Galaxy Eternal 1

Chapter 36

After the Grade S Contamination Source Outbreak over a decade ago, Central City went through a massive restructuring.

The Galaxy Orphanage was built inside Central City, not even on the outskirts, which gave the Anti-Contamination Center a massive headache. In the end, they had to abandon half of the newly built Central City High Wall, rebuild a new Central City on the other side, and construct an even higher wall.

So Central City is actually the most unique of the Five Great Walls. The new city houses proper Central City residents, and the Anti-Contamination Center protects the whole place.

The old city is also called The Outer Wall, and because it offers the same protection, countless refugees swarmed in. They don't care whether there's really a Grade S Contamination Source nearby. They just know this place can keep them safe, no strings attached, first come first served!

So The Outer Wall became a chaotic, dangerous place where all kinds of people mixed together. The Anti-Contamination Center had to send people specifically to manage it.

Eventually, everywhere in The Outer Wall was packed with people except the area around the Grade S Contamination Source, which they firmly kept off-limits. Some even said: 'Setting foot in Central City's Outer Wall is like stepping halfway into Central City. Just tough it out a bit longer, and one day you'll make it into the real Central City.'

This wasn't Shen Wang's first time here, but it was his first time as an enforcer.

Qiang Li'an's towering build drew eyes all along the street. Everyone watched the group with a mix of confusion and fear.

Once they'd passed, people started whispering among themselves.

'What happened? Are those people from the Anti-Contamination Center?'

'Scared me to death. I thought the Anti-Contamination Center was here to drive us out.'

'You guys don't know the half of it. I heard something's wrong with that contamination source over there. The Anti-Contamination Center's been sending people this whole time.'

'What?! There's really a contamination source in The Outer Wall?!'

'Of course there is, and it's Grade S, too. Otherwise why would Central City abandon a finished high wall and spend all that time and effort building a new one? It's because a Grade S Contamination Source is a pain to deal with.'

'Then what do we do?!'

'We're out of luck. We're not Central City residents, the Anti-Contamination Center won't care about us.'

'They can't do that! We're in danger too!'

Qiang Li'an ignored the whispers. He knew these people only dared to mutter among themselves. They wouldn't dare do anything in front of the Anti-Contamination Center.

When he first got here, Qiang Li'an used to argue with them. The moment he stood up to them, they'd be too scared to say another word, given his size.

Later he stopped bothering. They'd just keep saying the same things anyway.

He'd intimidate them at the time, but as soon as he left, they'd just say the Anti-Contamination Center was stifling their free speech.

'Contamination incidents in The Outer Wall are ten times those inside Central City, because the flow of people here is massive and the risk is sky-high.'

Qiang Li'an explained to Shen Wang, “Actually, every place Outside the High Wall has small cities clinging to the Wall, that's perfectly normal. The Anti-Contamination Center sets rules and shelters the people Outside the High Wall as well, but unfortunately Central City is the exception.”

'There's a second fully intact high wall here, which just makes more people desperate to escape the contaminants outside. So they all flood here. But there's also a Grade S Contamination Source here.'

The big guy groaned, 'It's such a freaking headache!'

This also meant that when the Grade S Contamination Source started expanding, the impact was enormous. Almost everyone living around the source was affected, tens of thousands of people.

'So, this isn't our mission site?' Shen Wang asked.

After leaving Central City, he'd split off from Zhou Xiangzhe. Zhou Xiangzhe headed inside the Grade S Contamination Source, and Shen Wang was brought here by Qiang Li'an.

The eyes of people in The Outer Wall were more dangerous. They watched everyone warily, a sign of how hard their lives were.

But there were no obvious traces of contamination here.

'Of course not. We're here to pick someone up,' Qiang Li'an said.

'The Anti-Contamination Center doesn't dare let this place fend for itself. What if a truly horrific contamination incident broke out? So they sent someone to manage it. This contamination expansion is too huge and terrifying, so the Anti-Contamination Center assigned him to help.'

Shen Wang didn't know The Outer Wall had an administrator. To him, it was a messy, chaotic place. Compared to the order inside Central City, this place looked like a doomsday scene straight out of a novel. A manager from a place like this... would they be some sort of local boss?

Shen Wang had that thought as he and Qiang Li'an arrived at their destination.

It was a simple little house, no different from the ones around it, just with a shabby 'Anti-Contamination Center' sign hanging on the door.

'Zhou Qing!' Qiang Li'an yelled. 'Big boss! I'm here to pick you up!'

Zhou Qing? That name didn't seem to fit a local boss at all.

The door creaked open, and Shen Wang saw a shaven-headed monk in robes, holding prayer beads, step out...

'Amitabha.' The monk chanted a Buddha's name first, then started cursing. 'Can you keep it down? Your voice is about to shake my house down!'

Shen Wang: ...

He finally seemed to notice there was someone else with Qiang Li'an, so he cleared his throat. 'Greetings, benefactor.'

'Skip the time-wasting talk. Big boss, you're a fake monk, no need to act the part so well.' Qiang Li'an hurriedly added, 'Time's running out! Let's go!'

Zhou Qing gave him a disdainful look. 'This poor monk is at least a Grade S Mutant. Can you show me a little respect?'

So he was actually a Grade S Mutant.

Even as he said that, Zhou Qing understood the urgency. He quickly followed them out, heading for the mission's real location.

On the way, Shen Wang got to know Zhou Qing a little.

Zhou Qing, Grade S Mutant, self-proclaimed talent 'Scissors,' Contamination Level 62%.

According to Qiang Li'an, Zhou Qing had shown signs of mental abnormality when his Contamination Level hit 50. An extremely violent person suddenly dropped his butcher's knife and became a Buddha on the spot, insisting he was the reincarnation of the eighteen arhats. Before anyone noticed, he'd shaved his head and put together a monk's robe.

Right around then, Zhou Xiangzhe happened to be passing by with his squad. Curious, he asked him: 'Aren't monks all about mercy and compassion?'

And he answered: 'The Bodhisattva says that delivering these harmful contaminants to the afterlife also counts as mercy and compassion.'

So he was still the same violent Grade S Mutant, just wearing a monk's robe, and muttering mystical nonsense all day.

After being assigned to The Outer Wall, everyone thought he looked like a softy, that messing with him was like messing with cotton. Then someone actually did, and Zhou Qing tossed the guy straight into the containment center, insisting he was contaminated. 'What, you doubt the judgement of a Grade S Mutant?'

Even if he wasn't contaminated, he was a suspect and needed a thorough check!

After that crackdown, nobody dared cause trouble in The Outer Wall anymore.

'This poor monk just wanted a quiet place to live in seclusion, but alas, the world needs this poor monk.' Zhou Qing shook his head and sighed. 'By the way, this benefactor here, how come I don't recognize him?'

'Of course you don't. He's the new member of our Polaris squad, a Mutant with the talent Contamination Immunity.'

Zhou Qing's eyes lit up. 'Contamination Immunity?'

'That's a good talent, really good, really good.'

By now they'd gotten to know each other well enough. They rushed to the Squad Two Headquarters, where there were hardly any people left. Qiang Li'an said everyone was out trying to stop the contamination source from expanding.

The Anti-Contamination Center had sent other people to evacuate the surrounding residents, but there were still three contaminated zones that needed their attention.

'We can't confirm the specific contaminants in these three zones yet. The three of us will each take one. Once we're done, we contact each other and back the others up,' Qiang Li'an said.

'Zone 1. The first report came from a young woman who said her boyfriend died suddenly in his sleep. He was completely fine before bed.'

'We initially thought it was just a routine sudden death. But soon, calls started flooding in, all from families of people who died in their sleep. When we stepped in to investigate, every single one of those reporting family members died the exact same way.'

'Testing has confirmed this contamination incident's danger level is at least B.'

'Zone 2. A spotter reported seeing a Dancing Doll outside his window at night. The doll was about a meter tall, endlessly spinning mechanically. But the spotter lived on the seventh floor. He pulled the curtains shut out of fear, only to turn around and find that doll spinning right behind him.'

'After that, the contamination spread instantly. Countless people saw the doll and, upon seeing it, couldn't stop crying, falling into utter despair, eventually taking their own lives out of overwhelming grief.'

'Zone 3. A victim sought medical attention for abdominal pain. After drugs didn't work, further tests revealed countless tadpoles swimming inside the victim's body. The tadpoles had completely devoured the person's internal organs. A city-wide screening followed, and the results showed almost everyone in the city had tadpoles and frog eggs inside them.'

'The day after the eggs were discovered, the victims began to Aberrate, increasingly taking on frog-like traits.'

After laying out all three zones and their issues, Qiang Li'an let out a long breath.

'Anyway, I'll take Zone 1. The big boss takes Zone 2. Little Shen, you take Zone 3.'

'Stay in contact. Find the contamination source no matter what!'

......

Shen Wang stood on the empty street, looking to his left. There was a pile of rotting vegetable leaves, who knew how long they'd been there, giving off a sharp, pungent stench.

He pressed the communicator by his ear. 'Arrived at Zone 3.'

No answer. Either they didn't hear, or the communication was being jammed here.

Shen Wang put his hand down and walked forward.

Zone 3 was the only place around the contamination source with widespread Aberration contamination and the only place where the contamination method couldn't be confirmed. Without knowing the method, they couldn't formulate a proper response, so in the end, they had to lock down the city along with the other two zones.

The Anti-Contamination Center had sent other people to investigate before, but even Mutants who entered this area would quickly begin to Aberrate.

After multiple attempts, the Anti-Contamination Center stopped sending people, but the area still couldn't be left unaddressed, until Qiang Li'an found Shen Wang, a Mutant with Contamination Immunity.

Even if he couldn't resolve it, they hoped Shen Wang could at least locate the contamination source.

After crossing another street, he finally saw a person. A little girl about seven or eight years old sat on the ground playing with a filthy toy. Her hair was a mess, and her cheeks and hands were tinged green, like someone had scribbled on her with a marker. But Shen Wang, having read the files, knew this was an external symptom of Aberration in Zone 3 victims.

Shen Wang walked over. 'Hello.'

The little girl clutched her toy and looked up, her eyes bulging as though they were about to pop out.

She seemed half-blind. Shen Wang waved a hand in front of her eyes before she finally focused on it.

'Hello.' The little girl asked in a childish voice, 'Who are you?'

'Anti-Contamination Center. Do you know where everyone here went?'

The little girl said, 'Everyone left.'

'Where did they go?'

'They said they're locking down the city, so they all went to the high wall. They said that way they can escape.'

'They can't get out.' Shen Wang said calmly. 'So they must've come back.'

'Yeah, big brother, you're so smart!' The little girl shook the toy in her hands. 'Everyone came back real quick. Mom and Dad said there were uncles with guns there who told them to go back. So they got scared and came back. But everyone got so, so thirsty, like they were dying of thirst, so they all went looking for water.'

Shen Wang nodded. 'So where did they go for water?'

'Over there.' The little girl pointed in a direction. 'A river appeared there, a huge river!'

Shen Wang raised an eyebrow slightly.

Before coming, Qiang Li'an had stuffed him with plenty of documents, the most detailed of which was the map of Zone 3. He'd gone over that map again and again and was certain there was no river here at all. If there really were a river here, the Anti-Contamination Center definitely wouldn't have built a high wall in this location.

After the apocalypse, rivers became an unstable factor. No one knew what might be in them. There had been multiple incidents of people drinking untreated water and getting contaminated.

So when the Anti-Contamination Center built the high walls, they had a clear stipulation: no rivers were allowed to flow near the construction site.

After thanking the little girl, Shen Wang headed in the direction she'd pointed.

As he walked, Shen Wang filed his routine report to the higher-ups.

'Zone 3: unidentified river suspected to have appeared in the area. Aberrants moving en masse toward the unidentified river.'

As always, no response. Shen Wang clicked his tongue. 'What kind of quality is this? The Anti-Contamination Center sends people out on risky missions but can't be bothered to upgrade the gear. The Science Academy's been at it for years and can't even make a communicator that doesn't drop the connection. All that funding, what a waste.'

After his grumbling, Shen Wang kept walking. Ahead was still completely empty, though every so often he'd spot an Aberrant who hadn't fully transformed.

When Shen Wang talked to them, the ones who still had some reason left told him more or less what the little girl had said. Others had completely lost their minds. They cried, asking if they could still be saved, hysterically demanding why the Anti-Contamination Center wasn't coming to save them.

To that, Shen Wang said, 'Well, I came, didn't I?'

But the Aberrants had so little cognition left. They couldn't understand what Shen Wang was saying. They just kept crying and demanding why he wasn't saving them.

He kept walking. After about five hundred meters, Shen Wang finally saw the river the little girl had mentioned.

It really was a river, and a pretty long one at that.

The river was about ten meters wide, the water a bluish-green. It cut right through the middle of the residential buildings. The structures on both sides were half-collapsed. Steel and concrete hung on both banks. Because of the extreme humidity, moss had grown over the exposed steel ruins, looking lush and green.

'Confirmed river at 500 meters west of the entrance. Ten meters wide, water bluish-green. Water quality cannot be determined.'

'But something that never existed before suddenly appearing... No matter how you think about it, something's off.'

'What kind of weird contaminant can just rewrite the landscape out of nowhere?'

Following procedure, Shen Wang sent the location coordinates to the communicator and even took two photos of the river. Not being able to transmit wasn't his problem. He followed the rules.

After that, Shen Wang followed the river upstream. He wanted to see where it originated. Maybe that was the source of this whole contamination.

Maybe I can stock up on some little snacks. Two won't be enough for me.

He skirted two nearly collapsing apartment blocks and walked along the bank, recording as he went. The river flowed incredibly slowly. It almost looked more like a lake. Every so often, one or two large frogs would surface, watching Shen Wang as he moved, their lidless eyes unblinking.

They watched him walk past, then submerged again.

Finding the river's source took Shen Wang quite a while. He estimated he'd walked at least three li. The further he went, the darker the sky became, as if he were walking into some strange place.

That was when a bridge appeared in front of Shen Wang.

He didn't step onto it, because a strange woman was standing on the bridge.

She didn't look like a real person. She looked more like a doll. She wore a red dress with little dress shoes, waves of blonde hair. She was dancing on the bridge, spinning obliviously. Every time she turned, Shen Wang could see her lips stretched into a grin.

Dancing Doll?

'Why is it here? Isn't this Zone 3?' Shen Wang looked down at the map he had on him.

'Zones 1, 2, and 3 are in three different directions from the contamination source. Contaminants have territorial instincts, which is why the contamination in these three zones is all different. They've already divided up the territory among themselves.'

As he said this, Shen Wang looked up. The spinning, dancing doll on the bridge was gone.

Something latched onto his waist. The icy chill seeped through his combat suit. Shen Wang looked down and saw the meter-tall doll wrapping its cold plastic arms around his waist. When Shen Wang looked at her, she let out an eerie laugh.

'Let's dance together!'

'Beat it.' Shen Wang stared at it coldly. 'Don't touch me. You're filthy.'

The doll laughed even louder. 'Let's dance together!!'

Thorns instantly dragged her out. The plastic doll slammed hard onto the stone bridge, and the fragile thing shattered into pieces, its cracked head rolling to the bridge's edge.

She kept smiling, just as always, her glass eyes locked onto Shen Wang. 'Let's dance together!'

Shen Wang completely ignored her. He pressed the communicator again.

'Additional update: Dancing Doll has appeared in Zone 3. Confirmed it has not entered Zone 2.'

After reporting, Shen Wang stepped onto the stone bridge.

'So what's on the other side?'

Coming down from the bridge, Shen Wang was surprised to find the river behind him had vanished. Behind him was an empty, pitch-black wilderness stretching into nothing. Not far ahead, there was a cluster of old, broken-down playground equipment. A child sat on a little swing.

The child was very, very small, laughing as they swung back and forth.

Seeing this, Shen Wang paused. He didn't walk forward, but he didn't immediately leave either.

Because he remembered. He, too, had once sat on this swing.

Back then, the swing hadn't been this worn out. It had been built recently, like the orphanage. Clean, brand new. It was the children's one and only playground.

Dozens of kids from the orphanage would stand in line here, just to swing for a few minutes.

/

'Say what?!' Qiang Li'an shouted. 'The captain's gone off comms?!'

'Yes. We were able to reach him at first, but now the scheduled check-in time has passed, and the captain still hasn't contacted us. We're trying to reach him, but, but...'

Qiang Li'an spat out a string of curses, then forced himself to calm down. 'Wait a bit longer. We have to trust the captain can pull off the impossible!'

'Maybe the captain just got caught up in something complicated and can't contact us right now.'

'That must be it!'

Just then, a familiar voice came through the communicator. It was Zhou Qing. 'Da Qiang, get in touch with benefactor Shen.'

'Stop calling me Da Qiang! How am I supposed to find a partner with a name like that!'

'Okay, Da Qiang,' Zhou Qing's voice was steadier than before. 'You've noticed, right? Ever since we split up, benefactor Shen hasn't contacted us again. I haven't heard a single word from him this whole time.'

Qiang Li'an's eyes widened. '...Yeah, why haven't we heard anything from him?'

The staff at headquarters spoke up. 'But Mr. Shen Wang has been sending in reports consistently.'

'Is that so?' Qiang Li'an said, puzzled. 'He's not telling us, but he's uploading to the system?'

'Another one just came in!' The staffer said. 'I'll put it on speaker so everyone can hear!'

The staffer opened the message Shen Wang had sent and put it on broadcast for everyone.

And so they heard Shen Wang's grumbling.

'Beat it. Don't touch me. You're filthy.'

'Additional update: Dancing Doll has appeared in Zone 3. Confirmed it has not entered Zone 2.'

Qiang Li'an sucked in a sharp breath. 'Holy shit!'

'Contact Shen Wang immediately! Tell him to pull back right now!'

'Contaminants have territorial instincts. They avoid crossing paths with other contaminants. But this isn't a normal contamination zone. There's a Grade S Contamination Source between the three zones, and all three contaminants have settled inside the Grade S Contamination Source. Why is he walking into the contamination source itself!'

'Oh my god! If the captain finds out, he's going to kill me!'

'Shen Wang, get back here right now!'

Qiang Li'an prayed, anxious and distraught. Then, very quietly, his colleague at headquarters reported.

'Uh... he can't be reached.'

Qiang Li'an even let out a choked noise.

Zhou Qing sighed. 'Are you crying?'

'Big boss, you don't understand.' Qiang Li'an said, heartbroken. 'Just yesterday I was wishing him and the captain happiness. Then he told me if my jinx ends with both of them not coming back, it's all my fault.'

'What jinx? That's just superstition. Zhou Xiangzhe is a ruthless man who can kill a Grade S Contaminant. It won't be that easy for him to die. And benefactor Shen's talent is Contamination Immunity, the odds of anything happening are low. What we need to do right now is organize the messages benefactor Shen left behind and figure out the situation.'

Qiang Li'an choked up again.

'Wait, what did you just say?'

Zhou Qing suddenly reacted. 'You wished him and Zhou Xiangzhe happiness?'

'Him and Zhou Xiangzhe?!'