5. Mental Pollution

◎No expression, no words, just watching◎

When the doors on both sides of the subway were opened, something strange was visibly visible to the naked eye, as if something gray was crawling inside.

Li Nianchuan subconsciously looked at Zhu Ning, only to see Zhu Ning holding her head with one hand, but she was wearing a helmet and could not hold her head accurately, so she could only touch the helmet.

Li Nianchuan is obviously a senior, but he instinctively relies on Zhu Ning. Zhu Ning is too extraordinary. She is very calm, and when she shoots, she exudes a fierceness that does not belong to her age.

Li Nianchuan had only seen this in demon hunters. So far, Zhu Ning had not made any mistakes. It was hard to imagine that this was her first time coming into contact with pollutants.

She looked more like a mercenary than a garbage collector. Li Nianchuan suspected that Zhu Ning was some kind of powerful figure who had come to experience life in their cleaning team.

"What's wrong with you?" Li Nianchuan asked out of concern for his teammates. "Headache? Are you mentally contaminated?"

Zhu Ning sighed. She was not corrupted, she was just melancholy. She had clearly agreed to be a salted fish after rebirth. Ten days after her rebirth, she directly ignored the tasks given to her by the system.

What the hell is this bullshit about purifying the homeland? Whoever wants to eat this pie can eat it, but who knew that Zhu Ning ignored it and others could force it to expand.

The last train of Line 1 disappeared, and the source of pollution may be inside it.

Zhu Ning asked, "What's the concentration of pollution inside?"

The helmet actually has the function of testing and calculating pollution concentration, but Zhu Ning doesn't know how to use it.

Li Nianchuan had already instinctively become Zhu Ning's younger brother. After some manipulation, he gave the exact value, "Concentration 71%."

Zhu Ning didn't say anything.

Li Nianchuan thought she was considering it, but in fact she didn't understand. As a novice garbage collector, she had no idea what 71% meant.

Li Nianchuan made a rough estimate and said, "This might be a D-level mission."

I don't know how the technical department rated it an E-level, but it's clear the demon hunter didn't complete his mission. Demon hunter work rules require that when the demon hunter leaves the scene, all contaminated objects within a kilometer of the contaminated area must be dead.

Li Nianchuan muttered, "This job of a demon hunter is so dirty."

Zhu Ning sorted out his thoughts and asked, "I have a question."

"What?"

Zhu Ning: "If pollutants interfere with the channel signal, how can the demon hunters communicate?"

A team wants to kill the pollutants, but as soon as they enter the area, the signal is forced to disconnect, which is not conducive to a team carrying out the mission. The success rate of the demon hunter seems to be not low.

Li Nianchuan sighed when he heard this, "They use a different channel than us, so they are less affected by mental pollution."

Tainted spores can contaminate machines and networks, so demon hunters should have better resources.

"We don't have it?" Zhu Ning asked.

Li Nianchuan was even more resentful. "There aren't enough resources, so we can only prioritize them."

Zhu Ning: “…”

They are really inferior to garbage collectors, with the worst resources and weapons, and even no care from the organization.

It would be fine if their work was safe, but it is obviously not safe!

Zhu Ning looked at the opened subway door and asked, "How long does it usually take for the rescue team to arrive?"

Li Nianchuan thought for a moment, "They just left. According to the regulations, it will take them at least half an hour to return. Besides, our contaminated area has been sealed off, so they may not be able to come in."

They were trapped down there, and the technical department at the cleaning center must have known about it, but it would take half an hour for the witchers to arrive.

"So it's just us?" Zhu Ning asked unwillingly.

Li Nianchuan nodded heavily: "It's really just us."

Salted Fish Zhu Ning gave up.

Li Nianchuan thought for a moment and asked, "How did you sense the contaminants just now? Do you have the ability to foresee danger?"

He was a little curious. Zhu Ning's reaction was a full minute faster than that of him, a veteran employee. How did she know?

Zhu Ning was puzzled. "What danger prediction? You can't hear it?"

Li Nianchuan: "No."

Zhu Ning: “…”

Zhu Ning didn't have any foresight abilities, at most she was more vigilant. If anything, it was a "skill" she'd acquired from her previous life. She'd spent half her life fighting zombies in the zombie world, and as the zombies evolved, so too had she.

Her marksmanship, skills, and vigilance far surpass those of ordinary people. This is a precious "legacy" that she spent ten years honing.

In other words, Li Nianchuan grew up in a technological world and is overly dependent on machines. As long as his detection equipment does not give crazy warnings, he cannot sense any danger.

Zhu Ning grew up in a zombie world. There was no truly safe place for her. She could die if she wasn't careful. Suddenly, Zhu Ning looked at Li Nianchuan like a delicate flower in a greenhouse.

Li Nianchuan could also sense the gap between him and Zhu Ning, and asked a little embarrassedly: "How did you know I wanted to be a demon hunter?"

Zhu Ning glanced at him and thought that Li Nianchuan was really naive. Wasn’t it written all over his face?

Zhu Ning replied perfunctorily: "I guessed."

Li Nianchuan: "You are so smart."

Zhu Ning: “…” He didn’t feel the compliment at all. Thank you.

"Do you want to go in?" Li Nianchuan pointed at the open subway door.

Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan had to survive for at least half an hour. During this half hour, they had to ensure that they were not mentally contaminated. Otherwise, by the time the rescue team arrived, they might have become idiots.

"Do you want to go in?" Zhu Ning asked back.

"Hmm..." Li Nianchuan: "Not really."

Article 3 of the employee handbook states: "If you encounter live contaminants, remain still and await rescue." Li Nianchuan, having received professional training, instinctively followed the cleanup manual.

"I'm going in." Zhu Ning said.

She wasn't seeking death; she was completing the mission assigned to her by the system. If the source of the pollution was inside, eliminating it was the only way to survive.

Zhu Ning said this without any hesitation and stepped into the car.

There was a gray thing crawling in the carriage. After Zhu Ning entered, his body disappeared into a pile of wriggling unknown creatures, as if he was swallowed in one gulp.

Li Nianchuan glanced back at the fishman still twitching on the ground, then glanced at the open carriage. He gritted his teeth and followed Zhu Ning inside.

Rule 4 of the Cleaners' Staff Code: Do not get separated from your teammates.

·

Li Nianchuan regretted it as soon as he got in the car.

There was some wriggling black substance in the car, just in the air, invisible but not touchable.

The last train on Line 1 was sparsely populated. Looking around, there were only a few scattered office workers, seated very separately. Upon seeing Li Nianchuan, passengers in different carriages suddenly turned their heads.

They are all pollutants.

They had various shapes: some had fins growing out of their ears, others had human faces covered in fish scales. In the carriage that Li Nianchuan boarded, a fish lurched in the middle of the open space.

Li Nianchuan was already mentally polluted, and now his scalp was tingling. He finally found Zhu Ning inside the carriage.

Zhu Ning sat on the left side of the carriage. She was wearing a black full-body helmet and a cleaner's uniform, which made her stand out. After Li Nianchuan came in, the door slammed shut.

He had no choice but to sit next to Zhu Ning.

Boom, the train started, although he didn't know where it was going.

Zhu Ning turned his head to look out the window, counting silently. "I don't see Xu Meng." Zhu Ning said.

It was pitch black outside the window. The subway was moving much faster than a person could walk. They were in the sewer at the time and had actually only walked two kilometers away from Xu Meng.

Now two kilometers have passed, and she still hasn't seen Xu Meng.

Li Nianchuan's nose had been hurting more and more since he got on the bus. He said, "The polluted area is independent of time and space. Take a look at the clock."

The clock inside Zhu Ning's helmet had stopped moving since they entered. The contaminated area had its own speed of time. So, this was what a contaminated area was like.

Zhu Ning asked, "How do we get into the contaminated area?"

Li Nianchuan: "The demon hunters will look for a way in. Whether they can find it depends on luck. They don't necessarily have to come in to eliminate the pollution source. They can directly suppress it with heavy weapons."

If you are sure that there are no living people in the contaminated area and the situation is very difficult, you can choose to directly flatten the contaminated area.

As expected, when technology advances to a certain level, people stop using weapons when they can solve problems. The underground track was moving, and Zhu Ningren felt it for a moment. It was faster than any flying car she'd ever ridden.

[Dear passengers, we have arrived at Lily Garden Station.] Suddenly, a station announcement sounded from inside the subway.

Zhu Ning was a little nervous for a moment. No passengers got off the bus. Since Zhu Ning and his friends got on, the passengers had been staring at them.

Zhu Ning looked at the car door nervously, one hand touching the gun handle. She didn't want to take action unless it was necessary.

After the door opened, a passenger got on the train, and then the door closed and the subway started moving again.

Zhu Ning frowned immediately when he saw the passengers getting on, and Li Nianchuan almost cursed out loud.

They killed the murloc!

Yu Ren was carrying a briefcase, his body covered in wounds. Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan had nearly beaten him to death. He dragged his broken left leg and slowly moved his body.

Then, he grabbed the iron ring of the carriage with his still intact arm and stood in front of Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan.

Not moving.

Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan remained silent. Their first reaction was to grab their guns and point them directly at the murloc, fearing he might suddenly attack. The murloc's speed was at least twice as fast as a human's, as they had seen before.

As long as the murloc made any move, they would immediately open fire. But after five minutes, the murloc remained motionless, like a statue.

Zhu Ning and the fishman stared at each other for a while. The fishman's body was like a sieve, and one could even see the other side through his body.

Li Nianchuan asked quietly, "Why is he standing here with us? There are still many empty seats."

The carriage is so empty and it’s not rush hour, why do you have to stand in front of them?

Li Nianchuan's words did not attract the attention of the fish man. He seemed to be a real passenger, standing here.

"Are you here for revenge?" Li Nianchuan asked.

Zhu Ning: "I don't know. I was wondering what would have happened if you had stayed on the platform at that time?"

Li Nianchuan's scalp tingled. He had followed Zhu Ning onto the train and would rather die than stay on the same platform with the twitching fishman's corpse.

Li Nianchuan: "I would rather die."

Zhu Ning felt that this was very strange. People who were caught in the contaminated area could choose to get on the train or wait on the platform.

Zhu Ning knew that he would be surrounded by people after getting on the train, so what would happen to those who stayed on the platform?

"We're almost at the station again." Zhu Ning said.

This time, Zhu Ning observed in advance. An orange light suddenly lit up inside the train, followed by a station announcement: [Dear passengers, we have arrived at Sun Kindergarten.]

Second stop.

Still no one got off the bus. Thirty seconds later, another passenger got on.

Li Nianchuan's hair stood on end and his nose was bleeding. It was another fishman!

Just like the previous fishman, the wound location is the same, the fish head is broken, the curvature of the fish scales is exactly the same, and even the behavior pattern is the same.

Fishman No. 2 didn't even look at them, he walked straight to Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan, pulled the iron ring, and then stood still.

Dear passengers, we have arrived at Lvhegou Station.

The third stop, the third murloc.

Dear passengers, we have arrived at the Museum of Strange Things.

Fourth stop, fourth murloc.

Dear passengers, we have arrived at the Mechanical University station.

The fifth stop, the fifth murloc...

Time went by, and every time the bus stopped at a station, a fishman would get on. Now there were ten fishmen on the bus, and they were all standing in front of Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan.

Those who had pull rings pulled them, and those who didn't stood behind them. As more and more fishmen arrived, there were already twenty-five of them!

Twenty-five headless fishmen surrounded Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan. The smell of blood was so strong that even the helmet visors could not filter it out.

What was strange was that they didn't make any movement, but just lowered their heads and looked down at Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan.

No expression, no words, just looking, simple, pure looking.

Is this spiritual pollution?

The author has something to say:

Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2022-07-22 10:24:42 and 2022-07-23 09:16:25~

Thanks to the little angel who cast the mine: 1 little raccoon eating ice cream;

Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution: Ah... I want 1 bottle;

Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!