Star River Forever

Chapter 38

'Wait, don't be scared!' Shen Wang said quickly. 'Anti-Contamination Center.'

The director froze, looking Shen Wang up and down. 'Anti-Contamination Center?'

'Hello, I'm Shen Wang from Polaris, here on a contamination investigation mission.' Shen Wang pointed to the Anti-Contamination Center insignia on his chest. 'I'm really not a kidnapper.'

The director stared at the insignia. Though more than a decade had passed, the Anti-Contamination Center's emblem was still the same, so he reluctantly believed him.

After all, in this era, with the population plummeting and survival uncertain at best, who would spend money on a child? And who would bring a dangerous weapon to an orphanage to abduct one? It was too absurd.

'Oh no!' The moment the director was certain Shen Wang wasn't a threat, he bolted. 'Xiao Qi and Xiao Shiwu!'

Shen Wang let out a soft breath. He holstered his gun, his dark eyes flicking to the clock. It seemed broken, stuck dead at eight in the morning. The second hand trembled, straining to move, as though some force pinned it there, so it could only stay at eight.

The window beside the clock was covered by thick curtains. Shen Wang walked over and yanked them open, revealing a pitch-black night without a single trace of light.

Inside the orphanage it was eight in the morning, but outside it was still nine at night.

Shen Wang frowned slightly, pulled the curtains shut again, and walked out of the office.

The orphanage hallway was brightly lit. A teacher was sweeping up shattered glass from the floor. Through the window, the darkness outside was like a thick black fog, something terrifying lurking just beyond, eyeing the orphanage hungrily. Oblivious, she kept sweeping, muttering about making sure the children didn't get cut.

Not far off, the director was conferring with three other teachers. They quickly split up in four directions — clearly going to search for the missing Xiao Qi and Xiao Shiwu.

But how could they find them? In real history, Xiao Shiwu was in the hospital being treated, and Xiao Qi was the sole survivor — the one the director shoved out the window.

Sure enough, after combing the area they found nothing, and then the director remembered something.

He hurried back and, seeing Shen Wang still there, let out a breath of relief.

'Sir!' The director was panting. 'You said earlier you're from the Anti-Contamination Center, here to investigate a contamination incident, right?'

Shen Wang nodded.

'Then, are my children missing because of contamination?' the director asked anxiously. 'Do you know where they are? How could two little kids just vanish?'

'Calm down.' Shen Wang reassured him. 'I don't know if it's contamination, but I did chase a contaminant here.'

At those words, the panic in the director's eyes was impossible to hide.

'A contaminant? No, I need to get the children out of here.'

The orphanage director, who had forgotten he was already dead, was trapped repeating the same day, his mind still filled with nothing but protecting the children under his care.

'There's no need to evacuate the orphanage.' Shen Wang repeated what he had said the first time they met. 'I need intelligence. You're the only one who can give me clues, Director.'

The director froze, looked at Shen Wang, and after a long moment slowly nodded. 'What do you want to know?'

'A child.' Shen Wang said. 'I'm not sure if it's a boy or a girl, but they weren't orphaned — their mother abandoned them at the orphanage. Do we have a child like that here?'

The director thought for a moment. Something seemed to dawn on him, and a little like he couldn't quite believe it.

'Director?'

'Yes.' The director nodded. 'There is a child like that, but he's not here right now.'

Shen Wang was surprised. 'If he's not here, where is he?'

'In the dormitory area behind the orphanage, there's a specially set up isolation room — it was originally a storage room, but later we converted it to control Xiao Shiwu's illness.' The director said. 'He's in the isolation room.'

Though it was called an isolation room, the director had never actually isolated any child there. It was practically Xiao Shiwu's private room — only when his illness flared up uncontrollably would he be placed there.

So now, hearing the director had locked another child in there, even Shen Wang was surprised.

'Who?'

'Xiao Yi.'

The director sighed. 'He got into a fight with Xiao Qi.'

Shen Wang was even more taken aback. 'Xiao Qi got into a fight?'

'Because he dug out all the candy Xiao Qi had been saving and threw it down the drain.' The director shook his head. 'I've never seen Xiao Qi angry before — this was the first time. He started hitting without a word. After we separated them, Xiao Qi cried and asked me: when Xiao Shiwu comes back, will he be sad without candy to eat?'

'So I put Xiao Yi in isolation.'

The director looked out the window, even though it was dark outside and nothing was clear.

'Sometimes when a child does something wrong, you can't just lecture them. This was his fault.'

Xiao Yi.

Shen Wang searched his memory. The director gave all the children in the orphanage nicknames based on age order. Xiao Yi was the oldest child there.

Even though he was the oldest, he had almost no presence — at least not in Shen Wang's recollection.

He only remembered that this kid was, like him, someone the others avoided. But while Shen Wang was shunned because of his condition, Xiao Yi's isolation was more due to his personality. He never played with the other children, just sat silently by the door most of the time.

He gave off a faint resentment toward the orphanage — maybe because, being the oldest, he understood better than the others what an orphanage meant.

'Director, can you take me to see him?'

'Alright.' After a moment's hesitation, the director agreed.

He led Shen Wang a different way. There was a passage from the orphanage to the dormitory, but the path was thick with dust, as if no one had walked it in years. The director pushed the door open, seemingly blind to the grime, dust settling on his shoulders.

As he walked, the director said, 'Our Xiao Shiwu is a special child. He has an illness and needs to go to the hospital from time to time.'

'Xiao Qi and Xiao Shiwu are the closest. They're always together. Xiao Qi often saves his share of candy for Xiao Shiwu. Sometimes when Xiao Shiwu is away, I give his share to Xiao Qi too.'

The director rambled on, unconsciously slipping into the coaxing tone he used when talking to the children.

'A lot of kids thought Xiao Qi didn't like candy and would ask him for it. But how could he not like it? He's a child too.'

'He just wanted to save the candy for the friend he liked.'

The director fell silent for a few seconds.

This was something everyone in the orphanage knew. That's why he couldn't understand why Xiao Yi would dig out Xiao Qi's saved candy — not even to eat it, but to throw it down the drain.

What he did was so malicious that the director found it disturbing, and broke his own rule by locking him in the isolation room.

Shen Wang listened to the director's rambling without ever interrupting.

This was history Shen Wang didn't know — events that happened a few days before the Grade S Contamination Source Outbreak. Things Zhou Xiangzhe had experienced, but that Shen Wang had missed while he was in the hospital.

Footprints trailed in the dust coating the floor. Lights flickered on one by one along the passage, but outside the windows it was still that impenetrable, pitch-black darkness. It churned, as if something was writhing within it. Shen Wang kept glancing out the windows, checking the situation outside.

'Hee hee.'

A sudden sound cut through the director's monologue. The director froze — and in the next instant, Shen Wang threw out his arm and blocked him behind his back.

A battered, filthy doll in a dirty little dress. Its red shoes were scuffed and peeling, its golden curls a tangled mess. It spun, but a damaged ankle joint made its rotation jerky and unsteady.

Yet still it kept spinning, unsteady, jerking round and round, laughing as it turned.

'What is that?!' the director stared at the meter-tall shabby doll, his face full of terror.

'A contaminant.' Shen Wang drew his gun. 'That's what I've been chasing.'

The director had lived through the early days of the apocalypse, but most survivors had been fortunate enough never to encounter a high-grade contaminant. This was the first time he had seen something so grotesque.

Fear gave way to alarm — this was an orphanage, and there were over thirty children here. He spun around to go back, but the path behind them had vanished. It had become absolute darkness. His eyes widened as he looked around frantically, but he couldn't find the way back to the classrooms.

'The path! Where's the path?!'

'We can only move forward for now.' Shen Wang calmed him. 'Don't worry. As long as the contaminant is tied up here with us, it won't go after the children.'

The director wasn't comforted, but there was no way back now. All he could do was follow Shen Wang.

'Hee hee.' The doll kept spinning. Its mechanical arm twitched. Beneath its golden curls were grease-smeared glass eyes. Its mechanical jaw dropped open, giving it an exceedingly eerie look.

'Big brother, come dance with me!'

'You're the only friend I have left. Let's play together forever!'

'Come on!'

Shen Wang fired. The bullet hit the doll, shattering it to pieces — but instantly, laughter came from elsewhere. An identical doll appeared further ahead, spinning.

'Tch.' Shen Wang clicked his tongue. 'This thing is like a cockroach. You just can't kill it.'

He stopped wasting bullets and kept walking. The director stayed beside him, eyes fixed on the dolls that kept materializing.

The director suddenly spoke. 'I've seen this doll before.'

'You've seen it?'

'When Xiao Yi was abandoned at the orphanage, it wasn't officially open yet and the children hadn't been transferred here. That day I came to inspect the place and found him.' The director walked and talked. 'He was holding this very doll. He told me his mother told him to wait here, that she'd come pick him up soon.'

'I checked the surveillance footage. He'd been sitting there for a whole day and a night. The only thing the footage showed was his mother flinging him down and fleeing in panic. She never came back.'

'I knew then she wasn't coming back.'

Just as he thought, Xiao Yi's mother never returned. The director took him in. When the orphanage stabilized, the director gave all the children new nicknames based on age, and because Xiao Yi was the oldest, he was called Xiao Yi.

The first time the director called him Xiao Yi, he was furious.

He said his name wasn't Xiao Yi, he had his own name, and his mother would definitely come take him away.

The director gave a soft sigh. 'Can a child turn into a contaminant too?'

'Not just can — it might happen even earlier than you'd think.' Shen Wang said.

The night before the Grade S Contamination Source Outbreak, the director had sighted the Lighthouse inside the orphanage. But perhaps the omen was even earlier than that lighthouse.

It was the moment Xiao Yi maliciously dug out Xiao Qi's hoarded candy and threw it all down the drain.

/

The path behind was swallowed by darkness, but ahead it was still lit. They followed the corridor to the dormitory area and arrived at the isolation room.

The director kept glancing back, hoping to find a way to return, but all he saw was that impenetrable black. The churning darkness was like a beast of black fog — just one look could make your blood run cold.

Shen Wang let out a breath. Looking at the familiar door, he finally felt a trace of something from his childhood.

Back then, his episodes had been unpredictable, so he'd been locked in here from time to time. Sometimes he even felt this was his second room in the orphanage.

Later, when the orphanage's conditions improved, the director found money to send him to the hospital, and he wasn't thrown in here as often.

Before the director could fetch the key, Shen Wang pulled a spare key out from under a nearby brick and, under the director's astonished gaze, unlocked the door.

'How do you know there's a spare key there?'

'In TV dramas, they usually put them there.' Shen Wang answered coolly. 'I just checked on a whim.'

The director looked baffled. 'But even I didn't know a key was hidden there.'

Oh, Xiao Qi hid it.

That guy secretly took the spare key to the isolation room and hid it under the brick so he could get in to see him even when the director forbade it.

With a creak, the door swung open. Light flooded the isolation room. Shen Wang didn't see a child locked inside — only a doll hanging dead center from the ceiling.

This doll wasn't a meter tall. It was just the size of an ordinary toy, maybe twenty centimeters at most. It hung from a beam by a cord around its neck, like a hanged man. As the door opened, a draft swept in; the doll swayed and spun, its toes pointed at a child's chair placed directly beneath it.

'Come dance with me.' A mechanical voice came from the doll.

'Come dance with me.'

'Come dance with me...'

The scene made the director's mind go blank for a second. It was too much for anyone's nerves.

Shen Wang didn't flinch. He fixed a hostile glare on the shabby doll, stared for a few seconds, then walked right in and yanked the hanging doll down.

Irritated, he switched off the doll and tossed it onto the chair.

'So noisy.'

The director: …

How to put it? He now fully believed this person was from the Anti-Contamination Center.

In this bizarre and terrifying situation, to yank a creepy doll down barehanded just because it was annoying — that was not simple.

Way too calm.

'At most, it's just a Grade B Contaminant.' Shen Wang glanced at the director. 'Not enough to scare me.'

The director was silent again.

Having worked with the Anti-Contamination Center, he knew contaminant classifications better than ordinary people. A Grade C Contaminant was usually enough to destroy a small town. And this young man said a Grade B wasn't enough to scare him?

Just what kind of unit was Polaris? How had he never heard of it?

While the director was puzzling over this, the darkness beyond the doorway solidified into tangible black fog and pressed inward. Shen Wang looked toward the door — BANG. The door slammed shut with a heavy impact, as if something outside had bolted it. Then silence.

That empty, deathly stillness was the sort that could drive any normal person insane.

But unfortunately, Shen Wang wasn't normal, and the director wasn't human.

They wouldn't die, and they wouldn't go mad.

'What happened?' the director asked.

'Someone locked the door from outside.' Shen Wang said. 'Probably the Xiao Yi we're looking for.'

'Xiao Yi's just a child, he's still...'

Before the director could finish, a crisp sound cut him off. The doll Shen Wang had tossed onto the chair fell to the floor.

Click. The switch Shen Wang had turned off flicked back on.

'Why is it always me who gets abandoned?' A child's voice, neither male nor female, echoed from the doll.

'Mother doesn't want me. She didn't come get me. She threw me here and left.'

'Nobody wants to play with me. They're all bad kids. Why won't they play with me alone!'

'Finally, a kid like me came. I could finally have a friend. We're the same! But why did he find a friend too!'

'Xiao Shiwu! You abandoned me too!'

Shen Wang tilted his head. He realized the thing was interrogating him.

'Such a pretty child, such a likable one. And the best part, he had an illness. Nobody cared about him, nobody wanted to play with him. Only me! Only I was willing!'

'We should have been best friends. He should have hated everyone in this orphanage just like me.'

'So why did he find a friend?! Why did he get all mixed up with those people too!'

'You abandoned me!'

The doll's voice turned hoarse and ugly, the mechanical sound brimming with resentment and despair.

Hearing this, Shen Wang couldn't help but laugh — not out of anger, just that he found it genuinely ridiculous.

In the orphanage, he hadn't had much of an impression of Xiao Yi — only knew he was very withdrawn. But he'd never imagined Xiao Yi carried this idea, that Xiao Shiwu was there to be his companion, that they were destined to be best friends.

But Shen Wang thought: on his first day at the orphanage, Xiao Yi hadn't said a word to him.

Only Xiao Qi came to ask his name, eyes bright, wanting to be friends — and even after Shen Wang's episodes started, Xiao Qi never changed his mind.

'Why does Xiao Shiwu get more candy than me! Why does Xiao Qi have his own umbrella! Why won't the director lock anyone up but always locks me away!'

'Everyone abandoned me! Everyone hates me!'

'I'll get revenge! I'll make them all pay!'

The meter-tall doll burst out of the darkness, lunging at Shen Wang. But when its fingers were a half-meter from him, it froze in place.

Thorns burst from the floor, coiling around the doll and slamming it to the ground.

Shen Wang wasn't a good person — he could even be called nasty. If he could find a gap to bully Zhou Xiangzhe, why not bully a contaminant?

He planted a foot on the doll's body, pressed the gun barrel to its forehead, a smile on his face — dazzling and beautiful in its arrogance.

'You ask why? Obviously because Xiao Qi likes me and is willing to share his candy with me.'

'It's been over a decade and you still haven't grown. No wonder nobody likes you.'

'You say I should have been your friend? You're way too confident. I don't think much of you. What about you could possibly compare to Xiao Qi?'

The doll writhed violently, shrieking, but it couldn't break free of the thorns. At last, the thorns pierced and tore it; it gave no further sign of life.

But this still wasn't the contaminant's true form.

Shen Wang stood up. He pressed his fingers to his temple and started thinking about where this thing could actually be hiding.

It was now confirmed: the Dancing Doll's true form was Xiao Yi from the orphanage. When the Grade S Contamination Source swallowed the orphanage, he had been locked in this isolation room. The orphanage kept repeating the day it was consumed, time fixed at eight in the morning, and the Specter Phenomenon played out inside it.

'Are you Xiao Shiwu?'

Shen Wang turned to the director.

The director stared at Shen Wang, his reddening eyes betraying his bewilderment. He didn't even know what to do; his hands reached out and pulled back several times.

It was as if he wanted to stroke Shen Wang's cheek like he used to, but suddenly remembered Shen Wang was no longer a small child — he was a fully grown adult.

Shen Wang sighed softly, stepped over, and took the director's hands. The warmth of his touch seeped into the director's icy palms.

'You remember?' Shen Wang asked.

From the moment Shen Wang had noticed that something was off with the orphanage clock, he had suspected: maybe there wasn't just one contaminant here.

Contaminants competed with each other. Two of them were fighting for control of the orphanage.

In the daytime, the orphanage belonged to one of them, who desperately maintained its normal operations, keeping it as if nothing had changed. The other wanted nothing but revenge, so it drowned the orphanage in endless darkness.

That was why the clock was pinned at eight in the morning. That was why every presence in the orphanage felt that fear, and wanted to send Shen Wang — the intruder — away.

Who that contaminant was — Shen Wang didn't even need to guess.

'Why did you come back? This isn't a good place.' The director looked at Shen Wang, as if he had finally retrieved his memories from within the boundless darkness.

'Child, you need to leave! Now!'

Shen Wang sighed. 'If I hadn't come, when were you planning to disappear?'

His tone was steady, not a hint of accusation — even gentler than ordinary speech — but it was more disarming than any interrogation.

'You're weaker than it right now, aren't you? How much strength have you wasted keeping this whole orphanage running normally? Your memories are already fragmented. Soon enough you'll really be devoured along with everyone else, and then the orphanage will be that thing's territory.'

The director: …

The person who had been about to lecture the child quietly shut his mouth.

Xiao Shiwu was way fiercer than Xiao Qi.

'No wonder you raised someone like Zhou Xiangzhe. That thing bites the hand that feeds it, and you just let it hate you?'

Shen Wang didn't care that this was the director from his childhood. He'd say whatever he wanted to say.

The director listened in silence. When Shen Wang finished, he spoke. 'Xiao Yi is my child too.'

'That day, I locked him in the isolation room. When things went wrong, I only thought about getting the child closest to me out. I forgot about him, locked in here. By the time I realized, I heard him inside, crying and crying, banging on the door, so terrified.'

'I was the one who locked him in. I'm the one who wronged him.'

Boundless regret and self-blame — that was what turned the director into contamination. He barely maintained the orphanage's normalcy while resisting the insane Xiao Yi. He always felt it was his fault Xiao Yi had become such a terrifying contaminant, that he was the one who deserved to bear the sin.

If only he hadn't locked Xiao Yi in the isolation room back then — if he had stayed by his side — would things have turned out differently?

For more than a decade, he had thought about it endlessly, repeating that day over and over. His obsession had only grown stronger, and it had drained him past endurance.

Perhaps in a little more time, he truly would lose his reason and vanish, letting 'Xiao Yi' completely take over the orphanage, letting the darkness swallow this place.

But what could he do? In the end, he was just the director of an orphanage. Now he was just a mutated contaminant.

'Alright, I get it.'

Shen Wang said, 'Now tell me where it is.'

How do you find the other contaminant's location? Your enemy knows you best. So in this struggle, the director was absolutely the person most likely to know where the contaminant's true form was hidden.

Asking him was more useful than asking anyone.

'Xiao Shiwu?'

'You think you wronged him, so you can't bring yourself to act. But you were father and son, after all. I'll help you this once.'

The director froze. 'But...'

'Don't say anything else. I just don't want Zhou Xiangzhe to have to face this. That guy is way more sentimental than I am.'

Shen Wang switched to an official tone. 'Hello, I'm Shen Wang, a staff member of the Anti-Contamination Center, here to handle a contamination incident. The Dancing Doll has already caused contamination in several thousand people, so my mission is to neutralize this contaminant and prevent further contamination spread.'

'Director, please support my work.'

The director looked at Shen Wang. After a few seconds, he dropped his gaze and let out a soft sigh.

He nodded. 'Alright, I'll tell you.'

Xiao Yi said he had abandoned him. The director thought: maybe he had.

Between Xiao Yi and Xiao Shiwu, he always chose Xiao Shiwu — because Xiao Shiwu, with Xiao Qi's company, would give Xiao Qi an umbrella; he would refuse everyone except Xiao Qi; after the director scolded Xiao Qi, Xiao Shiwu would plead for him, saying he'd never lose control again.

Those two little children were always willing to change themselves for each other.

Not like Xiao Yi... who forever believed only that the orphanage was to blame for his mother abandoning him.

When you give and give and get nothing back for so long, even someone like him gets weary and hurt.