Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The man leads Shen Wang past the building in front of them and keeps walking, and soon they spot a little house with a sign reading 'Guard Booth.'

There are two chairs inside the guard booth. The window is small and filthy, but it faces that building directly — through it you can see the woman climbing up the high-rise and jumping off again and again, like some kind of farce.

He sits in one of the chairs and gestures for Shen Wang to take the other.

He asks, 'Are you an ordinary person or a Mutant?'

Given the choice between sitting and standing, no way he'd stand. Shen Wang drops into the chair, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking utterly at ease in this eerie atmosphere — as if he weren't in a cold, cramped guard booth, as if there weren't a woman out the window behind him jumping to her death over and over.

'What do you think?' Shen Wang asks him.

'A Mutant, I'd say. You're too calm.' There's a subtle look in the man's eyes. 'You're not like the others who've come in here. You don't seem scared at all.'

Shen Wang spreads his hands. 'What's there to be scared of? When a Mutant reaches the end of the road, this is what it looks like.'

'Maybe even worse than her.'

The man stalls. All he can manage is, '...You really are an optimist. But optimism's a good thing.'

Shen Wang nods, looking like he quite enjoys the praise. 'So then, who are you? Why are you here?'

'I'm the one calling for help,' the man answers, once he's steadied himself.

'This is Qianzhen Residential Area. It's been cut off from the world for over half a year now. I came to Qianzhen to deal with the Contaminant — I'm a member of the Security Force. Name's Jiang Mengchi, Security Force 13th Street Patrol, Unit 337.'

Shen Wang raises an eyebrow and holds out his hand. 'Nice to meet you, colleague. I'm Shen Wang, from the Dispatch Team.'

Jiang Mengchi stalls again, like he hadn't expected Shen Wang to suddenly introduce himself at a moment like this — and want to shake hands, no less.

...Oh. A human, then.

Shen Wang calmly draws his hand back, like he'd never done a thing.

Bewildered, Jiang Mengchi shakes Shen Wang's hand, and only then carries on filling him in.

'Qianzhen Residential Area was originally an ordinary residential block on the edge of Central City. The whole building's full of residents — at least three hundred households. Nothing ever went wrong there.'

'Until one day, a woman whose domestic abuse complaints had gone nowhere jumped to her death. The day after her body was collected, the Security Force got calls from seven or eight households in that same building — the callers claimed they'd seen the woman who'd jumped crawling along the wall in the dead of night, like a gecko, twisting her way back into her own apartment.'

'On the third day, twenty-six households jumped to their deaths. On the fourth day, thirty-eight. The area was confirmed as ranged Mental Pollution — the contaminated develop an overwhelming urge to commit suicide, and that very night they leap from a height to their deaths.'

Intense emotion makes a person far easier to parasitize and contaminate. The Pollution Control Center judged that the woman who jumped had likely shown signs of contamination before her death — that at the instant her depression peaked and she jumped, the Contamination erupted along with it. She mutated into a Pollutant, radiating Mental Pollution into everything around her.

And so the people in the building, once contaminated, sank into the same depression and jumped to their deaths in turn.

The Pollution Control Center named her the 'Qianzhen Residential Area Depressive Suicide Syndrome,' with a Contamination Level hovering between C and D. The plan had been to assign an accurate grade after the investigation gathered evidence.

'Which is why we got sent in here to eliminate the Pollutant.'

'I'm a Class C Mutant, and the captain of this team. At first we thought it was just an ordinary case of Mental Pollution.'

'But we were wrong.'

Jiang Mengchi recounts it calmly — nothing like the desperate cries for help on the car radio. Only deep in his eyes can you catch a trace of grief.

'The moment we entered the area, we found we'd lost all contact with the outside, and the road we'd come in on was gone too. We figured it was the Pollutant's Contaminated Talent — that destroying it would break the barrier.'

They tried to kill the woman in front of the building, only to find there was no way to even land a hit on her. She was like an afterimage, endlessly repeating the act of jumping. No outside force could break the pattern, and all the while the woman kept radiating Contamination out into the world.

'We couldn't kill her and couldn't find a way out. One by one, my teammates started becoming mentally unstable.'

'It was beyond our control. Extreme emotion triggers Contamination, and Contamination triggers Mental Aberration. A vicious cycle.'

Jiang Mengchi presses his temple, looking pained. 'After we'd held on for a while, I went out to find food. When I came back, my teammates were gone.'

'We were separated after that. But I believe they're alive somewhere.'

Maybe they'd even gotten out of this area — otherwise, why couldn't Jiang Mengchi find them?

He's certain of it, and he sincerely hopes his team really has gotten out, instead of being trapped here forever like him.

Shen Wang props his chin on one hand, watching Jiang Mengchi. When the man finishes, he nods. 'So how did you call out to the world for help?'

'My talent is Honesty.'

Jiang Mengchi says, 'I can communicate with others mind to mind, within a range of about one kilometer. In the very beginning I tried to use it to link with people outside, but no one could connect with me. After a few tries I gave up.'

'...But for some reason, three months ago, people gradually started showing up in the area — and every one of them said they'd heard my call for help.'

Jiang Mengchi frowns faintly, exhaustion in his eyes. 'It's terrifying.'

Most of the people who entered the area were ordinary. They couldn't withstand the woman's Contamination — they went into Mental Aberration and jumped to their deaths that very day. The ones who held out longest were members of the Security Force Team One, staff sent to investigate the car radio broadcast. But even they didn't last seven days before flinging themselves off the high-rise.

'I swear I only called for help in the early days of being trapped. There's absolutely no way I contacted the outside three months ago.'

'My call for help was being used by the Contaminant.'

Jiang Mengchi isn't doing well. He's been pale since the moment he appeared, looking like a man barely recovered from a serious illness. But considering he's been trapped here for half a year, and that for the past three months ordinary people who heard his pleas have kept getting dragged in, it's no wonder a former Security Force member like him is in such a state.

Shen Wang studies Jiang Mengchi. Right now Jiang Mengchi is looking up, watching the woman jump over and over — and on his exposed neck, Shen Wang sees a black ridge swelling up, like a blood vessel.

'What's that?'

Jiang Mengchi glances at Shen Wang, then, a moment later, slowly clamps a hand over his neck, as if just catching on.

'Distortion,' Jiang Mengchi answers. 'I've been trapped here too long. I'm bound to get contaminated a little, one way or another — so my body's started to distort.'

...

When Bo Wenhuan gets out of the car, he sees Zhou Xiangzhe standing right where he was.

He's still in that white casual outfit, his long white hair tied back, a black-gloved hand bearing a silver Ring holding a lit cigarette. He doesn't smoke it — just lets it burn down bit by bit, white smoke drifting into the air, the whole place thick with the smell of tobacco.

Zhou Xiangzhe isn't an addict. He just lights one when he's agitated, to let off the displeasure in his chest.

Ming Guang, who'd come to pick him up, said: their new Polaris recruit had just been swallowed by the unknown Pollutant here, so they needed to pin down the Pollutant's location.

At first Bo Wenhuan didn't quite buy it. After all, it was only a Class C Contaminant, and the one who'd been swallowed was a Mutant on the verge of breaking into Class B. Zhou Xiangzhe wasn't the type to get tense just because a team member fell into a Pollutant's nest — he'd only see it as a good chance for them to toughen up in there.

But seeing Zhou Xiangzhe now, Bo Wenhuan finally was sure: Zhou Xiangzhe really did seem to be worried.

'Sorry I'm late.' Bo Wenhuan greets Zhou Xiangzhe with a grin.

Zhou Xiangzhe nods at him. 'Good enough that you came at all.'

As the only Class A Sensory Perception Mutant, Bo Wenhuan rarely goes out these days. He mostly works inside Central City, and as time passes his Contamination Level keeps climbing. A lot of people worry that if he keeps overworking, he'll end up like the Safehouse — forced to rely on sleep to keep his Contamination Level from rising any further.

But this time it was Zhou Xiangzhe's request, so he made a rare trip out of town.

Most of Central City's Mutants owe Zhou Xiangzhe a favor. No one would turn down a request from him.

'The only lead is this distress broadcast.' Ming Guang switches on the radio. 'What I dug up is that everyone who hears it goes missing. Before Shen Wang vanished, he told us we were dealing with a Class C Contaminant.'

Bo Wenhuan nods, pulls off his glove, and lays his hand on the car radio.

'Alright. I've got it.'

He closes his eyes, his talent activating, the power reaching out along the broadcast to find where this Pollutant is.

The man's cries for help keep playing through the car radio.

'Will someone come to Qianzhen Residential Area and save us? No one else can die...'

'Qianzhen Residential Area, calling for help — can anyone hear me?!'

'I'm begging you, please come save me.'

Bo Wenhuan's eyes snap open. He yanks his hand off the car radio, gasping violently and stumbling back two steps.

'Bo Wenhuan?'

'No — I'm fine.' Bo Wenhuan stares wide-eyed at the car radio. 'The Pollutant isn't here. This is just a crack it pried open!'

'Get back to the Pollution Control Center right now and find the records — the Security Force must have left some behind!'

'Because this isn't a Class C Contaminant at all — it's a Class C Contamination Source, a ranged regional Pollution Source!'

Ming Guang sucks in a sharp breath.

A Pollutant and a Pollution Source are completely different concepts.

A Pollutant is a human who's already been contaminated — Contamination has mutated them into a monster that spreads Contamination, triggering ranged Mental Pollution or ranged Distortion Contamination. But as long as you clear out that one Pollutant, the area's Contamination won't spread any further.

The victims can go to a Detainment Facility or the Mental Pollution Center for treatment.

A Pollution Source is different. It's a brand seared deep into a place, rooted to the bone. It radiates Contamination without end, and it spawns not just one Pollutant but many.

There are no more than ten famous Pollution Sources in this world. Six of them are major zones spanning a hundred li — the moment an ordinary person steps in, they're instantly twisted out of human shape. Every one of these zones breeds vast numbers of Pollutants, and the most terrifying of all, the Zero Pollution Zone, holds no fewer than three Class S Contaminants.

And the Star River Orphanage is one such Class S Contamination Source.

Zhou Xiangzhe clenches his fist, his rounded nails digging into his palm, leaving little flecks of red.

'Find a way to track it down.'

Zhou Xiangzhe says, 'We can't let this Class C Contamination Source stay in Central City.'