The River of Stars, Forever 11 (End)

Chapter 46

'You again.'

Zhou Xiangzhe fixed Lan with an unfriendly stare. 'Why were you inside a Grade-S Contamination Source?'

'You can be here, why can't I?' Lan looked Zhou Xiangzhe over with the same dark expression — and when he noticed Zhou Xiangzhe still had his arm around Shen Wang, the vein at his temple started to throb.

'And let go of him!'

You rotten bastard, putting moves on his sweet little brother.

That's when it clicked for Zhou Xiangzhe — Lan had been telling him to let go of Shen Wang this whole time, and that 'kidnapper' line had been aimed at Shen Wang too.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'You don't know what it means?' A cold edge crept into Lan's silver-violet eyes. 'It means you're not good enough for him. Simple.'

His adorable little brother was easy on the eyes and even better on the inside — smart, capable, able to eat Contaminants for breakfast and punch Aberrants into the dirt. A one-of-a-kind existence. It could only be because he'd grown up without parents or a gege to look after him that he'd let himself get lured away by someone like Zhou Xiangzhe.

'Excuse me?' Zhou Xiangzhe's voice sharpened. 'You're the one who pushed Shen Wang into that painting — and after pulling a stunt like that, you're standing here telling me I'm not good enough for him?'

'Isn't it obvious your approach is the problem?'

'Do you actually like him or do you hate him? Pick one.'

Lan: ……?

What? What, what? He pushed who into what painting?

Lan flipped the book open immediately, going back to re-read the messages he'd been too furious to finish earlier.

He hit one in the middle and sucked in a sharp breath.

His dear little brother had used Zhou Xiangzhe to activate the painting, dragged Zhou Xiangzhe inside to hide from Phantom Butterfly — fine, whatever — but then had the nerve to pin the whole thing on him.

While they were distracted, Shen Wang had quietly slipped behind Zhou Xiangzhe. He caught Lan's eye and gave a small, discreet gesture, his peach-blossom eyes drooping just slightly, looking every bit the picture of wronged innocence — and he kept that expression trained right on Lan.

Come on, gege. Take the fall for me on this one.

Lan watched Shen Wang in silence. A moment passed before he spoke. '……Fine. I did it. So what.'

'Even if it was me — I still think you're not good enough for him.'

His argument had no legs to stand on and he knew it, but he stood his ground anyway.

Damn it — this was exactly why he didn't support Zhou Xiangzhe and Shen Wang. The biggest problem between them wasn't feelings. It was where they stood.

Shen Wang was the child of a Grade-S Aberrant and a Grade-3S Contaminant. His congenital illness was literally designed to consume Contaminants and stockpile energy — he had to devour Contamination to function, a behavior pattern that was clearly non-human. But Zhou Xiangzhe wasn't just a person; he was Central City's guardian, currently the most prominent Grade-S Aberrant alive.

The crisis between them hung over something heavier than feelings. It hung over their lives.

That was it. That was why Lan disapproved.

It had nothing to do with not being able to stand the idea of Zhou Xiangzhe spending time with his brother while he was away. And it certainly wasn't jealousy over his brother falling for someone else.

'This has nothing to do with you.' A dangerous glint surfaced in Zhou Xiangzhe's golden eyes. 'You seem very invested in my personal life.'

Personal life? That's my little brother you're talking about.

Lan picked the massive fish-gutting knife up off the ground, expression blank, and thought: beat this asshole up first, talk after.

Behind him, Shen Wang let out the softest, most barely-there tsk, his eyes full of resignation.

He genuinely hadn't expected that the moment he and Zhou Xiangzhe confirmed what they were to each other — and then some — he'd immediately run straight into his brother and his runaway protective instincts.

The fact that he'd blamed everything on Lan earlier, figuring Lan was nowhere near, hadn't helped the situation at all.

Lan's reasoning was simple: I can't blame my little brother — everything my little brother does is correct — so this is entirely your fault.

So the moment Lan raised the fish-gutting knife, Shen Wang grabbed Zhou Xiangzhe and took off in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between them and a fight as he could.

Zhou Xiangzhe stumbled at the sudden pull but didn't stop — once the confusion cleared, he just ran with Shen Wang. Lan was left standing alone in the spot they'd fled from.

'Shen Wang?'

'Don't get into it with him.' Shen Wang kept talking as they ran. 'This is a Grade-S Contamination Source. We came here to assess the Source's expansion — that's done now. Headquarters is telling us to leave as fast as possible, which means the situation outside is very bad.'

'Fighting him wastes time we don't have.'

Zhou Xiangzhe watched Shen Wang's back as they ran. His mouth opened slightly, like he was about to say something. In the end, he said nothing.

He wasn't stupid — if anything, he was sharp, and everything he'd built with Polaris was proof of that.

Which meant he could feel it: Shen Wang and Lan had some kind of history.

Lan was a defector — the Science Academy's only successful test subject, a Grade-S dual-talent Aberrant. His hatred for the Science Academy stopped short of taking it out on humanity at large, but he had no love for the Anti-Contamination Center either, and there was no way he'd bother deceiving some Anti-Contamination Center operative out of nowhere.

So Zhou Xiangzhe had already started getting that feeling, back in Hundred Eyes' gallery.

Shen Wang held some special connection to Lan — that was why he could walk beside him, why Lan resented Zhou Xiangzhe over the two of them.

Now he was two steps more certain of it.

But — fine. Let it be.

Lan was a defector, yes, but he was still human. A sin the Science Academy had committed. That made him fundamentally different from a Contaminant.

As for where Shen Wang and Lan's paths had crossed — Zhou Xiangzhe could only think of the three years Shen Wang had gone missing. Maybe they'd met during that time, and maybe Shen Wang's new identity had something to do with keeping Lan's at arm's length, fabricating a cover to keep the complications away.

Maybe one day Shen Wang would tell him everything. He'd wait for that day.

Unlike the two of them, bound up in each other — Lan, left standing alone, let out a long, heavy breath after a few seconds of silence.

For a Grade-S who never let anything show, Lan had felt less helpless even when he was trapped in the Science Academy. A crack split open across that calm face, his cold silver-violet eyes clouding over with something dark.

'Still couldn't stop it, in the end. I just don't want my little brother to get hurt down the road.'

'Ah, well. If he does get his heart broken, at least he's got family in his corner.'

'But I'm not letting Zhou Xiangzhe off easy. Even if he's marrying in, he's still going to call me gege.'

'The weather's turning cold — must be Science Academy bankruptcy season again. Looks like the Anti-Contamination Center's about to pull some overtime too.'

Lan opened his book with a blank expression. 'Don't you think?'

'Let me see where the nearest Science Academy labs are. Figure out exactly where to hit them so it really stings.'

'Hm?'

Lan turned and looked back. The Lighthouse behind him suddenly went dark — the whole world went with it, and in an instant Lan lost all sense of direction, like being locked in a windowless box without a single thread of light.

He closed the book. 'Interesting. Seems someone knows I'm in a bad mood and wants to offer themselves up as a punching bag.'

'I was just complimenting your intelligence. Turns out you're not much smarter than the Deer God.'

'Drifting Fish. I'd strongly advise against looking for an early grave.'

Lan's voice was flat. His silver eyes brimmed with danger.

Drifting Fish had decided to take its shot anyway.

Grade-S Contaminant it may be, but its attachment to being a fish vastly outweighed any attachment to being human. It didn't like the desert. And it especially hated having a set window of time to track down a superior it despised and settle scores on demand.

Its original plan had been to break him down slowly.

Lan was a Grade-S Aberrant — but Drifting Fish was a Grade-S Contaminant. Same tier. So which of them came out on top?

Drifting Fish didn't know. So it started probing.

From somewhere in the dark came the faint sound of running water. Currents appeared around Lan — fish moved through invisible rivers, each one transparent, their bones showing clearly through the flesh. As the fish swam, the bones caught the light and flickered like stars in the current.

The fish drifted in circles around him. Lan flipped open his book in the dark like he hadn't noticed a single one.

The book was blank as always, not a character on the page. Drifting Fish, hiding deep in the darkness, thought: maybe he really can't see anything.

So the fish bones encircling him began to stretch. Their skulls warped and twisted until they looked disturbingly like human faces — every set of bones carved with the same face, mouths gaping open, rushing toward Lan at speed.

Lan looked down at the current and said, with open disgust: 'Hideous.'

'Haven't seen a Contaminant this ugly in a long time.'

The moment the words left his mouth, his pupils bled to a deep, cold blue and his hair went white in an instant — like a lone wolf. Ice spread rapidly outward from where he stood, and in seconds the entire river was locked under Glaciation, every deformed fish frozen solid in the water. The temperature around them plummeted, colder even than a Hantian North City winter.

'You don't need a desert to kill a fish. Sub-zero temperatures work just as well. Right, Drifting Fish?'

'What, you want to freeze me and slice me into sashimi? Go ahead — freezing makes it easier to cut anyway.'

Drifting Fish: ……

'Get out here.'

A man in black-rimmed glasses, button-down shirt, and dark trousers stepped out of the darkness one pace at a time — looking deeply, profoundly unwilling, radiating enough resentment to feed a small army of vengeful spirits.

Drifting Fish had wanted to clock its old superior over the head with something. Now it felt like it had just traded one master for another, still getting squeezed dry.

Extremely bitter about this.

Lan looked at him. 'Feel like trying again?'

'……Compensation.' It said it quietly.

'Sorry?'

'You want me to work, you pay me.' Drifting Fish screwed up its courage. 'I can connect to any location. I can send a current anywhere. Fast. I could moonlight as a courier — make more than I did when I was alive, probably. You can't just put me to work for free.'

Hold on — it wanted to quit and go into delivery?

Lan stared at it. 'How much?'

'A thousand — actually, five hundred. First job, half price.'

Lan fixed it with a stare, his deep blue eyes like a block of ice, cold radiating from the inside out. Drifting Fish was starting to shake — but just when it was sure everything was about to go catastrophically wrong, Lan agreed.

'I'll pay you in two weeks.'

Lan's internal reasoning: the money would be paid. Not as compensation — as something he'd be recovering from Shen Wang.

His adorable little brother had gone and gotten himself swindled by a bad man, then grabbed that same bad man and ran off while Lan was trying to settle the score. The least Shen Wang owed him was emotional damages. Being a gege was hard.

Drifting Fish, relieved at how easy that had been, turned to jump back into the river and make its exit.

'Wait.' Lan stopped it again. He pointed at one of the frozen human-faced fish. 'Whose face is that? It's revolting.'

'Oh, my old boss's.' Drifting Fish said, unbothered. 'Looks more like a monster than any actual monster, right? Perfect for a fish head.'

Lan: ……

Well. That made it very clear just how much it hated that superior.

/

The sudden darkness hadn't inconvenienced Lan at all. Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe, on the other hand, were in serious trouble.

They'd been trying to reestablish contact with Team Two Headquarters while working their way out of the Contamination Source — but before they could get their bearings, the whole world went dark and communications cut out entirely.

Fortunately, Zhou Xiangzhe had been holding onto Shen Wang's sleeve the whole time, which was the only reason they didn't lose each other in the sudden blackout.

'It's so dark,' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'I can't see where you are anymore.'

'You're holding my sleeve.'

Zhou Xiangzhe nodded — then remembered Shen Wang couldn't see him, and made a quiet sound of acknowledgment instead.

But it was genuinely too dark to feel their way forward. Moving blind wasn't just going to get them nowhere useful — it might get them completely and hopelessly lost.

While they were trying to figure out what to do, Zhou Xiangzhe blinked.

'Shen Wang.'

He said his name. 'You're glowing.'

'Huh?' Shen Wang turned toward Zhou Xiangzhe — and in that same moment, he caught it too: a faint, faint glimmer of light.

A tiny point of light worked its way out from the collar of Shen Wang's shirt. It moved like a little firefly, bright enough to illuminate only the smallest circle of space around them, drifting in the air before them — up, then down, up, then down.

Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe looked at each other.

'Where did that come from?' Zhou Xiangzhe asked.

Shen Wang thought for a moment, then said, 'I have a guess. Want to hear it?'

'Yeah.'

'This light…' Shen Wang considered how to put it. 'You didn't go inside, but you made it to the orphanage entrance — remember? There was a lamp by the door. Small, dim. Does this little thing remind you of it at all?'

Zhou Xiangzhe paused.

His memory was good, and he'd stood at that entrance for a long time, so he could call up everything he'd seen there quickly.

The orphanage had been swallowed by darkness, the only light that near-dead lamp at the entrance, its dim glow just barely reaching the people standing there. At the time he'd been too focused on the director and teachers and children he remembered to pay much attention to the lamp itself.

But now that Shen Wang brought it up — the light was the same. Just as small, just as dim. And yet here it was, still burning in this endless dark.

'The director gave it to you?'

'I don't know. But the director — all of them — pointed me toward where you were.'

Shen Wang pulled the memory back. 'A lot of them, all at once. They kept pointing until I found you.'

'Maybe even with everyone pointing the way, the director still wasn't sure I'd make it — so he put this little thing on me.' Shen Wang reached out and poked at the glowing point. 'Think it might be the director's talent?'

'A talent.' The corner of Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes softened into something close to a smile. 'A light in the dark?'

'That does suit him.'

They shared a quiet look, and then followed the light onward.

The light drifted ahead of them as if it were leading the way. Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe walked hand in hand behind it — whenever they fell behind, it would stop and wait, patient and unhurried.

'Does this remind you of spring field trips when we were little?' Shen Wang said suddenly.

'The director walking at the front, holding up a little sign, glancing back at us every so often. All the kids holding hands in a line behind him. Someone would always wander off to look at something, get hauled back by a teacher, and the director would just stand there and wait.'

'Yeah.' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'Same as back then.'

Only now the director had become a point of light, and they'd grown up — but he was still out ahead of them, still showing them the way home.

The Contamination Source wasn't actually that large — just an orphanage, a hospice, and the Lighthouse at the center. The light kept moving forward and stopping to wait, moving and stopping, and even so it took only about half an hour to come to a halt.

The light circled them twice. It lingered, reluctant, fading in the dark — slowly losing its glow. But ahead of Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe, the world was getting brighter.

Like spring arriving and the earth waking up. Like the sun cresting the horizon and spilling the first light of dawn.

Shen Wang felt a familiar presence. He turned and looked back — and when he saw it, he pulled Zhou Xiangzhe's arm, and Zhou Xiangzhe turned with him.

In the darkness that was slowly retreating behind them, the director stood watching. Behind him: The Female Teacher, and a cluster of children clinging to her legs, every one of them in matching clothes, a few with smudges of dirt still on their faces. When they saw Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe turn around, all of them immediately lit up and threw their hands in the air, waving as hard as they could.

'Goodbye!' they called out.

'Don't come back.' The bespectacled director smiled as he said it.

'This is the director seeing you home one last time.'

The light poured in and swallowed the dark — and covered everyone inside the orphanage, until they couldn't be seen at all.

Shen Wang felt Zhou Xiangzhe's grip on his hand tighten, like he was holding on to the last thing he had.

And then the noise reached his ears — wind, rain, and the sound of people talking.

'Zhou Xiangzhe.' Shen Wang said. 'They're gone now.'

Zhou Xiangzhe turned back. He nodded. 'Yeah.'

They took the last step together. Light rushed into their eyes the next instant, and a second later the rain came down — fine and cold — hitting them so fast that Shen Wang nearly shuddered.

Before Shen Wang could even take in the sky or the surroundings, a 'holy shit' rang out somewhere nearby.

'Holy shit!' The familiar voice came out completely stunned. 'Oh my god — I knew it, I knew they had something going on! Look at them, they're holding hands!'

Zhou Xiangzhe heard it too. He looked over at the source — Jiang Li'an — and a quiet warning surfaced in his golden eyes.

Jiang Li'an clapped both hands over his mouth and scrambled behind Zhou Qing, looking deeply put-upon.

Shen Wang let go of his hand anyway — not because he cared about appearances, but because he had no interest in being stared at like a sideshow. After Jiang Li'an's outburst, nearly everyone in the vicinity had turned to look, and every single one of them was in uniform, Polaris insignia pinned to the chest — clearly Team Two members, the lot of them.

Every one of them wanted to look and was terrified to look. Both impulses warred across their faces, twisting into a mask of genuine suffering.

Zhou Xiangzhe felt a small pang of regret — but he couldn't exactly announce they were together without factoring in what Shen Wang wanted.

'Polaris — Zhou Xiangzhe and Shen Wang returning to the team. Now, what exactly happened in Zone 3?'

'Right, yes!' The mention of Zone 3 launched Jiang Li'an out from behind Zhou Qing. 'Xiao Shen! We need your help. You said earlier you saw a river in Zone 3 — give us the details.'

Shen Wang was still standing beside Zhou Xiangzhe. 'What happened?'

'Every victim in Zone 3 has vanished.'

'What?'

Zhou Qing came forward, preceded by a brief invocation, then said: 'Apart from Benefactor Shen, no one else was able to enter Zone 3. So after the Contamination in Zone 2 cleared, this humble monk immediately took over Benefactor Shen's assignment and entered Zone 3 — but strangely, this monk saw no river as Benefactor Shen had described. And at the same time, not a single person was found inside Zone 3.'

'It was like a dead city. Completely empty — not a single living thing. Not even a bird. Not even a rat.'

That was horrifying. Zone 3 had been sealed by the Anti-Contamination Center's order, every Aberrant Human locked inside, watched from all sides — even if they'd died, there should have been bodies.

Instead they'd vanished out of thin air. Not even a shadow left behind.

Zhou Xiangzhe knew this was badly wrong. 'Any new developments?'

'Yes — this morning, right when we confirmed the Contamination Source had pulled back to its original range, the Contamination in Zone 3 disappeared too.' Jiang Li'an frowned. 'Once we confirmed it was clear, the boss and I went in with a few others to check. Still no one. Not a soul.'

'Of the three zones, Zone 3 has been the strangest from start to finish — Aberration with no apparent cause, Contamination Levels too high for even Aberrants to withstand, then Contamination vanishing for no reason and taking everyone inside with it.'

Zhou Xiangzhe's brow drew together slightly. He looked at Zhou Qing.

Two Grade-S Aberrants held each other's gaze for a few seconds. They reached the same conclusion at the same time.

Jiang Li'an looked back and forth between them. 'Boss, what are you two doing?'

'Issue a red alert.' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'Contamination Source designation: Lighthouse. Suspected Grade-S Contaminant on site.'

Jiang Li'an nearly dropped the stuffed toy in his hands.

'Captain, what did you just say?!'

Zhou Xiangzhe ignored Jiang Li'an and gestured for Shen Wang to walk with him.

Shen Wang fell into step beside him. 'Is it really a Grade-S Contaminant?'

'A Grade A Contaminant still leaves traces. A Grade S Contaminant is a possibility, but until we actually see it, everything's just speculation.'

Shen Wang thought it over. According to the director, aside from the director himself there were only three Contaminants inside the Contamination Source that could be called high-level: one Grade B — Xiao Yi, dealt with by Shen Wang; one Grade A — Phantom Butterfly, taken down by Zhou Xiangzhe's Deer God. That left only the fish, the one that had never shown its face.

He hadn't expected it to be Grade-S.

Not that it had much to do with Shen Wang either way. He was currently limited to his Grade-A talent, and the last time he'd gone up against a Grade-S Contaminant he'd lost so badly the painting had become unrecognizable.

So he wasn't about to go picking fights with Grade-S anything out of sheer boredom.

'What do we do now?' Shen Wang asked.

'Right now? Get changed.' Zhou Xiangzhe kept walking as he said it. 'We've been inside a Contamination Source for days, and it's raining out here — clothes are soaked. Might even smell.'

'Do they?'

Shen Wang leaned in, grabbed his collar, and took a sniff. Zhou Xiangzhe obligingly tilted toward him to make it easier.

Honestly, there was no smell — Zhou Xiangzhe was just particular about cleanliness. Every time a mission ended, changing clothes was his first order of business. If it were up to him, he'd go through a fresh set every single day.

Not far behind them, Jiang Li'an was watching the two of them.

He clicked his tongue.

'Boss, look at them — if those two aren't a couple, then who is?!'

Zhou Qing watched the pair ahead of them and felt his teeth ache.

'Am I going nearsighted?' He rubbed his eyes.

Jiang Li'an looked at him, confused. 'Nearsighted?'

'If I'm not nearsighted, then why am I seeing Zhou Xiangzhe treat someone this gently? Last time we met, my Contamination Level spiked and I lost it for a bit — when I came back to myself, I found out Zhou Xiangzhe had trussed me up by all four limbs and hung me from a tree. That man has no heart whatsoever.'

Jiang Li'an: ……

Should he point out that nearsightedness means not being able to see things far away?

Zhou Qing was seeing all of this just fine from a distance. That wasn't nearsighted — if anything, it sounded like farsightedness.