Chapter 42: Mushroom Hide and Seek

Chapter 42: Mushroom Hide-and-Seek

Nighttime amplifies people's unease, and unease allows contamination to take advantage. Thus, the Pollution Prevention Center advises all residents not to go out after 10 PM.

It was currently 8:55 PM. The faint, yellowish glow of the streetlights illuminated the road and an old, upright road sign.

The factories and companies on both sides of the road had all turned off their lights. The dark, massive structures brought an intense feeling of oppression and fear.

In front of the road sign stood the only three people still out working so late, all wearing identical company uniforms with labels on their chests. Their dark blue outfits were stained with a bit of oil and dust, making them look like a trio of machine maintenance workers.

One of the three was sitting on a waiting bench, another was squatting by the roadside, and only one was standing steadily.

The one standing steadily also had the best appearance. Even the stained dark blue cleaner’s uniform couldn’t completely dampen his presence.

"So, will this really work?"

"As long as you don’t let that white hair show, just get it hidden under your cap, now!" Chu Ye, squatting by the roadside, snapped at Li Zhiyan.

Among the three, who was the hardest to disguise? It had to be Li Zhiyan.

Not only did this guy have blue eyes, but he also had an unruly mop of white hair—long and extremely conspicuous.

Yet they couldn’t leave Li Zhiyan behind. After all, they were headed to find the Gardener’s plantation. Only an S-Class Mutant could handle an S-class pollutant. Chu Ye wasn’t arrogant enough to think that a B-level mutant like himself could stand up to an S-class pollutant. So, figuring out how to properly stuff Li Zhiyan onto the bus became a major challenge.

After complaining about the clothes Li Zhiyan and Shen Ji had bought when they skipped work to go shopping, the reliable Chu Ye quickly contacted a company near the bus stop and quickly bought three work uniforms. These uniforms even came with caps—not only could they cover the hair, but as long as the wearer didn’t look up, their eyes would remain hidden too.

It was practically the perfect choice for concealing their identities!

Shen Ji, standing nearby, checked the time and called out, "Three minutes left."

"So why is Doctor Shen here too?!" Chu Ye, still squatting by the roadside, continued to criticize Li Zhiyan. "Shouldn’t Doctor Shen be at the shelter right now?"

"You don’t want to bring him?" Li Zhiyan spread his hands. "Think carefully—if you get contaminated by the Gardener again, I won’t be able to cure you."

Chu Ye was left speechless.

"But... it’s dangerous."

"Overthinking it, aren’t you? Doctor Shen saved you from the Gardener’s contamination. Do you really think someone capable of that would be in danger?"

"Weren’t you the one who said you admired and valued him?"

"Exactly because I admire and value him that I’m bringing him along. Endless protection is just discrimination."

Shen Ji’s voice remained calm. "Two minutes left. Can you two finish arguing within two minutes?"

"Doctor Shen, did this guy trick you or something?"

"How could that be?" Shen Ji’s tone was gentle and upright. "As medical staff at the shelter, I have a duty just like you to protect the public. If I can be of help, I’m more than willing."

"When it comes to saving people, there’s no such thing as trickery or deceit."

Chu Ye was left speechless again.

Li Zhiyan spread his hands toward Chu Ye with a "See, I told you so" expression.

Chu Ye felt a slight sense of shame at Shen Ji’s words.

Right, even if Shen Ji hadn’t shown it, he was also a high-level mutant. He didn’t want to join the Pollution Prevention Center to be protected. Instead, he preferred to stay at the shelter—even a branch shelter—to save contaminated patients. He didn’t seek special status and worked overtime like every other doctor, all for the sake of helping others.

Weren’t his own earlier remarks an insult to him?

"...You two are really something. One talks big, and the other knows full well it’s just talk but doesn’t call him out on it, teaming up to deceive Chu Ye."

'Because explaining is troublesome, and lying is troublesome too,' Shen Ji thought matter-of-factly. 'So shutting him up this way is just perfect.'

'Li Zhiyan playing along shows he gets me.'

"Ah, the protagonist shouldn’t team up with the antagonist. It’s just not right."

"One minute left."

As soon as the words were spoken, a pair of headlights appeared at the end of the road.

The headlights weren’t much brighter than the streetlights. The faint glow was barely visible in the night—if the surroundings hadn’t been so dim, they might not have even noticed the bus approaching.

As the bus drew nearer, they could make out its appearance.

The bus was painted green, covered in mottled rust. Dust coated the windows, making it look so dilapidated it seemed on the verge of falling apart. At first glance, Shen Ji frowned slightly in recognition.

It was a model he was very familiar with.

Yes, it was a bus model commonly used in modern society, right down to the paint job.

"Novels are written by people. The author is modern and can’t create a world out of thin air, so of course he draws from reality. Besides, the novel’s setting is essentially a modern society suddenly plagued by pollutants."

'Kinda nostalgic,' Shen Ji mused. 'I once worked on an interview segment where I randomly asked people on buses what happy thing happened to them that day. I filmed for three days straight and rode buses for three days straight—almost got motion sickness from it.'

With a hiss of air brakes, the bus stopped in front of the sign, and its doors swiftly opened.

The bus was empty, desolately so.

Chu Ye, being closest to the door, stood up from the roadside and boarded first. Next was Li Zhiyan, keeping his head down. Shen Ji was the last to board.

Once on, he mimed swiping a bus card and glanced at the driver while doing so.

The driver wore a bus driver’s uniform. His head was bowed, and from that angle, his face was unclear. Only his hands on the steering wheel were visible—bony and shriveled, like skeletons.

Shen Ji found a seat and sat down. Almost the moment he did, the bus started moving.

In the next second, the bus accelerated sharply, nearly throwing all three passengers off balance. Li Zhiyan reached up to press down his cap to keep it from flying off.

Steadying himself, Chu Ye frowned and spoke up, "Driver, you’re going too fast."

"Do you even know what safe driving is?"

The system quipped, "Chu Ye’s kinda funny, asking a pollutant if it understands safe driving."

The driver remained silent, only quietly increasing the speed.

"Welcome to Fangbei Bus Line 7," the bus announcement rang out. Due to years of neglect, the voice was hoarse and distorted. "Next stop: Giant Rabbit Contamination Zone."

Not the Gardener’s plantation.

Of course, from the start, they never expected to be lucky enough to head straight to the plantation.

Bus 7739 randomly appeared in certain cities and randomly transported its passengers to contamination zones. The Gardener’s plantation was just one of them.

Before this, Chu Ye had conducted extensive investigations and interviewed some surviving victims. Aside from the driver dumping them in contamination zones, this pollutant behaved like an ordinary driver. After analysis, Chu Ye concluded that it, too, was driven by lingering obsessions and rules.

Even when corrupted, he still followed some rules of being a driver.

Chu Ye stood up and walked to the boarding door, facing the bus driver directly.

"Hello, driver, could we change the destination for the next stop?" Chu Ye’s tone remained very polite. "We don’t want to go to the Giant Rabbit Pollution Zone."

It seemed he hadn't expected a passenger to actually speak to him; the driver visibly froze for a moment before finally twisting his neck like a puppet to turn and meet Chu Ye’s gaze.

His entire face was as withered and shriveled as his hands, resembling a desiccated mummy with only a layer of stiff skin clinging to the bone. His dark, hollow eye sockets showed no sign of eyeballs.

"Passenger, our route is fixed," the driver said in an aged, raspy voice. "Please do not interfere with my driving."

"We have urgent business to attend to," Chu Ye continued, trying again.

"No," the driver intoned eerily. "There are rules. It’s not allowed."

Chu Ye pulled out his credentials from his coat. "Well then, I am the Chief Commander. I am requisitioning your vehicle. Can we change the destination now?"

The driver fell silent. Just as Chu Ye was judging how likely he was to agree, the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes.

Caught completely off guard, Chu Ye nearly crashed headfirst into the front windshield.

"It’s all because of you…"

"If it weren’t for you forcing me to violate company regulations, I wouldn’t have been fired. If I hadn’t been fired, I wouldn’t have died!" the driver said, staring hauntingly at Chu Ye.

"And now you still want me to break the rules!"

"You all deserve to die!"

Pollution erupted violently inside the bus.

Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan, who were watching from the sidelines: …

Li Zhiyan silently took off his hat and covered his face. Not only did this guy fail to use the rules to get the driver to take them to the plantation, but he also triggered the driver’s raw nerve. Now they were in trouble.

He came over from the back and sat next to Shen Ji. "Who would’ve thought he could actually become a high-ranking officer in the Pollution Prevention Center?"

Shen Ji replied politely, "Mr. Chu must have his own exceptional qualities to have become a high-ranking officer in the Pollution Prevention Center."

"Li Zhiyan, if you don’t speak, no one will think you’re mute!" Chu Ye pushed himself up from against the front windshield, struggling to get up from the floor. He stared at the driver, his eyes flashing with anger.

"I wanted to talk to you properly, but it seems you’re not interested in having a civil conversation."

Almost instantly, the barrel of a gun was pressed against the pollutant’s head. The driver froze completely, and even the spreading pollution halted for a moment.

Chu Ye looked at him expressionlessly. "Use your mutated brain to think carefully before you speak."

"Chu Ye, a B-level mutant, high-ranking commander of the Pollution Prevention Center, with the Talent 'Precision Sniper.' He can hit pollutants with 100% accuracy within 300 meters. That might sound like a very ordinary Talent—something a good marksman could do—but what if the bullets he fires have an extremely powerful special effect on pollutants?"

"A single bullet from him can easily corrode an ordinary D-level pollutant, eliminating the need to even send the corpse to the pollution treatment center."

"The pollution-suppression bullets currently used by the security team were developed and mass-produced by the Academy of Sciences after studying his bullets."

"Now, change the destination," Chu Ye said. "Take us to the Gardener’s plantation."

Even though the driver’s dark, hollow eye sockets showed no eyes, Shen Ji could sense its growing shock and confusion.

What? A pollutant like it was being threatened by a human?

What? This human didn’t want to go to a low-level pollution zone because he wanted to go to a high-level one instead?

It didn’t understand, but…

"No one can make me change my route!"

The bus doors swung open, and an eerie gust of wind rushed in.

It was a very strange sensation. Shen Ji felt sure he could stay seated, but the wind blew him right off his seat.

Li Zhiyan grabbed him, and both of them tumbled out of the back door. At the front, Chu Ye was also thrown out.

"It’s the rules," Li Zhiyan said. "The driver has complete control over the bus. He can force us off regardless of anything."

Chu Ye got up from the ground and tried to shoot at the bus, but the doors quickly closed. The bus sped off with a whoosh, and a few cheerful honks echoed in the darkness.

"Yes, that’s it," the system quickly popped up to explain. "This is the exact honking sound victims heard when the bus dumped them in pollution zones."

Shen Ji: …

There was no need for you to explain!

"What explanation? I’m clearly here to mock you. Two high-level mutants and one high-level pollutant, dumped in the middle of nowhere by a bus."

"So hilarious."

Shen Ji: …

I’d rather you were just explaining.

"What do we do now?" Chu Ye brushed the dust off his clothes. "Do we chase the bus or not?"

Chu Ye wasn’t panicked; in fact, he seemed calm, almost as if he had expected this.

The Gardener’s plantation had been rampant for years. It wasn’t that the Pollution Prevention Center hadn’t considered cleaning it up, but aside from the regularly quaking Zero Abyss, other Forbidden Zones of Pollution were incredibly mysterious. No one even knew where they were located, let alone their exact positions.

Their efforts had mostly focused on investigating Bus 7739.

"But where is this place?" Shen Ji said. "It’s so dark."

"Yeah," Li Zhiyan looked up at the sky. "So dark, I’m getting sleepy."

"Don’t fall asleep!" Chu Ye pulled out his phone, trying to locate their current position.

Shen Ji spoke gently, comforting Chu Ye, who marveled at how understanding Shen Ji was while cursing at Li Zhiyan, "You abstract weirdo, don’t you dare actually lie down and sleep!"

Amid the chaos, Shen Ji glanced into the distance.

A flash of white passed through his pupils, and a faint smile touched his lips.

How could he let himself be thrown off so easily by a bus? Right, little mushrooms?

Yep!

Hyphae condensed on the bus windows, sprouting mushroom caps.

The driver didn’t notice that something extra had appeared on his bus. As he drove, he let out a hoarse laugh.

"Hahaha! Serves you right!"

"Try and stop me from driving! Try and mess up my route!"

"Get lost, all of you!"

It continued to accelerate, the horn blared non-stop, while a thick pollution aura spread throughout the entire bus. This made the hyphae even happier, extending their hyphae and multiplying rapidly. In just a few seconds, they completely covered the entire passenger area of the bus.

The driver heard a faint cracking sound and instinctively glanced at the rearview mirror. The moment he saw clearly, his twisted grin froze on his face.

Thick, fleshy mushrooms had sprouted all over the bus without him noticing, still multiplying relentlessly, rolling gleefully in the pollution-filled air.

As if realizing they had been discovered, the hyphae finally stopped hiding and lunged at the driver in the cab.

This one's the main course!

But the master said we can only beat it up, not eat it.

Maybe just a tiny nibble? It won't die, it won't die!

We'll be sneaky, so the master won't find out...

Eep! We've been caught.

Reluctantly, the hyphae spat the bus driver back out. By now, the driver was as terrified as a rabbit, huddled in the driver's seat, covered in hyphae that clung to him, reluctant to leave. Its pollutant's survival instinct screamed that this thing was simply unbeatable.

"What do you want?!" the driver cried in terror, staring at the hyphae. "Stay away from me!"

"What?!"

The hyphae clung to the bus door, extending strands of themselves to point in a specific direction.

They meant: Drive us back! Who allowed you to defy our master?

You annoying little snack!

/

"This place is quite far from F City, and there's no signal."

Chu Ye studied the route map in the darkness. "If we head south for a while, we should find some inhabited areas."

"It's so dark out here. Can't we just sleep here for the night?"

"...Do you think Doctor Shen and I are as immune as you are, able to sleep in the snow in the middle of winter without freezing to death?"

Li Zhiyan yawned, then turned to look in another direction, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Huh?"

"What's wrong with you now?"

Chu Ye looked at him, then in the direction Li Zhiyan was staring. A pinpoint of light appeared in the darkness, speeding toward them. They felt a gust of wind brush past them at incredible speed, and the next moment, the familiar bus came to a stop right in front of them.

With a hiss, the door opened. The bus driver glared at them with resentful eyes, his already withered skin looking even more shriveled.

Chu Ye: ...?

"Bus 7739? It came back?"

The hyphae had quietly retracted the moment the bus arrived. Now, the bus was still empty, appearing as though nothing was inside. Only the bus itself had returned for some unknown reason.

Shen Ji feigned confusion and asked Li Zhiyan, "Why did it come back? Is there some new rule?"

Li Zhiyan pondered for a moment before nodding seriously. "Aside from being mentally ill, I can't think of any other reason."

The driver slammed on the horn, his pitch-black eyes filled with even more resentment.

"Let's just get on," Chu Ye said. "We'll see what's up once we're inside."

Shen Ji was the last to board. Both Li Zhiyan and Chu Ye were slightly tense about the unexpected turn of events. Even Li Zhiyan no longer looked drowsy, instead staring intently at the driver.

He walked to the back of the bus and, after sitting down, stretched out his hand to the side.

Small mushrooms quietly crept into his palm from beside him, then slipped into his sleeve, hiding within his clothes.

Well done, little ones. Extra treats later!

"The pollution has thinned," Li Zhiyan suddenly remarked.

Shen Ji glanced at him. "Huh?"

"The pollution on it has thinned," Li Zhiyan repeated. "As if... something forcibly licked away a layer of pollution."

Shen Ji: ...

The hyphae guiltily burrowed deeper into Shen Ji's sleeve.

"That strange?" Shen Ji continued pretending to be puzzled. "Could such a thing exist?"

"Well, it's a pollution incident. Nothing is too strange to happen," Li Zhiyan replied, turning to look at him. "The fact that this thing reversed back to us is already strange enough."

Hearing their conversation, the driver angrily honked the horn as he drove, venting his frustration.

Unlike the cheerful honk when he had abandoned them, this one was filled with resentment, anger, and a sense of powerlessness.

After watching for a while, Li Zhiyan suddenly spoke up. "Chu Ye, let's recruit it."

"Recruit it?" Chu Ye, who had been silent until now, looked at Li Zhiyan strangely. "What do you mean?"

"This thing has its uses. It can locate pollution zones we can't find. For example, its previous route was the Giant Rabbit Pollution Zone. I remember that place once disrupted W City before disappearing. But leaving it unchecked would cause problems, so recruiting it is a better option."

The more he thought about it, the more Li Zhiyan liked the idea. "Let it serve as the Pollution Prevention Center's dedicated route planner for pollution zones."

Chu Ye: ...

Only Li Zhiyan could say something like that.

The Pollution Prevention Center's attitude toward pollution has always been "rather kill a thousand by mistake than let one go." Powerful pollutants can indeed kill thousands, and all pollutants are on the Prevention Center's elimination list.

But Li Zhiyan is different. Instead of killing pollutants on sight, he wonders: Could this thing be useful?

So he keeps a garden full of pollution flowers, and now he wants to make Bus 7739 public property.

"Not until we confirm it's harmless," Chu Ye refused. "Who knows if it might suddenly dump people halfway and skip work to pollute ordinary folks."

"Beep!" The driver let out an exaggerated, furious honk.

Tonight had been a disaster—he’d picked up three lunatics.

One was covered in mushrooms, beating him so badly a layer of his pollution was stripped away, all to make him go back and pick them up to deliver them to an S-class pollutant's zone.

Another was mentally ill, trying to recruit him to work on the bus. He refused to be a beast of burden!

"Don't you dare badmouth it! It's the worst!"

Shen Ji's expression remained unchanged, but he was already complaining to the system internally.

'Li Zhiyan's personality is wasted as a protagonist; he should go be a ruthless exploiter—he'd definitely save enough to become a millionaire.'

"...Look who's talking!"

"You should know that it’s only behaving so obediently now because it’s scared of your Hyphae. Once you leave, I guarantee it’ll revert right back to its usual arrogant, antisocial self."

Just then, the bus jolted violently.

Chu Ye thought he was about to be thrown off by the driver again. He quickly steadied himself, frowned, and braced for impact.

But the next moment, the sky started to light up.

Chu Ye froze for a second, then turned to look toward the front of the bus.

It was a strange kind of brightness—not sunlight, not incandescent light, but a shimmering, crystal-like glow. The longer he looked, the dizzier he felt. Beyond this glow stretched a wooden fence, with white mist floating in the air behind it.

A strange dog was tied up outside the fence. The dog seemed unfazed by the bus’s arrival and didn’t even glance their way.

The bus creaked to a stop, and the door slowly opened.

"Get off," the driver snarled at them. "Your destination is here. Hurry up and get out!"

The three of them got off, and Bus 7739 sped away in a flash, without even a puff of exhaust left behind.

Chu Ye stood before the wooden fence, his eyes glazed over for a moment, as if he had seen something in that instant.

A familiar voice rang in his ears—it was his adjutant’s voice.

"Captain!" he shouted. "There’s a sign up ahead. It says…"

"Says what?"

"You gotta see this for yourself, Captain!"

Chu Ye quickly ran in one direction. Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan exchanged a glance and swiftly followed.

Among the three of them, there was only one person who might have been to this botanical garden before: Chu Ye.

He had once led his team into the plantation by mistake. All the team members were lost inside, and only he returned to reality, riddled with pollution-sickness. Not only did he lose all his subordinates, but he also lost his memories.

Now, Chu Ye had returned.

Those long-buried memories were finally beginning to resurface, bit by bit.