Heavenly Voice 3

I rewrote the last chapter because I wasn't satisfied, sorry, you guys need to read it again.

Originally Lan didn't want The Hound to go in either, but you know The Hound—the more you tell him not to, the more he insists.

Because they didn't enter Labyrinth City through the main gate, they were basically ticket scalpers, so the moment they got in they were dumped in some remote corner. Lan's pupils turned pure black; he looked up at the sky, where the eye inside the Blood Moon was shedding tears, clearly staring at something.

“Over here, The Hound, you... huh?”

Lan looked to the side. “Where is he?”

After two seconds of silence, Lan opened his book and frowned slightly at what he saw.

“We're being targeted because we cheated our way in? We got thrown to completely opposite directions.”

“But still, his position is very close to didi, the probability of them meeting is over eighty percent.”

“Let's head to didi and regroup first.”

Lan closed the book, turned, and walked forward.

Meanwhile, The Hound crashed flat onto the ground. He frowned a little but didn't make a single sound of pain. Honestly, he was long used to pain. All those years in the Science Academy, he'd gotten used to being punished—pain was just pain, nothing to make a fuss over.

He picked himself up and looked around.

“Not here.” The Hound said. “Neither of them?”

“I'm free? Oh! I'm free!”

The Hound cheered expressionlessly. “What the hell, this is no fun at all.”

He muttered to himself and walked on down the road.

The Hound's mind always went a little haywire after pain—it was a conditioned reflex. The more the Science Academy punished him, the more they got back rebellion and restlessness. He'd never surrender to pain, not in this lifetime. But honestly, the more pain he was in, the more sensitive he became, and the sharper his mind worked.

Like right now, he could clearly sense something heavy with contamination moving in the distance.

Tch, wait, maybe two things?

The Hound followed the path forward. He sensed the weaker contamination ahead vanish, while the one behind stopped moving, but its contamination grew denser, like it was on the verge of bursting.

That stench was way more pungent than Drifting Fish.

A normal person would've found a safe place to hide and waited for teammates. But too bad The Hound wasn't normal. If he cared that much about his life, he wouldn't have been so stubbornly defiant against the Science Academy.

So he headed straight toward the contamination, his head full of ‘Contaminants fighting! Gotta go watch! Gotta see the show!’

The contamination wasn't far from The Hound. After running about five minutes, he found the source. He walked down the last stretch and finally saw the contaminant itself.

It had its back to him, long black hair draped over its shoulders. It looked like a woman, or maybe a long-haired man.

The Hound was a Perception Type Grade S Mutant. Not only was he a walking contamination compass, he could also see the true face of anomalies. So he could see this contaminant stood over two meters tall, and below its legs weren't feet but a black mist like shadows, the same shadow-stuff stretching out endlessly, linked to the Blood Moon in the sky.

Such a massive contaminant.

The Hound's breathing grew heavier. The contaminant slowly turned its head.

Under the black strands of hair, there was a vivid red, just as eye-catching as the Blood Moon.

“Do you have an invitation letter?” the contaminant asked him.

Its voice was neither male nor female, neither young nor old—it sounded like countless voices layered on top of each other.

It stretched out a hand toward The Hound. “Hand over the invitation letter!”

“Cough, cough.” The intense contamination made The Hound choke. The uncontrollable coughing reddened the rims of his eyes.

But even as he coughed, he laughed. “What's this? A pseudo-Grade S contaminant?”

“This thing can't be who Lan's looking for, right? If it is, I'm gonna laugh him to death.”

Before The Hound could finish laughing, black mist shot out like tentacles and instantly hoisted his entire body into the air. He felt the suffocation; the mist was trying to drill into his body, but it couldn't get in no matter what.

Of course, there was a grade restriction between contaminants and mutants. The Hound was a Grade S Mutant, while the thing in front of him was merely pseudo-S and hadn't actually reached Grade S.

It couldn't contaminate The Hound.

But The Hound wasn't an offensive-type mutant.

Though his teeth were sharp and he was Grade S, all his aggression had been suppressed by the Science Academy, and his talent was just a pathfinding device of the Perception Type—he stood almost no chance against a Grade S Contaminant.

“Grade S, Grade S...” the contaminant twisted its neck. “You're Grade S.”

“Eat you!”

The black mist around him tightened, pulling The Hound toward it. He frowned. Just then—shk—the binding mist was cut apart in rapid succession.

The contaminant whose mist had been severed let out a miserable shriek.

“You again!”

“Give me the invitation letter!”

A man with purple eyes and strange floating eyes all over his body stood in front of The Hound. His back was to him, so The Hound could only see his loose coat, his pale purple hair hanging to his waist, and a pair of white ears perched on his head like some cutesy accessory.

Huh? A contaminant? No, that didn't feel right.

“Go.” The man hauled him up. “Hurry!”

Dragging The Hound out of the intersection, Shen Wang shoved him into a nearby construction pipe and crawled in himself. Before The Hound could ask, he made a shushing gesture.

The contaminant came screeching over.

It kept searching the surroundings with the black mist at its feet, but after a while it shrieked and left.

The Hound just watched it leave, right in front of his eyes.

“You don't have presence either?” The Hound asked him.

“No presence?” Shen Wang glanced at him oddly. “It's the moon. There's an eye on the moon. That contaminant and the Blood Moon are one, so it can see everything the moonlight hits. The places the moonlight doesn't reach are its blind spots.”

The Hound suddenly understood. “Oh, so that's it.”

“Who are you?” Shen Wang looked at The Hound. “A mutant? How'd you end up in Labyrinth City?”

“And who are you?” The Hound sniffed at Shen Wang's scent. “Contaminant? No, not a contaminant. Human? But it doesn't smell human either.”

“...Wait, that scent is really familiar.”

Shen Wang looked him up and down. “Scent? You go by smell? A Perception Type mutant?”

The Hound suddenly pushed up onto one knee. “Shen Wang? Didi?!”

Wow, this just got interesting!

The Hound had always known Lan was a special mutant, a Second-Generation Experiment Subject. The Science Academy had always considered Lan their most successful experiment. In their time together, The Hound could even sense that Lan could use talents other than precognition.

But Lan's appearance hadn't changed much, and his own contamination level stayed within normal range.

He never imagined Shen Wang could get so close to being a contaminant. Compared to Lan, Shen Wang seemed more like a fusion of human and contaminant. His whole body reeked of an inhuman aura now, and his contamination level had spiked into a certain range. This was way scarier than Lan; who knows if Lan had ever seen his didi in this state.

And the moment the word ‘didi’ came out, Shen Wang raised an eyebrow.

He realized this person was connected to Lan.

A Perception Type mutant connected to Lan... The Hound?

“Where's Lan?” Shen Wang tried asking.

“Dunno. We got separated after coming in. I sensed a contaminant over here, so I came.” The Hound plopped down on the ground, looking utterly casual.

Shen Wang sighed. “Can you sense where he is?”

“A bit far, but more or less.” The Hound pointed in a direction. “He's over there.”

“So you know where he is, but instead of going to him, you came to pick a fight with a contaminant?” Shen Wang immediately snapped. “Are you insane?”

The Hound showed zero remorse at being scolded. “I won't die.”

“It was about to eat you.”

“It's only a pseudo-Grade S Contaminant. A Grade S would overstuff it to death.” The Hound was utterly dismissive. “It can't eat me, no matter how big its appetite.”

Shen Wang: ...

The point was about not running into danger, yet he stubbornly insisted the contaminant couldn't eat him.

Compared to the self-sacrificing Zhou Xiangzhe, Shen Wang found this third-generation experiment subject, The Hound, even harder to understand.

The pale purple strands of hair on his body dispersed into the air, the purple in his eyes fading. Shen Wang returned to his normal black hair and black eyes. Ignoring The Hound's rambling, he steadied himself against the pipe with one hand and looked outside.

“When can Lan get here?”

“Wait here. Half an hour, tops.”

“That far?”

The Hound stood up and walked over to Shen Wang. “The two of us got thrown to opposite sides, only you happen to be close to me. Lan is way, way far away. Tsk, poor guy. He wanted to see didi so badly, but in the end I met you first.”

“After all, I'm a super tolerant good guy, while he's a petty freak.”

“Respecting didi’s choice in partners brings good things!”

Shen Wang shot him a glance. “You're going to follow Lan from now on?”

“Yep. He wants me to be bait, and I think I'm cut out for the job.” The Hound announced with a grin. “It's a very interesting game.”

At that moment, The Hound suddenly looked in a certain direction, a hint of surprise in his eyes.

Shen Wang knew he was a Perception Type mutant, so he followed his gaze and saw that the Blood Moon in the sky was staring in a certain direction.

Black mist kept climbing along the Blood Moon.

“One more?” The Hound said, puzzled. “A new Grade S?”

“Wait, this one feels familiar too.”

The Hound thought for a moment. “Right, I think I heard Lan mention before we came... ah, right, your boyfriend.”

Shen Wang whipped his head around. “Zhou Xiangzhe?!”

“Yep, that's him. Seems he also got pulled in because of the invitation letter. Your ge even said he'd have him make an appearance before your mother.”

Shen Wang immediately took off in that direction.

This contaminant was stronger than a Grade A but hadn't reached Grade S—what The Hound called a pseudo-S. For Zhou Xiangzhe, a non-Grade S contaminant wouldn't normally affect him, but now that he'd devoured the Deer God, not only could he not use his talent, he also couldn't easily use the Deer God's contamination on him.

Because that would spike his already high contamination level even higher.

Shen Wang thought: Please, don't let them run into each other.

/

After Zhou Xiangzhe stepped through that door, he found himself on an unfamiliar street.

As Polaris's captain, he'd been to Chenmo West City more than once, but that didn't mean he'd been everywhere, especially such a remote spot.

He walked while keeping an eye on his surroundings, because it was way too quiet here.

The strange Blood Moon hung in the sky, an eye inside it. His phone's time and apps had all stopped working. No one was on the streets, and after walking a while, all he could hear was his own footsteps.

Just then, Zhou Xiangzhe saw the eye in the Blood Moon turn. Visible black mist trailed from the eye in the sky, dragging and gliding across the ground.

It seemed to be staring at something, and there seemed to be something over there.

Before Zhou Xiangzhe could head over, an extremely long streak of black mist shot down right in front of him. At the same time, a human figure floated over through the air.

Black mist covered its face; Zhou Xiangzhe could only see its blood-red eyes.

A voice that was neither quite male nor female came from its mouth.

“Do you have an invitation letter?”

“Give me the invitation letter!”

BOOM—tentacles formed of black mist slammed down hard. They were so long. Zhou Xiangzhe dodged the tentacle. The alley was too narrow, making evasion tough, but it was still enough for him to seize the chance and shoot, aiming to sever the black tentacles.

Zhou Xiangzhe quickly scaled the wall and stood on it, frowning at the thing.

“A contaminant? What kind? What grade?”

“The mission's Annex 2 didn't mention any contaminants apart from the Blood Moon...”

“Ahhh!” the contaminant screamed, its black tentacles smashing frantically toward Zhou Xiangzhe. “Give me the invitation letter!”

Zhou Xiangzhe jumped off the wall. BOOM, the wall he'd been standing on shattered into pieces.

“It has no reason.” Zhou Xiangzhe turned and ran, analyzing as he went. “Mental state Grade C, impossible to judge contamination level, attack power exceeds Grade A.”

“Verdict: contamination out of control.”

Black mist flowed onto its arms, dyeing its whole body black. It simply extended a hand toward Zhou Xiangzhe.

“Invitation letter, invitation letter!”

“It's obsessed with the invitation letter.” Zhou Xiangzhe ducked behind a wall. “The letter is probably why it lost control.”

Zhou Xiangzhe sighed softly. “To get to the other side, I have to go past it. But it's huge. I can't help but use contamination, can I?”

He raised his hand and looked at his palm. The Contamination Suppressor made into a chain ring dangled and swayed between his fingers.

Zhou Xiangzhe sighed again and turned to look at the contaminant.

He really wanted to do it—whether to quickly find Shen Wang or to eliminate a contaminant that threatened humanity. Even his heart was trembling, telling him over and over to ‘release contamination and kill it’. It wouldn't matter if he got hurt, because he'd save so, so many people.

Just the thought of getting hurt made his mind go hazy.

Zhou Xiangzhe clenched his fist hard, suppressing the impulse.

It hadn't gotten extreme yet. If he used contamination now and got injured, Shen Wang would definitely be upset with him.

He didn't want to see the disappointed look on Shen Wang's face.

They were supposed to be each other's medicine. As medicine, they couldn't let themselves lose their effectiveness.

BOOM, the contaminant smashed another wall. Zhou Xiangzhe crouched down and tried to circle around from the other side. Just then, a hand tapped his back.

Zhou Xiangzhe turned his head and saw the person he wanted to see.

Shen Wang was still wearing the clothes he'd had on that morning. Black showed dirt easily, but his clothes were clean, no dust, no wounds. The moment their eyes met, Shen Wang smiled at him, his beautiful peach-blossom eyes full of mirth. Zhou Xiangzhe opened his mouth slightly, but before he could say anything, Shen Wang made a shushing gesture.

Shen Wang glanced back at the contaminant in the sky, then took Zhou Xiangzhe's hand and led him away from behind.

Zhou Xiangzhe held Shen Wang's hand, watching him guide them away from moonlit spots, leading him out of those cramped alleys and to an abandoned construction site.

Next to a pile of discarded building material pipes stood a man with one deep blue eye.

The man grinned when he saw Zhou Xiangzhe, but unlike Shen Wang, his smile was full of arrogance and defiance, as if a single glance was a direct challenge.

Zhou Xiangzhe stopped in his tracks and aimed his gun at the man's forehead.

“Whoa! So fierce!” The Hound scuttled into a pipe. “You're really rude, pulling a gun on first meeting!”

“Third-generation experiment subject, The Hound.” Zhou Xiangzhe said. “Why are you here?”

“Is Lan also here?”

“I only met him, not Lan.” Shen Wang said, standing next to Zhou Xiangzhe. “Pointing a gun at him is useless. He's just a Perception Type mutant, no real offensive ability.”

Zhou Xiangzhe frowned at Shen Wang. “That's not the point. I don't care who he is; he's nothing to me.”

“I only care that you're all right.”

Exaggerating a bit, whatever relationship Lan and Shen Wang had was none of Zhou Xiangzhe's business, because the one dating Shen Wang was Zhou Xiangzhe.

He didn't want Shen Wang to get hurt. Even knowing Shen Wang was a powerful mutant, he still worried.

Labyrinth City, a place that once sealed a Grade S Contaminant. He would never let Shen Wang enter a place like this.

“Little Fifteen, I know you're still hiding some things from me. I don't care about any of that. I just want you to be safe.”

Zhou Xiangzhe repeated, “I just want you safe.”

Shen Wang gazed at Zhou Xiangzhe, and after a few seconds, he smiled.

He couldn't tell what he was feeling, and didn't know if that smile was genuine or just a little laughable.

As long as Shen Wang could remember, he'd been a patient with a new type of Genetic Disease. But because he'd been sick and lived so long, everyone had gotten used to it—used to him being this person who'd sometimes have episodes and turn terrifying, sometimes need to be locked up.

Concern turned to indifference, and even his illness became something taken for granted.

How long had it been since he'd felt this kind of direct, genuine concern?

“I'm fine.” Shen Wang said. “We made a promise, didn't we? We need to keep it.”

“I'll protect myself for your sake.”

Zhou Xiangzhe looked into Shen Wang's eyes and nodded.

But as the saying goes, public displays of affection get you struck by lightning—especially in front of strangers.

The Hound watched them and laughed. “Hey, did you two forget there's someone else here?”

Zhou Xiangzhe instantly aimed the gun at him again.

“Again with this.” The Hound raised his hands perfunctorily. “Go ahead and shoot if you've got the guts. Come on, kill me.”

Zhou Xiangzhe frowned slightly. “Huh?”

He exchanged a look with Shen Wang. Shen Wang spread his hands, indicating he had no idea.

“Killing me is simple enough, but if you kill me, you won't know what that thing over there is.” The Hound pointed at the contaminant still searching for them in the sky. “You'd better think it through.”

“What do you mean?” Zhou Xiangzhe looked at him. “You know what it is?”

The Hound lowered his hands. “You better be grateful you ran into me.”

“Back in the Science Academy, those bastards forced me to memorize the scent of every Grade B and above contaminant in the world. That coerced training lasted over half a year, until they'd crammed all those nasty smells into my head.” The Hound sneered. “I hadn't connected it before, but just now, when you pointed your gun at me, it all came back.”

“Well, well, looks like heaven hasn't forsaken me.”

Zhou Xiangzhe holstered his gun. “What contaminant is it?”

The Hound smiled, seeing him give in.

He pushed his luck. “Intel doesn't come cheap.”

“You have to pay for it.”

Shen Wang looked at The Hound in surprise. Honestly, this was his first time meeting him, but the impression he gave was completely different from that time at The Outer Wall.

Truly, back then he'd thought this third-generation experiment subject was a pitiful little thing. Now he could see he was sly—not like a wolf, but like a fox.

“You want money?”

“Of course. I've left the Science Academy, so I've got to make a living, and living costs money. But I don't have any real skills, just one talent I can use, so I can only buy and sell intel for cash.” The Hound said. “Not expensive: four thousand. I'll sell you the info on this contaminant.”

Four thousand? Why four thousand? That's not exactly a common number, is it?

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at him oddly. After a moment, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a card, and tossed it over.

“There's ten thousand on it. I only deal in round numbers.”

“Oh, then I'll throw in two pieces of intel for free. Ask me whenever you want to know.” The Hound bent down and picked up the card.

He'd gotten the money Lan wanted.

The Hound was different from Lan. The Hound had scrapped and scammed his way through life, not afraid of death or losing face, but in the Science Academy he never gave an inch. Lan was someone who overpowered everything with sheer force, too impatient to listen to anyone's excuses—a selfish, willful high-and-mighty type, which was exactly how he managed to keep up the act in the Academy.

So The Hound knew that although Lan said ‘what's Zhou Xiangzhe's is didi's’, he probably wouldn't actually ask Zhou Xiangzhe for money.

Well, nothing for it—he'd have to do it himself.

He was a lunatic anyway, capable of anything.

“Moon Thief,”

The Hound said, “It reeks of Moon Thief, but it's not entirely Moon Thief. It should be a fragment that's been torn apart and reassembled. Current grade: pseudo-S.”

“Grade A Contaminant, Moon Thief.”

Once The Hound identified what contaminant it was, Zhou Xiangzhe immediately matched it with observation data.

“Moon Thief is a Grade A Contaminant observed in the early days of the apocalypse. It's a contaminant that can usurp nests and steal other contaminants' abilities. When observers spotted it, it was devouring the egg of a Grade B Contaminant. After swallowing the egg, it turned itself into the egg and waited for the parent contaminant to return; once the parent returned, it would devour it whole.”

“A very greedy contaminant.”

“It's been missing for years. The Anti-Contamination Center even thought it had died somewhere, but turns out it was trapped in Labyrinth City?”

“And it even became a pseudo-Grade S Contaminant.”

The Hound sat on the pipe and watched the contaminant in the sky.

“Must've run into something too tough.”

“Tried to steal another contaminant's ability like before, but got backfired, and all that's left is a fragment that shrank into this place and formed a new contaminant. It's pseudo-S, yet it barely has any reason left.”

Shen Wang listened to Zhou Xiangzhe and The Hound, his eyelids lowering slightly.

If he remembered right, Tian Qingbai had written in his personal file: he'd fallen in love with a ‘woman’, and as a Grade B Mutant, he couldn't control his feelings.

In the end, he realized the one he loved wasn't a real person, but a phantom.

But even a phantom could contaminate a Grade B Mutant.

And this uncontrollable love, no matter how you looked at it, pointed to his mother—the No. 1 on the Wanted List, a Grade S Mutant.

So that means...

Moon Thief tried to steal his mother's ability, but it failed and was thrown into Blood Moon Manor after the backlash. Yet even torn apart and reduced to mindlessness, it still managed to steal a shadow of his mother. That shadow elevated it to pseudo-S and made people fall in love with it.

So his mother's mere shadow had that kind of power.