Among the four, there were two middle-aged individuals, a man and a woman in their forties or fifties, dressed plainly and flustered in their movements. Their faces, weathered just like their hands, showed they were ordinary people who did hard labor.
The other man and woman, appearing to be in their twenties, wore expressions of doubt and uncertainty, but their fear was also unmistakable.
A single glance was enough to tell all four were ordinary people dragged in by accident.
The young man and woman sat rigidly on the sofa, unmoving. Seeing Xie Lincheng, the middle-aged pair immediately stood up and hurried over to greet him.
“Master Xie, wh-what… they are…”
“Master Xie, do we really just have to stay here and not wander around? H-how much longer until we can get out?”
Xie Lincheng cleared his throat with a fake cough and put on a stern face. “They’re friends of mine, brought in to help. As for the rest, I’ve already said all there is to say. Asking more won’t do you any good.”
As he finished, Xie Lincheng’s gaze turned sharp. He waved the Lost and Found Notice in his hand. “Of course, if you want to look for these things yourselves, I have no objections. Running off again, I have no objections to that either.”
“No, no, no, we’ll stay right here, just stay right here.”
“Yes, yes, Master Xie, we’ll listen to everything you say.”
Xie Lincheng waved a hand, gesturing for them to sit back down. The middle-aged pair didn’t pester him further. Returning to the sofa, they still looked tense and uneasy, though considerably better than before.
The young man on the sofa asked, “Th-then why did they come from outside?”
Xie Lincheng was not known for his patience. He looked at the young man, a smile still on his handsome face, but his eyes were cold. “Can they be compared to you?”
The young man was taken aback and lowered his head, not daring to ask anything else.
Xu Xiye watched all this in confusion. He Sui, however, had already figured out something. He cast a questioning look at Xie Lincheng.
Xie Lincheng said, “Let’s go. We’ll take a look around the house first.”
With that, he led them down the corridor to the right.
Both sides of the corridor had rooms, four in total. The door numbers read 103, 104, 105, and 106. Rooms 101 and 102 were on the other side of the living room.
The house was simple and crudely decorated, but it had been designed with many rooms. Likely from the very start, it was built to be cheap rental housing.
With four rooms on the first floor alone, the second floor would have even more.
These four rooms here were unoccupied. Only when Xie Lincheng reached the end of the corridor did he turn around and speak to He Sui. “You know, the lower the level of the Polluted Zone, the more trouble there is. People are often impulsive, not using their brains. When they’re determined to die, you can’t stop them even if you try.”
Xie Lincheng’s words weren’t just subjective speculation. According to data from the Investigations Division and Analysis Division, compared to high-level Contaminated Zones, most people dragged into low-level ones had relatively lower qualities in many aspects. Impulsiveness, an inability to read the situation, and low Sanity Values were the most obvious signs.
“Oh,” He Sui responded noncommittally. “How many died?”
“One. A big, tall, burly man. It was those two, the uncle and auntie, who were causing a ruckus at first. I stopped them. Who could’ve guessed that guy would think I had some sinister plot? He cursed a couple of times and ran off.” Xie Lincheng sneered. “Thirty meters at most. Dragged away directly by those things. After that, everyone got very obedient.”
He Sui nodded, indicating he understood.
Upon entering a Polluted Zone, a role prompt would appear in one’s mind. Leaving the Polluted Zone for other areas would cause a subconscious sense of danger. It was a kind of crisis warning system. These were the most basic rules of a Polluted Zone.
Given those prerequisites, someone who still insisted on going out to seek death left He Sui with nothing to say.
Clearly, Xu Xiye wasn’t Xie Lincheng’s intended audience for these words. But Xu Xiye participated very earnestly and asked, “Was he dragged away by some small creatures?”
Xie Lincheng: “…I guess so.” If cockroaches and mantises the size of a human head counted as small.
Xu Xiye said, “This place is quite remote, and hygiene isn’t very good. It’s normal for small creatures to appear. Everyone should be a bit more careful.”
As he spoke, he cast a worried look at Blue Eyes. Oh, he just now learned that Blue Eyes was named He Sui, but that wasn’t important.
He Sui also looked over at that moment. “Have small creatures attacked you?”
Xu Xiye thought for a moment and said, “No. I don’t like going to dirty or messy places. You shouldn’t go either.”
Whether He Sui went or not depended entirely on necessity. High-level Aberrations had besieged him for so many days without taking him down. These low-level Aberrations, hunting purely on instinct, were even less of a concern for him.
But being stared at by those dark, limpid eyes, feeling like the moment he refused, he’d be stuffed into that pocket again, He Sui couldn’t be bothered to argue. He just dismissed it, “Fine, I won’t go.”
Xu Xiye was satisfied, feeling that Blue Eyes had finally listened to him for once. “Then let’s start working.”
He felt they needed to speed things up. The total number of items to find was only six, but there were seven people here. If they were too slow, there’d be nothing left for them to earn.
Although he’d initially come looking for mental patients, when there was money to be made, how could he not take it?
Xu Xiye felt a slight sense of crisis.
It would be best if he found all of them. He could give two to Blue Eyes and share one with Xie Lincheng.
He pushed open the nearest door and trotted inside with great enthusiasm, his footsteps going tap tap tap.
He Sui glanced over but didn’t move. He asked Xie Lincheng, “Just searching like this?”
Xie Lincheng had his own ideas but didn’t elaborate. “Let’s just take a look around first. I’ll go check the other side.”
He Sui didn’t go with him, either. He was purely here to coast. As a pure damage dealer, destroying a Pollution Source with one strike was a much easier task for him than a slow, meticulous search like this.
After waiting outside for a while, when Xu Xiye came pattering out and moved on to the next room, He Sui followed.
Xu Xiye was very diligent in his work. Searching here, rummaging there, not forgetting to poke his head under the bed or feel beneath the mattress. It was no different from how an ordinary person would search. He Sui couldn’t watch any longer.
“Black Blob.”
“What?”
“Why not use your true form?”
Xu Xiye pulled his head out from under the bed, a smudge of dust on the tip of his nose. “Because this is work. Isn’t maintaining human form basic courtesy?”
“Courtesy, huh?” He Sui looked at him with a half-smile. “How come I’ve never seen you maintain this courtesy around me?”
“That’s different. Maintaining human form during the day is already tiring. At night, it’s okay to be a bit more casual. Everyone’s like that.” His look practically said, ‘You’re the one with the problem.’
“I haven’t worked during the day these past few days. Now I’m working at night, so it’s best to keep it up if I can. Aren’t you also in human form?”
A thought struck Xu Xiye. He suddenly stood up and moved in front of He Sui. “Can you take off your human form and show me? I won’t watch you take it off.”
Once the human form was off, would Blue Eyes’ eyes be bigger? Or would there be more of them?
“Don’t get so close,” He Sui nudged the head that was about to bump into him away. “I only have this appearance.”
“Ah.” Xu Xiye was very disappointed.
“It’s not a formal…” He Sui stopped mid-sentence. He had been about to say it wasn’t a formal work setting, so forget courtesy, just use his true form to search directly.
But thinking of the oppression and terror Black Blob’s vast true form would bring, something those ordinary people absolutely couldn’t withstand, he swallowed the rest of his words. “Forget it. Just do your job well.”
“I’ve already searched this room. Nothing.”
Xu Xiye searched all four rooms on this side in succession, each time very thoroughly, but with no results. “Bad luck.”
When they reached the living room, Xie Lincheng was just emerging after searching rooms 101 and 102. “Nothing. Let’s go upstairs. Someone is staying there.”
The four people on the sofa, thinking about them searching for things like legs and heads, turned green. But seeing Xie Lincheng and the others heading to the second floor, leaving them alone, they started feeling anxious again.
They exchanged glances, hesitated for a long time, but ultimately didn’t follow.
“Are we really not going to follow them?”
“Didn’t the master tell us to stay put?”
“Is he really a master? He’s so young.”
“Young lady, how can you judge people by their appearance? I think that young man is not simple at first glance. If he says he’s a master, he definitely is.”
“Why does this house look more and more sinister? Will ghosts come find us?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! Amitabha, Amitabha, bless and protect us.”
“How am I talking nonsense? Didn’t the master say we’ve encountered ghosts?”
“Sir, could you not say that word?” The young woman wrapped her arms around herself and drew in her feet. She didn’t see the pale, greenish hand that reached out from under the sofa.
“Hiss, so cold.” The woman simply pulled her feet up onto the sofa, hugging her knees, curling into a ball.
The hand retracted, vanishing into the darkness in an instant.
On the second floor, Xie Lincheng said as he walked, “The landlord is the old man living in 101. He’s not in his room.”
The second floor’s layout was even more cramped. As they went up, they happened to encounter a middle-aged woman emerging from the washroom with a basin. Seeing them, her eyes swept over their figures repeatedly.
Xie Lincheng stared at her. The woman’s steps faltered, then she walked back to her room in a daze. She lived in 204.
“I’ll go take a look,” Xie Lincheng said.
The second floor had eight rooms in total. Xie Lincheng opened and checked every door he could; for those locked, he knocked. Not long after, he returned.
“201 is a game streamer. 203 is a thug. 204, the woman just now, gets by on odd jobs and swindling. 207 is a woman with heavy makeup, no proper job. 208 is a middle-aged man, unemployed and staying at home.”
These people behaved stiffly and sluggishly, like the lowest-level NPCs. They could only follow their past behavior patterns and pace around in their rooms.
Clearly, these were symbiotic Aberrations created by a C-Class Pollution Source.
He didn’t voice any of this, only summarizing, “Only the landlord old man in 101 has disappeared. He’s the one who posted the Lost and Found Notice, and he’s this area’s Pollution Source.”
Xu Xiye said, “Those people’s jobs don’t sound very good. Why don’t they go help the landlord find the items to get the reward?”
Xie Lincheng: “They have problems with their brains.”
Xu Xiye: “Are they crazy too?”
Xie Lincheng: “No, their brains just aren’t very good.”
Xu Xiye suddenly saw the light: “So they’re idiots.”
He Sui hadn’t interrupted. He watched Xie Lincheng, who kept rubbing his temple. “How did you do it?”
He Sui was asking how he’d managed to learn so much information in such a short time.
He Sui was certain Xie Lincheng hadn’t asked a single question when he knocked on those doors, nor had he entered to search for clues.
Xie Lincheng pointed to his own head. “I have my own methods.”
“Spiritual Power?”
“Seems I can’t hide it from you.”
“You don’t look to be in very good condition right now.”
“Still okay, I can hold on.” This was the first time Xie Lincheng had tried this since learning how to use Spiritual Power.
Using it on the symbiotic Aberrations created by a C-Class Pollution Source, even though they were low-level, had pushed Xie Lincheng to his limit.
His face was pale, his head throbbing with pain.
His ability was still very weak. But to manage five in a row on his first attempt—it was hard to say whether that was weak or strong.
Xu Xiye also asked with concern, “What’s wrong with your Spiritual Power?”
Xie Lincheng’s pale face showed a smile. “It’s nothing, Baby. I still haven’t quite learned what you taught me last time.”
Xu Xiye was confused. “Wasn’t it you who taught me?”
“Cough, that was just theory on my part.”
With this topic brought up, Xu Xiye asked Xie Lincheng, his theoretical teacher, right in front of He Sui, “I did what you said. Why didn’t it work on Blue Eyes?”
Blue Eyes?
Xie Lincheng looked at He Sui.
He Sui: “…”
So that’s how it was. Last time they met, that massive Spiritual Power had been shoved into his mental consciousness.
Xu Xiye stared at Xie Lincheng, wanting an answer.
Xie Lincheng could only reply, “Probably… maybe you were blocked.”
Xu Xiye continued his questions, “Then what do I do to not be blocked? Do I have to be even more overbearing?”
Xie Lincheng: “No, you need to be silent, undetectable. Your Spiritual Power should be vast. Try your best to divide it more finely. After connecting, you have to seize control in one fell swoop before the other party reacts.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll try again.” As he spoke, his eyes sparkled as he turned to He Sui, with the distinct urge to give it another go immediately.
He Sui’s temple veins twitched. He grabbed the young man by the back of the neck and pulled him a bit away. “Don’t even think about it. It’s work time now. Are you going to stop doing the real task?”
“No, we have to work.” This was a job with competitors; he had to work seriously.
Saying so, he was about to go search those rooms. Xie Lincheng stopped him. “Don’t search blindly like that.”
“Then how should we search?”
“The Pollution Source has only instinct left. Gauging the strength of prey is also instinct. Based on our state earlier, not only would those things not come looking for us, they’d actively avoid us,” Xie Lincheng said. “Wait a bit. Let me act as bait later. My current state is perfect for it.”
“The Pollution Source is those missing items?”
“Yes. This place isn’t that complicated.”
Xu Xiye didn’t really understand what was complicated or not. He wasn’t concerned about that. “Then does this count as six mental patients or one?”
“One. Put them together, and that’s the whole thing.”
“Oh well.” Xu Xiye was a little disappointed.
He Sui drawled a reminder to them: “The weakest things are downstairs.”
Xie Lincheng: “No one’s screaming, so they probably haven’t appeared yet. We still have to give it time.”
Xu Xiye complained to them, “I hate it most when Outsiders scream.”
