After hearing the system's words, Lu Yan's consciousness momentarily blurred.
"What's there?"
[SpongeBob SquarePants.]
For some reason, Lu Yan felt the impulse to strangle the system again.
The system let out a low chuckle: "Don't be angry. Since we're going home, of course, there are loved ones there."
Lu Yan remained silent.
The newly grown fish scales caused a slight tingling sensation, burning.
Lu Yan fetched himself a tub of water, soaking in it, feeling considerably more comfortable.
Having not checked his phone for a few days, Lu Yan noticed numerous private messages on his Tianqi Forum account. Someone offered a hefty three million contribution points, requesting Lu Yan's help in removing a pollution source.
He clicked to view the sender's profile. The ID was Emperor Shitian. Located in the Fifth District, not affiliated with any special operations unit. Currently ranked fourth on the leaderboard.
The Fifth District was a peculiar place, with a fusion of politics and religion, where authority was divinely bestowed. Due to its unique social structure, the influence of special operations units in the Fifth District was greatly diminished, almost like mascots.
There's no impenetrable fortress; there will always be individuals getting some insider information through internal channels.
Lu Yan chose to mark the messages as read without replying. After all, given his current condition, continuing surgeries would be rather perilous. Besides, Lu Yan wasn't short of money.
Additionally, Lu Yan received a system notification two months ago, informing him of his promotion on the forum's senior title leaderboard.
This had little downside besides the inability to remain anonymous. It offered discounts in the headquarters' marketplace and a dedicated research team for developing unique medicines.
Lu Yan glanced at the leaderboard; his ranking was 19th. Not particularly high nor low. However, due to his sudden rise in the past year, he unexpectedly gained a group of staunch supporters within the forum.
Every month, when the rankings updated, if his ranking moved upward, these supporters would celebrate on the forum, much like during New Year's festivities.
However, Lu Yan wasn't particularly interested in this. He briefly glanced at a few confession posts on the forum before shutting down his phone.
The system emitted a cold chuckle: "Some of the posters are actually headquarters staff posing as fans. The purpose is to enhance the senior Awakened's sense of belonging to humanity. Yet, some people fall for it. Working tirelessly just to ensure their supporters aren't disappointed. You could mention Michael here."
Lu Yan pondered for a moment: "Positive reinforcement is indeed important."
One couldn't exactly call this behavior deception. Like Lu Yan, who wasn't swayed by it, the rainbow praises on the forum were inconsequential.
The headquarters had been urging him to write a report on the abattoir operation.
In this abattoir operation, Lu Yan's faction was the Black Butcher, so naturally, it couldn't be included in the report.
Lu Yan selectively trimmed some content. He finished writing the report on his laptop while soaking in hot water with a glass of iced coconut milk.
After finishing, he casually accessed Director Li's account and inquired, "Has Ye Liangshan been found?"
It was late at night, yet Director Li hadn't slept.
- Found him. 01 brought No. 9 to the abattoir. Apart from that, headquarters also sent people to clear out the Hound Base and found another test subject, Zhan Yihan.
This was also a significant matter within the Awakened community recently. The Hound Base might be the fastest-disappearing S-class contaminated area in history; it was established in August and vanished by December.
-But it's regrettable. 01 seemed to have made some pollution modifications to Zhan Yihan beforehand. When we thawed him out, Zhan Yihan no longer showed any signs of life.
The system sneered: "Fake. Zhan Yihan had already turned into a pollutant, so headquarters directly issued the cleanup order."
"Saying he died right after thawing was just to spare the emotions of other test subjects."
The initial ten volunteers from the First Research Institute ended up polarized into two opposing sides, with only half surviving in the end.
Lu Yan: When can we lift the fog over Changjia?
Director Li: Ideally, maybe next year...
This matter was quite tricky to discuss.
Ye Liangshan was unwilling to go to Changjia Island to devour the fog. He suffered from social anxiety. Since being unsealed from the life pod, he had been staying in the room arranged by the Disease Prevention and Control Center, never stepping out.
Lu Yan calculated the time and asked, "Can't we do it sooner?"
He wanted to see Changjia unsealed before going to Laoye.
Director Li hesitated for a moment and then replied, "Alright, I'll immediately fight for it with headquarters."
Although Director Li seemed to be alone on the surface, in reality, there was a whole team working behind him, all serving Lu Yan.
This was the first time Lu Yan had made a request to headquarters through Director Li, which attracted significant attention from the relevant departments.
The only one feeling rather awkward was the liaison officer responsible for taking care of Ye Liangshan, Xie Haiqing.
He pushed the door and unsurprisingly found a mess on the floor. There were hamburger wrappers, half-eaten fries, empty cola bottles, and cream stuck to the carpet. The coffee table was piled with empty plates.
Xie Haiqing sighed, "Eat less junk food. Isn't there anything else to eat?"
Ye Liangshan didn't reply, his eyes glued to the screen playing some meaningless TV series.
Fortunately, over these past few weeks, Xie Haiqing had gotten used to his indifferent attitude.
He rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning.
These tasks were originally meant for the cleaning staff, but Ye Liangshan would trigger a stress response when faced with strangers. He would hide under the bed and refuse to come out, so Xie Haiqing had to take care of everything.
Ye Liangshan buried himself in a pile of hamburger boxes, his eyes on the screen, but his gaze seemed unfocused. Every now and then, he would swallow two Big Macs.
Despite eating so much, Ye Liangshan wasn't fat. In fact, he seemed a bit malnourished, looking like a small, underdeveloped teenager.
When he was still a normal person, Ye Liangshan's weight was almost proportional to his height due to his love for indulgent eating.
However, since awakening his talent of devouring, he had become increasingly emaciated.
At his thinnest, Ye Liangshan resembled a just-excavated mummy.
Back when he was at the institute, what Ye Liangshan feared most was researchers saying no to food.
If he didn't eat, his stomach would uncontrollably consume other organs, which was painful.
If one were to dissect Ye Liangshan's body, they would find that due to deformation, he had a stomach that occupied almost all the space in his chest cavity, along with small heart, lungs, and other tissues that were toy-sized, with intestines shrunken to the size of a hair.
When he was brought out of the life pod, the first word he said was "hungry." Because of his intense hunger, when he was first taken out of the life pod
, Ye Liangshan almost couldn't resist eating people. It took a lot of effort to pull him away from others.
Due to this incident, Ye Liangshan was almost classified as a pollutant. Fortunately, after testing, his degree of mutation was only 72.3.
The person who carried him out of the life pod was Xie Haiqing. There was a deep bite mark on his shoulder, which had caved in slightly due to the missing skin and flesh.
Before becoming Ye Liangshan's liaison officer, Xie Haiqing worked at the Eighth Research Institute, responsible for transforming animal-type pollutants into edible forms.
The headquarters believed that consuming food transformed from pollutants was much more suitable than eating hamburgers, fries, and instant noodles. However, Ye Liangshan wasn't interested in this. Xie Haiqing could only satisfy his craving for junk food.
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