Lou Hao stormed over, aggressively wrenching open the door to Bai Luwei’s room.
The room was pitch black. Lou Hao could make out the rough outlines and positions of objects, but whether anyone was inside, he couldn’t see, nor could he sense.
His steps faltered only for an instant before he strode inside.
He, Lou Hao, was here to eliminate the Pollution Source. Even if he failed, he could still probe its origins!
But things developed a little differently than expected.
Just a few steps in, the scene before him shifted completely.
The Pollution had begun.
But this shouldn’t be happening.
It was the first day they had entered the Polluted Zone. Although one’s Sanity Value was susceptible to influence anywhere within a Contaminated Zone, Lou Hao’s mental fluctuations were minimal. There was no way he could be dragged directly into the Pollution Source’s world before he’d even made a move.
Of course, Lou Hao wouldn’t retreat because of this minor accident. Regardless of the reason he was facing this prematurely, the result was the same.
But soon, Lou Hao noticed something else amiss.
This was not the past experienced by the Pollution Source.
The most direct and intense method of Pollution for a Pollution Source was to drag a person into its past, forcing them to experience everything it had experienced, over and over, making them lose themselves within it.
However, the first thing Lou Hao saw wasn’t Bai Luwei, but himself.
How could Bai Luwei’s past possibly contain him?
Lou Hao immediately understood: it was the script.
He was now standing on a familiar road, wilderness and wooded mountains on either side. It was the very road they had traveled in the rain just tonight.
The difference was, it wasn’t raining now, and the villa they were staying in was nowhere in sight.
Probably still too far away.
【You are Lou Hao.】
【You race your motorcycle through the torrential rain, reveling in the thrill of speed and storm. But the rain is too heavy, lightning flashes and thunder roars, forcing you to take shelter in a villa.】
【”The others are all ghosts. Shh, keep your voice down.”
You scoff internally at the woman’s words in the darkness.
Ghosts?
Hah.】
【”I don’t know if this is your first time on this road, but it’s not mine.” This sentence stirs vague memories you’ve deliberately tried to forget.】
【This isn’t your first time on this road either.】
【This road…】
Lou Hao was inside the script, inside its memories.
The night was deep, the surroundings silent. Lou Hao stood on the road, looking cool and aloof, seeing no one else.
He took a few steps forward when he suddenly heard the roar of an engine. A speeding motorcycle appeared a hundred meters away, racing toward him.
The rider wore a black leather jacket and a helmet. He saw Lou Hao but showed no intention of slowing down or swerving.
Lou Hao cursed and dodged aside with all his speed.
Bang.
Warm liquid splattered his face. The engine roar faded into the distance. When Lou Hao looked, the motorcyclist had already vanished from sight.
Lou Hao gritted his teeth and turned to look the other way. Lying on the ground was a woman with disheveled hair, blood seeping from her body, her eyes wide open, staring at him.
Bai Luwei.
Lou Hao slowly, heavily wiped the blood from his face and walked toward the Bai Luwei on the ground. The next second, the scene vanished.
No woman, no blood, as if nothing had happened.
This was outrageous!
This was the script the Director had arranged for him. This was the persona he was forbidden from revealing under the camera’s gaze!
A scumbag who hit someone with his bike and fled the scene.
The moment he saw that motorcyclist, he knew it was himself.
How could he, Lou Hao, be such a person!
Lou Hao didn’t curse himself; he cursed the Director, the screenwriter, the Pollution Source.
Aside from anger, Lou Hao felt no fear whatsoever. But the number on his bracelet was slowly, steadily decreasing.
Vroom, vroom.
The familiar engine roar came again.
Lou Hao stood to the side, coldly staring at the approaching motorcycle.
Speeding closer, the figure about to pass him by—when suddenly, a woman crawled up from the overgrown weeds below the roadside.
Bang.
The woman was struck and sent flying, blood spraying. The motorcycle sped away.
Lou Hao walked toward the woman again. She vanished once more. This time, he didn’t stop. He continued walking along the road.
Vroom, vroom.
The roar of an engine.
Bang.
The sound of impact.
Vroom, vroom.
The roar.
Bang.
The impact.
Lou Hao panted, his eyes red. He had lost count of how many identical hit-and-run scenes he’d experienced. With each repetition, the image in his mind grew clearer, every detail magnifying.
The motorcyclist’s eyes, staring this way long beforehand. Flesh and wheel colliding. Skin scraping against rough ground. Vast pools of blood flowing out.
Vroom~ Bang.
Lou Hao could hear the sound of the blood flowing, like a running stream. In the endless loop, he began to feel excitement.
By now, Lou Hao had stopped walking, but the repetitions continued anyway. He felt the air around him grow especially oppressive, his breathing increasingly difficult.
It was as if something was covering his mouth and nose. His body grew heavy, his limbs constrained.
Lou Hao’s eyes were sharp and narrow, crisscrossed with bloodshot veins, but they remained cold and resolute. He would not admit defeat, nor did he regret anything. The path to becoming a strong man was destined to be strewn with thorns!
This little thing wanted to assimilate him? Dream on.
The motorcyclist was the motorcyclist. He, Lou Hao, was Lou Hao.
The next time the motorcyclist appeared on his bike, Lou Hao held a sharp stone in his hand. At the critical moment, he hurled the stone at the motorcycle’s wheel. With a clang, the stone jammed into the hub. At the same instant, the woman crawling up from below appeared. Lou Hao lunged, grabbing her and flipping her inward.
Bang.
The high-speed wheel lost balance. The bike veered out of control, tipping sideways. It skidded a distance before toppling over, rider and all.
The moment Lou Hao grabbed Bai Luwei, he felt himself dragged into another space. In the split second before the scene transformed, he saw the motorcyclist’s helmet fall off, revealing a face identical to his own.
Damn it.
The script’s contents were all on camera. He hadn’t been mentally assimilated into the motorcyclist, but that face had been exposed, and his evil deeds along with it.
Lou Hao didn’t yet know the specific consequences of having his true persona revealed, but he couldn’t dwell on that now. The moment he seized Bai Luwei, he finally entered the Pollution Source’s past.
Countless faces and voices surrounded him. Men, women, old, young. Twisted faces, mouths opening and closing to emit sharp, cacophonous sounds.
The feeling of being bound grew stronger. Lou Hao felt as if he were stifled in a cramped space, unable to move, unable to breathe. His limbs and senses seemed to be degenerating. His body could only writhe like an insect.
Lou Hao’s chest heaved violently. He strained his eyes wide, trying to see the faces surrounding him, the mouths. Too many. All kinds of faces, all kinds of voices. His continuously dropping Sanity Value made his head buzz with pain. He couldn’t discern what those people were saying at all.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
That buzzing again.
But this buzzing sounded like something an insect would make.
Lou Hao held on for some time, but no further scenes appeared. Perhaps he needed to keep moving forward. But his feet could barely lift. If he wanted to advance, he could only crawl on the ground like an insect.
The buzzing grew louder. Lou Hao’s instincts screamed danger.
Before deciding to enter and find Bai Luwei, he had sensed he couldn’t eliminate her, but also sensed he wouldn’t fall here. He had a way out, a path of retreat.
But now, it was a crisis.
Tap, tap, tap. He heard footsteps approaching him. Someone stopped beside him. An icy knife tip probed his skin, as if searching for the right place to cut.
Lou Hao’s body went rigid on instinct. His Sanity Value could still hold, but this Pollution Source was too unique.
A Matryoshka-doll like script did more than just drive people to their doom through Mental Contamination. There was something here that could directly harm him physically.
This was it. He needed to find a way to retreat.
But his legs wouldn’t work. The layers upon layers of human figures still pressed around him, airtight. There was simply no way out.
Just as he felt himself degenerating further, dead beyond doubt, the figures and sounds on one side began to fade. It was as if a path had opened. The sharp knife pricking his skin also stopped.
His way out!
Lou Hao immediately dropped to the ground, his body arching and inching forward rapidly.
Finally, the scene before him changed. He heard the rushing sound of rain.
He was back in the villa.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the room brilliantly. He was the only one here.
He’d better just lie here for now.
He felt like sensation hadn’t fully returned to his hands and feet.
Suddenly, he felt someone watching him. This gaze was different from those eyes hidden in the darkness. It was… a kind gaze?
Lou Hao instantly lifted his head, craning his neck to search. Another bolt of lightning flashed, and Lou Hao suddenly noticed an especially dense patch of black before him.
Lou Hao: “?”
Lou Hao stared at it.
It also stared at him. The feeling was still that kind.
Lou Hao quickly scrambled to his feet. Patting down his clothes, he assumed the cool-guy look once more. “May I ask who you are?”
The black mass was indeed alive. It produced a voice: “I am Lu Ren.”
Lu Ren?
In a flash, Lou Hao understood. No wonder the figures surrounding him had faded earlier, why a black path had appeared. It was all because of Lu Ren.
No wonder he’d always felt Lu Ren was special.
Lou Hao’s expression turned grave and respectful as he faced the black mass. He said, “Many thanks, Teacher Lu Ren. I will never forget this life-saving grace!”
Lu Ren definitely wasn’t a Symbiotic Anomaly of the Pollution Source. He was just here to work. Did he want to get into show business? Out there, Lou Hao could make him a huge star without a problem. But here, things were trickier.
Maybe he should ask that guy He Sui for help?
He’d just have to owe him a favor.
Lou Hao pondered to himself, nodding resolutely. A firm glint flashed in his cold eyes, as if he’d already made up his mind.
Xu Xiye: “?”
What was he saying? He couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend. Outsiders were still so hard to fathom.
Xu Xiye had never left since following Lou Hao in. Well, technically, a part of him had never left. He was curious about what Lou Hao was doing.
He’d been circling around him, spinning round and round. As he spun, he noticed the air here contained more energy than other places. He didn’t care why some places had more and some less. The same fruit had sweeter and sourer parts. It didn’t matter.
He just wanted to grow up.
He tried taking a few bites at the densest spot. Still no use.
What exactly should he do?
Xu Xiye was still pondering this question.
【If you want, then you can.】
【I want, so I can.】
When pondering questions, Xu Xiye often received this kind of answer. But the premise of “wanting makes it possible” was that he was big enough. When he wasn’t big enough, wanting was useless. Being useless meant he couldn’t consume the energy. Not consuming energy meant he wasn’t big enough. Not being big enough meant… stop. He was getting dizzy.
The thick, water-like, mist-like black substance churned in the air. The irregular tentacles at its edges continuously writhed and coiled. After flailing about for a while, Xu Xiye suddenly stopped.
He remembered something.
The time he accidentally crawled into Blue Eyes’ window and fought him. Blue Eyes had discharged electricity at him. At first, the shocks were very painful. Naturally, he didn’t want to lose or get hurt, so as they fought, he eventually figured out how to deal with it.
He had absorbed and fused Blue Eyes’ electricity.
Blue Eyes’ electricity was a different kind of energy, but it was still energy. If he could absorb that, he could absorb this.
Xu Xiye recalled the situation back then. Blue Eyes had hurled electricity at him—essentially throwing raw energy at him. He’d just needed to swallow it down.
The energy in the air was too dispersed. Biting into the air wasn’t that he couldn’t eat it, but that the absorption was as imperceptible as natural intake.
He needed to learn to strip it himself, then gulp it down in one big mouthful.
The Xu Xiye inside the room was only a small mass. But the Xu Xiye spread outside was considerably vast.
He halted there. The speed of the air’s flow seemed to quicken. Gradually, some intangible substance began to stream toward him in tiny points.
Yes, that’s it. Xu Xiye had learned.
He was just feeling pleased about this when he suddenly saw Lou Hao drop to the floor and start wriggling, crawling.
In that moment, Xu Xiye’s gaze toward Lou Hao turned soft, approving.
He was the first Outsider he’d met who could perform the crawling movement.
However, this moment was quite brief. Shortly after, the other party got up and said strange things to him.
Maybe he was just embarrassed because there was an unfamiliar person present.
“Mm, mm, I’ll be going now, Teacher Lou Hao,” Xu Xiye responded casually.
He’d called him Teacher Lu Ren; reciprocity dictated he address him the same way.
As he left, he glanced at the watch on Teacher Lou Hao’s wrist. Two other Outsiders also wore the same style. This must be the most popular product among Outsiders. No wonder it was limited to one per person.
He thought, a little enviously.
Xu Xiye shrank back into his own room, a large black mass covering the entire bed.
Having just eaten a huge mouthful, he felt a bit stuffed and a little tired.
Xu Xiye extended a tentacle to touch his phone. He wanted to call Director Liang.
In Xu Xiye’s heart, no one understood more than Director Liang.
The tentacle tip tapped the screen a few times. A number in his contacts dialed out.
“Du… du…”
“Hello, Little Ye?” A magnetic, steady male voice came through the phone.
