Chapter 5
Nanshan Hospital
This hospital is located on the outskirts of S city, about an hour's drive from the city center. On the surface, it is an ordinary hospital, but among the people exposed to contamination, it has a well-known name—"Island Nation".
Since the "Great Cataclysm," China has been divided into four regions—Dongshan, Xichuan, Nanyang, and Beichen. Each state has nearly a hundred facilities like Nanshan Hospital, primarily responsible for the treatment and imprisonment of those contaminated. These nearly a hundred facilities are scattered throughout the country, each with its own independent operating system, hence the collective name "Island Nation."
The vines crouched silently in a corner of the hospital, two meters away on the path. Doctors and nurses came and went, but no one noticed the intruder by the wall.
His talent is called "mimicry." Mimicry originally refers to the formation of an appearance similar to other organisms during biological evolution. After global pollution occurred, many humans showed characteristics of other organisms, and experts collectively refer to this kind of superpower as "mimicry."
The transformation of vines allows plants to blend themselves with their surroundings, forming a special domain that perfectly conceals their presence.
This ability focuses on stealth, but its weakness is that its combat power is far inferior to other talents.
Tengman opened her phone, and a brightly dressed woman appeared on the screen. The woman's eyes were upturned at the corners, and her beauty was tinged with a hint of sharpness.
His mission this time was to kill him.
The hospital has five buildings, and many people get lost when they come for the first time. The vines looked around and saw that the building not far from him had the words "Inpatient Department" written on it.
That should be it.
He transformed into a clump of grass, perfectly concealing himself in the roadside greenery, and moved towards the high-rise building.
"Found you!"
"Annan, I saw the bushes move, come out quickly!" A boy's clear voice came from behind. The boy had blond hair, a handsome face, and a slender build. His name tag was hanging diagonally on his loose hospital gown. He ran over in slippers, pattering along.
Where did this brat come from?
The vine casually added a little something to the wildflowers blooming in the green belt, giving off a faint fragrance that would temporarily cause ordinary people to faint upon smelling it.
"What? There's no one here. I finally managed to get this far."
The boy stopped and muttered to himself.
"This grass is really an eyesore, let's burn it."
Before the vines could react, golden flames roared in, carrying waves of heat that left the surrounding area barren for hundreds of meters.
The moment the vines faced the flames, they understood many things, such as why the rewards for this mission were so generous and why their colleagues were making excuses to run far away.
What kind of lunatics are being held here!
"Huang Yu, you've started another fire! Go back to your cell and lock yourself up right now!"
A nurse from nearby screamed and ran over, grabbing the boy by the ear and pulling him towards the inpatient department.
"Please, sister, have mercy on me! I can't control these flames... I was just helping the hospital with landscaping..."
"Phew~"
The vines scrambled into a room in a disheveled state, extinguished the fire on their rear ends, and breathed a sigh of relief.
He looked around, and suddenly his body froze.
A woman in a long dress sat on the hospital bed, quietly watching him.
The woman had the exact same face as the mission target.
"Yue Ning, 29 years old, a 'mimicry' polluter, pollution value 1581."
What terrified him was not the terrifyingly high level of pollution, but the aura of the Mother Tree emanating from this woman.
...
When Xiao Shengyun saw the familiar white ceiling again, he almost thought he was going crazy. He should have already left the prevention and control center.
Moreover, he is now bound hand and foot, like a piece of pork belly about to be braised.
"woke up."
Zhou Zhi walked to the bedside, still wearing that snow-white lab coat, his face was also pale, and he had no other accessories. It seemed that he was only wearing black and white, and his whole body was like a watercolor painting.
If you add a scalpel with a metallic sheen, it looks like a classic scene from some anime.
"What happened? How did I end up back here?"
Xiao Shengyun remembered that he went to the supermarket yesterday evening, then took the subway home, and then...
"Yes, you got on the subway, and then what did you see?"
A gentle whisper in my ear sounded like the murmur of a devil.
Two hands touched his eyes; they weren't cold as he'd imagined, but warm.
But at the same time, intense pain exploded deep within Xiao Shengyun's mind, as if someone were slowly digging his brain open with tools.
The talent for mind control is at a very high level.
"I got on the subway. It was very cold inside, and there were very few people. There was a man in black on the subway..."
"This liar," Xiao Shengyun cursed inwardly. He knew this person wouldn't easily dismiss his suspicions.
Although his head was throbbing with pain, Xiao Shengyun remained conscious. He tried his best to decipher the information Zhou Zhi was sending him, so as not to give himself away.
"And then, what did that man do?"
Too close.
Zhou Zhi's face was only one centimeter away from Xiao Shengyun's, their breaths mingling, and they could feel the warmth of each other's mouths and noses.
The gold and red patterns swirled in those beautiful eyes behind the lenses, and anyone who looked into those eyes felt their soul be drawn into them.
Xiao Shengyun's whole body stiffened as he tried to regulate his breathing. Under his mental control, every subtle change in his body could be perceived by the other party.
From childhood to adulthood, he doesn't seem to have anything particularly special about him. If you really had to pick one thing out, it would definitely be his acting skills.
He has been acting for over a decade, and certain qualities have become ingrained in his very being.
"The man was sitting not far away, staring intently at me. I tried to get out of the car, but he pulled me back."
"He grabbed my neck, I couldn't breathe, and I thought I was going to die..."
Zhou Zhi knew that this polluter codenamed Crow was extremely difficult to deal with, and many of his companions had fallen into his hands. However, this person had fallen to an ordinary person.
In the crow's illusion, he is the absolute master, able to change the rules at will.
It's like a player entering a game for PvP, only to find that the opponent is using cheats and can freely modify equipment stats; it's simply unplayable.
But when he attacked Xiao Shengyun, he chose the simplest and most brutal method. Was it because the opponent was too weak and not worth using his other abilities?
But the crow went mad, while the man was unharmed. What happened in between?
A series of questions arose in Zhou Zhi's mind. He was not a professional investigator but a qualified scientist. Everything had a logic to it. He just needed to find out what role the person in front of him was playing.
"Then that person suddenly let go, looking like they were in great pain..."
He could smell the fragrance on the other person again.
An absurd thought arose in Xiao Shengyun's mind: Source matter is food for pollutants, and as long as the concentration of source matter is high enough, it will have a fatal attraction to pollutants.
In other words, the pollution in this Dean Zhou's body has reached a terrifying level.
But how could this be? Even the pollutants in Wang Qing's room didn't give him this kind of desire. How could a human's source essence concentration be higher than that of pollutants?
Xiao Shengyun closed his eyes tightly and suddenly let out a painful groan.
Zhou Zhi quickly severed the mental connection. The information he received seemed to be consistent with Ye Ting's: the crow was likely corrupted and suffered a backlash, unable to control its abilities, and ultimately reaped the consequences of its own actions.
The person on the bed still had a furrowed brow, and seemed to be in bad shape.
A pang of guilt rose in Zhou Zhi's heart. Was his method too brutal this time? Relying solely on intuition was not in line with his usual style of doing things.
"The rules for Awakened Ones stipulate that abilities cannot be used against ordinary people; otherwise, punishment will be imposed according to the regulations, and even if you are from the research institute, you cannot be exempted from responsibility!"
When Ye Ting received the message from his team member, he almost fainted. This was practically an act of vigilante justice. No matter how high the kid's status was, this was unacceptable.
He gave the man a good scolding, and then after Xiao Shengyun woke up, he busied himself with running errands, handling the routine inquiries, recording, and testing. His attitude was so good that it made people's hearts ache.
As he was leaving, Zhou Zhi said "goodbye" beside him. Xiao Shengyun mentally gave him the middle finger, hoping he would never have to come to this godforsaken place again.
Xiao Shengyun took the elevator upstairs. The door opposite his apartment had been sealed off with layers of metal mesh, and everything seemed to be silenced behind the door.
This was no longer relevant to him, and life finally returned to its former tranquility.
Returning home is undoubtedly the happiest moment, especially after experiencing so much chaos. Xiao Shengyun happily entered the password while pondering what to have for dinner.
There's still some beer and ribs left in the fridge. Heat them up, stir-fry some vegetables, and serve with instant noodles—a simple yet sophisticated meal.
The bed sheets were recently changed, and the window that takes up most of the wall lets sunlight directly onto the blankets; you can just slip in after a shower.
I opened the door and came home.
The next second, Xiao Shengyun's pleasant mood came to an abrupt end.
Because there was a black, unidentified creature covered in something on his floor, with several tentacles, like a large lump of flesh.
Xiao Shengyun glanced at the pollution detection device across the street, only three or four meters away from him, then looked at the little dumpling, and fell into deep thought.
Are the products developed by the research institute reliable?
The little meatball rolled over, revealing the red flesh beneath him. The scent emanating from it was so familiar, as if he had seen it before.
Isn't this the monster he saw at Wang Qing's house?
The group from the action department practically dug up the entire neighborhood for this thing, only to find it was in his house!
What does it mean to be blind under the lamp?
The meatball wriggled a few times, and the piece of meat went into its body—or rather, it was swallowed by it.
"Squeak squeak~"
I'm hungry.
"This thing sounds just like a mouse," Xiao Shengyun thought expressionlessly, then grabbed a mop.
He picked up the dumpling and casually threw it into the trash can by the door, then cleaned up the floor, which was mixed with blood and black liquid.
Should we call the police?
He picked up the phone and put it down again.
There seem to be too many pollution incidents around me lately. Today I finally managed to ease the suspicions of those people. If another pollutant appears around me, I'll be in deep trouble.
Should we let this little thing rest for a few days? Xiao Shengyun hesitated.
The little ball of fluff in the trash can thrashed about, the pollutants gaining strength by devouring each other, and to it, the human in front of it held a fatal attraction.
No, this isn't human.
Perhaps sensing danger, the dumpling, with half its head sticking out, stuffed itself back into the trash can.
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