Chapter 20: Midnight Song

Chapter 20 Midnight Song

Wang Anle stood outside the isolation room, staring at his wife Tang You.

The middle-aged woman lay peacefully in the cryo-chamber, in a deep stasis. Her tissue necrosis had reached her jawline, yet she showed no signs of waking. Doctor Wang leaned his head against the glass of the isolation room and closed his eyes.

Tang You could finally have a good sleep.

He was the doctor who discovered the new contamination symptom in patients. Because he often stayed up late watching over his wife, he noticed that she seemed to mutter incoherently to herself in the middle of the night, or perhaps emit a low humming.

So Doctor Wang reported this discovery. Under observation by other doctors, it was confirmed that patients with high pollution levels indeed exhibited this contamination symptom.

Wang Anle's wife's pollution level was about to break through Phase IV. He tried to transfer her to Shen Ji's care, but Shen Ji had been on external assignment outside the quarantine center and only returned yesterday.

In just one night, Tang You's pollution level decreased by 4 points. Not only Tang You, but all the patients under Shen Ji's care showed slight decreases in their pollution levels. These reductions might seem like just the tip of the iceberg, but they were enough to allow the afflicted patients to get a good night's sleep.

Struggling to hold back tears, Doctor Wang tremblingly sent a payment to Shen Ji.

Even though he couldn't reveal Shen Ji's identity now, he wanted to express his gratitude, even if it had to be under an alternate justification.

Thus, Shen Ji, still in his dorm, received a transfer.

Shen Ji looked at the money in surprise.

"So much money," Shen Ji counted the five zeros, then looked at the remark on the transfer: 'Support Bonus.' "Is it really this easy to earn money at the quarantine center?"

"The quarantine center and the security detail are the hardest places to earn money because every penny comes at the cost of lives, and mostly only enhanced personnel can earn that kind of money."

"Can I use this money to buy a good camera?"

"You could buy a plane with it, provided you can use it."

Of course, filming is prohibited at the facility, and so is flying planes.

After placing Song Yuanzhang in the quarantine center, Doctor Cheng Gu took over his treatment. At this point, there was no longer any informal prohibition about doctors not treating relatives or friends. Doctor Cheng even granted them an extra half-day off to rest, with instructions to return for their shift in the evening.

But even when not on duty, doctors had to constantly monitor the patients under their care. Their dedicated monitoring devices were linked to the isolation rooms, continuously reporting the patients' contamination readings.

Shen Ji lay on his bed and opened the program. After monitoring the data for a while, he spoke in confusion.

"Why have all their pollution levels dropped a bit? Has the quarantine center's treatment efficiency been so high lately?"

"Could it possibly be because of you?"

Shen Ji: ...

He looked up, trying to spot the small mushrooms hidden in various corners of the dorm.

However, those little creatures had a rudimentary awareness of their own. Normally, they would all crowd around him, but now that they realized they had caused trouble, they immediately hid, not letting him see a single mushroom cap.

"Pollutants are ravenous entities, and your pig mushrooms are no exception. You won't let them eat people, and they're hungry, so they sneak into the areas of the patients under your care. They only ate a tiny bit—it won't affect your patients. See, it only dropped by 4 pollution points."

The system's words were filled with implications like 'forgive them' and 'they're just children, just a bit greedy.'

"Spare the rod, spoil the child," Shen Ji said, exasperated. "You're not a qualified system; you should be sent back for reprogramming."

"...I will agree to your voluntary compliance proposal."

After bantering with the system, Shen Ji checked the contamination metrics of all the patients. Only after confirming everything was fine did he continue searching for information on 'Midnight Song.'

At that very moment, a new message popped up in the dormitory building chat.

For the convenience of medical staff, the shelter had built a large dormitory complex near but not too close to the patient wards. The dormitory area provided free housing for medical staff, though no one was required to stay. However, given the special circumstances and everyone's busy schedules, almost all medical staff were temporarily living there.

Similar to residential communities, each building had management personnel handling various chores, and each building had its own group chat, though few people ever spoke in them.

At least in the one Shen Ji had joined, the chat had been completely silent for seven or eight days.

Opening the group chat, Shen Ji saw the messages inside.

'5-23: What’s up with Zhang Qingli today? I greeted him, and he ignored me. Is he having another episode?'

'6-02: Same here, but it’s different from before. He used to react, even if a bit intensely, but today it’s like he didn’t even hear me.'

'2-19: Wow, didn’t he stay up all night? How is he even up and moving around today?'

'1-01: I’m right by the entrance, and I didn’t see him leave.'

'1-29: I see him. Let me go say hi to him.'

Shortly after, Resident 1-29 sent a video. Shen Ji clicked to play it.

In the video, Zhang Qingli walked with his head down, shuffling step by step. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, his lab coat crumpled like he'd slept in it. The person filming patted his shoulder and greeted him. Zhang Qingli slowly raised his head to glance at him, deep dark circles under his eyes.

His expression was strange—like a puppet or someone trapped in a nightmare, completely vacant.

The person filming instinctively let go, and Zhang Qingli continued walking.

Soon, people from various floors who were resting in their dorm rooms due to shift work reported Zhang Qingli’s movements. Eventually, it became clear that he seemed to be walking in circles through the building.

This odd behavior, combined with Zhang Qingli’s innate Talent, made the people in the building uneasy.

Just then, Shen Ji heard footsteps. He got up and opened his door to find Zhang Qingli, head bowed, slowly coming up from the nearby staircase. He walked unsteadily, shambling like an exhausted old man, each step slow and unstable.

"Zhang Qingli," Shen Ji called his name. "What are you doing?"

Hearing his name seemed to snap him back to awareness momentarily. He turned his head toward Shen Ji like a puppet, then after a few seconds, lowered his head again.

"Someone is singing."

Zhang Qingli said, "That person is still singing, on and on. She told me to listen to the whole song."

"I’ve been listening for so long, and she still hasn’t finished."

"When will she finish?" Zhang Qingli muttered to himself. "I have work to do. I need to find her and tell her to stop singing."

"Environmental pollution level 82. He’s being affected by Midnight Song."

"It seems this pollutant is high-level. Zhang Qingli is a Class C Mutant. Although his level is unstable now, he isn't usually so vulnerable to influence."

Zhang Qingli trembled as if in a daze, pressing his temples as if suffering a headache. With his dark circles and pale complexion, he was hardly different from the patients in the isolation wards.

He tried to keep walking forward.

Shen Ji wasn't about to let him pass. As Zhang Qingli took a step, Shen Ji subtly slipped his foot out. Zhang Qingli, not watching where he was going, stumbled and went down hard, his head hitting the ground with a thud.

"Tsk." Zhang Qingli hissed through his teeth, sucking in a cold breath. The pain from hitting his head jolted him back to consciousness for a moment.

With great effort, he opened his eyes, only to see Shen Ji pinning him down and pulling out a pollution inhibitor from his pocket.

Shen Ji was a man who never smiled. He was far too serious, so serious that his lab coat didn't have a single wrinkle, and the white shirt underneath was impeccably neat. The black-framed glasses on his face seemed like an accessory, making him appear even more refined and rational. But this image became extremely exaggerated and terrifying when he held a syringe, looking down at someone from above, like a cold, unfeeling medical oddity.

Zhang Qingli was so scared his body stiffened until the needle went in.

"Shit, that hurts!" The pain snapped Zhang Qingli back to his senses. "Shen Ji, you're jabbing a person, not a pig!"

Shen Ji held him down and injected the full dose of medication before smoothly pulling out the needle. He adjusted his glasses, looking quite elegant.

"Oh, you're awake."

Zhang Qingli clutched the injection site and scrambled away from under Shen Ji. "It's swollen!"

"What choice did I have?" Shen Ji spread his hands. "You looked polluted, so I had no choice but to inject you with the pollution inhibitor as quickly as possible."

"No, even if..." Zhang Qingli's voice cut off abruptly as he suddenly realized something. "I was affected by pollution?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Zhang Qingli suddenly covered his mouth. He started dry heaving again, unable to even get up, barely managing to roll over and lie face down, coughing and retching uncontrollably.

The intense dry heaving made him vomit stomach acid. Since he hadn't eaten in the morning, he felt dizzy and saw stars.

Shen Ji waited until he finished retching before bringing him a glass of water from inside the room. "Are you okay now?"

"Cough, no." Zhang Qingli rinsed his mouth with water before coughing and saying, "Teacher Song said the pollution definitely isn't... cough, isn't that simple. Even I was affected, and I only heard that singing for a little while."

"I didn't expect it to be like this."

Shen Ji took out a pollution monitor. "Want me to check your pollution level?"

Zhang Qingli nodded.

After pricking his finger and smearing the blood on the pollution monitor, it displayed a pollution value: 8.

Seeing the number, Zhang Qingli let out a long sigh of relief. Although high, as a mutant, pollution values only crossed into the danger zone for mutants when they exceeded 10.

Once he finally calmed down, Zhang Qingli looked at Shen Ji.

"Thanks."

He said with lingering fear, "What kind of pollutant is this? We have to report it to the containment shelter and the security team."

"Yeah, I'll message the group first." Shen Ji opened his communicator. "Everyone was really worried about you."

Only then did Zhang Qingli realize—he had been circling the building again and again, trying to find the person singing and make them stop.

Such bizarre behavior must have made everyone uneasy.

"Huh?" Shen Ji suddenly made a puzzled sound. Light from the screen glinted off his glasses, carrying an eerie atmosphere.

Zhang Qingli sensed something was wrong. He struggled to get up and leaned over to look at Shen Ji's phone screen.

Messages were pouring into the group chat.

'7-15: Hey, do any of you hear a woman singing? This is the men's dorm, right? Why would there be a woman here?'

'5-02: I hear it too. It's really faint. Is it upstairs or downstairs? First floor?'

'1-08: Not the first floor. Maybe someone's speakers are busted?'

'8-22: Woke me up. How did such a faint sound wake me? Haven't slept in two days, was about to pass out.'

'4-01: On the roof now. No one's here, but I can hear it too...'

Zhang Qingli suddenly frowned, clutching his chest, visibly fighting back a wave of discomfort. He gripped Shen Ji's sleeve tightly, and Shen Ji reached out to steady him.

"Zhang Qingli, Talent 'Danger Sense.' He can sense danger and experience emotional agitation, like animals do right before an earthquake."

"Since the containment shelter's pollution leak, he's been in an extreme emotional state, as if the threat from the Shelter had never lifted, even though he's now been upgraded to a Class C Mutant."

Zhang Qingli clenched Shen Ji's sleeve, unable to stop himself from scratching his neck with his other hand, leaving red marks on his exposed skin.

His anxiety was at a fever pitch, like something seriously bad was about to go down.

Shen Ji looked up. The hyphae were tangled across the ceiling, breeding like crazy, thrilled by the skyrocketing pollution levels. Their hunger had them eagerly oozing out of every crack, they had the frantic energy of middle schoolers bolting for the cafeteria the second the lunch bell rings.

With a buzz, every alarm in the place blared to life. Garbled alerts mixed with the speakers' own static-ridden rasp. After a hiss of static, the familiar singing voice came through the speakers.

The woman's humming was halting and stumbling, yet it looped relentlessly.