Lin Sinan nodded hurriedly, "Yes, yes. Our Special Operations Department offers excellent benefits. Not only do we have comprehensive social insurance and housing provident fund, but joining also comes with a housing package."
Lu Yan: "I have one. A 240-square-meter flat in the city center. Market value of 13 million."
The large flat was the compensation provided after his father was taken away by the relevant department. Back then, property prices weren't as exaggerated, but it still amounted to several million.
"And family members enjoy substantial subsidies and special benefits."
Lu Yan: "Both my parents are deceased, and I'm an only child."
"Single children receive priority enrollment in top-tier primary and secondary schools."
"I'm homosexual. Having offspring is not an option for me, and I oppose surrogacy. It's a societal responsibility."
Lin Sinan: "..."
Lu Yan's earnest responses resembled someone skillfully arguing at a construction site.
Lu Yan cleared his throat lightly, taking a sip of water. "What's the monthly salary?"
Lin Sinan, who had been working for quite a while, seemed momentarily perplexed by someone asking about a monthly salary. After all, for individuals like them, money was the least important factor.
Lin Sinan: "One hundred thousand? ...Base salary plus commission."
Lu Yan calculated internally.
Not bad. Much higher than his salary as a doctor. But considering how aggressive the patients had become, this compensation seemed reasonable.
Lu Yan took the documents and began perusing them. The ones Lin Sinan handed over were the formal contracts, but perhaps due to his non-military background, there weren't many constraints. Only periodic reporting to headquarters and mandatory missions every three months.
By joining the Disease Prevention and Control Center, Lu Yan could receive a monthly supply of specialized medicine, obtain contamination disease reports free of charge, participate in headquarters' training sessions, and receive organizational assistance in times of difficulty.
Overall, to entice more individuals into this job that essentially tied one to the belt, the conditions offered by the headquarters were quite generous.
[The Disease Prevention and Control Center and the Research Institute are not the same entity. Joining might actually be a decent choice if you're considering it.]
Having finished reviewing the employment contract, Lu Yan signed his name in the bottom left corner.
At Lu Yan's strong insistence, Lin Sinan dispatched two staff members to escort Lu Yan home.
Just one night had passed, yet the streets resembled a scene from a terror attack. Broken glass and fallen streetlights were scattered everywhere, occasional bloodstains and remnants visible. Some belonged to humans, others to pollutants.
In K City, pollutants could still be physically eliminated, so there were many individuals in military attire bustling about.
Lu Yan rolled down the car window halfway, observing the outside world.
He had been indoors all this while, never stepping out during the day. Seeing it in person was entirely different from what he had seen on the news.
Thanks to heightened senses, Lu Yan could even see the tear streaks on the face of the military officer currently handling the teammate's remains.
Tears mingled with blood and dust, sorrowful yet silent.
[K City's Harbingers number around thirty, plus over thirty thousand military personnel assisting. But how can they rescue three million individuals entirely and unscathed? Clearly, due to the previous riots, some humans who were hiding in their homes were dragged out and devoured by enraged pollutants, *chomping sounds*.]
The detached tone of the system made Lu Yan involuntarily furrow his brow.
[Requesting the system to empathize like a human might be asking for the impossible.]
[Moreover...]
The system's voice suddenly sounded rather pleased.
[My existence depends on you. Human nature is indeed complex. Are you angry at another aspect of yourself?]
Lu Yan's expression gradually cooled. He closed the car window, pressing his right hand against his left palm, feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and shut his eyes.
Something seemed to be swelling there, like sprouting after a rainfall, about to burst forth imminently.
Returning home, Lu Yan powered up his computer, which he hadn't used in a long time.
Lin Sinan's contact details were still in his phone, along with a link he had sent, indicating an internal forum.
Perhaps due to something the Disease Prevention and Control Center had arranged, Lu Yan's IP was no longer confined within the firewall.
He glimpsed the discussions regarding the K City lockdown from the outside world.
"Contamination Disease," "Monsterification," "Mutated beings"... These headlines had dominated the trending topics for several weeks.
But for those who hadn't experienced it, it was hard to fathom the horror behind these terms.
"The world's evolution is accelerating, and governments have opted out of information suppression. Hoping to educate and help ordinary people survive in times of adversity."
"Additionally, this facilitates the summoning of Harbingers."
...
The internal forum was called "Genesis," invitation-only, and anyone with even a slight official connection to the world of Harbingers had an account. The administrators were selected by various nations' Disease Prevention and Control Centers. To accommodate different regions, the forum had an intuitive translation system.
To join, users needed a fixed ID, but it didn't store any real information. Even the administrators lacked access to user identities. There were rumors of an attempt by an official overseas organization to infiltrate the forum, but they never got any information. The next day, their head unexpectedly passed away.
After that incident, no one dared to challenge the status quo. Lu Yan hesitated over what to name himself. He wanted "Doctor," but that ID was taken. Lin Sinan had warned him that mission records might be posted on the forum, replacing real names for anonymity. So, he had to choose wisely.
"Some Sichuan Harbinger named themselves 'Got1?' It led to either straight-up avoidance from teammates or getting stalked by weirdos during missions. Bottom line, think carefully. There are no name-change cards sold here." As an afterthought, Lin Sinan added, "He's quite high in the rankings. If you're a '1', you might… well, consider teaming up with a selfie..."
Lu Yan wasn't keen on teaming up. He pondered and entered two characters: "Di Ting."
"Di Ting," the legendary divine beast, the knower of all things, able to distinguish truth from falsehood. It felt fitting. This time, Lu Yan's registration succeeded.
The Genesis forum resembled those early 20th-century chatrooms when the internet was just emerging. The UI was crude, resembling a final project by a freshman in a computer science program, with three main sections: "Technical Exchange," "Reward-Based Tasks," and "Casual Chat."
Lu Yan clicked into the subcategory under "Technical Exchange" - "Contamination Disease Case Studies." He went through data from S to F-class pollutants. Intelligence was crucial; at least now, when encountering a pollutant, he wouldn't need an autopsy to understand its traits.
Lower-level pollutants had more detailed information. S-class data was minimal, just a few lines, but C-class, like the "Parasitic Fish," spanned seven to eight pages.
[Well, it's normal. Despite the talk of a shared destiny, Harbingers still have nationalities… You can apply for internal center data; it's much more detailed. Honestly, Huaxia has been quite generous; forty percent of the forum's data comes from Huaxia's Harbingers.]
Given the circumstances, this shared destiny was no joke. The whole world was in turmoil; even the vast Huaxia region couldn't hold out for long.
Lu Yan was a fast reader, yet it took him two full days to cover all these cases. Some cases were mentally nauseating just by the images.
He saw Lin Sinan's pollutant, a C-class "Parasitic Insect." The images showed bodies covered in fat, long, white worms, emerging from nasal passages, ears, mouths—it was stomach-churning.
Within the forum's sections was a "Harbinger Ranking." Annually evaluated by officials, it focused on psychic thresholds, contributions in the past year, and clandestine political games.
With over sixty thousand registered on the forum, only the top 100 were listed. Scrolling down, Lu Yan found "Got1?" at the 100th position.
Profile: Looks-focused; uglies stay away.
Bai Qiu's codename "Cold Cicada," ranked 37th.
There were other names that clearly seemed foreign, like "Emperor Shitian," "Michael," "Odin," "Miyamoto Musashi," and more.
Lu Yan scrolled up to the top, to number one.
ID: Tyrant.
He clicked to view the profile, only finding the name hanging there, belonging to Huaxia, but with an astounding number of visits.
Lu Yan sighed inwardly, "So edgy, calling yourself a tyrant…"
He also noticed something: Tyrant's registration was in 2037. Even if they registered at birth, Tyrant would be 84 now.
Lu Yan's own registration was on February 26, 2121.
He checked others; registrations spanned from the last century to this one. It wasn't a system glitch.
"So, contamination and Harbingers have been around since the last century."
It was probably recent that these bizarre changes had entered the ordinary people's view.
Lu Yan spent days on the forum, as enthusiastic as an elderly person learning 3G surfing. He lurked, not speaking, but absorbing valuable knowledge. Fear accelerated contamination; distance slowed its progression… and pollutants were divided into biological and mental types. K City's pollutants fell under the former, but powerful ones often straddled both.
In the Casual Chat section, Lu Yan stumbled upon posts seeking "Cure-type Items" for a hefty sum. With global evolution, besides Harbingers with healing abilities, there were special items to reduce biological contamination.
And among the various branches of abilities, healing was the rarest. Only three were discovered so far.
No wonder the Contamination Centers were on edge. If Lu Yan had been willing, they might have wanted to study him in-depth.
On the fourth day back home, Lu Yan's discomfort finally began to diminish. His arms, previously agonizingly painful, had started to ease. Cooking wasn't as shaky anymore, and the nights were less plagued by cold sweats.
Now, with the pain subsiding, he noticed a slight change in his body.
Lu Yan glanced down at the palm of his left hand.
As he gazed down at it, his palm gradually split open, revealing fresh, crimson flesh inside, lined with sharp, triangular shark-like teeth along the edges of the fissure. Odd as it seemed, it was indeed a mouth.
Lu Yan extended his right-hand fingers into it, a peculiar sensation tingling through, not quite painful when his left hand claimed it hurt, but certainly discomforting. The sensation in his right hand felt akin to a puppy joyously licking away.
Later that night, he sneaked out and snipped off a portion of the algal-being's tentacle, returning with it. The mouth on his left hand feasted contently, far more convenient than the feeding method involving thin white threads.
"Is my left hand still mine? Will my body ultimately belong to my soul?" Lu Yan inquired.
The system chuckled in response, stating, "It's still an infant fish, heavily reliant on you. However, if you persist in this current state, when the master is found so easy to control, the mischievous fish might turn on its master."
On the seventh day back home, a news anchor proclaimed with uplifting tones, "After a month of relentless efforts and unity, we have successfully managed the contamination! The Disease Prevention and Control Center announces that, following three more days of observation, parts of the lockdown in K City will be lifted!"
"The contamination incident has been classified as a Level B emergency. The source was the Level C pollutant, 'Parasitic Fish.' This catastrophe resulted in the deaths of forty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-one individuals in K City, with four hundred and fifty-six rescue workers sacrificing themselves..."
As the anchor read on, tears welled up in their eyes.
Behind each chilling death toll lay a family, a life, years of joy and sorrow.
After shutting off the television, Lu Yan remained silent for a while. His social ties had always been faint, but memories of the deceased Dr. Li, the wealthy second-generation individual, and the whereabouts-unknown Shen Qingyang, brought a sense of pity and sorrow.
Fortunately, Lin Sinan's call interrupted his emotions.
"Dr. Lu, it's me, Lin Sinan," came the hearty laughter from the other end.
"Sinan."
Lin Sinan: "Calling actually involves a matter I need to discuss with you. The ascension of the Harbingers also requires a source of pollution. Your data has already been sent back to headquarters, and there are two attitudes prevailing there. One hopes to allow you to undergo training while ensuring your safety. In this swiftly changing world, individual strength holds tremendous importance. The other part wishes for you to go to headquarters and ascend like the 'Bishops' by consuming medicine..."
When the mention of "medicine" arose, Lin Sinan's expression shifted slightly.
System: "[Whether it's medicine or consuming people, I'm curious too. Gotta say, the first research institute among the thirteen nationwide is truly twisted.] [A bunch of madmen devoid of humanity, conducting experiments that even scare the gods. Eventually, they'll face the consequences.]"
Continuing on the call, Lin Sinan added, "If you choose the former, headquarters has already decided on the location. It's in W City, near K City, where a mountain village has mutated. The case is codenamed 'Living Dead,' pollution source graded as E. The highest contamination level recorded is 1100. Besides me, there's another Harbinger with a psychic threshold of 3000 accompanying. As for the latter choice, I'll escort you to the first research institute, which offers a safer and more controlled environment."
"I'm downstairs at your place. When you've made your decision, come down and let me know."