Chapter 79

Chapter 79

Silkworm Mother and the professor were both devoid of life signs. However, given the unique nature of pollutants, Tang Xun’an stepped forward and delivered a final, confirming strike.

The green blood that seeped from Silkworm Mother carried the stench of rot—like kitchen waste left to stew for three days in a sweltering thirty-six-degree heatwave. It was nauseating.

Lu Yan stood motionless, his gaze fixed on Zhao Ke’s remains.

Tang Xun’an watched him for a long moment but couldn't decipher the emotion on his face.

He offered an explanation. "Pollutants like this are difficult to handle once they emerge from their cocoons. The pupal stage is the best time to eliminate them."

After breaking free, this type of pollutant's resilience increased dramatically. The mother insect would breed with its offspring, laying eggs continuously, hatching new moths. An entire city could become their hunting ground.

Tang Xun’an had simply made the choice he believed was correct. Even if the subjects were Lu Yan's mentor and his wife.

Lu Yan wasn't grieving, just… stunned.

"Professor Zhao was a good teacher. He led my first anatomy class. We stood in a circle around the dissection table while he told us stories about the donors—the 'silent teachers' whose bodies we studied. Afterward, we all bowed three times together. When I decided not to pursue a doctorate, he sought me out to ask if it was due to family hardship… said he could lend me money."

"He’d seen enough life and death in the hospital to call it the natural order of things. If my mentor's wife had any consciousness left, she wouldn't have wanted to become… that."

Which made the "Gu Master" who had done this to them all the more despicable.

Lu Yan finally looked away. "Let's go back."

Tang Xun’an had already contacted colleagues in City A. Personnel from the Prevention Center were on their way to retrieve the bodies.

As the Pollution Disease spread, Awakeners became an increasingly scarce resource. Consequently, many support staff from the Prevention Centers had been drafted into auxiliary roles for handling pollutants.

Most were former special forces soldiers with exceptional physical and mental conditioning. Some were disaster hunters hired from abroad.

Awakeners who dealt with pollutants long-term developed unstable mental states. For ordinary people with even lower resistance, the toll was catastrophic. The attrition rate among these support workers was staggeringly high. Most lasted two or three years before collecting retirement pay… or their families collected death benefits.

Some were lured by the exorbitant salaries. More, however, joined the ranks voluntarily.

Like the countless silent, mounted heads on the wall of the Butcher's shop.

Few probably remembered those names now.

The surface peace of society was maintained by the silent sacrifices of many.

Tang Xun’an lit a cigarette. The alcohol had mostly worn off. It was past six in the afternoon—quitting time for ordinary civil servants, but their work for the day wasn't finished.

A little over ten minutes later, personnel arrived in full Level-3 protective gear, initiating a comprehensive sweep and decontamination of the entire residential complex.

Not just the complex. The hospital and the Academy where Professor Zhao had worked also received notifications. The entire city entered a Blue Alert.

In the sewers beneath Changming Medical Academy, workers discovered another Silkworm Mother.

This one's contamination value was lower than Zhao Ke's wife's, but it was on the verge of emerging.

When found, its moth-like body was slick with mucus, a grotesque human face twisted around a vicious maw.

It writhed in the stinking darkness, membranous wings beating against its back, straining for flight. The setting sun glinted off its snow-white, scaled wings—beautiful.

The accompanying Awakener performed the purification with cold efficiency, but a cold sweat still drenched his back.

*

Despite Lu Yan's caution, a few strands of silk had inevitably clung to him.

He wore long sleeves, but the exposed skin on his neck and hands had reacted to contact with the silk, rising in angry, whip-like red welts.

Back home, he spent a full two hours in the shower before he felt clean.

By the time he emerged, the Prevention Center's preliminary report had arrived. Tang Xun’an had printed two copies, leaving them on the coffee table in the living room.

One for him. The other for Lu Yan.

Lu Yan's hair was eighty percent dry, fluffy and inviting to the touch. He sat on the sofa, head bowed as he reviewed the report. His homewear was short-sleeved, making the welts on his arms and neck starkly visible.

Xiao Tian’s jaw dropped. In a panic, he grabbed Tang Xun’an’s sleeve and dragged him toward a small storage room.

Baffled but following the dog's insistent tug, Tang Xun’an went along.

Xiao Tian shut the door and swatted his leg with a paw. "Spill it, Old Tang. What did you two do this afternoon?"

"What do you mean, what did I do?"

"Did you abuse your authority? Some workplace PUA? Lure him to a hotel?" Xiao Tian clutched his metaphorical chest, pained. "This is the kind of thing that leads to the 'chasing-your-wife-into-the-crematorium' trope!"

Tang Xun’an dearly wanted to punch him, but considering Xiao Tian probably couldn't survive one, he restrained himself.

Unaware that he'd nearly caused a rift in a years-long human-canine bond, Lu Yan focused on the report.

The investigation revealed that larvae of the pollutant silkworm had been detected in the brains of several cadaver donors at Changming Medical Academy.

The larvae were a fleshy pink, easily mistaken for residual brain tissue. Like parasitic horsehair worms, they could manipulate a corpse's movements.

The infected cadavers were primarily terminally ill patients Professor Zhao had handled.

Cross-referencing the incubation periods, the Prevention Center concluded the patients were contaminated first, passing the eggs to Professor Zhao.

Zhao then brought the eggs home to his wife, who unfortunately became contaminated, underwent aberration, and ultimately deteriorated into a pollutant.

The origin of the pollution source within the cadavers required further investigation.

Additionally, records showed that during his wife's critical illness, Professor Zhao had registered as a member of an online "Miao Medicine Association" forum. Hosted abroad, the forum had a daily active user count of less than ten, mostly desperate family members of patients.

[False.] The system sneered. [Although both are silkworms, one is ordinary, the other a Gu King. They're not comparable. The latter requires a much longer incubation period.]

[Gu Masters rarely appear. He was worried someone might trace Zhao Ke's line back to him. So he prepared a decoy.]

[This act of gu-setting was commissioned by the Prophet. With the Institute about to be blown, chaos in City A would provide cover for other pollutants to act.]

A pity the Gu Master's plans were thwarted before they began, his prized gu worms falling to Lu Yan.

[The Gu Master agreed for two reasons. First, there's someone in the First Research Institute he wants to save. Second, decades ago, when the Pollution Disease wasn't widely known and many lived in fear, the Prophet used his talent to aid these newly emerging pollutants.]

Despite his repeated failures with Shen Qingyang, the Prophet maintained a surprisingly positive image in some circles.

He helped Lü Zhi escape back to her hometown in City X. He assisted the Boss in establishing the Mermaid Club. He promised Subject 01 and others he would return to liberate the test subjects… His shadow lingered behind many events.

Few knew the Prophet was also a fanatic. All of it was for the sake of his so-called "god."

[The Prophet also tried to recruit Lü Zhi with empty promises, but she refused.]

That figured. A man who rummaged through his pockets only to find twenty bucks had to rely on the gift of gab to get by.

Someone like Lü Zhi never rose early without profit. Past minor favors weren't worth such a huge risk.

Lu Yan was well-versed in the Pollution Disease cases on the Awakener Forum, from S-Class to E-Class. Not a single one mentioned a "Gu Master."

[I told you. He's been hiding all these years. It's been a hard life.]

"A hard life? For a pollutant?"

The system chuckled softly. [Perhaps you're more familiar with his other designation… Twenty-seven years ago. S-Class Pollution Incident, codename: Heavenly Calamity.]

Lu Yan's expression shifted to surprise. "But… wasn't Heavenly Calamity resolved back then?"

S-Class Pollution Case, Codename: Heavenly Calamity. Status: Purified.

Executing Agents: Tyrant, Michael, Odin.

*

Suburbs of City A, Golden Fade Mountain.

The moon was bright, the stars sparse. Crows perched on branches, cawing raucously. Perfect for a horror film.

If the pollutants could form a group chat, the name would undoubtedly be "Operation Blow Up The Institute."

In a foul mood, Shen Qingyang had walked the entire way back.

Dozens of kilometers from the city center to the suburbs. He'd walked for a full day and night.

The Prophet smiled upon seeing him. "You're back."

He knew perfectly well Shen Qingyang had nowhere else to go.

Shen Qingyang didn't answer. His body rapidly reshaped, returning to his original height and appearance. Only his eyes had turned blue, now a closer match to the eerie eyes on his tentacles.

The area looked unchanged from when he'd left. The City Lord had somehow procured a game console and was engrossed in a fighting game. Subject 07 had compressed herself into a small bird, roosting lightly on a charred tree branch.

The Prophet had a textbook open on his knees, struggling to recall the advanced mathematics solutions he'd learned decades ago.

A coffin had appeared in the center of the valley.

It was pitch black, painted with strange patterns—a scorpion, surrounded by crude, primitive symbols.

From within came a soft, scraping sound, like nails dragging across wood.

The Prophet froze, dropped his book, and lifted the coffin lid.

Inside lay a man with long hair. His eyes held no pupils, only blackness that shimmered under the faint moonlight like polished obsidian. Glassy.

Shen Qingyang’s brow furrowed. The moment the lid opened, a stench hit him—ten times worse than the Prophet’s own odor. Not the smell of decay, exactly, but something indescribable. Like fermented herring canned fifty years ago, or meat left to rot for far too long.

The man’s hair was wildly long, neglected, nearly reaching his ankles.

His hands were bone. His abdominal cavity gaped open, covered only by a thin layer of human skin, revealing clean white ribs where flesh and organs should have been.

And strangest of all—blood-red roses bloomed from those bones.

Fat, pale worms crawled over the skeletal frame. A few crimson scorpions nestled deep within the ribcage.

From the branch above, the little red bird fluttered down to perch on the coffin’s edge.

To Subject 07’s eyes, the man inside looked nearly identical to Subject 03.

Subject 03. Codename: The Pope. Said to possess Gift #12: Revival.

Few knew the Pope’s mother had given birth to twins. After the parents divorced, the older brother went abroad with their father. The younger stayed with their mother, remaining in the country, and later became a volunteer for the First Research Institute.

The Pope became an Awakened, locked away in the Institute.

The Gu Master fell into pollution, drifting outside the world.

The Gu Master possessed an incomplete version of Gift #2: Life and Death.

He was the plague itself. The natural disaster.

Incomplete, because he could only bring death, not life.

He knew perfectly well the "life" half resided with his younger brother.

Each time the Gu Master died, he would resurrect. And as the price for his revival, the Pope would be pushed to the brink of death, hovering between life and oblivion.

His gift had been devouring Subject 03’s vitality for years. That was why, despite being a healing-type Awakened, the Pope rarely treated Pollution Disease.

The Gu Master couldn’t control his gift. Most of the time, he chose to lie in this coffin, letting the insects in his cavity bite and feed.

These poisonous insects had been brought back from the Miao borderlands by the Prophet many years ago.

They devoured part of the pollution source within the Gu Master, curbing the spread of his plague, and kept him in a weakened state. And as long as he remained weak, the sickly 03 could keep living.

They were identical twins. Even in the womb, they’d competed for survival, each trying to kick the other into oblivion. Now, born into this world, they were both fighting to keep the other alive.

The Gu Master in the coffin didn’t sit up. Didn’t move. He just stared at the sky and spoke two sentences.

"The Silkworm Mother has been discovered."

"Close the coffin for me."