This chapter is edited by Pierce.
Although the house was already clean and the frog man’s bones were disposed of in a pickle jar, since there was really nothing to do, Lu Yan started cleaning again.
The System sighed in his ear, [Damn you! Why? Why did you flush the churned frog meat down the drain? Do you know how hard it is to find fresh meat these days?! Wastrel.]
This showed that the frog meat was really delicious or the System really wanted Lu Yan to try it. Otherwise, the System wouldn’t repeat it several times.
Lu Yan sneered, “Heh.”1[Onomatopoeia when deliberately expelling breath.]
While cleaning up the TV cabinet, he accidentally knocked over the potted plant on it.
Since the city-wide lockdown, Lu Yan had pulled the delicate little flowers from their pots and planted cheap and tasty chives.2
Now that more than half a month has passed, a new batch of chives has just grown. He planned to cut them and make a scrambled egg at noon today. He didn’t even realize that it was the flowerpot that moved first on its own and hit his hand.
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Mbl nzyu rsv casjl vs vbl taswde.
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Nw Zyd nyalqwzzu rknjle wr vbl qkpb ltt okvb bkp vollglap yde rzynle kv kd yd lxrvu nwr.
Tkp lmralppksd oyp y ckv nsdqwple.
“Fupvlx, R alxlxcla vbyv usw vsze xl vbyv vbl byvnble Ikdtqkpb nyd elhswa vbl lttp sq svbla ryaypkvkn qkpb.”
[Do you want to fight poison with poison? That is indeed a way to treat the pollution disease.]
“How?”
[Pollution is an evolution. One of the evolutionary ways for the Enlighteneds is to continuously integrate with Pollutants.]
[However, during the integration process, the degree of their own mutation will inevitably increase. Moreover, not all Pollutants can be integrated with the human body.]
[Ha. Speaking of which, your current humanity’s strongest combat force is the result of a combination of technology and pollution disease. That man’s mutation degree has reached 95, and he was like a tireless mule who fought fires everywhere. Tsk. He, himself, knew he’s dangerous and the higher-ups also acknowledged that he’s a threat. Yet what can they do about it? They still needed that fire to solve the spreading fire.] The System’s voice was full of mockery.
[I can teach you how to integrate with the Kingfish egg. As your ability, what bad intentions can this little system have? ]
[Nonetheless, I must tell you the risks, lest you complain about being cheated. The integration process with Pollutants is an irreversible one, and cannot be stopped even if you regret it halfway through. It may also not be 100% successful. In short, it’s considered a success as long as you don’t die.]
Lu Yan, “You’ve told me many times that this disease, or rather, this evolutionary process of organisms will erupt all over the world and that K City is just the beginning, not the end.”
“If most parts of the world are contaminated, I can’t be left alone. The pollution values of Pollutants are far beyond those of normal humans. Ordinary people have no chance to fight back.”
He needed strength. Otherwise, death was awaiting him.
Furthermore, since this pollution disease was called evolution, the eliminated species would one day be annihilated in history and become archaeological relics.
“What’s more, I’m a doctor and it is my bounden duty to save the dying and heal the wounded.”
Lu Yan hadn’t spoken such a long sentence ever since he was birthed from his mother’s womb.
It was more like he was convincing himself.
“Tell me what to do.”
Lu Yan had held a scalpel many times. He didn’t also have a tendency to do self-harm, yet for the first time, he had to cut himself with a knife.
He vaguely remembered that when he pretended to sleep in a mental hospital, he heard the attending doctor and nurse chatting. They said that he was a rare patient in the intensive care unit of the mental hospital who did not harm himself.
According to the System, he needed to cut his own blood vessels and stuff the fish egg into them to hatch. The result would be known in about 1 to 3 days.
As for why not orally… Those who had taken the fish eggs thru their mouths, Lu Yan had already dissected one.
Considering the three features of easy operation, observation, and treatment, Lu Yan chose his arm as a hotbed for incubation.
Disinfect, use anesthesia, hold the knife, and cut it.
Lu Yan didn’t cut an artery, so the blood did not overflow. There was no bloody event of blood spurting high to the ceiling. The depth of his cut was appropriate.
A foreign body entering the bloodstream may form an embolus,3[An embolus is anything that moves through the blood vessels until it reaches a vessel that is too small to let it pass (Alberta, 2020).] which could be serious enough to cause paralysis. Judging from the fish egg’s diameter, it could easily block his aorta.4[The aorta is the main artery that carries blood away from your heart to the rest of your body (American Heart Association, n. d.).]
Lu Yan stuffed the pale golden egg in and stitched it.
The whole process did not even exceed 3 minutes.
It was around 11:00 o’clock, almost noon, when this minor surgery was finished.
Just before the meal, Lu Yan started to cook rice and scrambled eggs with chives. He also warmed up the leftover corn-stewed spare ribs5
He has always been a good cook.
However, today, as soon as Lu Yan swallowed his first bite of food, he couldn’t help but throw up.
“35 minutes post-op: Significant increase in temperature was observed. It was accompanied by dizziness, palpitations, and severe vomiting.”
Too much vomiting and stomach acid would irritate his throat and cause irreversible damage to his esophagus. Furthermore, Lu Yan felt an unspeakable hunger.
Therefore, he chose to give himself a bottle of glucose through an IV drip.
There was still the sound of waves surging in his ears.
K City was close to the sea. Lu Yan had been to the beach several times during the hospital’s team-building activities.
The difference in latitude resulted in differences in the central gravitational fields on the surface, such that the tides vary from region to region.
He could hear that this was the sound of Qu tidal waves.
Lu Yan wrote down a line in his notebook, “55 minutes post-op: Tinnitus6[Tinnitus pertains to the ringing in the ears.] symptoms.”
“6 hours post-op: Severe high fever, 42 degrees Celsius; consider the possibility of functional impairment7[Functional impairment refers to limitations due to the illness, as people with a disease may not carry out certain functions in their daily lives due to a variety of reasons (Kennedy and Ustun, 2009).] or necrosis.”8[Necrosis is the death of a body tissue which occurs when too little blood flows to the tissue (MedlinePlus, n.d.).]
“Despite these, I didn’t lose consciousness. It’s probably caused by evolution.”
The System’s tone was odd, [To be honest, I think a normal person would choose to sleep.]
Lu Yan could completely hold on. Every time he felt like he was about to pass out, he would madly pinch his own center acupoint.9[“Human center” acupoint (人中) is the vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip.]
Unconsciousness itself was a protective mechanism of the human body that could at least insulate itself from most of the pain.
A layer of sweat rose on Lu Yan’s body as he shook his head and replied, “Since I know I might die, I want to at least die awake.”
Being conscious in death, or, perhaps to a new life.
24 hours after the operation, fish scales grew on Lu Yan’s arm.
At the 30th hour, the fish scales disappeared.
On the third day, his fever disappeared and symptoms of discomfort subsided.
“Body temperature is normal. However, it’s too low… 27 degrees Celsius.”10[For adults, the average body temperature ranges from 97°F (36.1°C) to 99°F (37.2°C).]
Thermometers were now electronic and unlikely to make errors.
Lu Yan opened his eyes and looked down at his hand. His previous scars disappeared without a trace, leaving only a neat row of stitches.
He could feel something swimming in his veins— rapid and slow, very active.
[It’s a young Kingfish in a symbiotic state. Congratulations, you got stronger.]
[Now, you can rip three of Zhou Kaiwen’s genus of toads with one hand.]
It did not seem to be an illusion.
Symbiosis and parasitism were two completely different states.
Perhaps it’s because Lu Yan remained awake during the integration process. The outcome of his surgery was even better than the System expected.
Lu Yan’s body and consciousness had always maintained resistance. The sharp pain, which was enough to make people faint and wake up again and again, just made him sweat a lot.
Lu Yan wanted to take a bath, but it did not rain recently. There wasn’t much water in the rainwater filter, so he had to simply clean himself.
He then conducted some simple experiments in the kitchen.
Lu Yan took out a kitchen knife and slashed his arm without a change in his expression.
“Duang——” There was a loud noise similar to cutting ribs with a machete.
His arm chipped the kitchen knife and curled the blade.
Lu Yan looked pensive, “It doesn’t hurt.”
Nonetheless, his behavior seemed to scare the juvenile fish in his body. A small bulge formed on his arm like a silent protest.
This hardened attribute was only limited to his arm that had grown fish scales. Although there was also increased strength in other parts of his body, it was obviously not as terrifying.
After that, Lu Yan took another basin of water and buried his face deep inside.
An hour later, except for feeling uncomfortable with too little oxygen in the water, he had no symptoms of drowning or suffocation.
As for his other speculated possible changes, there was no way to try them for the time being due to environmental constraints.
Lu Yan finally asked the question he was currently most concerned about, “The Kingfish has hatched. How about the cure for other people’s pollution disease?”
[I told you that on the first day.]
The System sounded extremely helpless.
Lu Yan thought about it carefully, and said two words out of his mouth, “Shark Evolution…?”11[It’s a game.]
Then, he couldn’t help but frown, “But the Kingfish is inside me. Do I have to take it out first every time I devour?”
System, [Well, why don’t you go out and find a distorted person to try? ]
Lu Yan turned his head and looked out of the window to the obscure sky.
It was 7 o’clock in the evening and the sky was already completely dark.
Due to the serious shortage of power supply three days ago, K City started their rotational blackouts12[These are planned power outages.] at 8 o’clock in the evening and would not return until 8 o’clock in the morning the next day.
“Indeed. After being locked up at home for so long, it’s time to go out,” Lu Yan muttered to himself.
The rotational blackouts in K City were actually not entirely due to power supply issues.
According to the latest discovery, the distorted Pollutants in K City were phototropic.13[It pertains to moving toward or away from the light; taking a particular direction under the influence of light (Dictionary, n.d.)]
This was why fishermen, who fish at night, liked to bring bright flashlights.
Recently, the central square of K City has been brightly lit.
The place was littered with the bodies of Pollutants.
Because there was no time to deal with them, some have begun to rot, giving off a pungent fishy smell. Mixed together, it was similar to a canned herring14
Lin Sinan cleared another shot. The monster in the distance collapsed to the ground before it could get close.
He had cigarette butts, or rather, military tranquilizers, piled up around his feet.
Lin Sinan hadn’t had a wink of sleep for five days. It would not cause sudden death for an Enlightened, only some psychological discomfort.
It’s too much.
K City was already a large, densely populated city, and the spread of pollution was faster than imagined. The evolved species were even more bizarre.
There were less aggressive Ostae15[Chinese: 鱼人; pinyin: yuren; literal translation; fish man/merman. ‘Osta’ (plural: Ostae) is a term derived from Osteichthyes, one of the classes of fish.] who sprayed fish eggs on sight. At least two-thirds of the city’s Pollutants were infected by them.
There were more hostile Anurae16[Chinese: 蛙人; pinyin: waren; literal translation; frog man. ‘Anura’ (plural: Anurae) is a term derived from the frog’s scientific name, Anura.] that were extremely sensitive to living people. These Pollutants had rudimentary intelligence and would make noise to attract Ostae that would complete the contamination. When the density of Pollutants within the same space became too high, these Anurae would choose to feed directly on them.
Even the Phytae with the least number17[Chinese: 藻人; pinyin: zaoren; literal translation; algae/seaweed man. ‘Phyta’ (plural: Phytae) is a term derived from the taxonomic division or phylum of plants or algae.] that stay in place kept on growing and contaminating.
The Phyta who gave the PDC the most headache was the encoder employee, 007.18[This may refer to his codename given by the center.]
This Phyta came from the Internet industry and volunteered to work secretly overtime in the company during the lockdown. After he became contaminated, he refused to be left behind. Now, lush green algae had broken the windows, hanging from the window glass of the Science & Technology Building, squeezing out, and branching out for dozens of meters.
These marine plants grew from the belly of the Phyta. Although they were green, they looked like sections of intestines. The thick, dense leaves have embedded eyes for sight and spreading disease.
In short, its appearance would cause one’s san index19[Literally translates to ‘sanity.’ Based on a novel world’s Myth of Cthulhu written by HP Lovecraft, when an individual is mentally shocked, such as witnessing the death of someone close, seeing terrible and curious scenes, or directly witnessing those little-known and inexplicable horror existences, the san index will sharply drop, resulting to insanity.] to drop. The staff did not dare to look up when they were doing circuit maintenance.
The most frightening thing was that, based on the images observed in the drone feed, this Pollutant didn’t even realize that it had suffered contamination and was still writing the last line of codes in his lifetime over and over again…
Because of this reason, the Headquarters simply did not dare cut off the electricity to the Science and Technology Park. Every now and then, they would also perform network maintenance, lest this brother found out there was no network and a mass of seaweed would engulf the entire city.
Its pollution value had reached an astonishing 1200.
The Headquarters decided to wait for the Pollutants in the city to be controlled before letting Bai Qiushi uproot it.
Pollution disease generally followed an evolutionary principle, but in many cases, it could not be explained by normal science.
In the headset, the voice of the liaison officer came, “Squadron Leader Lin, according to the meter reading, your mutation degree has reached 52. We suggest you return to the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center20[This long-ass place will be shortened to PDC in the future.] immediately for rest and treatment.”
“No need,” Lin Sinan replied while changing the magazine skillfully, “It’s almost the last area. It will be over soon.”
There were currently 62 Enlighteneds stationed in K City. Among them, there were 12 newcomers in the combat system, who have just awakened recently.
In the previous years, these newcomers had to have at least three years of training at the Headquarters before they could take up their posts. It’s just that in this crucial period, the number of Enlighteneds were seriously insufficient. Thus, they could only adopt new training methods.
Among them, Bai Qiushi was on the edge of the city, responsible for isolating pollution with his ability. Lin Sinan and the other three were in the central square, responsible for the annihilation of most of the Pollutants. There were seven Enlighteneds guarding the PDC.
The remaining 50 people were divided into 25 teams to clean up the hiding Pollutants.
Because of the detectors sent by the Research Institute, the fact that the mutation did not last for a long time, and the Enlighteneds’ mutation degree was topped out to 200, there was basically no danger, and it could only be regarded as manual work.
At present, in the entire scope of K City, only Qu River District has not been cleaned up. This was also where the Pollution disease originated.
Qu River21[Jiang (江) means ‘river.’ I believe there’s really a Qujiang District in Mainland China.] District, Yinhe neighborhood.
Lu Yan, dressed in all black, carrying a bow and a dagger, sneakily opened the door.
“It seems like my night vision has gotten better too,” he said to himself as he gently closed the door, “I’m going to shoot … Oh! No, cure ten people.”
The author has something to say:
*Modified the integration time. Extended from 6 hours to three days.
Translator’s Note:
Here are some pictures to help you visualize them. Please note that these are not mine.
Phyta:22[This is only used for visual assistive purposes. The picture source is the Swamp Devil created by Dysharmonia.]
Osta:23[This is only used for visual assistive purposes. This amazing catfish illustration was created by Surk3 from DeviantArt. Consider checking out her other works and supporting her!]
Anura:24[This is a 3D model toy from Yeggi.]
The frog man had me laughing like crazy ahaha
mR fRoG mAn