City of Order

Chapter 67

'Why haven't they come out yet? They've been in there for two hours!'

'Hold on, they're both Grade S Mutants. Maybe they found something.'

'But it's the Zero Contamination Zone!'

'Wait! The checkpoint moved! They're coming out!'

Everyone present looked in unison toward the Zero Contamination Zone, and soon two figures emerged from within.

The two were similar in height, one in a long black trench coat, the other in a white combat uniform. From a distance their faces were indistinct, yet you could still tell they were both extremely good-looking. Standing together they matched perfectly — anyone who saw them would think they belonged together.

Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe.

'Captain Zhou! Mr. Shen!' The person who'd eagerly guided them earlier raised a hand and kept waving.

'You're finally out!'

Zhou Xiangzhe walked over and gave the person a slight nod. 'Is there something?'

'Yes, yes, yes! The Anti-Contamination Center Leadership couldn't reach you, and when they located your position they called directly!' The person glanced between Zhou Xiangzhe and Shen Wang. 'Would you take the call?'

Shen Wang waved a hand for Zhou Xiangzhe to take it. 'He's the captain.'

'But…' the person said quietly, 'the Anti-Contamination Center said that between you two, Mr. Shen is in charge.'

'I said let him take it, so let him take it,' Shen Wang said. 'That counts as me being in charge.'

Zhou Xiangzhe glanced coolly at Shen Wang, then extended a hand to the person. 'Give me the phone.'

The person quickly placed the communicator into Zhou Xiangzhe's hand.

Shen Wang was very calm. Zhou Xiangzhe was even calmer.

Even though his Contamination Level was somewhat out of control right now, he was still the captain of Polaris, one of the Anti-Contamination Center's leadership. And while he enjoyed the feeling of being fully under Shen Wang's care, communicating with the Center still had to be done by him.

Not just because he could better understand the Center's signals, but because Shen Wang had a difficult personality — the moment something annoyed him, Shen Wang would definitely hang up on the Center.

He had no patience for diplomacy or beating around the bush; he probably wouldn't get along smoothly with the Center.

'This is Zhou Xiangzhe. What do you want?' Zhou Xiangzhe said.

'I recall this is our marriage leave.'

The other party knew that too, but could only awkwardly apologize and quickly tell Zhou Xiangzhe what they needed to say.

Zhou Xiangzhe listened with a slight frown. After the other side finished, he asked, 'Are you sure there's no news at all?'

The other side confirmed.

Zhou Xiangzhe said got it, then hung up and returned the communicator to the person.

Shen Wang, standing beside Zhou Xiangzhe, asked, 'What happened?'

'Zhou Qing has gone missing,' Zhou Xiangzhe said. 'Before I entered Sector S, I dispatched him to Contamination Site No. 3. Just now, Zhou Qing's signal disappeared inside the site. And Contamination Site No. 3 has never been stable — it keeps swallowing the small towns around it. By now it's consumed no fewer than ten small settlements.'

Shen Wang raised an eyebrow slightly. 'Contamination Site No. 3?'

'Mm,' Zhou Xiangzhe nodded. 'They're asking if we can go investigate Contamination Site No. 3.'

The Anti-Contamination Center only had four Grade S Mutants. Among them, Zhou Xiangzhe had an extremely high Contamination Level — he shouldn't have been sent on missions, but Shen Wang was vouching for him. The other two Grade S Mutants were both in a state of mental instability, but their instability hadn't yet affected their work, which was why they had been dispatched together to Contamination Site No. 3.

But now Zhou Qing had actually gone missing. That wasn't a good signal.

It could only mean: the Grade S Contaminant inside Contamination Site No. 3 was active, and that was far more terrifying than that leaflet-scattering Drifting Fish.

'Did Zhou Qing leave any message?'

'Yes.' Zhou Xiangzhe opened his own communicator and looked at its contents.

'The last record Zhou Qing sent back had only one line. He said: This place is a real city.'

Shen Wang thought for a moment, then sighed. 'Forget it. Our goal is Contamination Site No. 3 anyway.'

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at Shen Wang and fell into step beside him, asking as they walked, 'We were heading to Contamination Site No. 3 from the start?'

'Is there someone we need to visit there too? Or is the defector there?'

Zhou Xiangzhe worried there might be surveillance, so he used coded terms without specifying the exact relationship.

Shen Wang shook his head. 'No, it's to treat both of us at the same time.'

'A Grade S Contaminant?' Zhou Xiangzhe lowered his eyes slightly. 'Contaminants of that level are hard to deal with; even Grade S Mutants have trouble affecting them much. Otherwise Zhou Qing wouldn't have gone missing. But since you say treatment, is it because its talent is very special?'

'When your Anti-Contamination Center carried out the Vanishing Project, didn't they investigate the sealed Contaminants?'

'It's not that we didn't investigate. It's just that observing Grade S Contaminants is too dangerous. The information we got was too fragmented, barely counts as complete observation records — we could only tell that there was such a Contaminant here.'

As they walked, Shen Wang said, 'I remember there being a huge ghost city at Contamination Site No. 3, isn't there?'

'We don't know exactly how the ghost city came to be, but many people have indeed observed its existence.' Zhou Xiangzhe recalled the ghost city's intel. 'However, the ghost city was observed at a time inconsistent with the Vanishing Project's launch — the ghost city existed even when the Grade S Mutant at Contamination Site No. 3 was sealed.'

'But being sealed didn't stop the ghost city from existing.'

Zhou Xiangzhe raised an eyebrow slightly; he understood what Shen Wang meant.

'You're saying: this ghost city was originally born from it; even after it was sealed, the ghost city persisted. Now that it's back, the ghost city will once again fall under its control?'

Shen Wang nodded. 'Before we set out, let's dig up more info on the ghost city.'

Zhou Xiangzhe had a good memory; he quickly recalled the intel on the ghost city and selected some key pieces to show Shen Wang.

Observer No. 1 was an ordinary person, a refugee. On the necessary path into the High Walls, he encountered this ghost city. At first glance he thought he'd already reached Central City, because many people were inside, each living peacefully and contentedly, the place brimming with everyday life.

He wanted to enter the ghost city, but everyone inside turned to look at him at once, each with pained eyes, and they signaled the observer to leave quickly.

The observer left in fear. After walking another day he found the High Wall and reported his experience to the Anti-Contamination Center staff guarding the wall.

The Anti-Contamination Center sent people to investigate, but they didn't find the ghost city.

Observer No. 2 was a member of a dispatch team. He too encountered the ghost city while returning from a mission to report Inside the High Wall. At that time, his whole team inadvertently entered it. It happened to be nighttime; inside the ghost city it was empty, not a soul around, with a bright moon hanging in the sky, seemingly perfectly normal.

At first they thought they'd stumbled upon a well-preserved pre-Calamity town. But suddenly a piercing bell rang out. In the ringing, Observer No. 2 hazily saw a shadow. A teammate shoved him, sending him stumbling into a courtyard. When he came back out, everyone had vanished.

He fled that place in terror and returned Inside the High Wall, but he was the only one from his entire team to come back.

Observer No. 3 was a mission agent deliberately searching for the ghost city, and a member of Polaris Team One. Yes, Polaris Team One often took on these messy, unverifiable but suspected high-risk missions.

After staking out for a long time, he discovered the ghost city near Contamination Site No. 3. He didn't risk entering, but observed from outside. In his observation, he found that everyone inside carried a faint aura of Contamination — hence it was classified as a large-scale Ghost Phenomenon. As for Observer No. 1's claim that everyone had emotions, he couldn't observe that since he didn't enter.

But he did observe a strange pattern: everyone in the ghost city seemed to be following some kind of discipline. What they did at certain times was extremely fixed, and everyone followed it.

Even for a Ghost Phenomenon, this was a little too strange.

'The Anti-Contamination Center ultimately only confirmed that the ghost city was at Contamination Site No. 3. Ordinary people can't enter this place; all observers except the Polaris members later developed Aberrations.' Zhou Xiangzhe said, 'So the Center beefed up security around the site to prevent anyone else from wandering in.'

After that, they left the ghost city alone.

Compared to this obviously problematic and terrifying contamination zone, as long as it wasn't expanding, there was no need to deal with it. The Anti-Contamination Center cared more about contamination incidents inside and near the High Wall — that was the foundation of protecting ordinary people.

Shen Wang nodded. 'That place is also called the City of Order.'

'My father told me.'

The Tyrant?!

Zhou Xiangzhe's eyes widened slightly, and he immediately understood why Shen Wang had decided to head to Contamination Site No. 3.

The Tyrant, as the most terrifying Contaminant in this world, knew quite a lot, so it was only natural that he would know what was inside Contamination Site No. 3.

'He doesn't like to expand his territory, and doesn't like to make enemies of the whole world, so he spends most of his time inside Zero Contamination Zone. The title the Anti-Contamination Center gave him is too extreme.' Shen Wang said, 'But not liking expansion and keeping tabs on potential enemies are two different things. So he actually has a lot of underlings, and they pass him a lot of information.'

Zhou Xiangzhe: ...

Underlings, huh? How to put it? Not surprising at all.

Loves peace, but must know all the major events in this world and be thoroughly acquainted with all his enemies.

'He's never had contact with that one inside Contamination Site No. 3. He only knows it calls itself Order, and that it has a very peculiar talent, but since he didn't want to provoke it, he didn't look into it further.'

It would have been fine to leave things at peace, but who would have thought his beloved youngest son would need a special ability to stabilize his Contamination Level.

He hasn't even personally intervened; he's already been quite accommodating to Order.

—

By the time they reached the edge of Contamination Site No. 3, the sky had darkened. After they got off the aircraft, someone was waiting nearby.

It was a woman, wearing a black dispatch team combat uniform, with short hair and a heroic, dashing look. When she saw Zhou Xiangzhe she smiled — full of valiant spirit.

'Congratulations on the marriage,' she said.

Hearing that, Zhou Xiangzhe reached out and took Shen Wang's hand. 'Say it again.'

The woman sighed helplessly, but repeated the blessing all the same: 'Happy newlywed life, may you be together happily forever.'

Zhou Xiangzhe was satisfied.

Shen Wang raised an eyebrow and glanced at the woman. 'Not going to introduce her?'

'Jing Chunjun, Grade S Mutant.' Zhou Xiangzhe introduced her to Shen Wang. 'Her talent is Words of Truth, but we all call her Jinx.'

'Don't go too far,' Jing Chunjun said discontentedly. 'Introducing me like that in front of a new teammate really hurts my reputation! And the new teammate is so handsome, too.'

Zhou Xiangzhe calmly continued introducing Shen Wang: 'Shen Wang, Grade S Mutant, talent Contamination Immunity, my beloved.'

His tone on 'my beloved' was deliberate and emphasized, as if it had been automatically bolded and highlighted in red.

Jing Chunjun: ...

Is this guy showing off his relationship? Not sure, let's wait and see.

Some previously classified files became accessible after Shen Wang became a Grade S Mutant, so he pulled out his phone and looked up Jing Chunjun's dossier.

Jing Chunjun, Grade S Mutant. She reached Grade S a bit later than Zhou Qing. Her talent Words of Truth is a causal weapon akin to spoken magic — whatever she says comes true in strange ways. After becoming Grade S, even Grade A Contaminants could die from a single word of hers.

Words of Truth was originally only a Grade B talent. For Jing Chunjun to grow from a B-grade talent into a Grade S Mutant was extremely impressive, so inspiring that many people idolized her.

But Jing Chunjun was also, after Zhou Xiangzhe, the Grade S Mutant with the most severe Contamination Level. Her direction of mental instability was: sorrow.

After using her talent, she would fall into extreme sorrow. She would cry until she passed out, even to the point of asphyxiation. And while crying, her self-control would drop, causing her talent to continuously erupt with intense, uncontrollable power.

Looking at this mental instability info, Shen Wang glanced again at the dashing, sunny woman before him — he could not imagine her crying to the point of suffocation.

'We'll catch up later. Right now, the focus is Zhou Qing.' Jing Chunjun cut to the main topic.

Zhou Xiangzhe nodded. 'Go ahead, we're listening. But this time, my beloved is in command.'

Jing Chunjun: ...

Just how many times are you going to emphasize 'my beloved'?!

But anyway, Jing Chunjun gave them a detailed account of everything that had happened.

'At first, Zhou Qing and I moved together. We searched for clues near Contamination Site No. 3. But as you know, we looked for three days and found nothing. Meanwhile, the nearby villages kept disappearing one by one. When we went to investigate, we found the village structures perfectly normal, just that all the people inside had vanished without a trace.'

Jing Chunjun recalled the scene from that day. 'That morning, I felt I could use my talent, so I said, "I hope we can find a lead today." '

'Then during the day we received distress signals, but the signals came from two different places.'

Left with no choice, Jing Chunjun and Zhou Qing split up, each heading to a different signal source. Jing Chunjun eventually found a lost dispatch team, but Zhou Qing disappeared.

Before vanishing, he sent back the message, 'This place is a real city.'

Jing Chunjun tried to find Zhou Qing, and went to the location he had gone to rescue, but there was nothing there — no Zhou Qing, no people in distress.

Finally, Jing Chunjun reported to the Anti-Contamination Center Leadership. With Zhou Qing missing, the danger level of this place had to be raised a notch.

Shen Wang considered. 'So, before that one in Contamination Site No. 3 returned, some observers of the ghost city were able to come back — even though they later developed Aberrations, they weren't trapped there.'

'After that Contaminant returned, everyone who encounters the ghost city disappears.'

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at Shen Wang. 'You suspect people could escape before because the ghost city's actual controller was sealed, so they were lucky enough to get away?'

'Right.'

Jing Chunjun glanced questioningly between them, then spoke: 'Are you two talking about the ghost city on the edge of Contamination Site No. 3?'

'Mm,' Shen Wang nodded. 'We suspect the ghost city is the stronghold of the sealed Grade S Contaminant.'

'That does fit together neatly.' Jing Chunjun pulled up the Vanishing Project files on her phone. 'Contamination Site No. 3 is confirmed to have one sealing point, one Grade S Contaminant. That's the one we're guarding against. And at the same time, the ghost city is right on the edge of the site.'

Jing Chunjun thought for a moment, then turned and called out to the surroundings: 'Everyone, evacuate the Contamination Site No. 3 observation point!'

Everyone present paused in surprise, but they didn't dare say a word and scattered in under ten minutes, faster than rabbits.

Shen Wang looked at Zhou Xiangzhe, his expression meaning: What's going on?

Zhou Xiangzhe explained to him, 'When her talent activates, it doesn't distinguish friend from foe. There was an incident before where she tried to locate a Contaminant's stronghold, and ended up dragging all the staff into the stronghold. So she usually clears people out before using her talent.'

'I don't like it either, but the talent isn't that intelligent.'

Jing Chunjun let out a heavy breath, then said, 'When I cry, don't you laugh at me!'

'Forget it. Zhou Xiangzhe doesn't have a single cell for mocking people. He looks cold and detached, but actually he's an empty-headed guy with barely any emotions.'

Zhou Xiangzhe: ?

Shen Wang couldn't help but laugh.

Jing Chunjun closed her eyes. Just as Shen Wang thought she was about to pull out some flashy ultimate move, she suddenly lifted her head and shouted at the sky, 'I want to encounter the ghost city!'

A truly refreshing and unpretentious talent.

After shouting, Jing Chunjun exhaled a long breath and turned to face Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe.

'Alright, let's walk a circle around Contamination Site No. 3.'

'Don't split up — that way, if we run into the ghost city, we'll run into it together.'

As it turned out, Jing Chunjun's Jinx was truly effective. Shortly after entering Contamination Site No. 3, they saw that ghost city.

They stood on the outskirts of the ghost city, no more than three meters away. Inside, everyone was walking along the streets. Each person looked ordinary, even indistinguishable from the people Inside the High Wall. Yet even so, a dense aura of death still emanated from them.

They seemed to notice people outside, and some turned their heads to look at them.

Shen Wang and the other two noticed urgency in some people's eyes, as if signaling them to leave quickly.

'Huh, they're sentient?' Jing Chunjun looked at the people inside. 'This doesn't seem like a Ghost Phenomenon.'

Ghost Phenomenon: dead people, for some reason, keep repeating their last day, forming a strange localized contamination marker. But the repeating dead in a Ghost Phenomenon have no emotions — they stick to their last day, mechanically repeating. They would not signal someone who entered to leave immediately.

It's as if… they know something is wrong with their current situation.

'I'm curious about something else,' Shen Wang said. 'The ghost city has existed for so long, and they've been inside for so long — why hasn't a single one shown Aberration?'

Jing Chunjun's eyes widened. 'Right, why?'

'Even if this isn't a Ghost Phenomenon, they're right on the edge of Contamination Site No. 3. How are they maintaining their forms with such intense Contamination?!'

'The answer to that can only be found by going inside.'

The three were not overly tense. Three Grade S Mutants were more than enough to handle one Grade S Contaminant. And with Zhou Qing, another Grade S, still inside, they didn't believe this Contaminant could be strong enough to take down four Grade S Mutants in one go.

They stepped forward, but the moment they tried to enter, they were blocked by a barrier.

Just as they were puzzled, a hovering data panel slowly descended from the air.

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at the panel in front of him, and read aloud the text on it: 'Welcome to the City of Order…'

Shen Wang was also reading the content.

[Welcome to the City of Order. To enter the City of Order, please sign the following agreement.]

[1. The City of Order does not permit the existence of Mutants; all Mutants shall demote themselves to ordinary people. 2. Signing the agreement automatically makes you a citizen of the City of Order, never permitted to leave for life. 3. Within the City of Order, abide by the Rules; order is the foundation sustaining everything.]

[This agreement applies exclusively to the Anti-Contamination Center. You must sign the agreement to become permanent citizens of the City of Order before you can enter.]

Shen Wang clicked his tongue. 'Isn't this thing a bit too arrogant, coming up with an agreement specifically targeting the Center?'

'It's banking on the fact that the Anti-Contamination Center has to come here to assess the situation, so it's forcing all Center personnel to accept these terms.' Zhou Xiangzhe studied the agreement. 'And we really would have to sign — if we don't sign, we can't get in, which makes everything pointless.'

'Can you use your talent right now to break this system, so we can enter without signing?' Shen Wang asked Jing Chunjun.

But instead of an answer from Jing Chunjun, Shen Wang heard sobbing.

He and Zhou Xiangzhe turned to look behind them at Jing Chunjun.

The previously dashing and sunny woman was now squatting on the ground, crying her eyes out. The data barrier still stubbornly displayed in front of her. She angrily turned her head away, but the screen reappeared by her side, determined to make her see it.

'Wah!' She cried even harder. 'Even this thing is bullying me!'

Ah, the mental instability…

Shen Wang walked over and crouched beside her. 'Yeah, even this thing is bullying you. So let's get revenge — use your talent to break it.'

'I think you can definitely do it!'

Jing Chunjun, teary-eyed, 'I, I…'

'Come on, say it with me: The Anti-Contamination Center can enter the ghost city without signing.' Shen Wang coaxed her. 'You're already crying, might as well cry even harder.'

'After all, the harder you cry, the fiercer you fight.'

Zhou Xiangzhe: ...

His beloved really was the type who loves to stir up trouble.