Chapter 2: Transmigration Begins

Chapter 2: Transmigration: The Beginning

"In the archives of the Pollution Prevention Center, even pollutants are classed and ranked."

"Class E pollutants, the lowest and most numerous type, rarely cause mental pollution. Those infected mostly become deformed, making them the easiest to detect. They can be cleaned up with just guns and ammo; there's no need to even call in the mutants."

"Class D pollutants are driven by specific obsessions and act on them. Their area contamination level is low, typically affecting a few dozen victims at most, but dealing with them isn't particularly difficult either."

"The real trouble starts with Class C and above. Once they appear, the contamination spreads widely, causing extremely severe consequences. The disaster level reaches C, which is enough to overwhelm an entire city."

Shen Ji listened to the system briefing him as he walked back to his rented apartment.

Night was falling, and the streets were nearly empty. Only dim streetlights illuminated the road. The rain from earlier in the day began to drizzle again. Shen Ji hadn't brought an umbrella, so he picked up a transparent broken one from a nearby trash can. Two of the ribs were snapped, but it was still somewhat usable.

"Why did he rent a place from a pollutant?" This was what Shen Ji most wanted to know.

"Maybe it wasn’t a pollutant when he rented it, but it became contaminated itself in the past few days. You know, the 'Containment Breach Incident' had extremely severe consequences, including widespread contamination in Q City."

The novel didn’t provide detailed descriptions of the impact caused by Filth, likely because the author had already decided to rush the ending and didn’t want to put in more effort. The book only mentioned that the incident caused massive repercussions and led humanity to resolve to eliminate the S-class pollutant Filth at all costs.

Neither Shen Ji nor the system had a clear idea of how society would change as a result. They'd just have to cross that bridge when they came to it.

In the end, the umbrella couldn’t fully shield him from the rain. Shen Ji’s shoulder was half-soaked, his jacket clinging damply to his arm, and his glasses were fogged with moisture. He tossed the umbrella into a trash bin downstairs before heading up.

It was an old building. The elevator had been broken for a long time with no repairs, so he had to take the stairs. The motion-sensor lights in the stairwell were unreliable, flickering on and off arbitrarily. Fortunately, today the light was cooperative, staying lit throughout his ascent.

The old apartment didn’t have a fingerprint lock, and the key was somewhat stubborn. The prolonged fumbling caused the motion light to shut off.

Just as Shen Ji was about to cough to reactivate the light, it suddenly flickered back on. He turned to look toward the stairwell and saw a small old man peeking out from around the corner, staring at him.

The old man’s bald head seemed to gleam under the light, wrinkles crowding from his forehead down to his chin. A few long, stray hairs hung oddly from his face. His eyes, narrowed into slits, fixed on Shen Ji with an eerie intensity, like a dead fish.

The light flickered off and on again. Shen Ji and the old man stared at each other for a full ten seconds.

"You’re back," the old man finally spoke.

Shen Ji immediately recognized the voice from the phone call. The landlord?

"It’s raining outside. Since you’re wet, remember to change your clothes," the landlord advised in a raspy, aged voice. "Starting today, there’s a curfew—no going out. Make sure you remember. And don’t open the door, no matter what sounds you hear."

"What kind of sounds?"

"That’d be the guard teams. They’ll be conducting door-to-door searches to clear out pollutants." The old man scratched the nearby handrail with his fingernails, producing a strange metallic scraping sound. Shen Ji noticed dirt and reddish-black stains under his nails.

The old man stared into his eyes and continued, "Sometimes there’ll be screams. Pay them no mind. That’s just the guard teams capturing pollutants and sending contaminated people to containment facilities."

"Everything will be fine by daybreak."

With that, the old man trembled as he turned and left. Shen Ji didn’t think much of it. He turned to unlock his door, but as he stepped inside, he glanced back toward the stairwell. There, the eerie landlord was crawling on all fours, silently watching him from the stairs.

Shen Ji closed the door and stood silently inside for a moment.

Finally, he managed to mutter one sentence.

"Seems like a ghost."

"Pollutants aren’t much different from ghosts. They have special abilities, are contagious, lack human morality, and are man-eating monsters."

"So what’s the source of this contamination?" Shen Ji suddenly slipped into professional mode. "Is it ocean radiation? Medical waste? Or a horrific leak from some kind of bacterial weapons research?"

"...Pollution has always existed."

Shen Ji was taken aback; he hadn't expected the system to answer this question.

In the novel, the origin of the pollution was never explained. It began with the protagonist, a member of the Guard Corps, going to rescue victims captured by pollutants.

"Since written records began, cases similar to contamination sickness have existed all over the world, but most were hastily dismissed as 'mental illness' or 'supernatural affliction.' In reality, the higher-ups had already noticed these incidents and began investigations. Unfortunately, before they could find the cause, the Red Mist Incident broke out."

The Red Mist Incident—the beginning of everything. Thirty years ago, on a certain morning, an eerie blood-red mist silently rose. The weather forecast still showed clear skies, and people thought the mist appeared red due to mixing with other substances. It wasn't until everyone discovered online that the entire world was enveloped in this blood-colored mist.

Panic spread, pollution erupted... Countless pollutants, instantly transformed, attacked others in the cities, and the world fell into chaos.

It took humanity thousands of years to establish the current order and technology, but it only took one night to destroy it.

Shen Ji didn’t speak further; he needed to take a shower.

Hanging his soaked coat on a nearby rack, Shen Ji took off his glasses, undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his smooth chest. He rolled his shoulders and let out a soft sigh. There was no tension in his voice; it seemed as if being transported into a novel was just a trivial matter not worth making a fuss about to him.

Finally, he pushed back his wet hair with one hand and faced himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

To be honest, he still wasn’t quite used to his current self.

The person in the mirror resembled about eighty percent of his original self, but with slightly shorter hair. Without glasses, his gaze seemed more piercing.

Shen Ji hadn’t worn glasses initially either. He was good-looking, but his gaze was unexpectedly intense. Even a calm stare could easily make people feel vulnerable, and some even had communication issues because of it. So, on his superior’s advice, Shen Ji started wearing a pair of plain black-framed glasses to tone it down.

This habit had stuck with him ever since.

"Really looks like a villain."

"Was always a villain anyway." Shen Ji lowered his hand and used his only towel to dry his hair.

As he dried his hair, Shen Ji narrowed his eyes slightly. He stared strangely at his reflection in the mirror, then gently pressed his right temple with his hand.

There were some strange specks there, but they didn’t look like a rash. Instead, they were peculiar, scale-like bumps that felt soft when touched.

What is this?

Before Shen Ji could examine it closely, a loud bang came from outside. He sharply turned to look out the window. Outside was utter darkness, with the pattering rain hitting the glass. The faint streetlight cast a dim glow, barely illuminating anything.

Two more gunshots followed, neither too close nor too far—likely from the neighboring residential area.

Shen Ji didn’t hear any screams. Perhaps they were drowned out by the sound of the rain, or maybe pollutants felt no pain and didn’t make unpleasant sounds even when shot.

Pulling his phone from the charger, Shen Ji sat on the shabby chair left by the landlord and opened his contacts. He scrolled through, carefully checking each of the odd annotations.

If the landlord was really a pollutant, then everyone in this contact list must be pollutants too, right?

Thinking this, Shen Ji exited his contacts and opened another app—an anonymous forum where ordinary people privately discussed pollutants. Relying on his reporter's intuition, Shen Ji had discovered this forum and lurked in it within a few days.

As soon as he opened it, he saw a trending post.

"This pollution incident is more serious than we imagined."

Original Poster: I have a friend who works in the Guard Corps. My friend told me this rain is entirely artificial. The containment leak has already polluted the entire air. They’re using artificial rainfall to flush out the substances in the air, but it’s already too late. Even if it rains for days, it won’t help.

1st comment: Seriously? No way—the weather forecast showed no rain for the next few days!

2nd comment: What are the Guard Corps even doing?! How could they let this happen!

3rd floor: Stop speculating. The weather forecast has been unreliable for ages, and even if it's true, what can we do? We can only report those who seem like contaminants.

4th floor: Speaking of which, I've been feeling like there's something off about my upstairs neighbors these past few days. Who sings the same line over and over in the middle of the night? It's really strange. Anyway, I've already called the police.

5th floor: Jesus, it hasn't even been a few days of peace!

"It is indeed cloud seeding. The reason it starts and stops is because the current cloud conditions don't meet the criteria for artificial rain. As soon as the conditions are right, they have to make it rain immediately to wash the pollution away. Of course, whether this actually works or not, I have no idea."

The system piped up at the right moment: "It seems the protagonist you encountered earlier was a mutant urgently dispatched to handle this incident. According to the novel's plot, the protagonist discovers traces of the defilement during this event."

"Speaking of which, do you still want to turn yourself in?"

Shen Ji: ...

He said, "Just kidding, how could there be a system taking it seriously?"

/

The Guard Unit is going door to door investigating potentially problematic residents in Q City.

In the rain, Li Zhiyan, wearing a yellow raincoat, looked up at the sky. The rain quickly soaked his hair and clothes, but he stood rooted to the spot, motionless.

Until a man with wet hair, humming a song, dragged a black object over. The man was also wearing a Guard Unit uniform, but it was loose and unbuttoned, even on this cold autumn day. The black inner layer was soaked through and clung to his skin, showing off his build.

Zhou Ye tossed the black object at Li Zhiyan's feet and crouched down.

"Captain, stop zoning out and posing."

Li Zhiyan gave him a dirty look. "Am I trying to look cool? No, I'm wondering which genius came up with the idea of artificial rainfall."

"Aside from soaking everyone to the bone, what good does it do?"

"I know, I know, butterflies are afraid of water," Zhou Ye waved his hand. "Anyway, we handled it."

Li Zhiyan used his foot to flip the black object over. He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked at Zhou Ye. "What is this thing?"

"A rat," Zhou Ye continued crouching by the corpse, his tone inexplicably excited. "Exactly the kind you're thinking of—a big black rat with a long tail and whiskers."

"Have Jiang Ying handle the body. Don't let the contamination spread further." Li Zhiyan kicked the corpse back. "Who's next?"

Zhou Ye pulled up the info on his phone while standing in the rain.

"A resident on the 5th floor of Building 8 in the next complex over. Shen Ji, single male, just moved in half a month ago."

Li Zhiyan nodded. "What's the issue?"

"No job, never orders anything, suspected of not eating or drinking for over a week."

"His downstairs neighbor thought he was either messed up or a contaminant, so they reported him to the Containment Center. Ha! A contaminant that can't even be bothered to blend in!"

"But it's also strange. If he's a contaminant, why isn't he doing anything? Just staying in the residential building?"

Li Zhiyan took the phone from him, holding it between his thumb and middle finger to shake off the water on the screen before reading through the information.

"We'll only know by going to check."

"Maybe it's just a simple adjustment period after awakening. Not eating or drinking is pretty normal for mutants."

"True," Zhou Ye pushed himself up and stuck his hands into the pockets of his soaked jacket.

"In major contamination events like this, more contaminants show up, which means more mutants'll pop up too."