Chapter 5: Pollution Containment Shelter

Chapter 5 Pollution Containment Shelter

Shen Ji trudged out of the room, each step landing unevenly. The massive, fleshy mushroom caps pressed against the iron door, and the holes corroded by rats the previous night were now packed with white mycelium. It took Shen Ji considerable effort to pull the door open.

Standing in the corridor, he exhaled deeply, inexplicably feeling a distinct sense of having survived a disaster.

He turned back to look at the room and noticed that as soon as he left, the bold, clustered mushrooms eagerly scrambled onto his bed, covering it with mycelium in mere seconds.

Shen Ji: …

"Look how well-behaved they are. No matter how crowded it got, they never climbed onto your bed until you left, sneaking up for a nap only after you were gone."

"You call that sneaking?"

"Don’t expect too much from small mushrooms. They’re just a bunch of small mushrooms, after all."

Shen Ji could only sigh in exasperation, slammed the door shut, and turned to leave.

The corridor still bore traces of the previous night’s devastation. The concrete stairs were covered in scratches and carried the strange odor of corroded metal. The handrail was a lost cause, and only the aging motion-sensor light in the hallway was dutifully doing its job.

The rain outside had stopped, but the air remained damp, mixed with the earthy scent of damp soil. Lifting his gaze, Shen Ji found no one in sight.

"Huh? Aren’t you the one from last night? Why are you out here?"

Great, a person showed up.

Shen Ji turned to look and saw the guard who had knocked on his door for an inspection the previous night crouching on top of the nearby wall. He was wearing a different set of clothes but still hadn't bothered to button them up.

Balancing steadily on his feet, he lazily rested his elbows on his knees, resembling a cat perched on a wall, licking its paws and guarding its territory.

Zhou Ye didn’t climb down but instead looked down at him, giving off the vibe of "The human's gone, so this cat gets to look down on you fools!"

He spoke, "During the lockdown, it’s best to stay indoors. There might be pollutants wandering outside."

Shen Ji allowed him to scrutinize him, meeting Zhou Ye’s gaze boldly through his glasses without a hint of timidity.

"I didn’t want to either, but I received a call from the shelter asking me to go for a check-up."

"Are you a person of interest?" Zhou Ye seemed surprised. He jumped down from the wall, landing lightly, even more cat-like now. He circled Shen Ji, examining him from head to toe, and after a few seconds, nodded. "Alright, I’ll have someone take you there later."

"That area is completely sealed off. You won’t be able to get in right now."

With that, Zhou Ye pulled out his phone and began making a call.

"Zhou Ye, male supporting character number one, A-level Mutant. Mutant Talent: Wild Revival. Known throughout the story as a big cat who loves bathing and rolling in the rain, has lost his work badge 33 times, reapplied 25 times, and is a real demolition expert."

"So he’s crouching here to catch rats? Is that just his inner cat coming out?"

"He probably caught quite a few last night and is now resting."

Just as he finished speaking, Zhou Ye walked over. He casually stuffed his phone into his pocket, only halfway in, making it look like it was about to fall out at any moment.

Fortunately, Shen Ji wasn’t obsessive-compulsive, or he would have reached out to tuck it in properly.

"I’ll take you there," Zhou Ye said. "The lockdown level has been raised again. Regular staff can’t easily get in."

Shen Ji restrained the urge to pet the cat, as something more important had caught his keen attention.

"Then why are you asking me to go there?"

After all, his current identity was just an ordinary person who had experienced a pollution incident. Was it really appropriate to summon an ordinary person to a locked-down shelter?

Unexpectedly, Zhou Ye seemed even more puzzled than Shen Ji, his expression seeming to say, "How could you even ask such a question?"

"Someone like you is clearly in the refractory period of awakening. Once the check-up is done and everything’s fine, you’ll be put on duty."

"The shelter is packed with contaminated patients, completely overloaded. Mutants are busy dealing with pollutants in the city and don't have the hands to spare."

"Awakening?" Shen Ji pointed at himself. "You’re saying I’ve awakened a Talent? That I’ll become a Mutant?"

"Otherwise?" Zhou Ye shifted his posture, eyeing Shen Ji with a subtle gaze. "Someone like you, not eating or drinking is one thing, but being so close to pollutants and coming out completely unscathed—you’re hardly normal."

Shen Ji: …

"…"

"I knew it! Sooner or later, with the way the Filth lives, the Pollution Prevention Center would come knocking!"

"Let’s turn the tables and just say we’re Mutants."

"Faking death and hiding in the shelter, huh? System, we’re really playing it sneaky."

"Better than being wiped out without a trace."

"No problem." Shen Ji deliberately adjusted his glasses and nodded seriously at Zhou Ye. "Let’s go now."

For a moment, Zhou Ye felt his fur stand on end. He looked around strangely, searching for the source of his unease, but found only the young man named "Shen Ji" before him.

The young man, just like the previous night, wore black-framed glasses and a black jacket. This time, the shirt underneath was neatly buttoned, giving off an air of seriousness at first glance, exuding the vibe of a sophisticated scoundrel.

As a "wild animal," Zhou Ye, though not particularly sensitive to pollutants, was highly attuned to other human Mutants. He didn’t sense the presence of a fellow Mutant from Shen Ji. Even if Shen Ji were to awaken as a Mutant later, his level probably wouldn’t be high.

Seems it wasn’t him.

Zhou Ye drew his own conclusion and personally escorted Shen Ji to the shelter.

A deep inspection was different from the previous routine check-up—it involved drawing blood. Shen Ji was intensely curious: could he even produce blood now?

"Don’t worry. Even if nothing comes out, it’s fine. Pollutants uncontrollably release pollution into their surroundings. Even the highest-level S-class pollutants do this. Mutants, on the other hand, store pollution within their bodies and cannot release it. This is the Pollution Prevention Center’s basic criterion for distinguishing high-level pollutants from Mutants."

"The Filth is a very special pollutant. It can transfer its pollution to the fungi symbiotic with it, preventing the release of pollution and allowing it to perfectly disguise itself as human."

The nurse inserted the needle into Shen Ji’s forearm. Blood flowed into the syringe, but it wasn’t the bright red of a normal human—instead, it was a pale white. Shen Ji could clearly see white mycelium stretching and squirming within the syringe, seemingly searching for a suitable space to grow.

Upon seeing this inhuman blood, the nurse showed no fear but rather delight.

She quickly pulled a strange device from a drawer and jabbed it into the needle puncture on Shen Ji’s arm. Shen Ji felt a slight sting, and the next moment, the machine beeped and displayed numbers.

"Talent threshold 3, value stable, fluctuation stable, pollution level 0, no pollution overflow!"

"Unknown Mutant Talent, determined to be in the awakening refractory period. It really is a Mutant!"

In a wave of excitement, the nurses working nearby swarmed over, each face bearing dark circles under their eyes but lit up with excitement.

"What? A Mutant? Hurry and come help at the shelter!"

"Wow! White blood! So cute!"

"No, shouldn’t we call it beautiful? So pretty!"

"This is the first mutant discovered in this incident! I need to document this for the record!"

Shen Ji: ...

He inexplicably felt like he had become a giant panda, with these people happily crowding around to observe him, a rare animal.

Of course, after the data was reported, the containment center immediately sent someone to pick up Shen Ji. They quickly made grand promises, hoping he could help out at the containment center. They promised him generous rewards, they'd put him in for commendations, and the privilege of being the first to evacuate in dangerous situations.

Shen Ji noticed that these people didn’t seem to detect the hyphae in his white blood. They simply believed his blood had mutated and turned white.

So, the disguise ability of the Filth could even conceal the mushrooms themselves.

In the end, Shen Ji agreed—not for the privilege, but to avoid exposure.

While following a designated person to collect his uniform, Shen Ji glanced out the window. After the containment center leak incident, the entire facility had been sealed off, with layers of police tape encircling the outside.

"I’m actually quite curious about something."

Shen Ji asked the system, "Why would the Filth, who clearly has the power to contaminate an entire city, go to such lengths to orchestrate a 'containment center pollution leak incident'?"

He had a friend who hosted a "relationship talk show" and was a huge success back when TV was still mainstream. This friend once told Shen Ji that before interviews, they needed to conduct extensive research and pay attention to certain details.

For example: No one goes out of their way to do something they could easily accomplish without a reason.

Most of the time, this question lies at the very heart of the entire incident.

"Because the novel was rushed!"

The system replied helplessly: "How far will an author go to finish a story they no longer want to write? Ignoring all logic and foreshadowing, forcibly killing off the antagonist for a happy ending—who knows why the Filth would go to such lengths to do something like this? The book just says it was him."

Shen Ji: "...You’re right."

Authors who rush their endings really should be locked in a dark room.

/

As a new temporary worker who'd been strong-armed into helping at the containment center, Shen Ji’s most immediate task was to familiarize himself with the patients in ZoneⅠ, including their names, ages, and current pollution status.

Patients in Pollution StageⅠ still retained their rationality, though they exhibited some physical mutations and were aware of the changes in their bodies. Those in StageⅡ, even if conscious, were largely controlled by their polluted instincts. StageⅢ marked the critical threshold, and by StageⅣ, the containment center would eliminate the patients before they fully mutated into pollutants.

After the apocalypse, conventional medicine took a back seat. Doctors now needed to study pollution diseases alongside standard medical skills, as those were the deadliest afflictions in this world. Moreover, since the progression of pollution diseases was tied to the patient’s emotional state, doctors were also required to remain emotionally stable.

The more reassuring a doctor was, the more likely they could slow the progression of the pollution disease.

Thus, Shen Ji’s composed, rational, and seemingly serious demeanor made him particularly well-suited to remain at the containment center.

Following his "colleague" down to the first level, Shen Ji noticed the colleague wore the same white protective suit as him. He could sense that this colleague wasn’t exactly welcoming—the rejection didn’t seem born of work fatigue.

Shen Ji glanced down at his name tag.

"Zhang Qingli" was the name on it.

"Even mutants aren’t completely safe in a place like this," Zhang Qingli suddenly spoke up.

Shen Ji looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"You know about the pollution leak incident a few days ago, right?" Zhang Qingli frowned slightly, though it was unclear what exactly prompted his words.

"ZoneⅠ is short-staffed because everyone working during the leak tested positive for pollution, including several mutants. I heard you were helping out at the containment center at the time? Instead of getting polluted, you awakened a Talent?"

"You got real lucky."

With that, Zhang Qingli turned and wheeled the meal cart away.

"I'll go distribute meals over there. You can familiarize yourself with this area."

"He suspects you," the system concluded. "Being the sole survivor is indeed too conspicuous."

"It's fine," Shen Ji replied, unconcerned, even eager.

"I'm looking forward to him questioning me about this in front of a crowd. I've already prepared three response strategies, from creating buzz to building atmosphere and even questioning his motives. I’ll definitely ruin his reputation and make him pay me a hefty sum for defamation damages."

He was even considering switching to social media/content creation—no one knew this game better than him.

"...?"

No longer paying attention to Zhang Qingli, Shen Ji began scanning the area, casually observing the patients in the quarantine facility.

In the original work, the quarantine facility was like a melting pot—those who contracted the contamination sickness had little chance of leaving, and the doctors there regularly faced exposure risks. Yet, this place persisted, symbolizing humanity’s determination to fight pollution and its refusal to abandon patients.

So, everything was orderly: transparent barriers isolated the patients one by one, with different zones categorized by condition severity, all in an effort to find treatments.

Shen Ji looked around, fighting his professional habits. Pulling out his phone to take photos or conduct interviews here would be far too impolite, even though he’d already mentally drafted headlines and elevated conclusions.

Just then, two patients in an isolation room caught Shen Ji’s attention.

Their faces showed obvious wrinkled, bulging skin, like old tree bark or layers of elderly folds. They curled up together, motionless and in a trance-like state, as if already dead and stiff.

It was rare for the quarantine facility to place different patients in the same isolation room, as contamination could spread between patients, and patients might even become aggressive toward each other, fighting over territory.

Shen Ji keenly sensed something was off.

So, he flipped through the stack of paper documents he’d received before entering the ward and pulled up these two individuals’ files.

Lin Yujuan, Chen Guo—relationship: mother and daughter, admitted to the quarantine facility three days ago.

According to the records: Lin Yujuan’s husband passed by the quarantine facility six days ago. Fear led him to conceal this, and fear also triggered his contamination sickness. Within just a few days, he mutated into a pollutant. When the security team found him, he was crouched in the small garden downstairs, rooting himself and drinking water like a plant, growing rapidly to three meters tall. If the security team hadn’t cut him down in time, he might have grown even taller.

As his closest family members, his wife and daughter were both contaminated by him.

"Chen Guo," Shen Ji looked at the name. "Why does this name sound so familiar?"

"Of course it’s familiar! It’s Chen Guo! In the original work, this little girl was a perfect contamination adaptor. In a very short time, she reached Stage IV Contamination and mutated into a Class A Pollutant. Using her unique Contamination Ability, she discovered you hiding among the crowd and later told the protagonist about it during their final confrontation!"

"In other words: she is the very root of your exposure!"

"I never expected her to already be in the quarantine facility at this point, and even in your care as a Stage I contaminated patient."

Shen Ji frowned, looking at the little girl who seemed to be sleeping with her eyes closed, a subtle thought forming in his mind.

From a safety perspective, he should kill her now—after all, he knew the future, and this girl was the worst variable in it.

But as a human, Shen Ji found it difficult to harm a little girl.

"Actually, there’s another way."

Shen Ji quietly dismissed his dark thoughts, pretending nothing had happened.

If the system found out, it would mock him for being a born villain again.

"What way?" Shen Ji asked.

"You can try to eat the corruption from her."

"What do you mean?"

"Literally."

"Hui's corruption is very special—it can absorb and transfer pollution, just like how you ate that rat last night."

"If you eat the corruption from Chen Guo, she won’t turn into a tainted being, and she won’t expose you. At the same time, eating the corruption will make you stronger, boosting your odds against the protagonist. It’s a win-win situation with multiple benefits."

"Come on, give it a try!"

Shen Ji: "...You sound like one of those suit-wearing promo guys..."

"..."

"Maybe you should just surrender to the protagonist."