Chapter 75: Containment Shelter Headquarters

Chapter 75: Containment Center Headquarters

Gao Yuan's recovery was progressing smoothly.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Gao Yuan's time conscious had broken this year's record, and he remained energetic without any signs of abnormality.

He even recalled many things he had forgotten due to excessive pollution levels.

Like his angler friend.

A phone call to this angler friend brought great joy. To celebrate Gao Yuan remembering him, the friend immediately went deep-sea fishing and sent the caught seafood directly to their local Pollution Prevention Center branch. The Pollution Prevention Center then airlifted it directly to headquarters.

Thus, Shen Ji enjoyed a lavish seafood feast.

Including a large plate of sizzling iron-griddle squid.

Shen Ji took a photo and sent it to Li Zhiyan, who responded with a whining 'I want to go home!'

The Zero Abyss had reached its final stages. Wrath bore no malice towards humans, and the blooming chrysanthemums had been officially confirmed as He Linqiu's special ability effect. Where the flowers bloomed marked the range the Zero Abyss could influence, allowing nearby cities to avoid its erosion based on this standard.

Finally, Li Zhiyan and Qin Changye ventured deep into the Zero Abyss searching for He Linqiu, but unfortunately, they found no trace of the woman in the oppressive dark of the abyss.

Qin Changye briefly wondered if his initial efforts at the Pollution Harmless Treatment Center had been misguided.

Salvation with 'sacrifice' as its goal could hardly be called salvation at all.

Fortunately, Qin Changye was resilient and not one to dwell on things, quickly coming to terms with it.

He was a fortune-teller, not a god. He could only foresee that He Linqiu would gain much if she lived, but not how those gains would come about. This wasn't his fault, nor anyone else's.

After lunch, Shen Ji went to check on Gao Yuan.

Though Gao Yuan's pollution level still had some issues, he had nearly returned to normal levels. The blue circles on his body, which had previously glowed, were now etched into his skin like tattoos, blending seamlessly.

Upon seeing Shen Ji, Gao Yuan, who had been virtual fishing, quickly put away his phone and tried to flee inside.

But his isolation room was small, leaving nowhere to run.

Shen Ji looked at him helplessly. "It's not that painful, is it?"

"...Yes, it definitely is."

"I sometimes doubt if you're really a doctor," Gao Yuan huddled in the corner. "It hurts, a lot!"

Despite liking to bite people and brutally killing contaminated creatures, Gao Yuan was surprisingly pain-averse. His fear of pain was so extreme that even his tentacles flailed when pricked by a needle.

Shen Ji wasn't a doctor to begin with, so his needle skills were poor. Add to that the need for small mushrooms to clean residual pollution from his body, and the small mushrooms showed no mercy when scavenging for pollution within him—they tore it from his body forcefully, rolled it into balls, and ate it!

This resulted in Gao Yuan screaming in pain during each treatment.

Over time, the rumors grew more exaggerated.

All doctors at the Containment Center headquarters increased their food intake, trying to appear stronger, hoping their increased size would appear more intimidating to the pollution within patients.

Even Huang Jining issued a statement calling it 'nonsense'!

Shen Ji believed it would soon become a legend and had even thought of titles for it.

"The Legendary Doctor! Containment Center Myth! A Good Beating Can Cure Patients?!"

"Rumor! Violent Treatment Is Not Advisable! Patient: It's Just That His Needle Hurts Too Much to Endure!"

After overhearing such comments again, a displeased Shen Ji went to pet the giant panda once more. This time, the Pollution Prevention Center was prepared and took him to their newly reopened central zoo.

In the zoo, the giant panda sat alone in its spacious enclosure, munching on bamboo shoots. Seeing Shen Ji again, it raised a paw for him to pet.

Petting pandas is beneficial for physical and mental health!

While stroking the panda's fur, Shen Ji heard a curious voice behind him.

"Is it nice to pet? It's so big."

Shen Ji turned to see Li Qing'an standing behind him.

She was dressed in casual clothes—a plain yellow shirt with a white tank top beneath. Bandages were visible on her exposed skin, wrapping around half her neck.

It seemed her wings were indeed injured.

"It's nice. You can try."

Li Qing'an reached out and poked the panda's fur. After confirming its softness, she wrapped her arms around it completely, her petite body sinking into the panda's fluff.

"Wow, so soft!" Li Qing'an laughed while hugging it. "Such a big stuffed toy!"

The panda didn't mind being petted and reached for a bamboo shoot on the ground. As it stretched out its paw, Li Qing'an nimbly flipped from the front to the back of the panda, only realizing afterward that it wasn't a threat.

She amused herself with this.

"Sorry, sorry, haha, I forgot again that it's safe here."

The system simultaneously fed Shen Ji information about her.

"Li Qing'an is the strongest S-Class Mutant under Li Zhiyan. Her bones are exceptionally light yet sturdy, similar to the hollow bones of birds, allowing the wings on her back to lift her. Thus, she is actually the most physically adept among the S-Class."

"Li Zhiyan is a pure mage, Gao Yuan is a poison specialist, while she is proficient in both physical combat and magical abilities."

"Lastly, though she doesn't have as severe a pollution illness as Gao Yuan, she has developed symptoms due to excessive pollution. She exhibits extreme vigilance and anxiety, but due to her personality, this hasn't been taken seriously."

Shen Ji watched her. "Are you here to relax?"

"Not really." When she'd finished laughing, Li Qing'an walked over. She looked at Shen Ji. "I'm here to ask for Doctor Shen's help."

Shen Ji looked at her, speaking after a few seconds. "Me?"

"Yes. After Gao Yuan's treatment is completed, could you come with me to the Silent Frozen Domain?" Li Qing'an said.

It seemed there were indeed some issues in the Silent Frozen Domain—not only had it left Li Qing'an injured, but it also made her sufficiently concerned to seek Shen Ji's help.

Shen Ji hesitated for a few seconds. "Why me?"

Though Shen Ji had never admitted it, the entire Pollution Prevention Center defaulted to assuming he was an S-Class Healing-type Mutant, given his ability to cure Gao Yuan.

Shen Ji hadn't denied it either, responding with, "Who asked you to make assumptions?"

But with this as the premise, Li Qing'an seeking his help specifically suggested there might be special circumstances requiring his presence.

Li Qing'an rotated her wrist, as if using the motion to mask her nervousness and anxiety.

"Those missing staff and residents have been found."

"That's good news."

"Yes, it is good news, but they all have contamination symptoms, and very severe ones at that," Li Qingan said. "When they first went missing, we couldn’t find them no matter how hard we tried, but we didn’t give up. We collaborated with the Academy of Sciences to develop various detection devices and conducted searches twice a day."

"Until I collided with the air wall, and on the other side of it, we saw them."

"But..."

Li Qingan’s eyes darkened.

They stared at the people on the other side of the air wall, which couldn’t be opened. No matter how hard Li Qingan tried, she could only watch as heavy snow fell on the other side.

The people inside had long lost consciousness. No matter how much those outside shouted, there was no response. They stood there with vacant eyes, like statues frozen in time. One person even stood in the snow holding a cup, the water inside long frozen solid. By all appearances, they had long since stopped breathing.

Yet even in death, they remained motionless in their original positions.

She had returned not only to treat her broken wings but also to call in reinforcements.

In these troubled times, with the Zero Abyss experiencing a major earthquake and the Silent Frost Domain appearing simultaneously, both crises had stretched the Pollution Prevention Center thin. She had visited Gao Yuan the day before to check if he had recovered enough to help, never expecting to cross paths with Shen Ji.

Compared to the unstable Gao Yuan, Shen Ji was clearly the more suitable candidate.

'The Silent Frost Domain is a setting that never existed in the original work, right?' Shen Ji remarked to the system.

'Without the constraints of the original plot, many things have become rather unpredictable—including the protagonist’s character design.'

"...It seems you quite like the protagonist’s character design."

"Also, the situation in the Silent Frost Domain is a bit strange. I’ve pored over the Pollution Prevention Center’s records, and almost every time an original rift appeared, an S-class pollutant emerged. Because there had been no pollutant activity in Moth Valley, the Center assumed this wasn’t the standard."

"But now we know Moth Valley was originally called Butterfly Valley, and the S-class mutant there was eaten by the original protagonist, Li Zhiyan. That makes the Silent Frost Domain rather peculiar."

"Why did it take thirty years for a new S-class pollutant to emerge?"

"I understand," Shen Ji said gently to Li Qingan. "Since it’s about saving people, of course I’ll help."

"We are colleagues, after all."

Li Qingan laughed, but this time it wasn’t out of amusement—it was genuine.

She nodded seriously. "Thank you, Mr. Shen. I knew it—anyone my brother praises so highly must be a truly good person."

Shen Ji tilted his head in confusion. "Your brother?"

"Zhang Qingli," Li Qingan said. "Don’t you think it’s a coincidence? Our names are so similar."

Shen Ji: ...

Indeed.

"We’re fraternal twins. We don’t look alike. Our parents died in a pollution incident when we were very young, so we grew up in an orphanage. He took our father’s surname, and I took our mother’s."

She thanked Shen Ji again. "My brother told me everything—how you helped him many times, even saved his life on several occasions."

"He’s a good person, but he doesn’t know how to protect himself. Working at the shelter, he’s always focused on saving patients. If it weren’t for you, I’m afraid he might have lost his life because of it."

"Thank you so much."

The name was deeply familiar, instantly transporting Shen Ji back to his days at the Q City shelter.

That pollution disease doctor, Zhang Qingli, who was never surprised by anything, who went to Li Zhiyan to request corpses of pollutants to save patients.

He never expected his sister to be an S-class mutant.

So, this is what it felt like to hear about an old friend from someone else.

But suddenly, Shen Ji remembered: his true old friends were from before his death.

His colleagues, his university friends, even the classmates who helped oust the unethical professor—they were all his old friends.

Yet he would likely never see them again in this lifetime.

Perhaps this was how Li Zhiyan felt when he woke up—losing everything from before the apocalypse, all the experiences that shaped and defined him, leaving him with nothing but nostalgia and regret.

Without realizing it, he felt he understood Li Zhiyan a little better.

/

Li Zhiyan was never enthusiastic about three meals a day. Human food was practically unpalatable to him, which made him suspect he was more pollutant than human.

How could Shen Ji eat so much of it—and enjoy it?

But if he didn’t eat, Jiang Ying would suggest he get a check-up, so Li Zhiyan had no choice but to take a small portion of the staff meal and sit at the table, looking glum.

It was disgusting—so disgusting that even the little butterfly seemed about to faint from the taste.

After forcing down a bite, Li Zhiyan finally gave up and video-called Shen Ji.

The other end picked up quickly. The camera shook, and soon Li Zhiyan saw Shen Ji’s face—he was also having lunch.

"What do you want?" Shen Ji asked.

"Can’t eat," Li Zhiyan said, propping his chin on his hand. "Watching you helps me eat."

Shen Ji was speechless. "Am I a side dish?"

"Feast for the eyes."

Li Zhiyan stuffed a bite of food into his mouth and forced it down.

As unpalatable as it was, watching Shen Ji’s face made it somewhat bearable.

Shen Ji ignored him, focusing on his materials while eating lunch. Gao Yuan’s fishing buddy had sent another batch of seafood, boasting about his skills! The chef saved some for Gao Yuan, freezing it, and served the rest to the medical staff.

And when they saw Shen Ji, they piled his plate high.

The new guy! An amazing doctor! Eats a lot! Give him extra!

Shen Ji never refused. He ate whatever was served, his instincts as a pollutant always making him feel hungry.

Watching Shen Ji’s "eating show," Li Zhiyan barely managed to finish half his meal. By then, Shen Ji had already finished lunch and was sitting in his chair, reviewing materials.

The camera was reversed, so Li Zhiyan couldn’t clearly see what was in his hands.

But it definitely wasn’t documents from the shelter.

Because the document had a familiar mark—the emblem of the Far Wilderness Exploration Team.

The Far Wilderness Exploration Team was a branch of the Guard. Unlike the Guard’s suppression duties, they were responsible for exploring unknown regions. Many pollution rifts were discovered by them, including these original rifts.

Thirty years had passed, and humanity’s living territory had expanded. The cleanup of pollutants had also become more systematic.

But there are still many places beyond human reach that the Far Wilderness Exploration Team needs to explore first.

"Li Qing'an?" Li Zhiyan said, "She gave it to you?"

Shen Ji glanced at the camera before continuing to flip the page, "She hopes I can help out."

"What's wrong with the Silent Frost Domain?"

Having spent three years in the apocalypse, Li Zhiyan was sharp and soon realized that something must have gone wrong again in the Silent Frost Domain.

"The missing people have been found, but they're in poor condition, and there's an air wall blocking access," Shen Ji replied briefly. "Li Qing'an came back to find help to deal with it."

Li Zhiyan pushed his tray and the leftover food aside.

After a moment's thought, he said, "Actually, the Academy of Sciences had some speculations about the Silent Frost Domain before."

Shen Ji looked at the camera, "What speculations?"

"The speculation about whether an S-class pollutant exists in the Silent Desert."

Upon hearing Li Zhiyan's response, the system immediately went to search for the file.

Although it hadn't found it before, indicating the file wasn't officially recorded—meaning it had been invalidated by the authorities—now that Li Zhiyan mentioned it, things were different. Who was Li Zhiyan? The protagonist! When a protagonist suddenly brings up a file, it suggests an 80% or higher probability that the file's contents will become reality.

Soon, the system found the dated file data in the Academy of Sciences' trash bin.

"Silent Desert, original pollution rift. The Academy of Sciences once proposed the idea that an S-class pollutant had already emerged in the Silent Desert."

"In the tenth year of the apocalypse, a large-scale disappearance incident occurred near the Silent Desert. Sand covered the entire city, and by the time the Pollution Prevention Center noticed something was wrong, the city was empty. In the thirteenth year of the apocalypse, a similar incident happened again, with more disappearances in nearby cities, and from then on, disappearance events occurred annually."

"Based on this, it was discovered that the Silent Desert, like the Zero Abyss, experiences pollution events at fixed intervals. If pollutants exist in the Zero Abyss, it stands to reason that pollutants also exist in the Silent Desert."

"However, in the twenty-first year of the apocalypse, the disappearance events stopped occurring. From then on, no more pollution events happened, and the area around the Silent Desert has remained stable until now. As a result, the Academy of Sciences concluded that their judgment was mistaken and discarded the file."

"In the thirtieth year of the apocalypse, an S-class pollutant emerged in the Silent Desert, and the Silent Desert was renamed the Silent Frost Domain."

After listening to the system's report, Shen Ji looked at Li Zhiyan, "Do you think there might have been an S-class pollutant in the Silent Desert before?"

Li Zhiyan thought for a moment, "It would be strange if the Silent Desert didn’t have one."

Then he looked at Shen Ji curiously, "Where did you awaken?"

Li Zhiyan awakened in Moth Valley. After leaving, he was discovered by Chu Ye, who brought him into the Pollution Prevention Center and the Guard Team.

But what about Shen Ji?

Shen Ji is an S-class pollutant. He and Li Zhiyan first met in Q City, but none of the known original rifts match Shen Ji, and all original rifts already have their pollutants—except for the Time Forest, which has no observers. It's said that time is chaotic there, and entering it would cause one to be lost in time.

If Shen Ji were a pollutant from the Time Forest, he wouldn’t be a mushroom now but a clock.

Manipulating time is far more reality-defying than manipulating mushrooms.

Hearing Li Zhiyan's question, Shen Ji pondered how to answer.

Honestly, he didn’t know either.

How did the filth come to exist? What kind of being is the filth? There’s no record of this in the original work, and even in the Pollution Prevention Center's files, it remains invisible.

Like a ghost.

A spectral villain.

It could be made into a movie with this theme—quite a hook!

"...Your thinking expands really quickly."

'That’s a journalist’s strength!'

Shen Ji slowly dragged his thoughts back and then spoke, "I’m not an S-class."

Li Zhiyan: ...

Not S-class, but can pin down the Gardener?

Not S-class, but can beat up the Squid?

"There are some things I’m not very clear about right now, so I don’t want to cause you trouble," Shen Ji said gently, his eyes fixed on Li Zhiyan's. "Journalism is a profession that seeks the truth. Professional ethics require us not to draw conclusions prematurely before the truth is confirmed."

"Let’s wait a bit longer."

Shen Ji said, "When the truth comes out, I’ll tell you."

What could Li Zhiyan say? He could only say, 'I believe you.'

He believed in his small mushroom, believed that one day his little journalist would be open and share all his secrets.

He also believed that this day wouldn’t be too far off.

After ending the call with Li Zhiyan, Shen Ji first returned to the shelter headquarters. He went through the motions of giving Huang Jining some instructions, hoping that Gao Yuan would be in better condition by the time he returned.

But both he and the system knew that the small mushrooms had already taken over the place, hiding everywhere in the cracks.

At Shen Ji’s command, the small mushrooms would consume all the contaminated patients here!

Huang Jining had even noticed that the pollution level within the shelter was decreasing and had asked some colleagues from the Academy of Sciences to take measurements in various areas.

All of this had happened after Shen Ji’s arrival.

It was as if pollution was quietly avoiding this young man—they were seeking advantage and avoiding harm, not even daring to stay.

This made Huang Jining even more determined to keep Shen Ji, not just for temporary work but as the shelter’s new director.

But as soon as he sent the proposal to the Pollution Prevention Center, Cheng Feng called to argue with him.

Dammit, there’s only one Dr. Xiao Ji! With so many people competing, it’s impossible to secure him!

On the other side, after ending the conversation with Shen Ji, Li Zhiyan finally made his way back to the temporary base’s meeting room. As soon as he entered, he saw two people.

Jiang Ying was still compiling data, which included files on eliminated pollutants, complete with levels and pollution details.

Qin Changye was mumbling to himself while doing a fortune-telling.

"What are you calculating now?" Li Zhiyan sat down in his seat.

Qin Changye glanced at Li Zhiyan, "I’m calculating where the flower will land."

"What flower?"

"Boss, you don't know?" Jiang Ying looked up, "The shelter and the Pollution Harmless Treatment Center are fighting tooth and nail over Mr. Shen; they’re practically at each other’s throats."

"They all have their own reasons, claiming that having Mr. Shen would greatly benefit the Pollution Prevention Center’s development."

Qin Changye nodded, "So I'm figuring out where Mr. Shen will land."

Li Zhiyan responded, "So that's how it is."

Jiang Ying looked at Li Zhiyan curiously, "Boss, aren’t you concerned? I remember you wanted to recruit Mr. Shen before, but you haven't succeeded yet, and now there are even more competitors."

"Getting him on the team isn’t enough," Li Zhiyan snorted lightly. "These old-timers are no match for me. I have one huge advantage—I'm around the same age as Shen Ji."

"I don't need to recruit him. As long as Shen Ji and I get married, what can they say? I’ll still come out on top."

"Getting that marriage license signed is my endgame."

Jiang Ying: "..."

Qin Changye: "..."

But, boss, you're a man, and Mr. Shen is also a man.

You can’t legally get married.

"Don't you believe me?" Li Zhiyan rolled up his sleeve to show them his wrist, where the words "Shen Ji" were written in black ink.

He said triumphantly, "Shen Ji signed this for me. What does this mean? It means the day my goal is achieved is coming soon!"

The two fell silent again.

The handwriting was totally Li Zhiyan’s own, and it was even on his left wrist—after all, one holds a pen with their right hand.

Poor Doctor Shen, their captain is pulling another fast one on him again.