Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The old swing creaked and groaned, a broken, ugly sound, but the kid just kept swinging higher and higher, happy as anything.

Shen Wang stood where he was, watching the little boy on the swing, trying to remember who he was.

But unlike Zhou Xiangzhe, he didn't have a perfect memory. After more than a decade, he'd long forgotten what the kids back then looked like.

The boy on the swing noticed him. He stopped swinging and stared at Shen Wang, curious.

'Who are you?' the kid asked.

'It's so dark out here. Why are you alone?' Shen Wang asked back. 'Where's your teacher? I want to ask how they were watching you.'

'Waah! Don't tell on me, don't tell on me!' The boy immediately rushed over and grabbed the hem of Shen Wang's clothes, not a shred of caution in him. 'I was wrong! I'll never sneak out to play alone again!'

The kid babbled on, his words tumbling out all jumbled.

He said he'd snuck out while the teacher was making dinner, because everyone was getting ready to eat so there was nobody in line here, which meant he could play on the swing for ages, then sneak back partway through dinner, and the teacher wouldn't even notice. He was so clever.

Hearing that, Shen Wang finally remembered who he was.

Xiao'ershiyi, once the naughtiest kid in the Orphanage.

From the moment the swing was first set up, he'd loved it and wanted to play on it forever, but the teachers were always watching and would never let him hog it. So he'd run out during meals, play alone the whole dinner hour, then sneak back to eat.

The Principal caught him several times, and eventually made him apologize in front of all the teachers and read out a written confession, but even that didn't break the habit.

'Well, since you put it that way, I believe you.' Shen Wang looked at him. 'But it's dangerous for you to be out here alone. I'm taking you home.'

Xiao'ershiyi clutched the hem of Shen Wang's clothes and gazed up at him, touched. 'Gege, you're really nice!'

Shen Wang thought: Now you think I'm nice.

When you were little you were terrified of me. The little tyrant would bolt the second he saw me, didn't dare say a word.

Come to think of it, every kid in the Orphanage was scared of him except Xiao Qi, because when he had an episode it was terrifying. The kids even secretly believed he must be possessed by some monster. Only Xiao Qi, for no reason at all, was willing to stay by his side, never leaving even during an episode.

Of course, Xiao'ershiyi couldn't sense what Shen Wang was thinking. Little kids get sad fast and happy just as fast. In an instant he was bouncing along cheerfully, tugging Shen Wang forward by the hand.

The path ahead was pitch black, but Xiao'ershiyi walked it smoothly. After about three minutes, Shen Wang saw the familiar front gate.

The Orphanage looked exactly like it did in his memory, only far more worn down by time, the marks of years on every brick and tile, even one of the lamps at the gate shattered. Which made sense. Even swallowed into a Pollution Source, the Orphanage had really lived through more than a decade.

And in that moment, Shen Wang finally knew for certain: he'd entered the Class S Contamination Source. That river had flowed straight out of it.

Shen Wang pressed the Communicator, not caring whether the signal could still carry his voice through.

'Zone 3 river connects to the Class S Contamination Source. I've entered the Class S Contamination Source. Body shows no abnormalities, mental state is good.'

'Hell of a way to revisit the old place.'

Xiao'ershiyi let go of his hand and dashed forward.

'Teacher!'

A single faint lamp glowed in the darkness, putting out a feeble light like a firefly. Two women teachers stood inside the gate, waiting anxiously.

When Xiao'ershiyi ran over, they hurriedly scooped him up.

'Where did you run off to? We were worried sick!'

'I went to play on the swing.' Xiao'ershiyi knew he'd been bad, so he spoke up timidly. 'That big gege brought me back.'

Only then did the teachers look at Shen Wang standing in the gateway, thanking him over and over.

Whether it was Xiao'ershiyi or the teachers in front of him, they'd been swallowed into the Pollution Source for over a decade and still kept their original forms, their minds even untouched. It really was an amazing thing.

In truth, Shen Wang had braced himself to find a pack of monsters warped by Distortion into things that weren't even human-shaped anymore.

'No need to thank me,' Shen Wang said. 'Can I come in and have a look?'

The teachers froze. They exchanged a hesitant glance, then answered, 'Sir, you can't. Visiting the Orphanage requires an application, you can't just walk in.'

'Make an exception. I lived in an orphanage as a kid too. Seeing this place feels familiar.'

The teachers shook their heads, watching Shen Wang as if looking at some child who didn't understand.

'Sir, you can't. Please leave, quickly.'

'This isn't a place you should come into.'

Shen Wang said earnestly, 'Think it over again. This place really does feel familiar to me, I really do want to go in and look.'

The two teachers held Xiao'ershiyi and looked at Shen Wang. After a few seconds of silence, they sighed. One of them said, 'I'll go ask the Principal. Sir, wait here a moment.'

With that, she carried Xiao'ershiyi into the Orphanage, leaving the other teacher at the gate.

The woman teacher standing at the gate had the same gentle face as ever. She was still very young, her clothes clean and neat. She stood there watching Shen Wang the whole time, his face reflected in her black eyes.

So Shen Wang watched her right back.

'Why do you keep staring at me?'

'I'm sorry.' The teacher lowered her head. 'I just keep feeling like you look a lot like someone I knew, so I couldn't help looking.'

'But sir, maybe you should still go back. The Orphanage isn't a good place.'

'Go. Since you've already left, don't come back.'

Just then, the teacher who'd gone in poked her head out. She tugged the other teacher's arm, calling her inside to talk about something.

After the two teachers were gone, Shen Wang felt a tiny bit of force bump into him.

Shen Wang lowered his head and crouched down. Xiao'ershiyi was hugging him, lips pursed in a pout.

'Got told off?'

'Mm!' Xiao'ershiyi nodded hard. 'I just really wanted to play on the swing, 'cause I can never get a turn.'

'When you grow up, you can build your own swing,' Shen Wang said.

Xiao'ershiyi looked at Shen Wang, then dropped his head a moment later, staring at the ground like a sulking kid. It took a while before he spoke.

'You should go.'

'Hm?'

'You go that way.' Xiao'ershiyi pointed in a direction. 'Teacher said there's a way out over there. Go that way and you can go home.'

'Don't come here again. Go now, hurry, go.'

He started crying. 'You can't come in. Hurry up and go!'

Shen Wang sighed and picked Xiao'ershiyi up. The kid had always been smaller than him, and now he looked even smaller. Lifting him, Shen Wang felt almost no weight at all.

'If I could leave, do you think I'd still be here?'

'Little guy, I'm trapped here.'

Xiao'ershiyi was still crying, until someone lifted him out of Shen Wang's arms.

'No more crying.' There was comfort in the man's voice. 'Teacher scolded you because she was worried about your safety. It's dangerous out there.'

So Xiao'ershiyi buried his face in the man's chest.

The man patted his back gently, then raised his head to meet Shen Wang's eyes. 'You're the one who wanted to visit the Orphanage, sir? Hello, I'm the Orphanage Director here.'

When Shen Wang was little, looking at the Principal was like looking at a towering mountain, a mountain he could never cross over, one that often forced him into the confinement room. Now, looking at him, Shen Wang realized he wasn't that tall after all, not even as tall as Shen Wang himself now. A man in his thirties, wearing a battered pair of glasses he must have had for who knows how long, his clothes washed pale.

Carrying Xiao'ershiyi, he led Shen Wang into the Orphanage. The whole way, Xiao'ershiyi kept sniffling and crying, but the Principal wasn't fazed, soothing him quietly while introducing the Orphanage to Shen Wang.

'Star River Orphanage was one of the first orphanages Central City opened after the High Wall was built. It's been five years now. We've taken in thirty-eight children, with four teachers, five counting me.'

'Five years?'

'Right, five years.'

Shen Wang turned to look at the buildings around him. 'Somehow the wear and tear here doesn't look like only five years.'

The Principal turned and glanced at Shen Wang, a trace of helplessness in his black eyes.

'Sir, I keep feeling like we've met before.'

'If you trust me, don't stay here any longer. Go home as soon as you can. This place may be dangerous.'

Shen Wang looked at him strangely. 'Why do all of you keep telling me to go home? Aren't you all living here just fine?'

The Principal fell silent again. He quietly soothed the child in his arms, and only after a long while did he speak.

'We don't know either. We just inexplicably feel this is no longer a safe home.' The Principal spoke with a sigh. 'I don't know when the thought first came, or why it's like this. Probably when we suddenly realized Xiao Qi and Xiao Shiwu had vanished from the Orphanage.'

'After we found them missing, there was this overwhelming unease. Teachers, kids, everyone felt afraid. We searched a long time and still couldn't find where they'd gone.'

'Sir, you really should hurry home. I remember the way out of the Orphanage is over there.'

'Go on back.'

They didn't know why, but Shen Wang did.

When a high-grade Pollution Source devours humans, beyond turning them into Pollutants and turning each one into a Distorted Human, it also creates a specific phenomenon, which the Pollution Control Center calls the Soul Eater Phenomenon.

Like ghosts, they linger in the place where they died, holding the posture they had at death, forgetting the fact that they're already dead, retaining only the memory of their last day as they go about their daily activities. Through this ghostly behavior they release Contamination, triggering an even stronger Soul Eater Phenomenon.

The most severe Soul Eater Phenomenon was at the Zone 3 Contamination Area, where every Mutant who went in observed a vast city of ghosts.

It was the same for them in the Orphanage. They'd forgotten they were already dead, endlessly repeating that one day, yet subconsciously sensing something was wrong, wanting to send the wandered-in Shen Wang back, never realizing that Shen Wang's being able to enter here meant he was already past the point where he could leave just because he wanted to.

Shen Wang let out a soft sigh and pressed the Communicator at his ear to continue his report.

'Soul Eater Phenomenon observed. Location: Star River Orphanage.'

The Principal heard the sound and looked over at Shen Wang.

He set Xiao'ershiyi down and told him to go eat dinner. Xiao'ershiyi wiped the tears off his face and ran off.

Now only the Principal and Shen Wang were left.

When everything around them had gone dead silent, the Principal asked, 'Pollution Control Center?'

'Is that the Pollution Control Center uniform you're wearing?'

'Yes. Hello, Dispatch Team [Borealis], Shen Wang.' Shen Wang introduced himself. 'Here to investigate a Contamination Incident.' On the file it was logged as Polar Star.

'Borealis?' The Principal mulled it over, and after a few seconds said, 'It seems someone calling himself Borealis came before too, but I think I've forgotten who he was.'

'That might be my captain. He came ahead of me.' Shen Wang answered calmly. 'So, Principal, sir, besides everyone here feeling this inexplicable fear, has there been anything else out of the ordinary?'

The Orphanage's Principal had once belonged to the Pollution Control Center too. Back then, everyone working at a group facility had to have served at the Pollution Control Center. The world was still quite dangerous in those days, and the person in charge had to be well-versed in every pollution-control measure and hold professional certification from the Pollution Control Center.

So the Principal immediately understood there might be a Contamination Incident inside the Orphanage that he hadn't detected.

But more than that, he wanted to ask something else. 'Do the children need to be evacuated? Two children have gone missing from the Orphanage. Can you help find them? Could it be connected to this incident?'

Shen Wang shook his head. 'The Orphanage doesn't need to be evacuated. Just tell me anything strange that's happened.'

The Principal held Shen Wang's gaze, then a few seconds later looked away.

'There shouldn't be anything strange, or maybe I just can't detect it. The kids are the same as before, but the phone won't connect, and the lady who comes to deliver vegetables on schedule today didn't come.'

'If she doesn't come, the kids won't have any vegetables to eat tomorrow.'

Shen Wang nodded. 'Understood. I'll report to the Pollution Control Center now. Goodbye.'

The Principal watched Shen Wang turn to leave. He didn't know why he suddenly called out to stop him.

'Sir.' The Principal took off his glasses and looked at Shen Wang. 'I really do feel like I've met you before, sir. The feeling keeps nagging at me. May I ask, did we meet at the Pollution Control Center?'

Shen Wang stopped walking. He turned to look at the Principal.

'Met before?'

'Do you ever feel like... I look a bit like someone you once put in confinement?'

The Principal froze.

He truly, genuinely froze. He gazed at Shen Wang, confusion in his black eyes, but in only a few seconds, his eyes reddened.

He'd taken off his glasses, so there was nothing left to hide his eyes. The Orphanage's dim light fully exposed his reddened rims and the fierce emotion churning beneath. He may not have realized anything, yet almost instantly the tears fell.

But only a moment later, the Orphanage's lights flickered. Rims still red, the Principal whipped his head around to look behind him.

As if he'd sensed something, he shouted at Shen Wang, 'Get out of here!'

'Hurry!'

'It's coming!'

'It?'

The Principal swiftly threw open the window beside them and forcefully shoved Shen Wang out. 'Go, now!'

Shen Wang let the force carry him out of the Orphanage. Standing outside the window, he saw a strange light flickering behind the Principal, like some odd creature beating its wings. Shen Wang vaguely felt it resembled that firefly-sized lamp at the Orphanage gate.

'What?'

'Don't come back again.' Shen Wang read the shape of the Principal's lips. 'Xiao Shiwu.'

Ding-dong.

A strange bell sounded in the distance. Shen Wang turned to look into the night, and saw a huge tower standing behind the Orphanage, decorated with something between a butterfly and a moth, and higher up hung a clock. The clock read exactly 21:00, nine at night.

Dong, dong, dong, the clock chimed three times.

In an instant the Orphanage's lights went out, and darkness swiftly swallowed everyone inside, leaving only an empty building.

The whole world was deathly, terribly still.

Shen Wang left the Orphanage's grounds and looked at the Lighthouse not far off.

'Lighthouse [S-Level] observed.'

Everything around him was black, only the Lighthouse lit up, as if guiding the people nearby.

Before coming here, Shen Wang had gotten a lot of material on this Class S Contamination Source, including some top-secret files even an ordinary Mutant would never know about.

Back then, the Class S Contamination Source Outbreak hadn't been entirely without warning. The Orphanage's Director had once observed a strange lighthouse at night, which became especially clear after the Orphanage's lights went out. He'd reported it to the Pollution Control Center, but before they could investigate, the Pollution Source erupted.

Afterward, the Pollution Control Center conducted observation and investigation of the entire Pollution Source from its outer edge, and confirmed there really was a lighthouse inside the Pollution Source.

From then on, the Lighthouse became the symbol of this Class S Contamination Source.

'Where did Zhou Xiangzhe go?' Shen Wang murmured, watching the Lighthouse. 'If he came in, he'd definitely head to the Orphanage.'

'The Principal said a Borealis man came too, but he's not here.'

'Could he have gone to the Lighthouse?'

Before Shen Wang could even start toward the Lighthouse, an eerie laugh came from beside his ear.

Shen Wang turned to look in through the Orphanage's window.

A Doll was dancing inside the Orphanage, separated from him by a single pane of glass. It spun, letting out a laugh, the corners of its mouth tearing open again and again, its glass eyeballs fixed the whole time on Shen Wang.

'Hee hee, big gege, come dance with me.'

Compared to the one he'd met on the stone bridge, this one's voice had switched to a child's, laced with static, like an old-fashioned radio.

Shen Wang narrowed his eyes slightly.

'Big gege, I'm so lonely, come play with me.' The Doll turned, putting out a mechanical voice. 'It's so dark and cold here, there's nothing at all, come keep me company.'

'You're my only friend.'

'Mama doesn't want me anymore. None of them want me. You're all I have left.'

'It's so fun here, come play with me.'

The Contamination in Zone 2 had been tentatively named the Dancing Doll. Team Two had a fairly thorough understanding of this Class S Contamination Source. They'd already compiled a list of victims before, so the instant this Contamination expansion appeared, they tried to locate the Contamination cores of all three zones.

In Qiang Li'an's view, the Doll had toy traits unique to childhood, accompanied by intense Mental Pollution, that Mental Pollution manifesting as extreme despair and pain.

So the Pollutant in Zone 2 was very likely a parent who'd raised a child, or a child themselves.

Given that the Class S Pollutant had happened to devour an orphanage, they leaned toward it being a child, an abandoned child from the Orphanage.

Shen Wang couldn't guess who it would be. The Orphanage had had all kinds of kids, and anything could have happened in the early days of the apocalypse. Besides, Star River Orphanage's Principal never allowed the children's information to be told to others, precisely to prevent any psychological impact on the kids.

The glass window was locked from the inside, but how could a simple window like that stop him?

Shen Wang broke the window's latch, vaulted straight in through the Orphanage window, and put a shot into the thing.

The Doll, shattered to pieces, kept laughing. It vanished before Shen Wang's eyes, and an intact Doll was dancing again at the end of the corridor.

It spun ceaselessly, putting out a child's voice that was neither male nor female, shrill and grating.

'Mama said if I wait here she'll come get me.'

'Mama didn't lie to me! Mama wouldn't lie to me!'

'Mama would never abandon me!'

Shen Wang pulled the safety, raised his gun, and walked forward step by step.

'Don't go saying I'm bullying a kid.' Shen Wang said expressionlessly. 'By actual age, I'm about as old as you.'

'We once lived in the same home. Don't make this hard for me.'

Shen Wang was no match for Zhou Xiangzhe. He didn't have that much attachment to Star River Orphanage. At most he'd think of Xiao Qi. All his attachment to Star River Orphanage rested on Xiao Qi, and maybe the Principal counted for a little, but in the end nothing compared to Xiao Qi.

So he could level his gun at the Doll without dwelling on who the Doll's true self really was, or why it had warped into a Pollutant.

The spinning Doll was still laughing. It kept vanishing before Shen Wang's eyes and reappearing somewhere else. After aiming a few times, Shen Wang confirmed that this thing popped in and out so much there was no aiming at it.

A length of thorny vine pushed out from his wrist, and in that very moment, the Doll leapt through a door, a sliver of light showing through the door frame.

Shen Wang kicked the door open. Light instantly poured through onto him. He shut his eyes by reflex, and when he opened them again he saw an entire bookshelf. The person behind the shelf heard the door open and stepped out.

'What is it?' he even called out toward the outside.

Shen Wang raised his gun straight away. The person who came out jumped in fright and threw his hands up.

He wore round-framed glasses and a shirt washed pale, staring in terror and bewilderment at the gun in Shen Wang's hand, seemingly unable to fathom why a young man with a gun had appeared in his office.

The Principal?

Shen Wang turned to look at the wall clock in the Principal's office. It clearly read eight in the morning.

'You, who are you?!' the Principal demanded. 'How did you get into the Orphanage?!'

'What do you want?!'

Before Shen Wang could explain, the door behind him, which had somehow shut, was abruptly shoved open. A teacher burst in, panting.

'Principal, it's bad! Xiao Qi and Xiao Shiwu are missing!'

'What?!' Now the Principal didn't even have any terror left. He lowered his hands and said urgently, 'Did you check the swing? What about the little lawn out back? Those two love playing there.'

'Nothing, we checked everywhere!'

'How can you not find them!' The Principal made to leave, and then another teacher burst in.

'Principal, it's bad!'

The Principal sucked in a cold breath. 'What's bad now?!'

'The window over in our corridor is broken! The latch and glass are shattered all over the floor! And there are bullet casings!'

The Principal froze. As if he'd just remembered something, he turned to look at Shen Wang, looked at Shen Wang and then at the gun in his hand, and it all clicked.

'Call the police!' The Principal planted himself in front of the two teachers, blocking Shen Wang. 'Get out, quick! Take the children and run! There's a human trafficker here with a dangerous weapon, here to kidnap kids!'

Shen Wang: ...

Fuck!

Proof that when a man's luck goes bad enough, he can end up trafficking himself!