Song Nanxing’s eyelid twitched violently. He took a discreet step back.
“Thanks, but I’m a vegetarian.”
Xu Cai let out a surprised “Ah?” and asked with a puzzled expression, “How can anyone not like meat?”
As he spoke, he took one of the meat buns from the container, bit into it, and held it up to show the bright red meat oozing blood inside.
“Look—it’s super fresh and super delicious. You should try it.”
“I’ll pass. You enjoy it yourself,” Song Nanxing declined again, gave a polite wave, and turned to head downstairs without another word.
On the way, Director Fang called via voice chat.
“Xiao Song, thanks for going over. Luckily, nothing serious happened with Xu Cai. I’ve already reprimanded him and given him a warning.”
Listening to his relieved tone, Song Nanxing reminded him, “Director, I think you should still report it and have someone verify. Xu Cai might be contaminated.”
Director Fang paused.
“What do you mean? He just talked on the phone normally, and the uploaded test results were all fine.”
Song Nanxing explained truthfully, “He was eating raw meat. And he invited me to eat with him.”
Director Fang’s tone became noticeably hesitant.
“A lot of people like sashimi though. Maybe it’s just his personal taste? If he really was contaminated, the detector would’ve raised an alert.”
Song Nanxing didn’t quite understand either, and could only say, “He just didn’t seem right.”
Director Fang clearly wanted to avoid trouble. Since the detector hadn’t flagged anything, filing a report would require going through layers of procedures, and if anything did happen, responsibility would fall on him. In the end, he said: “Got it. I’ll keep an eye on Xu Cai.”
Song Nanxing sighed, sensing that Director Fang wasn’t taking it seriously.
But Xu Cai really wasn’t right.
The police from Xingfu Garden’s local station weren’t right either.
And that couple in 301? Definitely not right.
But these days, it seemed like too many people weren’t right.
Song Nanxing was just an average guy with no remarkable abilities. He didn’t want to cause unnecessary trouble for himself, so he chose to get home before it started raining.
*****
As he passed the third floor, he hesitated for a moment—then couldn’t help glancing down the hallway.
The sky outside was a dull lead-grey. The corridor was cloaked in shadow, filled with a damp, musty odor—like something straight out of a cheaply made horror movie.
It hadn’t rained that afternoon, but Song Nanxing noticed faint red water stains crisscrossing the floor, messy and disordered, as if many objects had crawled and dragged themselves across the tiles.
His gaze lingered for a few seconds before he continued upstairs.
The water bowl by the door was still there. The little blue octopus floated quietly in the water, like a pretty little mushroom.
As if sensing his return, the still “mushroom” began to move slowly. Its arms unfurled, its head contracted, and it released a string of tiny bubbles.
Strangely enough, Song Nanxing felt that the round, full bubbles seemed like a gesture of goodwill.
It was unbelievable, but he had the odd impression that the little octopus was trying to please him.
He looked at the octopus spinning around with some effort and shook off the bizarre thought from his mind before unlocking the door and entering his apartment.
After having dinner, Song Nanxing took out a sewing kit to mend the ear of the stuffed rabbit.
His stitching skills were quite clumsy. After struggling through the task, he saw that all the thread had bunched up awkwardly at the base of the rabbit’s ear, forming a bulging, ugly knot.
Song Nanxing frowned as he studied it for a while and muttered to himself, “Kinda ugly.”
But he really didn’t have the skill to do better, so he consoled himself guiltily, “It’s not like anyone’s going to see it anyway. Good enough.”
Then he pulled out the doll outfit that Jing Rao had given him. He hadn’t looked at it closely before, and when he went to dress the stuffed rabbit, he realized—it was a pink dress.
He looked at the rabbit, then at the little pink dress in his hand, and hesitated. “Do… dolls even have a gender?”
Naturally, the stuffed rabbit didn’t reply. Song Nanxing furrowed his brows and thought for a while but couldn’t come up with an answer. Figuring it was better than leaving the doll unclothed, he went ahead and dressed the rabbit in the little outfit.
After sprucing the stuffed rabbit up and placing it neatly back on the sofa, Song Nanxing was just about to take a shower when his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and answered in mild surprise, “Director Fang?”
Director Fang’s voice came through oddly hushed.
“Xiao Song, earlier you said Xu Cai seemed off, right? Besides eating raw meat… was there anything else strange about him?” His voice was trembling slightly. “Did he seem aggressive or anything?”
Song Nanxing was completely confused. “Did something happen?”
Director Fang spoke in a strained, breathy voice. “Xu Cai is outside my house right now. He’s been ringing the doorbell for ten minutes. I didn’t dare open the door.”
As he spoke, the background noise confirmed it—the distinct ding-ling, ding-ling of an old mechanical doorbell rang three times in a row, loud and clear, as if it were coming from right beside Song Nanxing.
It took him a moment to realize—the sound hadn’t come from the phone. It was his own doorbell.
That exact moment.
What a coincidence?
Song Nanxing hesitated slightly, told the person on the phone to hold on, and quietly walked to the door. He peeked outside through the peephole.
The motion-sensor light in the hallway was on, but there was no one outside the door.
According to horror movie logic, this would be the point where the protagonist opens the door to investigate.
But Song Nanxing stepped back from the door. He had no intention of courting death.
He brought the phone back to his ear and asked with concern, “Director Fang, are you still there?”
Director Fang sounded terrified. “Something just… just crawled in through the gap under the door.”
Whether from fear or something else, his voice sounded stiff and unnatural.
“I should’ve listened to you and reported it earlier. Now I can’t even get through to the police. Call them for me—he… he’s coming in.”
The moment Song Nanxing heard the word “police,” he felt a wave of PTSD.
He moved the phone away, switched it to speaker, and asked with a slightly exasperated tone, “Director, don’t tell me you want me to contact the Xingfu Garden police station again?”
There was a long silence on Director Fang’s end. Static crackled from the speaker.
Song Nanxing stared blankly at the phone. “…Figures.”
Whatever was on the other side clearly wasn’t very smart.
Just then, the doorbell rang again.
Song Nanxing hung up the call and went to retrieve the mental pollution detector.
The detector was directly linked to the psychiatric center’s monitoring system. If it showed abnormal readings, a fully armed response team would show up within thirty minutes to quarantine the affected individual.
Holding the detector in his hand, Song Nanxing peered through the peephole again.
This time, there was no horror movie moment. Only the male resident from apartment 301 stood upright in front of the door, giving Song Nanxing a stiff yet friendly smile through the peephole.
“Hello, I’m your neighbor from 301. My daughter’s gone missing. I wanted to ask if you’ve seen her?”
“I haven’t.” Song Nanxing’s face was cold. “If I remember correctly, didn’t you say two days ago that you don’t have a daughter?”
“Oh, then I must’ve remembered wrong,” the man said, though his voice began to glitch like a corrupted audio file.
Amidst the deep and steady male voice, a shrill little girl’s voice suddenly spliced in: “Didn’t you care about her so much? Why aren’t you looking for her now?”
“Come on, open the door. Let’s look for her together…”
By the end, the voice outside the door had completely turned into a shrill little girl’s voice, and something was squirming, trying to squeeze through the peephole and the gap under the door.
Song Nanxing waited for the right moment. Calm, precise, and ruthless, he jabbed the probe of the mental pollution detector straight into the crimson lump of flesh forcing its way through the peephole.
On the LCD screen, the mental pollution value skyrocketed—within three seconds, it broke past the red line, triggering a piercing alarm.
[Warning: Your mental pollution level has exceeded the critical threshold. This result has been reported to the system. Please remain where you are and wait for assistance.]
Song Nanxing glanced at the grotesque mass of flesh that was already halfway through the door gap. He no longer had time to worry about the detector. Turning on his heels, he bolted for the kitchen.
Behind him, the red lump of flesh sprouted thin limbs and scuttled after him like a swarm of greedy meat-rats.
Scanning the kitchen in an instant, Song Nanxing grabbed a metal skewer from the rotisserie chicken on the oven. With swift, decisive motion, he stabbed at the meat-rats lunging toward him—
He had expected this to be a struggle, but when the skewer easily pierced through a meat-rat, he froze for a moment.
This… wasn’t much harder than skewering roast chicken, was it?
Once stabbed, the meat-rats stopped moving and dissolved into foul-smelling, dark red pus that dripped onto the floor.
Suppressing his nausea, Song Nanxing strung them up one by one, clearing out all the intruding meat-rats before gripping the skewer tightly and cautiously approaching the entryway.
Oddly enough, just a few minutes ago, the ruckus outside the door had been overwhelming—like tens of thousands of meat-rats were frantically trying to squeeze through every crack, even warping the door itself.
But now that he’d dealt with the ones that made it inside, the chaos outside had suddenly gone quiet.
He hesitated, then carefully leaned toward the peephole to look out.
The peephole had been damaged by the invading meat-rats, expanding the view considerably. Song Nanxing could now clearly see the hallway—splattered everywhere with dark red pus, even the ceiling wasn’t spared.
Gazing at the smeared handprints and footprints scattered across the ceiling, he fell into deep thought.
The prints were small, no bigger than what a child of a few years old might leave.
What kind of kid can crawl on the ceiling?
Song Nanxing couldn’t make sense of it. It wasn’t the kind of question he wanted to dwell on too long anyway. Whoever’s hellspawn it was, it looked like they wouldn’t be bothering him again—for now.
He swept his eyes across the wreckage of his apartment, tossed the skewer into the trash can, and went to the bathroom to wash his hands.
After washing up, he started looking for a mop.
He wasn’t planning to open the door before the Mental Health Center personnel arrived. Since the place was already a mess, he figured he might as well clean up.
*****
Twenty minutes later, the Mental Health Center’s emergency response team arrived.
By this time, Song Nanxing had already finished cleaning the apartment and even taken a shower. He opened the door in a calm, composed state, looking mentally stable and well-groomed.
“Finally. You guys made it.”
But the moment the fully armed team saw him, they didn’t enter. Instead, they raised their weapons, expressions alert and tense.
“Hands on your head. Squat down. Don’t move.”
Song Nanxing stared at the black muzzles pointed at him and obediently squatted with hands raised, wearing an innocent expression. “Wait, wait, this is a misunderstanding. I can explain.”
The team wasn’t interested in explanations. One of them pulled out a scanner and swept him from head to toe three times. Then, staring at the device’s results, the officer’s tone shifted to confusion.
“Contamination index: zero.”
“No exposure?”
The team leader took off his helmet, glanced at Song Nanxing, then leaned down to recheck the device. His brows furrowed deeply.
Song Nanxing finally recognized him and looked a little surprised. “Captain Han?”
Han Zhi raised an eyebrow and stared for a moment before finally recognizing him as well. He turned to the others. “False alarm. Situation resolved. Clean up the scene and sweep the building.”
Then he looked back at Song Nanxing. “Let’s go inside. Tell me what happened.”
Song Nanxing invited him in, poured some tea, and sat down. He recounted everything honestly. “That’s the situation. I don’t know how Director Fang or Xu Cai are doing now.”
Han Zhi glanced at his communicator and said, “Fang Wenguo submitted a report at 7:15 suspecting Xu Cai might be contaminated. Based on your timeline, that was a few minutes before the attack, so his response was timely. Another rescue team reached his house five minutes ago. If he’s lucky, he might make it. As for Xu Cai… can’t say for sure.”
Song Nanxing gave a dry “oh.”
“Hope they’re both okay.”
Han Zhi gave him a once-over, then made small talk.
“You’re still living here? Not planning to move? Compared to the inner district, the outer district is a lot messier—and more dangerous.”
Song Nanxing smiled.
“You know my situation. If I moved and my mom came back, she wouldn’t be able to find me…”
The young record keeper beside Han Zhi looked up at that, a bit of pity in his expression.
Compared to the average person, they had access to more information. For instance, every year, large numbers of people either voluntarily or involuntarily vanished into the Great Fog. These disappearances were mysterious and couldn’t be explained to the public.
To comfort the families of the missing, cities had jointly set up a Missing Persons Support & Inquiry Website. Families could register missing persons there, and officials would periodically release a list of those recovered from the fog.
But in truth, compared to the number of people who disappeared, the ones who came back were just a tiny fraction.
By all accounts, the chances of Song Nanxing’s mother returning were extremely slim.
Yet, just like many families still clinging to the hope their loved ones would be found, Song Nanxing too seemed to be holding on to that last sliver of faith.
The record keeper looked a bit melancholy. After they left Song Nanxing’s apartment, he asked casually,
“Captain Han, you know the resident in 401?”
Han Zhi lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, then gave the young man a sideways glance.
“Feeling sentimental again?” His expression turned oddly hard to describe.
“More than ten years ago, it was me who handled the case when 401 first had an incident. You think I wouldn’t recognize someone on the list?”
The record keeper’s eyes widened in surprise.
“401’s on the list?” That was hard to believe. His confusion only deepened.
“He seems totally normal. His contamination index is even healthier than most people.”
After the large-scale outbreak of mental contamination, the Mental Health Center and the Center for Infectious Disease Control had jointly developed a mental contamination classification scale. Contamination was ranked from levels 0 to 10, based on severity and contagiousness. The lower the number, the more severe and infectious the contamination.
To his knowledge, only individuals with level 3 contamination or above were ever listed.
These days, mental contamination was everywhere, and the general public’s mental health was already in poor shape—but even so, Song Nanxing, with a contamination index of 0, was rare.
If anyone didn’t belong on that list, it was definitely him.
“That’s why I keep saying you’re too reliant on instruments,” Han Zhi snorted.
“You can look up his file when we get back—it’s in the archives. He’s not that simple.”
“He was raised by a single father, has a younger sister, and never had a mother.”
MC is able to absorb contamination?