Chapter 19: Midnight Song

Chapter 19 Midnight Song

Everyone from the shelter had returned. Before leaving, Doctor Cheng stressed again and again that if any issues arose, they should contact them immediately or escape, and under no circumstances should they allow themselves to be harmed.

Old Song also nodded repeatedly, promising he wouldn't let anything happen to the two young men.

So Shen Ji and Zhang Qingli sat in the shop, waiting for the mysterious singing.

According to Old Song, the singing usually started late at night. At first, the sound was very faint, but once you noticed it, it would get louder and louder until it felt as though it was singing directly inside your head.

"That does sound like a pollutant," Zhang Qingli said, turning to Old Song. "Mr. Song, why don’t you head back inside for now?"

"No, no, I’d rather not go back. I’ll stay here with you," Old Song quickly refused.

He wore a smile on his face, but his eyes were frozen with fear. It seemed he didn’t want to be alone—perhaps the sound became more pronounced when he was by himself, causing even greater mental strain.

Shen Ji glanced at Old Song. The lenses of his glasses reflected the incandescent light, a white glare obscuring his vision. After watching Old Song for a moment, he lowered his head and began scrolling through his phone.

"What are you looking for?"

‘The forum post.’ Shen Ji opened the anonymous forum and scrolled through his browsing history. ‘Remember? On the day of the lockdown, we saw a post with a reply mentioning someone hearing repeated singing from upstairs late at night—the same line on repeat.’

"I’m surprised you remember something from so long ago, but yes, that did happen."

Ever since he’d inexplicably started working at the shelter—which had even provided him with dormitory accommodations—Shen Ji had grown accustomed to working from early mornings to late nights, overtime becoming second nature. He hadn’t opened the forum in a long time.

Now, the forum was flooded with posts about the Undertaker incident in Dongcheng District, along with numerous missing persons reports and pleas for help. There were even surveillance videos of the Undertaker circulating.

Shen Ji scrolled for a while before finally finding the post from that time.

"Here it is," he read the text aloud. "These past few days, I’ve been feeling like there’s something wrong with the apartment above me. Who keeps singing the same line over and over in the middle of the night? It’s really strange."

Shen Ji clicked on the user’s profile and found that they hadn’t been online for three days. Their last reply was also from three days ago, in the same thread.

Floor 27, replying to Floor 4: So? Did the police catch the pollutant after you reported it?

Floor 29, replying to Floor 27: The Guard Team went up to check. They told me only two elderly people live upstairs—no young woman at all. But I definitely heard a woman singing. The Guard Team took it seriously and swept the whole complex, but they didn’t find anything.

Floor 30: Nothing at all? Are the guards incompetent, or was there really no issue?

Floor 33: I heard it again today. Why does it sound like it’s coming from inside my apartment now…

Floor 34: Holy crap, report it to the police!

Floor 35: She seems to be in the bathroom. I’m going to take a look.

After that, the user never replied again. The thread had been filled with calls to locate this person, but soon after, the Undertaker incident erupted, and the post was inevitably buried under newer discussions.

"I found information about this person."

"Two days ago, the Guard Team entered his residence after someone reported a 'strong rotting smell.' They found him dead in the bathroom, his body rotted and decomposed. They extracted tissue fluid to confirm his ID. He had previously reported the 'midnight singing' to the police, but the contamination levels in the room were low. It’s unclear whether his death is related to the 'Midnight Song.'"

"The deceased was a community doctor, not a pollution treatment doctor but an ordinary physician. He had no contact with the shelter before his death."

"The Pollution Prevention Center marked it as 'suspected pollutant activity' and relocated the residents there, but no second case of similar pollution cases has been reported since."

Shen Ji closed his phone and looked at Zhang Qingli and Old Song beside him. Zhang Qingli wasn’t much of a talker—his Talent left him with a permanently bad attitude, so he had trained himself to keep his mouth shut and had grown accustomed to staying silent. Old Song, on the other hand, kept rambling on and on.

He spoke about his past, his present, and the future he hoped for.

But anyone could see that Old Song was merely using his incessant chatter to mask his fear—he was scared out of his mind.

The strange odor coming off of Old Song grew increasingly intense, gradually transforming into a strong, foul stench.

His pollution level was rising; he should be isolated and treated at the quarantine facility.

"Mr. Song, stop talking for a moment. Something's not right," Zhang Qingli suddenly interrupted, frowning slightly as he glanced outside the shop. "Do you hear something?"

Old Song instantly fell silent, his body trembling uncontrollably.

A faint, hard-to-place singing voice drifted in—a woman's voice, singing a winding tune, but her voice was hoarse and cracking. It stumbled along haltingly until it stopped briefly, only to start up again, repeating the same melody over and over.

"See? I—I told you!" Old Song was now utterly terrified. "There really is someone singing in the middle of the night! When I went to check, it was coming from the sewer!"

Zhang Qingli and Shen Ji exchanged a look. Zhang pointed outside. "Should we go check it out?"

"Mhm," Shen Ji replied, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand. "Let's go."

The two stood up and headed out. Zhang Qingli flicked on a flashlight, while Shen Ji hit record on his camera, capturing both their path and the eerie singing.

Following the sound, they eventually reached a manhole cover leading to the sewer. Zhang Qingli shone his light down into the darkness—the singing abruptly cut off, but there was nothing to be seen below.

Suddenly, Shen Ji clutched his wrist, nearly dropping his phone into the sewer.

Startled, Zhang Qingli turned to him. "What’s wrong? Did you see something?"

"Nothing, just a mosquito," Shen Ji lied without batting an eye. "Didn’t expect there’d still be mosquitoes in weather this cold."

Zhang Qingli gave him a suspicious look but eventually lowered his head to continue inspecting the sewer.

Once Zhang was no longer paying attention, Shen Ji cautiously glanced at his wrist. Fortunately, it was late enough that Zhang couldn’t see the clusters of large and small mushrooms sprouting from Shen Ji’s skin, writhing as they struggled to leap into the sewer.

"Seems the pollution down there isn’t low. Their hunting urge is making them act on their own, trying to give you a surprise."

'Gross,' Shen Ji thought with disdain. 'This is unacceptable. Absolutely not!'

"There’s nothing down there," Zhang Qingli said, still focused on the pollution. He pulled out a pollution detector from his pocket. "No pollution readings either."

While Shen Ji was distracted, the mushrooms leaped into the sewer before he could stop them.

Shen Ji: …

He was so angry his glasses nearly slid off his face.

"Let’s head back for now," Zhang Qingli suggested, standing up. "I definitely sensed something, and with our recording, we can report it again. Even though the guard team is overloaded, this clearly isn’t right."

Shen Ji stood up as well, nodding reluctantly. "I think so too."

"Don’t be so repulsed. You think the sewer is dirty, but mushrooms don’t eat garbage—they only feed on pollution."

'My pollution was scavenged by little mushrooms picking through trash,' Shen Ji lamented inwardly. 'If this story ever got out, I’d be a laughingstock.'

"…"

The man could only stay serious for so long before veering off into absurdity—Shen Ji’s train of thought was truly baffling.

As they walked back toward the shop, about halfway there, they heard a sharp scream.

"Oh no, Mr. Song!" Zhang Qingli immediately took off running back the way they came.

"The pollution must be getting out of control." Shen Ji caught up with Zhang Qingli, the system analyzing, "Song Yuanzhang had been contaminated before. His resistance to pollution is very high, almost like having antibodies against it. But because of that, a second contamination would have an extremely severe impact on him."

The two quickly returned to the shop and found Old Song lying on the ground, covering his ears and screaming.

"Stop singing, stop singing!" he was practically roaring, "Please, I beg you, stop singing!"

"Teacher Song!" Zhang Qingli rushed over and tried to hold down the struggling Song Yuanzhang. In his out-of-control state, the man’s strength was immense, and Zhang Qingli was having trouble holding him down.

Shen Ji stepped in to help pin him down. At the same time, he took a sedative out of his pocket, gave him the shot, and then took out a pollution inhibitor.

Zhang Qingli watched in wide-eyed surprise as Shen Ji smoothly completed the entire procedure.

Only after the medication took effect and Song Yuanzhang calmed down did Zhang Qingli ask in astonishment, "You... carry a pollution inhibitor when going out to eat?"

"Better safe than sorry," Shen Ji pointed at the unmoving Song Yuanzhang on the ground. "See? It came in handy."

"True enough."

Zhang Qingli was convinced. "Next time I go out for a meal, I’ll bring one too."

First, they called the shelter’s on-duty staff to take Song Yuanzhang to a pollution isolation room. Then they contacted the security team. The situation had escalated beyond coincidence or auditory hallucinations—there had to be an undiscovered pollutant here. Otherwise, Song Yuanzhang wouldn’t have ended up like this.

The security team took it very seriously. They got the video Shen Ji had shot and prepared to investigate the sewer that very night.

By the time they finished all this, the sky was beginning to lighten. Having stayed up all night, Zhang Qingli was so exhausted he could fall asleep the moment he closed his eyes. Shen Ji, on the other hand, was fine, but a normal person would be tired at a time like this.

So Shen Ji pretended to be tired as well, and the return trip took twice as long as usual.

When they finally got back to the dorm, Shen Ji shut the door with a click and instantly returned to his normal, alert state.

He lay back on the bed and checked the time on his phone.

"Five o’clock. Two more hours until work. Life's tough."

"Your small mushroom is already hunting to provide for you."

"To think I need a small mushroom to scrounge around to support me—life is even harder."

The system was speechless.

He rolled over onto his stomach and continued playing on his phone. The system observed for a moment and noticed that, although Shen Ji was spouting nonsense, he was actually searching the forum for topics related to "Midnight Song," screenshotting and saving any similar content, slowly compiling the data.

It had to be said—Shen Ji truly lived up to his reputation as a highly capable journalist. He was remarkably steady and never procrastinated on what needed to be done.

As he searched, a *ding* sound went off. Shen Ji blinked.

"It’s the protagonist again," Shen Ji said, looking at the source of the message. "What is he up to now?"

"Want to take a look?"

Shen Ji opened the message labeled "Troublesome Protagonist" and was immediately met with an image of a blue flower.

The flower was placed in a transparent vase, nourished by water. Sunlight streamed through the window, casting a gentle glow on the petals—it looked quite idyllic, if one ignored the text Li Zhiyan had sent along with the picture...

"Troublesome Protagonist: Good morning. This flower looks delicious."

Shen Ji: ...

*How delicious indeed, little butterfly. Are you really going to eat nectar first thing in the morning?*

Shen Ji mulled it over as he tossed and turned again, then opened Li Zhiyan’s previous message. After going back and forth a few times, he came to an absurd conclusion.

"Is he pursuing me?"

"What the—? The main character's gay?!"

"No." Shen Ji closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "Doesn’t that make me the gay one here? Ugh, what’s his deal anyway?"

"..."

"Relax, I’m not gonna take him up on it."

"..."

Do I look like I give a damn if you 'accept' him?!