Chapter 33

Zhou Zhi noticed that everything around him was gradually becoming blurry.

This includes the concepts of time and space, as well as cognition.

He returned to this wasteland. Just a moment ago he was in a bustling commercial street, but now he found himself in this desolate and uninhabited place.

Is this an illusion, or has my consciousness been accidentally pulled into the other world?

He quickly assessed his situation: his protective suit was intact, and he had a long knife and a special gun on him, though he was running low on bullets. There were also a small amount of medicine and nutrient solution inside the suit.

The site is currently located by a river, where a large area of ​​plants are growing vigorously, but these plants could become hidden killers at any time.

These mutated plants were restless, but dared not move, because the two unknown creatures exuded a terrifying aura.

"Waaah—"

A large black object jumped from his shoulder to his hand. Zhou Zhi recognized it as the small pollutant that had been following him all along. He didn't know how much time had passed here. The thing that was originally the size of his palm had now grown into a big orange, heavy in his arms. If it wrapped around his neck, it would probably break his neck.

The little creature's cries failed to evoke any pity from humans, because it was so heavy that Zhou Zhi simply placed it on the ground.

He must find a way out as soon as possible.

However, when he took the first step, the whole world suddenly began to spin, his brain began to feel dizzy, and all the information in his brain was gradually fading away.

The human brain is like a blank sheet of paper. As time goes by, lines of text begin to be written on it.

Birth, early childhood, schooling, work—these are all connected by time. For example, he came to Nanshan Hospital half a month ago, then entered the underground parking garage, and yesterday he was seduced by fake roses on the street and was corrupted and suffered a backlash.

But within this strange space, Zhou Zhi discovered that the information in his mind, from this moment to the past, was being deleted one by one.

His memory is regressing.

28, 27, 26...

It was only a fleeting moment, too short to even grab a piece of paper to jot it down, and those memories vanished in an instant.

The memory regression continued until the age of 18.

The little creature beside it didn't know what was happening, but its intuition told it that the human in front of it seemed a little different. It stretched out its soft tentacles and wrapped them around the protective suit, as if gently stroking it.

"Waaah—" What's wrong?

Zhou Zhi quickly regained consciousness. His head throbbed, like a crumpled piece of paper that had been vigorously wiped. However, he didn't have time to worry about the headache, because the scene in front of him made him open his eyes wide.

Where is this? Didn't he just get up and get ready to go to his 8 a.m. class? How did he end up in such a strange place?

At 18, Zhou Zhi wasn't as calm as he would become later, nor did he know much. He was just an ordinary student, so when he realized he had arrived in an unfamiliar place, his first reaction was that he had been kidnapped.

As a staff member at the lighthouse, his mother was a target for those who wanted to obtain certain information from her.

However, Zhou Zhi quickly dismissed the idea, because there were no humans in the surrounding area within sight.

He felt a soft touch on his toes; a small, cat-like animal was scratching his calf.

This is certainly not a kitten; the protective suit has been modified to prevent users from seeing any unidentified creatures and causing mental distress.

Perhaps because he didn't sense any danger, Zhou Zhi relaxed a little and squatted down to pick up the cat lying on his feet.

My arms suddenly felt heavy when I picked him up.

It's so heavy.

"Woof woof—" The cat was puzzled. This human had just abandoned it, so why had it suddenly changed its mind?

Zhou Zhi tried to squeeze the kitten; it was a soft, fluffy ball that was very obedient in his hands. His hand went down the spine, and the latter half of the body gradually became slender, with neat scales on its surface.

Is this a cat?

Zhou Zhi suddenly realized that what was displayed on his glasses didn't seem to match the actual appearance. In front of him was a cute black cat, but what he was touching was a structure that looked like a snake's tail.

The protective suit blurred his senses.

But he dared not take off his clothes. He had a vague feeling that the creature under his command was unusual, but fortunately, it did not have any desire to attack him.

After playing with the cat for a while, he confirmed that the little guy had no intention of attacking people.

"How about you call yourself Mimi? We'll be teammates from now on."

Taking advantage of the fact that the other party couldn't speak human language, he directly decided on the name.

The howl of some wild beast echoed from the distance of the wasteland. Zhou Zhi held his newly recruited teammates, and they would do everything in their power to survive here.

"Abnormal brain activity!"

"Abnormal pulse!"

"The pollution level has exceeded 3000!"

"Excessive levels of pollutants in the blood!"

In a closed room on the top floor of Nanshan Hospital, Zhou Zhi lay on the hospital bed, with various instruments connected to his body, and every indicator on the instrument screen was bright red.

It's hard to imagine these numbers appearing in humans.

The pollution levels on his body were not much different from those of Class A pollutants.

"What's going on?" The doctor next to him stared in astonishment at the fluctuating curve on the instrument. The line representing the pollution level first rose rapidly, then fell sharply, then rose again... jumping back and forth in a cycle of seconds.

"Don't worry, it's normal." A doctor standing nearby said, unsurprised.

How is this normal?

The young doctor was newly transferred to Nanshan Hospital. The hospital had been in chaos these past few days, and he, a newcomer, was directly assigned to the top floor. The danger level of the patients in the hospital gradually increased from the bottom to the top. From the fourth floor, the bodies of the patients had already begun to mutate. He didn't know what kind of monsters were on the top floor.

With a death wish, he went up to the top floor with his seniors. To the young doctor's surprise, there was only one patient on the top floor—a handsome man.

He didn't look contaminated at all; he seemed to be just asleep. But the various indicators on his body could terrify any doctor or researcher at random.

"It's incredible that his body hasn't undergone any mutations," the young doctor murmured to himself.

The pollution crashed against the man like a tide, then quickly receded.

"Prepare the antagonist." Another experienced doctor skillfully injected a high concentration of the antagonist. Zhou Zhi's face showed a look of pain. Two forces were fighting each other on his body. The process was extremely painful, and a burning sensation quickly spread from every blood vessel.

"Can he still survive?" someone asked worriedly.

"Maybe."

Even the older doctor wasn't sure; the patient was a regular at the hospital, and his physical condition was almost beyond human comprehension, yet he was still struggling to stay afloat.

It's like being forcibly suspended by some thin threads; who knows, one day those threads might break.

...

Crack—

Zhou Zhi gripped his longsword tightly, the blade cleaving the onrushing pollutant in two. Mimi, who had been following behind him, pounced on the pollutant as soon as it died, wolfing down its meal.

It ate half of it and carried the other half to the human.

"You eat it." Zhou Zhi's hand gripping the knife hilt was trembling, partly because of the intense battle, and partly because the contaminants looked disgusting.

He adjusted the display function of the protective suit, and now he could see the real world.

When he first saw the true appearance of some pollutants, he froze on the spot, only instinctively raising his knife when the pollutants attacked.

Fortunately, Mimi's appearance wasn't too frightening, and he tacitly accepted the existence of this "teammate."

Mimi waited a while, making sure the human really didn't want to eat, before continuing her meal. Several tentacles pierced the corpse, devouring it completely in a few seconds.

Zhou Zhi casually wiped the knife with a leaf from a nearby plant. The plant seemed to feel pain, and slowly opened its tightly closed bud, revealing a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the center.

There was a human-shaped face growing in the middle of this flower.

A flower with a human face appeared. Zhou Zhi stopped wiping his knife. He wondered if this was some other world or if he was dreaming because he had passed out while writing his thesis last night.

The eyes on the petals opened, but there was nothing inside, only pure black. The stem of the face flower grew rapidly, and the face lunged at Zhou Zhi.

Zhou Zhi quickly switched the visual system of his protective suit back to child mode and slashed at the flower stem with his long sword.

bite-

The bark of this flower is as hard as iron; it cannot be cut at all.

He took a few steps back, and the face stopped a few centimeters away from Zhou Zhi.

Mimi's tentacles were entangled with the plant's stem, and Zhou Zhi's long sword stabbed directly at the human face, as if it were actually piercing a person's facial features. The flower struggled rapidly.

Some juice spilled onto the helmet, obstructing part of his vision. Zhou Zhi gripped the knife with his numb hand and cleaned it up a few more times.

He suggested to himself that it was a dream, or a game, like chopping vegetables.

The face was cut off and lay on the ground, while the rest of the face was also cut into pieces.

Mimi had just finished her main meal, and then she had an extra dessert. Unlike the meat she had last time, the plant-based food was sweet.

After it finished eating, it flicked its tail and jumped into a human's arms.

Zhou Zhi steadied himself and didn't put the little thing down. Putting it down wouldn't make a difference anyway, as it would pounce on him again.

He looked up at the distant sky, where it was a brilliant orange.

He quickly tidied himself up, drank a bottle of nutrient solution, picked up his knife, and walked into the distance.

He didn't know where he was going, but he was determined to go back.

For a long time afterward, Zhou Zhi did only two things: travel and eliminate pollutants.

Before this, he was just an ordinary person who had learned some basic martial arts, but during this period, his strength increased rapidly.

The protective suit is of very high quality; even contaminant teeth cannot penetrate it, and even if attacked, one only feels pain.

He gripped his knife tightly, the contaminant's corpse beside him, perfectly intact. He had learned to find the contaminant's weakness in battle and then kill it with a single blow.

Mimi was enjoying her meal; she had grown quite a bit and was being well-fed.

After it finished eating, it climbed into its owner's arms. The arms were a little too big for it, so it tried its best to curl up.

There is no distinction between day and night here; the weather is chaotic and unpredictable. One second it's night, and the next it might be day. Lightning and thunder often appear suddenly, and ordinary people might go crazy if they stay here for too long.

Zhou Zhi cleaned up the pollutants in the vicinity, and the area was temporarily safe. He found an open space to sit down and leaned his back against a large rock.

Mimi lay in my arms, the thin fabric transmitting the sound of my heartbeat to her ears. She was used to this sound; the heartbeat became a lullaby, making her curl her tail comfortably.

Zhou Zhi also closed his eyes. The continuous battles had left his body extremely exhausted, but he didn't sleep; it was too dangerous here.

The surroundings fell silent, and it seemed as if there were only two living beings in the world, along with the wind blowing from thousands of miles away across the wasteland.