Heavenly Sound 6 (Extra Chapter)

Chapter 57

Shen Wang was still wearing that black trench coat. Black shows dust, but there wasn't even a speck on him.

Warm breath kept brushing against Zhou Xiangzhe's ear. He caught a faint scent on Shen Wang — not perfume, more like the fresh fragrance of some flower. Before Shen Wang was pulled inside, Zhou Xiangzhe had been with him, and he hadn't had that scent then.

That meant Shen Wang had picked up the fragrance during that time.

Zhou Xiangzhe quietly covered his mouth with his other hand, his lowered golden eyes holding a trace of thought.

Getting approached by a stranger was a bit embarrassing, sure, but the blood thorns also carried that same faint floral scent.

Still, they'd come out of the same place, so it was only… natural they'd carry the same smell.

“Zhou Xiangzhe.” Shen Wang took his injured hand. “Silence doesn't mean you can just skate by.”

“What about you?” Zhou Xiangzhe asked him. “Why did you only come out now? I was really worried.”

Shen Wang smiled, pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “See what this is?”

Zhou Xiangzhe froze for a second. He looked at the stiff card in Shen Wang's hand — it was exquisitely made, with the words ‘Invitation Letter’ written on it. It was actually an Invitation Letter.

“I was about to come out, but I spotted the Invitation Letter inside the shadow, so I went and got it first. After all, the legend says the Invitation Letter is important.”

Shen Wang finished and then fixed his gaze on Zhou Xiangzhe. “So, what happened with you?”

“Where's the button from your collar? And how did you hurt your hand?”

“Well…” Zhou Xiangzhe didn't know how to answer. After hesitating for two seconds, he tried, “There was a strange Contaminant…”

“A strange Contaminant?” Shen Wang feigned surprise. “What'd he do?”

Zhou Xiangzhe: …

That strange Contaminant had suddenly approached and used blood thorns to pop off the button on his collar, and he'd hurt his hand pulling the thorns off.

That was the truth, but why did it sound so suggestive?

Getting taken advantage of by another Contaminant right in front of his boyfriend — how was he supposed to say that?

“The Contaminant attacked me.” In the end, Zhou Xiangzhe said, “But it's fine. I'm okay.”

Zhou Xiangzhe's tone was calm, not seeming all that alarmed.

The blood thorns really did have a lot of weird things about them, whether it was why they appeared here or why they always seemed so close to him… Zhou Xiangzhe could vaguely sense something, but he wasn't going to worry about it.

To Zhou Xiangzhe, nothing mattered more than Shen Wang's safety.

Seeing Zhou Xiangzhe's earnest gaze, Shen Wang couldn't help but laugh. He wasn't even sure why he was laughing so hard. Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes shifted to confusion, but even confused, he didn't ask Shen Wang what he was laughing about. He just waited quietly beside him until Shen Wang finished.

Still laughing, Shen Wang sat down on the ground and leaned against Zhou Xiangzhe's shoulder.

“Sorry, I just thought of something funny.”

“Mm.” Zhou Xiangzhe responded. “It's okay. No need to apologize.”

He said, “I like watching you laugh.”

But the mischievous Shen Wang only wanted to see you cry, all flustered.

“What did he do to you?” After laughing, Shen Wang still wouldn't let him off, asking the question anyway.

“What kind of Contaminant was it?”

Zhou Xiangzhe looked into Shen Wang's eyes for a long time before finally speaking. “Probably blood thorns, though they seemed different from the ones I've seen before. I have no idea why they'd show up here, but…”

“But?”

“They always feel very familiar.”

He'd crossed paths with the blood thorns quite a few times now — from the destruction of the Grade B Contaminant Plum Rain in Central City, to the thorns attacking him in the Hundred Eyes Gallery. Though he'd hardly ever seen the real thing, he could always pick up on the original's cunning and twisted sense of humor from those little thorns.

Zhou Xiangzhe said, “I might have run into him before. The blood thorns could have been hiding among humans all along, and I just never noticed.”

Shen Wang thought: Yeah, he's right beside you, and he's even become your boyfriend.

Too bad you have no idea — you just think he's the treasure you want to protect more than anything in this life.

“Will you blame me?” Zhou Xiangzhe looked at the small cut on his right hand.

Shen Wang smiled at him, and after a moment, he took Zhou Xiangzhe's hand.

“Why would I blame you?”

“Protecting yourself is the last thing anyone should get blamed for. But I'm angry.”

After saying that, he very lightly kissed the cut on Zhou Xiangzhe's finger. Zhou Xiangzhe froze, almost petrified on the spot.

“Shen…!”

“Next time you protect yourself, don't get hurt.” After the kiss, Shen Wang pressed hard on the wound, and Zhou Xiangzhe instinctively frowned.

It wasn't that it didn't hurt; he'd just long since gotten used to the pain.

Zhou Xiangzhe had been tormented by mental abnormalities for so long that when faced with an attack, he'd long forgotten how to protect himself as a priority. So he'd instinctively grabbed the thorns at his collar, letting the thorns' barbs dig into his palm without even realizing there was something wrong with that.

That was exactly the deep-rooted, hard-to-change mental state Zhou Xiangzhe lived in.

Zhou Xiangzhe still stood dazed, as if only now grasping why Shen Wang was angry, a trace of lingering bewilderment still in his golden eyes.

Shen Wang said, “Next time you get hurt, I'll do this again. Got it?”

Zhou Xiangzhe pulled his hand back, the residual ache still lingering in his fingers.

“Got it?” Shen Wang asked again.

Zhou Xiangzhe nodded. “Mm, I understand…”

“And I'll try hard to remember.”

Thought habits are hard to change, and bad habits picked up over time resurface if no one's watching. Zhou Xiangzhe looked at his palm, now beading with blood again, and lowered his eyes a little.

“Will you keep watching me?” Zhou Xiangzhe asked.

Shen Wang met his eyes. “Hm?”

“Keep watching me.” Zhou Xiangzhe said, “So I can correct my bad habits.”

Shen Wang understood. He gave Zhou Xiangzhe a smile, his beautiful peach-blossom eyes full of soft affection.

But before Shen Wang could answer, a rock came flying over.

Zhou Xiangzhe calmly dodged the rock and looked toward the sullen man who'd thrown it.

“Pushing your luck!” Lan cursed at him. “Fix your own bad habits yourself! Don't drag Shen Wang into it!”

The Hound clapped beside him, laughing happily, clearly enjoying the show.

Shen Wang got to his feet and looked at Lan, then finally said, “Okay.”

Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes lit up, as if sunlight had settled into his golden gaze, because he knew that was Shen Wang answering his earlier words.

Okay.

He'd agreed.

“Alright, we found the door.” The Hound spoke up before Lan could erupt. “Are you two coming with us?”

Zhou Xiangzhe also stood and walked to Shen Wang's side. “What's your purpose for coming here?”

“The Second-Generation Experiment Subject and third-generation experiment subject — your hatred isn't aimed at humans, it's purely aimed at the Science Academy. Coming here, what kind of crisis does it pose for the Academy?”

Zhou Xiangzhe was becoming more and more certain of the connection between Shen Wang and Lan, but he still treated them both as if he knew nothing.

As long as Shen Wang didn't want him to know, then he knew nothing.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Lan's eyes had shifted back to their silvery purple, coldness inside them. “Zhou Xiangzhe, since you know our grudge isn't against humans but only against the Science Academy, you shouldn't stand in our way here.”

“The Anti-Contamination Center and the Science Academy — you know better than us what they've done.”

Zhou Xiangzhe hadn't been part of the Vanishing Project back then. Of course, he'd only just been born when the Vanishing Project was proposed. He was a later-generation Grade S Mutant, and having only now climbed to the upper ranks, he knew what the Anti-Contamination Center looked like now but very little about the dirty dealings of its early years.

But there was no way Zhou Xiangzhe knew absolutely nothing.

The Hound draped himself over the railing. “He means: none of us are unreasonable people, and neither are you. Now that we've accidentally ended up together, there's no need for a big fight over our respective stances.”

“Anyway, we hate the Science Academy, and you're not going to speak up for the Academy either.”

Lan shot The Hound a cold glare but didn't refute.

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at The Hound, his golden eyes carrying a hint of subtlety.

The renegade Lan's fearsome reputation was known to virtually all Mutants. Everyone knew he was the Science Academy's ace, a terrifying Grade S dual-talent Mutant. His targeted strikes against the Academy also showed his formidable strength, and his precognition talent could be used against any organization in the world.

But Lan's personality was, to put it mildly, terrible. He looked at people with arrogant, cold eyes, and the whole oppressive gloom radiating from him made everyone uncomfortable. He never smiled and loved to stare into people's eyes while mocking them. If it weren't a matter of strength, probably everyone would want to punch him.

The Hound, on the other hand… aside from occasional bouts of madness and an incomprehensible way of thinking, his emotional intelligence and mental stability were pretty impressive.

This time, Zhou Xiangzhe didn't argue back.

Because it was the truth.

He and Lan did have a conflict in their stances — he was a member of the Anti-Contamination Center, Lan was a defector, so they were naturally opposed. But Lan and The Hound's target was the Science Academy, not the Anti-Contamination Center. Zhou Xiangzhe's objection was at most that Lan had dragged Shen Wang into this dangerous place.

“I understand.” Zhou Xiangzhe dropped his defensive posture. “I don't know what you're planning, but you need to leave here fast.”

“This place is dangerous.”

So they reluctantly reached an agreement.

Shen Wang smiled off to the side. On the way to that door, Shen Wang quietly slipped the Invitation Letter in his hand to Lan. Lan was a bit surprised when he received it, but when he saw that Zhou Xiangzhe also had one, his surprise quickly vanished.

His younger brother had given one Invitation Letter to Zhou Xiangzhe, but to soothe him, he'd given the other one to him.

He didn't know whether to be angry or comforted.

In the end, with a face full of reluctance, he tucked the Invitation Letter into his book of precognition.

After all, it was something his little brother gave him.

That door was found by The Hound.

When it came to finding paths and people, The Hound was an excellent military dog. He could use his talent to locate all people and objects within a set range; nothing could escape his perception. That was exactly what the Science Academy wanted — an absolute compass with no ability to escape.

“What's on the other side of this door?” Shen Wang asked. “Heavenly Melody City?”

“Not Heavenly Melody City — it's Walking Corpse Village.” The Hound grinned. “I smell a strange aura on the other side. Maybe it's connected to Heavenly Melody City.”

“Isn't there a direct route into Heavenly Melody City?”

“You can't go straight into Heavenly Melody City. If you enter without preparation, you'll just get tossed out.” Lan replied while looking at his book. “To enter Heavenly Melody City and uncover its secrets, you have to go through Walking Corpse Village first.”

Shen Wang nodded and narrowed his eyes slightly. “I'm curious—why is it called Walking Corpse Village?”

Discussing these things before entering was useless. Guessing wouldn't give them the truth.

“Come to think of it, I just remembered something.” The Hound suddenly spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him.

The Hound's single deep-blue eye glittered with a sly smile. “When we entered Blood Moon Manor, we got separated. Wonder if we'll get separated again after going through this door.”

“What do you mean?”

“To keep from splitting up, let's go in together!”

Before he even finished, The Hound grabbed Lan by the wrist and dragged him through the door. All Shen Wang heard was Lan's cut-off curse.

Hoo boy… The Hound really didn't fear heaven or earth, wandering pretty far down the path of courting death.

Still, Shen Wang looked at Zhou Xiangzhe and reached out to take his wrist.

“Let's go in together.”

Zhou Xiangzhe nodded. “Okay.”

Hand in hand, they stepped through the door.

Before entering, Shen Wang had imagined what the other side would look like. In the observer's list, there was a description of Walking Corpse Village — the observer said he saw a prosperous, safe world straight out of the old era, with food stalls everywhere and people buying snacks, making him think he'd traveled through time.

They were all born in the Doomsday Era and had never seen the scenery from before the apocalypse, so Zhou Xiangzhe was a little curious.

Curiosity carrying them, they crossed the door. When Shen Wang opened his eyes again, what he saw wasn't the old era he'd imagined.

In front of him were dilapidated buildings — really dilapidated, practically condemned. Tender green grass sprouted up through the ruins. Everything felt desolate. Shen Wang looked around and saw nothing prosperous here.

This was the old era?

“Where are Lan and The Hound?” Zhou Xiangzhe suddenly asked.

Apart from the wrecked buildings, the surroundings were empty, so it was easy to tell there was no other life here except the two of them.

“They really did get split up?” Shen Wang raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised.

Zhou Xiangzhe frowned. “They went in just a few seconds before us. It's impossible they entered that building in that time. They must have gone somewhere else.”

“The question is: where did they go?”

Zhou Xiangzhe had been willing to move with them precisely because of their talents.

Lan's precognition and The Hound's perception were talents that swept through unfamiliar territory without obstacle. One could see the future, the other could detect every anomaly. They were basically the two strongest supports — like a quest log and a visible map in a game.

But now, both supports were gone.

“Maybe I have a way to contact them.” Shen Wang said.

Shen Wang remembered that because he had an Invitation Letter, his phone still worked, unlike the others whose phones were frozen. Before entering this door, he'd given one of the Invitation Letters to Lan — so would Lan's phone work normally now too?

So Shen Wang pulled out his phone, found the unfamiliar number Lan usually used to send him messages — yes, he'd never saved it, because saving the number would be too easy to expose.

He dialed, listening to the dial tone while looking up at the building.

As he looked, his eyes narrowed slightly.

Click — the other side actually picked up.

“Where are you?” It was Lan's usual low, deep voice.

“In front of a collapsed concert venue.” Shen Wang said. “You?”

Zhou Xiangzhe turned his head to look at Shen Wang. He wasn't puzzled about why Shen Wang had Lan's contact info, and he didn't plan to ask.

He just mulled over those two words: ‘concert venue’.

Had Shen Wang not said it, Zhou Xiangzhe wouldn't even have recognized this as a concert venue. After the apocalypse, entertainment and the arts had developed slowly, and naturally no one built concert halls specifically for music. So concerts no longer existed after the apocalypse — this was architecture that only existed in textbooks.

Shen Wang was no calmer than Zhou Xiangzhe. He walked up to the concert venue, looking at the broken door and the torn posters outside.

Compared to Blood Moon Manor, this place felt real — so real it was like an abandoned building no one had entered in thirty years. Time had rotted what must once have been a magnificent structure. Sunlight fell on it without a trace of contamination. Shen Wang even wondered: maybe this was the concert venue where Mother had once been.

Shen Wang started up the steps. And right then, with a crack, the steps in front of him vanished, and the collapsed building before his eyes suddenly soared upward.

Like the Sky City out of a movie.

Before Shen Wang could finish being surprised, a hand suddenly reached out from a little room beside him.

That arm looked like an artifact. Time had rusted the entire arm, and in some places it had rotted so much you could see bone.

“Hello, ticket,” came a voice from the small room.

“Ticket?” Shen Wang looked at the arm, a bit taken aback.

Zhou Xiangzhe walked over, holding out the Invitation Letter. “This?”

“Honored guest, you actually hold an Invitation Letter! But I’m sorry, this is not the ticket for the concert.”

The voice was very clear. “Please present the ticket.”

Shen Wang had Zhou Xiangzhe put the Invitation Letter away, then said, “Where can we buy a ticket? A ticketing platform? Or somewhere else?”

“That depends on where the host of this concert put the tickets,” said the voice from the small room. “But since you are an honored guest, I will give you a hint. If you want to buy a ticket, go to the place where she last departed. There, you’ll find her last concert ticket.”

Shen Wang raised an eyebrow and looked at his phone screen. “You hear that?”

“I heard,” Lan replied from the other end of the phone. “I’ll go find the ticket. Wait for me there.”

“Don’t wander off.”

With that, Lan hung up.

Shen Wang put his phone back in his pocket and retreated down the steps. Zhou Xiangzhe studied the small room for a moment but ultimately didn’t force the door open to see what was inside.

Outside the collapsed concert venue, there were still unrotted seats. They went down and sat on them.

Zhou Xiangzhe didn’t speak. He was overly quiet and offered no opinion.

Shen Wang propped his chin on one hand, tilting his head to look at Zhou Xiangzhe.

Zhou Xiangzhe was watching the dilapidated building in front of them, maybe comparing it with files he’d memorized at some point. The ruined walls were reflected in his golden eyes. His silver hair rested on his shoulders, one strand tucked into his torn-open collar.

A quiet, beautiful spirit.

But the red scar on his hand stung, looking a bit displeasing.

“Zhou Xiangzhe,” Shen Wang called.

Zhou Xiangzhe turned to look at him, and the reflection in his eyes changed from a mission to a beloved person.

Shen Wang pulled his hand over, and with his other hand felt in Zhou Xiangzhe’s pocket. Sure enough, he found the medical supplies Zhou Xiangzhe had prepared. Zhou Xiangzhe was always like that — always carrying things that might be needed.

He disinfected the wound on his finger, then applied some medicine.

The Anti-Contamination Center taught basic wound care to all personnel, and Polaris Squad also trained them on how to survive alone.

The wound wasn’t serious, but treating it was better than leaving it.

Zhou Xiangzhe watched as Shen Wang treated and bandaged the wound, then stuffed the remaining medicine back into his pocket.

“You really didn’t need to bandage it.”

“Then you should have reminded me before I bandaged it.” Shen Wang didn’t mind, even joking, “You had to wait until after I bandaged it to say that?”

Zhou Xiangzhe laughed a little.

He leaned sideways against Shen Wang’s shoulder. The sunlight moved into his heart, warming him all over.

“I really, really like you.” Zhou Xiangzhe murmured very softly. “So happy.”

“Little Fifteen.”

Shen Wang patted his shoulder.

Shen Wang thought: How can he be so easily satisfied?

You have no idea that this wound was caused by me, that I was just playing with you.

Fool, you only think I’m being good to you.

……

Meanwhile, Lan, who had hung up, put his phone away and opened the book in his hand.

Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe were in front of a decrepit concert venue, but he was not — in fact, he was in a completely different place.

The place he was in was a prison.

And although he’d entered with The Hound, they’d been separated. He had no idea where The Hound was now.

Lan walked forward while reading his book, his pace unhurried. Countless black characters flowed through his silver-purple eyes.

“Where is he?”

“Hm... Upon entry he found himself in a prison, thought he’d been caught by the Science Academy again, but quickly realized it wasn’t the Academy’s iron walls but steel-bar fences and locked doors. Then he got angry because he didn’t recognize an old-era prison?”

“Kicked the door, it didn’t open, so started tearing the door down... tearing it down?”

Lan silently stared at the absurd text.

After realizing he was locked in, he kicked the door, and when kicking didn’t work, he started tearing the door apart. How was that any different from a caged dog wrecking its home in the old days?

But anyway, he had to find The Hound first.

The concert venue must be deeply connected to his mother, but without a ticket, they couldn’t get in. To find a ticket with absolutely no clues, they needed The Hound. At least Lan’s precognitive book hadn’t foreseen any of this.

“What do you even know?” Lan grumbled at the precognitive book. “You’re supposed to be foresight. Can’t you learn from Omniscience?”

“What? You’re saying Omniscience can’t foresee, so foresight can’t be all-knowing... You sure are good at making excuses for yourself.”

“We can’t foresee the ticket because there are no clues, but at least we can find out where The Hound is, right?”

The precognitive book flipped its own pages, finally stopping on a particular one. Lan looked at the page, and as he read, his brow furrowed.

He closed the book and strode forward quickly.

/

The Hound had long gotten used to being controlled at the Science Academy, and just as used to violently resisting that control.

But no one can maintain normal thinking after years of imprisonment and experiments, unless they weren’t normal to begin with.

No one knew that The Hound actually had severe claustrophobia. He was terrified of small, dark spaces, and even more terrified of being alone in them.

Maybe the Science Academy knew, but they didn’t care. They even thought it could serve as punishment to make The Hound more obedient. So in their attempt to tame him, they stripped nearly all his memories — except they left this condition behind.

As repayment, The Hound would go mad for them every time.

Yes, The Hound was afraid. He was not just afraid, he was in pain. But The Hound was not someone who would give in just because he was afraid. So his fear turned into madness, and the more fear, the more madness.

In a confined space, he could destroy everything destructible, tear apart any device controlling his movements without regard for his own safety. After nearly killing himself several times, the Science Academy never dared lock him in solitary confinement again. Even when they left him alone in a lab, they kept all the lights on — because he really would die.

So, The Hound kind of regretted following Lan in here.

If he’d known he’d end up in a place like this, if he’d known it would be like this...

The Hound neurotically bit his own hand, yanking hard at the door in front of him, trying to open it. But the door wouldn’t budge no matter how he pulled. He could hear a clicking sound from the other side — clearly locked from outside.

With a bang, a loud hammering sound came from the other side of the door.

“Quiet down!”

A voice sounded from the other side.

The Hound’s deep blue pupils were filled with ferocity.

His ability was too sensitive, so sensitive he couldn’t control it. He could clearly sense countless Contaminants hidden here. Dense blips of contamination flooded his mind, including the one outside telling him to be quiet.

“Isn’t there a cure yet in this madhouse? With so many people, even if they shot us all with tranquilizers, they still couldn’t handle it.”

Outside, the person kept talking.

“Truly crazy.”

“Exactly, they’re crazy. Not just here — other places have this strange mad disease too. Everyone’s gone mad. They say it might be some new kind of infectious disease.”

The Hound stared fixedly at the door, listening to the voices outside.

The hand he’d bitten earlier rested on the door. He pounded on it again hard.

“Quiet!” came the exasperated voice from outside.

“When are they finally going to clear out all these lunatics? Every day, noise, noise, noise — it’s so annoying.”

“You say I’m noisy...” The Hound suddenly spoke.

“You say I’m noisy?”

The Hound kicked the door hard and started looking for something to pry it open so he could get out.

The confined space triggered his mania, and the things outside worsened his mental instability. Right now, only one thought remained in his head: get out and bite whatever was out there to death.

Bite it to death!

He didn’t kick the door open, but he found a length of steel rebar as thick as a wrist by the entrance. The Hound grabbed the rebar and slammed it against the door. With a bang, the door let out a pitiful screech. The Hound added a kick, and in an instant, the door toppled straight down in front of him.

The Hound froze.

Yes, the door hadn’t been battered open — it was the entire door with its frame and wall that had collapsed.

“Ha?” The Hound threw the rebar to the ground. “What the fuck is this shoddy construction!”

He quickly ran out of that narrow space, thinking he’d finally breathe, only to find that outside this door were countless other doors. All kinds of cells, large and small, appeared before him. From every cell came voices, and still that dense contamination aura seeped out.

The Hound didn’t get to breathe. He nearly suffocated on the spot.

These packed cells looked exactly like the punishment rooms The Hound had once been locked in. His awful memories surged up instantly. He even felt his hands trembling.

His heart pounded wildly, and the urge to destroy kept surging up.

Just as he was about to charge out, a hand grabbed his wrist from behind.

“You really are loud.”

The Hound froze, then whipped his head around.

Lan held his book in one hand and gripped his wrist with the other. His silver-purple eyes were dark and brooding as always, his whole demeanor utterly unruffled, as if he didn’t think saying something like that was at all inappropriate right now.

“I could hear you from outside,” Lan said. “You’re so damn noisy.”

The anger and fear the confined space had stirred up subsided rapidly, though his fingers still trembled from sheer inertia.

The Hound looked at Lan, and after a few seconds spoke. “Why the fuck didn’t you come next year?”

“Please solve your own problems. Don’t expect others to come save you.” Lan’s tone was ice-cold. “Depending on others is the most spineless thing you can do.”

“Can’t you say one nice thing to a person?” The Hound grumbled at him.

“Verbal comfort is not my job,” Lan said. “Come on, we have things to do.”

The Hound suddenly felt like he was about to laugh from sheer exasperation, and then, as if he really was laughing.

Lan walked ahead, constantly checking his book, not paying the slightest attention to The Hound’s sudden strange laugh. He just kept walking, but he never let go of the wrist he was holding.

The Hound thought: If Lan dares let go, I’ll go crazy. I’ll bite everything in this place, bite until my teeth fall out!

Unfortunately, Lan didn’t give him that chance. Lan kept hold of him the whole time, his grip neither light nor gentle, like a vise. But it was this violent, vicious, annoying bastard who didn’t let go until he’d led him out of that area.

Once they left the small cell block, and Lan was sure The Hound’s condition had mostly improved, he finally released his wrist.

Claustrophobia: aversion to enclosed spaces, causing fast heartbeat, panic attacks, even a sense of impending death, common among those with a history of imprisonment. It was entirely normal for The Hound to have claustrophobia.

The Hound had been locked up in the Science Academy for years, so even his claustrophobia had warped. All his fear turned into fury and madness. He knew he couldn’t avoid it, so he’d forcibly suppressed the condition, to the point where physical contact from another could alleviate it.

But during bouts of fear, The Hound would suffer mental abnormalities that made him hypersensitive — a hypersensitivity that actually hindered his ability to use his talent. In other words, he could passively sense surrounding contamination, but he could hardly actively sense it.

So Lan hadn’t held his hand out of concern for him, but out of concern that his bad state would prevent him from finding the ticket.

Lan thought: Yes, that’s exactly it.

He hated dogs. Dogs weren’t cute at all.

The Hound took a deep breath, also feeling mentally relieved, at least not as tense as before.

So he flexed his wrist and laughed again. “So you do know how to save people.”

“Don’t provoke me. I don’t have time to play games with you right now,” Lan said. “There should be a ticket in here. Find it.”

“Ticket?” The Hound was puzzled.

So Lan repeated what he’d heard on the call with Shen Wang for The Hound.

After recounting, he gave his own assessment.

“The place where she last departed could be interpreted many ways, but we’re in a prison.”

“So I realized: at the beginning of the Doomsday Era, when Contamination first appeared, there was no Anti-Contamination Center in the world, only the military and police. Back then, humans hadn’t discovered this disaster; they just thought it was some strange contamination disease.”

“Her awakening caused countless people to obsess over her, which was just a mad disease no one else could understand.”

“So those madmen would have been locked up in prison, and she herself might well have ended up at the police station for questioning.”

“So this is the place she last departed — the last moments of her identity as a ‘genius musician.’”

“Oh,” The Hound nodded, indicating he understood.

He plopped down on the ground. “But even if you say all that, if we can’t find it, we can’t find it.”

Lan looked at him. “Why can’t you find it?”

“This place is crawling with Contaminants, so many you couldn’t count them.” The Hound pressed both hands to his temples, his heterochromatic black-and-blue eyes staring at Lan. “Every cell has a Contaminant. People are talking, there’s noise everywhere. It’s such a mess I can’t sort it out. No way.”

“This place is full of lunatics.”

Lan crouched down, looking The Hound in the eye. After a moment, he tossed the precognitive book on the ground in front of him.

“You can find it.”

“Don’t tell me that volunteering to stay by my side comes with this little ability.”

The Hound laughed. “What are you, some Tyrant? Forcing people to do the impossible.”

“This isn’t force,” Lan said lightly. “You can take it as me believing in you.”

“Believing in me?”

The Hound thought the person in front of him was real scum. Believing? It was all lies, said off the cuff. And he didn’t even change his expression when lying, not a hint of warmth in his eyes.

But...

“I like that.”

The Hound shifted position, from sitting on the ground to crouching, and licked his canine tooth.

“Alright, I’ll test whether your belief really works.”