In other words, in the past, dealing with one such Pollutant would have been enough to keep the Disease Prevention and Control Center busy for three days. And yet, Lu Yan had slaughtered six in one go.
Since midnight, the scent of blood had been thick in the slaughterhouse. Due to excessive use of his talent, Lu Yan felt slightly dizzy and his complexion was rather pale.
He pulled out the dagger from his waist and deeply stabbed the Bull Horn Butcher in the neck. Crimson blood gushed out from the wound, splattering Lu Yan's entire body with the Pollutant's blood.
These bloodstains could mask his own blood's scent.
The Bull Horn Butcher's blood had a foul odor, indicating that it had likely fed on many meat pigs before dying.
Lu Yan decided to go home and lie down first, waiting for his wounds to heal before venturing out again. Although he wasn't quite sure why, his blood seemed to have a strong attraction to Pollutants. With his wound still bleeding, Lu Yan was worried it might lead to complications.
Just as Lu Yan stood up, stuffing the rabbit butcher into his pocket, a white dot suddenly lit up on the map in his mind, indicating the presence of a Harbinger nearby.
The map's range was ten kilometers. This distance was enough for Lu Yan to hide in a safe place and avoid conflicts with others.
Previously, when encountering white dots, Lu Yan had always done just that.
But this time, the speed at which the dot moved seemed unusually fast. It reached the ten-kilometer distance in an instant.
The system, enjoying the spectacle, exclaimed eagerly, "[Oh boy. Bad news: you've been spotted. Good news: the one who spotted you is Tang Xunan.]"
Lu Yan paused for a moment, then felt a wave of turbulence behind him.
According to the rules of the inner world, Harbingers couldn't see the butchers clearly.
He turned around and saw Tang Xunan standing steadily on the ground, folding his dragon wings behind him, observing the scene in the courtyard.
The Bull Horn Butcher resided in the villa area, Chinese-style. The place where fish were originally kept had been turned into a blood pool, soaking countless meat pig corpses.
A butcher emitting a black light stood in the center of the courtyard, his face obscured, only a vague silhouette visible.
There were signs of a struggle on the ground, with the Bull Horn's body lying to the side.
Tang Xunan tightened his grip on the yellow dust in his hand and sniffed lightly.
Back on Mermaid Island, dozens of miles away and even diluted by seawater, Tang Xunan had still detected the scent of Lu Yan's blood.
And now, Lu Yan, covered in blood, stood right in front of him. There was no way Tang Xunan wouldn't notice.
But Tang Xunan hadn't expected to see a Lu Yan emitting a black light.
He was momentarily stunned and asked, "Are you injured?"
Tang Xunan's expression was strange.
It was like when a neighbor, Old Wang, had a paternity test done and found out the child wasn't his own, but because he loved his wife too much, he kept it to himself.
Lu Yan murmured softly, "Yeah."
Tang Xunan walked over and asked, "Where's the medicine?"
Lu Yan replied, "All used up."
Tang Xunan retrieved a hemostatic spray from his pocket and handed it to Lu Yan, along with bandages.
Lu Yan unbuttoned his shirt and peeled back the fabric clinging to his body, spraying the medication around the wound's edges.
It was a bit painful, even for someone like Lu Yan, who had a high tolerance for pain, but he couldn't help a slight twitch in his abdomen.
The rabbit butcher poked his head out from Lu Yan's pocket, asking in a soft and curious voice, "Dad, who is he? He smells fierce."
The golden fish scales extended along the meridian lines, reaching precisely where his wound was.
Tang Xunan bent down, staring at Lu Yan's wound for a long moment before couldn't help but ask, "Why are you black?"
"07 gave me a slaughterhouse work permit," Lu Yan explained slowly. "The rules consider me a butcher of the slaughterhouse, and I was pulled into the inner world a day earlier."
Tang Xunan's expression remained calm, eventually asking slowly, "Eleven years ago, the headquarters wanted to deal with the slaughterhouse. So they found a way to catch a butcher."
"The pollutants in the slaughterhouse, even if they're not perfect evolutions, seem much more humanized compared to other pollutants. They've revealed a lot. We found a work permit on that butcher. The research institute once considered whether it was possible to enter the slaughterhouse with a work permit."
Tang Xunan, through a haze of black fog, stared into Lu Yan's eyes. "According to the experiments, we found that only pollutants can be recognized as butchers by the slaughterhouse. And thus enter the slaughterhouse."
Lu Yan felt slightly shocked. "…System, explain?"
[System: Although I knew it early on, I can't explain it. The recognized pollutant is your younger brother, not you.]
In fact, there were signs of this incident. The first time he entered Pork Alley, the pollutant naturally treated him as one of its kind.
At that time, Lu Yan thought it was because of the fish scales and the kingfisher.
Once the matter was related to his brother, neither Lu Yan nor the system were willing to continue this topic.
Lu Yan asked, "Then why did Zong Yan give me a work permit?"
[There are some human employees in the slaughterhouse, but they're not butchers. Holding the work permit can indeed make the butchers abandon attacking you.]
Lu Yan had never realized that his linguistic ability was so lacking.
So much so that he blurted out a response, "I'm not a pollutant."
Tang Xunan crouched in front of him, reaching out to button up Lu Yan's clothes from the bottom up, all the way from his waist to his neck.
The hand he used to grip the knife was quite beautiful.
"I believe you. Take care," Tang Xunan said.
[Author's note: I don't know what to say in this author's note, so I recommend my upcoming work! Click on my column for direct access.
Title: "Retrained Reemployment of the Laid-Off Underworld King" (tentative)
Summary: In the interstellar future, humans move to the Centauri system, where there are immense changes in the world, and the supernatural resurges.
Being a demon suppressor has become the hottest profession, with salaries easily reaching millions and transcending classes.
Qilin glanced at the 3 yuan in his pocket, then at the demon suppressor recruitment advertisement on his phone: Are they forcing me back into my old profession?
Qilin's old profession: Underworld King.
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