Chapter 69

Chapter 69

An abandoned factory on the outskirts of H City.

An enormous figure moved through the ruins without a sound.

Moonlight cast its shadow on the ground—eight serpent heads and eight tails, all twisting together into a single line that resolved into the form of a woman with a sinuous, serpentine lower body.

Before her mutation, Lu Zhi had harbored a grand ambition: to expand her family’s chain of supermarkets into a modern-day Walmart.

After her unfortunate transformation into a pollutant, following a harrowing period of exile, she had instead monopolized the wholesale meat trade within the pollution underworld, becoming the proprietor of a major slaughterhouse in X City.

Lately, her life had felt aimless. A sense of purpose was missing, like a puzzle with a crucial piece lost.

Then, a few days ago, a letter arrived.

Nearly thirty years ago, when she was still human, she had admired a gentle, scholarly upperclassman. After graduation, he had returned to his hometown and married his virtuous childhood sweetheart.

Later, when Lu Zhi was contaminated and began to mutate, it was that same man who risked everything to escort her back to her family in X City.

She had been deeply moved. Though her moral compass had… shifted somewhat after becoming a pollutant, upon receiving his letter, she decided to take the risk and come to H City.

That man’s name was Lu Cheng.

Seeing the figure before her now, the eight-headed woman felt a complex swirl of emotions. "It seems you've become a pollutant too, Senior."

The Prophet remained shrouded in his dark robes. The face on the back of his skull spoke. "I'm glad you agreed to meet me, Junior."

"Your letter mentioned a guaranteed-profit business venture," Lu Zhi said, her tone turning brisk. "Sentiment has no place in business. Get to the point."

The Prophet coughed twice. "Don't you feel the time is ripe?"

"For what?"

"For pollutants to rule the world, of course."

Lu Zhi snorted, a sound of pure disdain. "Ha? Senior, with all due respect, I majored in accounting and dabbled in management. Rule the world? Don't make me laugh. How? What's the labor cost? What's the governing body? What's the management structure? Billions of humans, and how many pollutants are there? Most pollutants don't even have a functioning brain! Rule the world? These things can't even run a branch office properly! You're lucky to find one with half a brain per province. Talking about ruling the world without understanding the cost? Typical."

As she finished, a fragment of her university crush crumbled to dust in her memory.

Men these days. Even the educated ones are useless.

"You science majors always had your heads in the clouds." Lu Zhi's neck elongated smoothly, her head circling the Prophet once. "Ah, it was your brain that mutated. That explains it. Honestly, Senior, my slaughterhouse could use a marketing manager."

The Prophet seethed with the quiet fury of a mediocre man scorned by a superior woman, but he maintained his composure. "Lu Zhi. My gift is Foresight. In the futures I have seen—"

"Wait."

Her expression sharpened. She closed her eyes, sensing something distant.

When they opened again, cold fury blazed within them. "Who… killed my pig?!"

The Pig-Head Butcher had been the plumpest, most promising pollutant in her employ. She'd been saving it, waiting for its pollution value to break ten thousand to make perfect, crispy roast pork.

And now someone had taken it first.

Rage, pure and visceral, surged through her. Her control slipped, and her head split apart into eight distinct serpent heads.

[Gift 10 - Soul Contract]

A mental-type gift, currently filed under 'metaphysics.' The Research Institute has yet to decipher its mechanics.

Its function: to enact unbreakable, forcibly binding, and grossly inequitable contracts.

The Pig-Head Butcher's pork stamp, along with many of the slaughterhouse's agreements, were secured this way.

The air before her seemed to tear.

A small, fresh brain materialized in her palm. A single eye stared out from its surface, wide with terror.

She consumed it in one bite, a slow, satisfied blink following. "The Divine Kingdom… the Holy One?" A flicker of pleasure, then her expression hardened again. "Tasty. But killing my butcher? That's going too far."

*

The Divine Kingdom.

Countless souls toiled in its luminous expanse.

Doctor Hu, a newly arrived white soul, had been granted the position of Pastor. The Bishop said he showed promise, starting as a Pastor. A decade of work, and a position as a Temple Priest would be within reach.

"So this is the afterlife?"

Today, as usual, he rose early for work. Having stayed up late the previous night, Doctor Hu felt like dying all over again.

Just as he prepared to begin purifying the black souls, a call echoed in his mind.

"Hu Youbang."

Startled, he looked around.

A circle of holy light enveloped him, and his white soul began to float upward.

"What's happening?!" Hu Youbang cried out, terrified.

The Bishop nearby watched, trembling with excitement. "The Holy One is calling you! Heaven above, a Divine Descent! I have served the Divine Kingdom for sixty years and never witnessed a Descent!"

Hu Youbang didn't know what a Divine Descent was. He only felt a long-lost warmth and joy flooding his being, filling him with profound happiness and piety.

A heavenly melody echoed in his ears. His form ascended higher and higher, finally arriving before a majestic, towering palace.

"My Lord." Hu Youbang prostrated himself, kneeling before the Holy One.

He could not clearly see the Holy One's form, only a vague impression in his mind.

The Holy One was beautiful. Radiiant, pale gold hair. Eyes like the sky and celestial bodies. Behind stretched six pairs of immense, pure white wings, reminiscent of the Seraphim of Western myth.

The Holy One's voice was ethereal. "We have slumbered long. Upon waking, We find the world outside unknown to Us. You are a soul newly arrived. Tell Us of it."

As if hypnotized, Hu Youbang poured out every detail of his life, leaving nothing out, not even wetting the bed at age six.

The Holy One held little interest in his biography but listened patiently, waiting until Hu Youbang described his time at the training base.

Director Hu confessed everything: his induction into the Blissful Sect, and his final, living moments.

The Holy One's voice remained gentle. "You have suffered. Henceforth, worldly pain shall leave you. Your soul shall know eternal peace."

Director Hu began to weep, aggrieved. "My Lord… At the hospital, we at least had holidays and time off. Here in the Divine Kingdom, it's 24/7… my soul can't take it…"

As a pollutant, the Holy One possessed no real sympathy.

To it, all souls were merely livestock and stored provisions.

Yet the Holy One smiled. "Do not dwell on what the Divine Kingdom can give you. Consider what you can give to the Divine Kingdom. Souls who do not work diligently can only descend to hell."

Director Hu's soul trembled. He answered, dazed, "I love my work. Work brings me joy…"

The white soul departed. All illusions vanished.

Within a formless, grayish chaos floated over a hundred brains, their eyes gleaming with undisguised malice.

Lacking a true body, the brains conversed amongst themselves.

"It was definitely that Lu Yan!"

"That two-faced Human-Skin Scroll, caught by someone—couldn't it just self-destruct?"

……

……

"Enough. Silence." Finally, the largest brain spoke. "Just now, we lost our youngest brother."

"Due to the power of the Contract, not even I could defy its law."

"But this debt will not go unpaid!"

"We have slumbered too long. The outside world has forgotten the might of the Holy One."

Hearing this, countless brains exchanged knowing glances, then drew tightly together.

The central brain began to swell, growing larger and larger like a malignant tumor.

Throughout the Divine Kingdom, every soul knelt simultaneously, their voices merging into a single chant: "Praise the Holy One, for bliss and eternal life."

"Praise the Holy One, for bliss and eternal life!"

*

In the first-class cabin of the airplane, Lu Yan wore an eye mask, seemingly asleep.

The system munched on cybernetic sunflower seeds: [Subject 07 has become a pollutant. Same evolutionary sequence as your 'brother.' If they fight, who will you help?]

Lu Yan was surprised. "He became a pollutant?"

[His desire for revenge was too strong. With his original gift stripped away, becoming a pollutant was his only path.]

[Another failure added to your case files. Congratulations.]

To Lu Yan, the system sounded downright gleeful.

He thought for a moment before recalling who the system meant by "brother." The Wall of Resentment. The E-Class pollutant that cycled over three thousand times to evolve into S-Class.

Lu Yan answered flatly, "My spiritual power threshold is only 3600."

If those two ever fought, Lu Yan figured his only role would be to stand on the sidelines with the system and snack on seeds.

The system sighed. [Ah, you arrived too late, missed the window. But it couldn't be helped. The world is full of variables. That traitorous Foresight guy originally picked someone from the last century. What was his name… Yu Hanxi? But he died too early, didn't have time to bring you—]

Suddenly, a flight attendant gasped.

"Sir! You're bleeding from your nose!"

Lu Yan had experienced nosebleeds on airplanes before. It wasn’t uncommon—the pressure changes could rupture delicate blood vessels in the nasal passages. It usually happened during descent.

The plane was about to land.

He removed his eye mask and pressed a hand to his nose.

Blood dripped steadily onto his trousers.

A flight attendant hurried over with decongestant spray. Lu Yan waved her off.

A sharp pain throbbed behind his eardrums. His vision flickered, dimming and brightening erratically. This wasn’t cabin pressure.

I’m sorry, the system said, its tone uncharacteristically contrite.

Lu Yan dabbed at the blood with a handkerchief. “You did that on purpose.”

The system had just revealed information far beyond his current clearance. Information that clearly touched on his origins.

If that’s what you want to believe, I can’t stop you.

“I had my suspicions,” Lu Yan said after a moment of thought. His voice was calm. “But confirmation is still… something. Am I Lu Cheng’s biological son?”

The system fell silent for a long time. When it finally spoke, the words seemed dragged out. No.

“You deliberately let that slip. Because I’m about to walk into something, aren’t I?”

…Most likely.

By the time Lu Yan disembarked, his handkerchief was soaked through. Night had fallen, and he kept his head down, the bloodstains less visible in the dark.

“Will you let me die?” he asked quietly.

The system’s reply was softer than he’d ever heard it. Eyes can lie. Memories can lie. I never will. I should not exist, yet I exist because of you.