Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Lu Yan opened his eyes to find Lin Sinan standing over him, eyes bloodshot, the barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead.

Outside, the sky was clear and bright. Three in the afternoon.

Lu Yan froze for a second, then slowly raised his hands, doing his best to look harmless. “Easy. We’re awake now. The dream’s over.”

Lin Sinan’s hand trembled slightly. “Who are you?”

“Lu Yan.”

“Height?”

“181.4 centimeters.”

“Birthday?”

“November eleventh.”

“University major?”

“Clinical medicine. Eastern Lan University, Medical School.”

Lin Sinan’s breathing hitched, his teeth clenched. “The last you answered the same way. How do I know it’s really you?”

Lu Yan frowned, thinking. A moment later, he asked, “…Do you have a one?”

“I’m straight,” Lin Sinan answered mechanically.

“It’s a username. Rank one hundred on the Revelation Forum.” Lu Yan kept his voice low and calm, seeing the man was on the edge. “The invitation code you sent me was AK134B9184.”

Lin Sinan pulled out his phone, checked, and found it matched exactly.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, the device had a signal. A message came through, sent two days prior, warning of an A-Class pollutant, the Dream-Eater, and another A-Class pollutant, the Wall of Resentment, appearing on the route between City K and City M.

“In my dream, you died right at the start,” Lu Yan explained. “But your text was still in my phone. I don’t know what you saw in yours. But we’re out now. My guess is the Dream-Eater can access memories. Things even you don’t remember… it wouldn’t know them either.”

The gun finally lowered. A sheen of cold sweat covered Lin Sinan as he slumped into a chair, exhaustion weighing down his words. “Is that it? I lived through days in there. Got a mission to escort you back to headquarters. But you were already infected, brought the parasitic disease to another city. Then I woke up, you said it was a dream. Then it happened again… Team Leader Tang said I wasted his time-restart ability…”

Lu Yan considered the scenario. “That does sound rough.”

Lin Sinan was the type to shoulder all blame. He still carried guilt over the parasitic fish incident in City K, convinced his own inadequacy was at fault. Reliving a similar failure in the dreamscape… no wonder his first instinct was to draw a weapon.

Better to kill a potential threat than let it pass. When necessary, Lin Sinan was prepared to sacrifice even himself.

After a moment, Lin Sinan shakily pulled out a special oral medication and swallowed it. “Thank god I didn’t shoot. Already lost half a year’s pay for the failed recovery. If I’d blown your head off, I could kiss the next decade’s bonuses goodbye.”

Headquarters had profiles on every Awakener, complete with tailored… incentives. Lin Sinan, from a small town, once dreamed of buying an apartment in the city. Now, while housing was provided, the desire for more money remained. So headquarters dangled performance bonuses. Lu Yan might get a hundred thousand a month just for joining, but Lin Sinan’s salary was only twenty or thirty thousand.

It wasn’t that headquarters was stingy.

A person without a goal, without something to hope for, was like a kite with a severed string—adrift.

Hope was the carrot dangling before the donkey. The donkey might be dead on its feet, but thinking of that carrot waiting ahead, it could always take two more steps.

Lu Yan glanced around. No one else was in sight. System, where’s Lu Jiahe?

[Gone.]

Where?

[Where he needs to be. The Wall of Resentment is different from ordinary pollution sources. Its purpose is selection. Lu Jiahe was the result it selected.]

[Honestly, with his E-Class Luck, he shouldn’t have had a chance. But maybe those two koi scales he scraped off your neck helped. The Wall chose him… or rather, something through the Wall chose him.]

[Maybe next time you see him, he won’t remember any of this. Maybe you’ll never see him again.]

You’re introducing new lore I don’t understand again.

[That world is too far from you. No need to know more unless you earn the same qualification. For now, just treat it as a dream.]

[Besides, you should be more concerned about the blood you swallowed. Genuine A-Class pollution source product.]

Most pollution sources were things to fear and avoid. But occasionally, an Awakener could gain strength from them. Some curative medicines were even derived from pollution source materials.

What’s it do?

[Two things. First, in a pinch, you can cut your wrist. Your blood can grant other Awakeners a temporary boost. Doesn’t work on yourself. Second, it can affect a pollutant’s rationality. Duration varies. Only works once per specific pollutant.]

[Since it was a voluntary gift from the entity of resentment, your body shows no rejection. As expected of a future koi man. Your contamination level only rose by one point.] The system sounded impressed.

If others knew how easily Lu Yan had fused with a pollution source, many would turn green with envy.

Lu Yan felt the situation growing serious. So I’m basically a walking, talking Tang Sanzang? He could already see a future where shady capitalists trafficked his blood worldwide.

[Pretty much. And for Awakeners with talents like ‘Bloodthirst Gene,’ your blood is especially potent. Just be careful not to get drained dry. So, yeah, I’d keep it secret. Feels like you’re getting closer and closer to being hauled into a Research Institute…]

Lin Sinan checked the navigation. “Protocol says I should take you to that mountain village for your rookie mission. But we lost two days. The revenants there have already been cleared. To reassure the locals, they even filmed an episode of ‘Approaching Science.’ My new orders are to take you back to the City K Pollution Disease Prevention Center. File a report on the pollution source encounter.”

For Special Operations personnel, every encounter with a pollution source required a report.

It was a key source of intelligence for the Prevention Centers.

The report covered time, location, and sequence of events. Then it went to the research department for analysis by specialists.

As the dream collapsed and the Dream-Eater departed, the fog shrouding the highway dissipated, revealing the road’s true shape.

Here and there, charred bodies lay by the roadside, faint crimson flames still flickering over them. For a moment, Lu Yan wondered if he’d really left the dream.

Just as the system said, the events of the dream were both illusion and reality.

Recent updates on the Revelation Forum showed the danger rating for the City M Third Middle School pollution zone had been downgraded from orange to yellow.

After all, to let his sister return to school, Lu Jiahe had cleaned house thoroughly.

This time, the journey passed without further incident.

Because of the Pollution Disease, it had been a long time since Lu Yan walked the streets of City K in daylight.

A semblance of vitality had returned, as if the disease had never happened. Crowds flowed. Elementary students with backpacks. Office workers cramming into subways. Street vendors selling breakfast, eyes peeled for city inspectors.

Even the tech tower downtown, its wall and windows shattered by that office-algae mutant, had been repaired. Polished white-collar workers bustled through its doors.

The only change was the overnight collapse of every restaurant in City K selling frog meat or fish head hot pot.

Fortunately, the municipal office issued support subsidies.

No matter how the world changed, life had to go on.

[Puny, ordinary, pitiful, ignorant humans…] The system watched the bustling streets with something like awe. […Such vibrant humans. I really like humans like this.]

Lu Yan rolled up the car window. The system’s words were ridiculously chuuni, but he had to admit, he liked humans like this too.

*

City K Pollution Disease Prevention Center.

A man stood up, sat down, stood up again, radiating restless energy. “Isn’t that healing-type Awakener here yet?”

He wore martial arts training clothes, had a buzz cut, and muscles that looked carved from stone—like a monk fresh out of Shaolin Temple.

“Navigation says nine hundred meters. Traffic’s bad.”

Chen Shisi squirmed in his chair. “Can I just run out and bring him back?”

A middle-aged clerk pushed his sunglasses up his nose. “Patience. The profile says ‘Clairaudient’ is highly wary of outsiders. You scare him off, and I’m sending you back to Shaolin for internet detox.”

“After all,” the clerk added mildly, “we still need to ask him to save someone, don’t we?”