immunity.” Zhou Xiangzhe looked at him. “That's a good thing.”

Zhou Xiangzhe dug the Pollution Inhibitor out of his pocket — the one he'd shoved in there. He slid those delicate little pieces back onto his hands one by one, and the Contamination pressed back down into his body again. Only once every Inhibitor Device was on did Zhou Xiangzhe bend down and lift the dead Lily up off the floor.

Shen Wang wouldn't be affected by the Contamination on his body, but the dead Lily's corpse would be corroded, so he had to put the Inhibitor Devices back on.

“Let's go.” Zhou Xiangzhe said: “This mission failed. Experimental data destroyed.”

“Class A Contaminant Hundred Eyes' main body and base location confirmed. Hundred Eyes went missing after being critically wounded. Gallery can be cleared.”

“Polar Star's losses this time: one person, named Lily, Class A Mutant.”

“Remaining personnel return to Central City.”

Not just the third floor of the Gallery, the first and second floors were also empty, as if Hundred Eyes had taken all her assets and fled. Only Shen Wang knew she hadn't fled—she was already dead.

Zhou Xiangzhe walked while observing his surroundings. He was very quiet, his golden eyes full of caution.

Walking out of the first floor's main door, there was a long Gallery in front. Only transparent frames remained in the Gallery. The ground was wet—traces left by the sprinklers that had opened when they entered. Walking further out, they finally saw bright sunlight.

The staff guarding the Gallery entrance were stunned for a moment, then shouted “Someone's coming out!”

“It's Polar Star! It's Captain Zhou and his team!”

“As expected of Polar Star!”

“Confirmed no Contamination components in the Gallery! Hundred Eyes has disappeared!”

Zhou Xiangzhe walked over carrying Lily's corpse. Medical staff immediately came with a stretcher. Zhou Xiangzhe looked at them, then finally placed Lily on the stretcher.

She didn't have any distorted expression. If you ignored the spear stuck in her chest, she looked like she was just asleep.

Zhou Xiangzhe closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

“Tally the casualties from this incident.” Zhou Xiangzhe said: “Don't leave anyone out.”

“Yes!”

/

Ming Guang arrived quickly. As Polar Star's vice-captain, he'd always been like a mother hen managing everyone in the team, with deep bonds with each person.

Seeing Lily's corpse, he frowned hard, his eyes full of grief.

Finally he closed his eyes, as if hiding something or forcibly holding back tears.

After about ten seconds, he opened his eyes again and started cursing Zhou Xiangzhe. “Didn't I tell you not to take off the Pollution Inhibitors?!”

“Don't you know your own condition?!”

Zhou Xiangzhe sat in a chair listening to him scold. “It's fine now.”

“Fine now, what about later?!” Ming Guang's expression was pained. “Do you really need me to collect your corpse? Can't you cherish your own life a little?”

Hearing this, Shen Wang turned to look at Ming Guang, then at Zhou Xiangzhe.

Only then did Ming Guang seem to realize there were other people here.

But he couldn't care anymore. Shen Wang was someone Zhou Xiangzhe cared about deeply. If Shen Wang tried to dissuade him, maybe he'd be more cautious.

“Your Contamination Level has long exceeded the limit. Wearing Pollution Inhibitors is to control the effects on you, to prevent Distortion.” Ming Guang said: “Continuing to use your talent will only make you get contaminated faster. Your body can't take it anymore.”

“Keep using it and you'll really die!”

Zhou Xiangzhe nodded. “Mm, I know. I'll remember.”

“What do you know! All you do is brush me off!”

Ming Guang couldn't control him at all. He could only slam the table hard. “Anyway, starting tomorrow, you're going to S-Zone for isolation until your Contamination Level drops back to 80!”

“Shen Wang, I'll take you back.”

Before leaving, Zhou Xiangzhe reminded Shen Wang to go to the Pollution Control Center to retest his talent and level. Ming Guang had a twisted expression like 'want to hit him but can't win'. When driving, he pushed the speed over 100, sending Shen Wang home at extreme speed. Ming Guang said seriously to Shen Wang that he was sorry, that he had to go back and continue lecturing a certain person who was asking for a scolding.

Watching the car speed off, Shen Wang stood in place for a while, then turned and went back to his temporary home.

Opening the door, Shen Wang heard music. The familiar person was still sitting on the sofa reading his book, though he didn't know what he was reading now.

Shen Wang closed the door. “Can you tell fortunes?”

Lan turned to look at him. “Hmm?”

“Fortune telling.” Shen Wang asked him, “Can you tell someone's fortune for me?”

Lan thought for a moment, then turned his head away without answering the question.

“Ge.” Shen Wang called him.

“Want the answer that badly?” Lan's tone had a slight hint of distaste, sounding reluctant.

But this was his dear didi's question, his cute didi wanting to know.

“Fine.”

He leaned back on the sofa, holding up his book like a child. The black hood hung down on the sofa back.

“You knew each other a long time ago. Once lived in the same home. Were friends before.”

“He's only one year older than you.”

“Before you realized it, he'd already recognized you.”