Chapter 76: Silent Frost Domain

Chapter 76: The Dead Silent Frozen Wasteland

Yet he had to leave before even staying at Li Zhiyan's place for a few days.

He had just familiarized himself with the layout of Li Zhiyan's home and started integrating into his life.

Shen Ji sighed as he sat on the sofa. "Apart from the Guard Team and the Pollution Prevention Center, I think I've been to every official organization."

"You're living in the home of the Guard Team's leader—rounding it off, you've basically joined the Guard Team too."

Shen Ji: ...

Is that really something you can round off?

There was no talking to the system. Shen Ji began packing his things to head to the Dead Silent Frozen Wasteland.

First, he watered the flowers in Li Zhiyan's fridge, then added two more photos to the bulletin board. Finally, he asked Gao Yuan for a squid and handed it over to the chef at the Pollution Prevention Center, hoping the chef could prepare it for Li Zhiyan when he returned.

After all, grilled squid doesn’t require fresh squid—just toss it in the freezer for now.

A senior official at the Pollution Prevention Center sucked in a breath as they read the report.

Wait? Specifically set aside for Li Zhiyan? To make grilled squid for him when he returns? Even paid the chef extra for it?

This looks exactly like a couple’s romantic play.

Otherwise, who would've known Li Zhiyan likes grilled squid? He doesn’t eat regular human food at all, only poisonous mushrooms.

Could it be that this new S-Class Mutant is still choosing the Guard Team?

What exactly is so appealing about that eccentric guy, Li Zhiyan?

Watching Shen Ji deliver the squid to the Pollution Prevention Center’s fridge, the system sighed.

"It's not like we're never coming back. Couldn’t you just make it for him in person?"

"What if Li Zhiyan comes back early?" Shen Ji didn’t seem too concerned. "To avoid that, I need to prepare in advance."

"People are like that—they love surprises."

"Is that your habit as a journalist?"

"Yep." Shen Ji admitted freely. "How do you make sure someone never forgets you? It’s simple. Just pay a little more attention to the details. Bring them things they like, make them feel like you’re always thinking about them. That’s how you win over a normal person."

"Someone like Li Zhiyan? I could handle him with a wave of my hand."

"So you’re doing this so Li Zhiyan won’t forget you?"

"Why else?"

"……"

The system really wanted to repeat what it had said earlier, but it knew even if it did, Shen Ji wouldn’t stop.

Forget it. Better save some battery.

In any case, Shen Ji boarded the vehicle to the Dead Silent Frozen Wasteland along with other support personnel. They took a plane first, then transferred to a car. They were still some distance from the Dead Silent Frozen Wasteland, as it was still snowing heavily there. The blizzard mixed with fierce winds made driving barely manageable—flying was absolutely impossible in such harsh conditions.

Except, aside from them, there was no sign of Li Qingan in the vehicle. Shen Ji asked around and found out:

Li Qingan's wings had healed yesterday. After getting off the plane, she spread her wings and flew off directly.

Now that's what you call real wings!

Shen Ji was envious. "I’ve never flown in the sky before."

"You just took a plane."

"Riding a plane isn’t the same as flying yourself!"

"Ask Li Zhiyan to take you bungee jumping in the Abyss or skydiving. Then you’ll get the feeling of flying through the sky."

"Though that would make you the 'extreme sports youth' you claim to dislike."

"But since you’re already planning to partner up with Li Zhiyan, a 'disgusting extreme sports youth,' I guess your tastes have changed—from disdain to appreciation."

Shen Ji: ...

He really needed to find a way to shut this system’s mouth!

"No change in taste."

Shen Ji closed his eyes and sighed. "It’s just that my taste has changed for Li Zhiyan. I still look down on all other extreme sports enthusiasts."

"……"

Such blatant double standards—aren’t you afraid of getting beaten up?

As they entered the contaminated zone of Abyss Zero, snow began to fall, and the cell service started flickering in and out. Unlike the areas around Abyss Zero, the signal here was being randomly cut off by pollutants from Abyss Zero, with no way to fix it—after all, this was the contaminated zone of an S-class pollutant.

Further ahead, the snow grew heavier until the vehicle was crawling along. Shen Ji noticed people in the car starting to shiver from the cold.

Cold is something uncontrollable—the body instinctively shivers to release heat. People’s hands and faces turn red, and they instinctively seek warmth.

Those in the vehicle were also searching for anything they could use to keep warm, draping it over themselves.

To fit in, Shen Ji pulled a coat from his luggage to put on, only to realize it was actually Li Zhiyan’s jacket...

‘Huh?’ Shen Ji was shocked. ‘System, why didn’t you remind me I took the wrong clothes?’

"I thought you did it on purpose."

‘Why would I intentionally take Li Zhiyan’s clothes?’

"Because you two are… ambiguous."

Damn! This would only make the rumors spread even worse!

But everyone around him was bundling up in every piece of clothing they had. If he hesitated any longer, he’d stand out too much. In the end, Shen Ji still put the jacket on. Only then did he notice it wasn’t just Li Zhiyan’s—pinned to the chest was his Guard Team ID badge.

"Now everyone will think you’ve chosen Li Zhiyan," the system said gleefully.

Shen Ji was silent for a moment, then rubbed his chin. ‘Actually, that might work?’

"……What might work?"

‘Let them think I’ve chosen Li Zhiyan. Then they’ll bother him instead of me. As for Li Zhiyan, I’ll just coax and deceive him. That way, I won’t have to join the Guard Team, nor the Containment Center or the Pollution Harmless Treatment Center.’

‘Perfect!’

"This is just you comforting yourself!"

Shen Ji thought to himself: If I don't comfort myself, should I just feel sorry for myself instead?

At this point, if I got the wrong clothes, so be it. No one here dares to ask why I'm wearing Li Zhiyan's jacket anyway.

If anyone asks, I'll just say we were hooking up last night and I grabbed the wrong clothes in a hurry this morning.

What? You say Li Zhiyan is at the Zero Abyss and not at home? Isn't he a butterfly? With invisible wings, he can fly back home and then return.

"...Can you get any more ridiculous?"

'People are naturally nosy about gossip,' Shen Ji said leisurely. 'Do you think we in the news reporting business haven't studied human curiosity?'

'If you say nothing, their curiosity will itch like a cat’s scratch, desperate to know more.'

'But once you tell them some ridiculous, unrealistic story, their curiosity deflates instantly, ending with them thinking, "Do you take me for a fool?"'

'Don’t worry, no one will believe that Li Zhiyan and I were hooking up.'

Really?

Why doesn’t the system believe it?

Keep playing around, and one day you’ll play yourself right into trouble!

When that happens, this system will definitely blast digital trumpets to celebrate hard!

After pushing through for over two hours, they finally arrived. The car door opened, and a biting wind instantly swept inside.

All those jackets and down coats were useless—cut through by the cold wind in seconds. The people in the car couldn’t sit still anymore, nearly jumping up and down.

"It’s so cold! How many degrees below zero is it?"

"Fifty below zero! And still dropping. This place is really turning into an uninhabitable wasteland."

"Is there heating? My hands are going numb!"

"There’s a temporary base over there with heating. It should be warmer."

They hurriedly got out of the car and rushed toward the temporary base.

Shen Ji, wearing Li Zhiyan’s jacket, followed the crowd out of the car. There weren’t many people outside; almost everyone had quickly ducked into the nearby temporary base. Shen Ji originally planned to go there too, but then he spotted Li Qingan standing not far away in the wind and snow.

So he changed his mind and turned to walk toward Li Qingan.

Li Qingan wasn’t bundled up either, perhaps because those items were too heavy and would weigh down her flight.

But it seemed she wasn’t afraid of the cold.

Huh? Does this mean he doesn’t have to pretend to be cold anymore?

"Took you long enough!"

The system mocked his slowness. "S-Class Mutants are immune to negative effects from temperature—they don’t fear cold or heat. But since you haven’t admitted to being an S-Class Mutant yet, you should probably keep pretending."

Shen Ji: …

As he walked up to Li Qingan, Shen Ji followed her gaze to the scene ahead.

The person closest to them stood motionless in the snow, already half-buried by it. Yet they seemed unaware, maintaining their stance as if frozen, like a corpse. But they were still breathing—the faint white puffs from their mouth told Shen Ji they were alive.

"The air wall is right here." Li Qingan reached out and touched the air.

Though nothing was visible, her hand seemed to press against some heavy object, the flesh of her palm flattening slightly under the pressure.

Li Qingan sighed softly. "This time, I brought spatial-type Mutants. I hope they can make progress."

Shen Ji nodded. "You don’t need to worry too much. At least these people are still alive."

"As long as they’re alive, does that mean Doctor Shen is confident he can save them?" Li Qingan turned to Shen Ji with a smile, blinking as their eyes met.

Her gaze drifted from Shen Ji’s face downward, finally settling on the jacket draped over his shoulders.

That jacket looks so familiar—isn’t that the Guardian Corps’ daily uniform? Isn’t Doctor Shen a doctor from the Containment Center?

Wait…

Doesn’t the nameplate on that jacket say Li Zhiyan?

Huh??

Could the rumors about him being reckless and then ditching be true?!

Li Qingan quietly pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of Shen Ji while he stepped forward to examine the air wall. It was a side profile, but it made Shen Ji appear even more edgy and intense.

Shen Ji had always been good-looking—his black eyes held a subtle mystique, black-framed glasses softening his cold edge, and thin lips that made him seem both aloof and striking. The side-angle shot made his pupils look almost transparently beautiful.

Most importantly! This angle captured Li Zhiyan’s nameplate perfectly clearly!

The system noticed Li Qingan’s sneaky move, but after a moment’s thought, it decided not to tell Shen Ji.

Dammit! It had to see Shen Ji crash and burn!

Shen Ji was observing the scene beyond the air wall, considering whether to call on the small mushrooms to see if they could nibble through it. But the small mushrooms were hiding under his clothes, whining.

They shook their heads vigorously, indicating that the other side was like a Siberian deep freeze—freezing!

They refused to enter the freezer!

Shen Ji resignedly placed his hand on the air wall. But the moment he did, he felt a vibration in his palm.

"...What’s that vibration?"

Li Qingan quickly put away her phone, acting innocent.

"I didn’t do anything!"

"You didn’t do anything?" Shen Ji looked at her strangely. "I meant the air wall—it seems to be vibrating?"

Li Qingan paused, then quickly pressed her hand against it. Sure enough, she felt the strange vibration too.

It was like the rattle of a beat-up car driving at high speed over gravel, causing the windows to tremble at a high frequency. Just as Li Qingan was about to call the Academy of Sciences for testing, she heard a faint crack.

Visible cracks started from the ground, spreading from beneath their feet all the way up into the sky.

Shen Ji and Li Qingan exchanged a glance.

"Doctor Shen, back up."

Shen Ji backed away step by step, only stopping when Li Qingan nodded after he had retreated three meters away.

Iridescent wings slowly unfurled from Li Qingan’s back, specks of light twinkling like stars around her wings, incredibly eye-catching against the snowy landscape.

She planted her left foot and pivoted, carving a circle before delivering a powerful kick to the air wall in front of her.

Crrack—a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, accompanied by crackling electricity. The next moment, the air wall shattered completely, and a frigid wind instantly blasted through from the other side.

“Technicians!” Li Qingan shouted. “Hurry! The air wall is broken!”

Soon, several people rushed out from the nearby temporary base.

They were bundled up as thickly as bears, hauling large machines, with a few of them lifting the equipment and hurrying over.

Shen Ji silently stepped back again to make space for them.

At the same time, he subtly lowered his head to glance at his knee.

A dark blue small mushroom was wrapped around his calf, weeping uncontrollably while nuzzling against him, trying to absorb some warmth.

Shen Ji fell silent for a moment.

Huh—a dark blue mushroom?

He didn’t recall having this variety among his small mushrooms, and he wasn’t familiar with them at all.

“Um, is it possible that these are Hui’s mushrooms?” the system suggested. “…Meaning, they’re mushrooms Hui left here before you transmigrated into the book.”

Who would have thought this place had connections to Hui?

/

Li Qingan and the Academy of Sciences Staff entered the other side of the air wall first to conduct initial checks on the missing personnel. Only after confirming it was safe would pollution doctors be allowed in to administer treatment.

Shen Ji asked Li Qingan for a separate room, claiming he needed to prepare medicine in advance. But in reality, he had no idea how to prepare medicine—he just wanted to figure out what was up with these newly appeared small mushrooms.

The dark blue small mushrooms were still lying on the table crying. The white jade small mushrooms on Shen Ji’s shoulders perched curiously, observing their counterparts.

They were actually quite beautiful.

Though entirely dark blue, they had a translucent quality, like deep blue glazed gemstones, with hyphae stretching out like fine blue threads.

Sensing their sorrow, Shen Ji rummaged through his luggage.

In the end, all he found were the dried flowers he’d brought from Li Zhiyan’s home, which still carried a faint pollution aura.

He pushed the dried flowers toward the small mushrooms, and they instantly gobbled them up in one gulp. Only then did they stop crying, wrapping around Shen Ji’s fingers to beg for more pollution.

Master, hungry, food!

Master, so hungry!

We’ve been starving for so, so long!

“Have you been on the other side of the air wall all this time?” Shen Ji asked.

Yes, yes!

The dark blue small mushrooms popped up one by one, eagerly answering Shen Ji’s question.

We’ve been very obedient! Guarding that place, waiting for Master to return!

Then it suddenly started snowing, and it got so cold, waaah.

We also followed Master’s orders and protected the humans there!

As soon as we sensed Master, we came right away!

Master, master! Hungry, food!

The small mushrooms on Shen Ji’s shoulders scrambled down along his arm, extending to his wrist before dropping onto the table. The two clusters of differently colored mushrooms seemed to communicate by tapping their caps together. Shen Ji could sense the original white small mushrooms transferring pollution from within themselves to the blue ones.

So the blue small mushrooms began feasting ravenously, as if they hadn’t eaten in years.

“These are mushrooms left by Hui…” Shen Ji poked one of the small mushrooms. “Is the Silent Desert really Hui’s birthplace?”

“Unlikely. One primal fissure couldn’t possibly birth two S-class pollutants, right?”

“The S-class from Butterfly Valley was eaten by Li Zhiyan, and no new S-class emerged in Moth Valley either.”

“True.” Shen Ji nodded. “Then the wildest guess would be…”

“Did Hui eat the S-class pollutant here?”

“Like a gardener, after ten years of recovery, has the Silent Desert—now renamed the Silent Frostfield—given birth to a new S-class pollutant?”

“…Was Hui that powerful ten years ago?” The system was baffled. “That makes it even stranger.”

“If Hui could fully devour an S-class pollutant a decade ago, why did he lose to Li Zhiyan? Although Li Zhiyan is the protagonist, his strongest Talents are just illusions and flames that burn pollution. Illusions can obscure vision, but flames are the small mushrooms’ favorite snack.”

“It doesn’t add up.”

“Well, it’s a rushed ending novel—plot holes are to be expected.” Shen Ji lay on the table and gently poked a blue small mushroom.

The blue mushroom, busy munching on pollution, rolled away twice.

Unfazed, it scrambled back and nuzzled against Shen Ji’s fingers, acting like an utterly clingy mushroom.

So adorable.

“Why not ask the small mushrooms in front of you?”

“Would they remember events from ten years ago?”

Although Shen Ji’s mushrooms have faint consciousness and act based on mushroom prototypes, they’re ultimately condensed pollution entities. Their memory isn’t exactly a strong suit, especially considering the previous S-class pollutant died ten years ago. The reason they remained here is a mystery, and they might not recall much.

“But they should remember Hui’s commands. The fact that they stayed here instead of following Hui when he left is a big question.”

“Give it a try.”

Shen Ji laid his hand flat on the table, and the dark blue small mushrooms hopped into his palm. They acted like puppies who hadn’t seen their owner in ages, constantly rubbing against Shen Ji.

It was as if they were complaining about why it took him so long to find them.

Shen Ji closed his eyes, and the blue small mushrooms dissolved into hyphae, burrowing into his palm. The hyphae joyfully merged back with Shen Ji, brimming with excitement.

They basked in their master’s familiar presence, and all the grievances of being left behind in a strange place melted away.

Nothing is easier to cheer up than a small mushroom.

And in that very moment, Shen Ji heard a voice.

The voice sounded exactly like his own, carrying a slightly cold tone. Because it lacked the deliberately warm tone Shen Ji used to mask his own, it sounded especially cold.

"Stay here."

He said, "When pollutants appear here once more, I will return."

"Be good and wait for me."

Shen Ji’s eyes snapped open, and he turned to look at the heavy snow swirling outside the window.

This was the first time he had connected with the original Defilement from the novel.

Unlike the perfunctory descriptions in the original work, and not merely an exploration of himself, this was a genuine judgment—through a brief audio cue—of what kind of pollutant Defilement truly was.

Or rather: the original novel’s setting and the initial impressions he had when first transmigrating had created quite a few stereotypes for Shen Ji.

He had thought Defilement was a cold, ruthless, even somewhat perverted pollutant—after all, his rented room had a strange large mirror standing in it, and the original novel wrote that Defilement had caused a significant number of pollution incidents.

But from the small mushroom’s memories… although he was a bit cold, he seemed like a decent master.

Moreover, his tone and some of his word choices, compared to other S-class pollutants, were indeed more human-like.

"Shen Ji?" the system asked curiously. "How did it go?"

"I only heard Defilement telling the small mushroom to wait here for his return," Shen Ji said. "It seems the small mushroom didn’t wait for him, but they did wait for me."

"Still, to the small mushroom, you and Defilement are the same—same pollution, same appearance."

Shen Ji didn’t answer the system further; he simply adjusted his black-framed glasses.

"If we want to know more details, we’ll have to enter the polluted zone to take a look."

"Our choice to come to the Silent Frozen Domain this time was right. Perhaps we’ll soon be able to figure out Defilement’s origins."

"Sheesh, that’s an even tougher job than figuring out the protagonist’s origins. At least Li Zhiyan didn’t lose his memory and knows where he comes from. The fact that he’s a half-pollutant was indeed a surprise, but many novels use this setting—a protagonist who is a pollutant is a popular trope."

"But Defilement doesn’t even have a single observed record."

Shen Ji let out a soft laugh, his black eyes shining with excitement.

"But that’s what makes it interesting."

"Piecing it together, finding the truth through digging around and asking questions—that’s the meaning of a journalist’s existence."

"Alright then, way to go, Reporter Shen."

The system sighed, but found itself infected by this person’s enthusiasm, growing eager as well.

It now felt increasingly that choosing Shen Ji was an extremely correct decision. He was intelligent and decisive, always able to find the right path through the fog. He possessed professionalism, was a total softy, yet while being good, he never compromised his own interests.

He could look out for many people, and he could protect himself.

Such a perfect host—you won’t find another like him. Who knew how many systems would envy him.

Hmph, if there were a system convention, it would definitely brag its head off!

The system, satisfied yet pretending nothing had happened, finally responded in its flat mechanical tone, with a touch of excitement.

"Let’s go get some answers!"