It was a workday, yet the streets of K City were completely deserted.

Only the vicinity of the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center was teeming with crowds of people.

Today was the third day of the lockdown.

Many wealthy and powerful families in K City had already begun their secret evacuation.

They certainly wouldn’t do it with great fanfare; instead, under the escort of the military, they would gather uniformly at the Pollution Prevention and Control Center.

After undergoing tests that were near-draconian in strictness, these people would be able to board planes and leave this teetering city.

Of course, for safety reasons, they would first stop at an uninhabited island. Once they passed the danger period, they would return to the mainland.

At the same time, the city’s key scientific research personnel were also put on the whitelist, alongside the children of martyrs.

In a massive city of millions, ultimately, fewer than five hundred people arrived at the Pollution Prevention and Control Center to test whether they possessed the qualifications to leave early.

Lin Sinan stood by a jeep smoking, casually maintaining order.

Many staff members wrapped themselves tightly in protective suits, yet his attire was no different from usual.

Lin Sinan wasn’t afraid of pollution; after all, he himself was a walking source of pollution.

His brow was tightly furrowed, and a scattering of cigarette butts already littered the ground by his feet.

The cigarette in Lin Sinan’s hand wasn’t just tobacco, but rather a tobacco-flavored sedative.

An inspector from the prevention center stepped forward: “Team Leader Lin. Smoke a bit less.”

Sedatives carried side effects.

“I can’t stop.” Lin Sinan frustratedly cradled his head, crouching down on the spot, muttering vacantly with a hollow gaze, “I only knew that parasitic fish eggs wouldn’t cause secondary pollution when attached to the human body, but I never expected them to mutate so drastically in just a few short days. I shouldn’t have sent A-Bai straight to the hospital, or I should have observed for a few more days instead of letting Dr. Li leave directly.”

“And we failed to successfully recover the source of pollution. It was my arrogance that led to this consequence. I should have listened to that kid A-Bai and not saved him. But his parents are both gone, leaving only this one son, how could I not save him?”

“If the parasite becomes uncontrollable in K City…”

Lin Sinan covered his face with his hands, whispering in a low voice: “I will be the sinner who doomed these millions of people.”

They had already tried their best.

In order to manage the pollution, Awakened individuals died all over the world every single day. Some were devoured without even a corpse left behind, while others took their own lives to avoid becoming contaminants.

The more they fought against the contaminants, the more powerless they felt.

The growth speed of the Awakened simply couldn’t keep pace with the growth and spread of the pollution sources.

Without anyone knowing when, this precarious balance would eventually be shattered.

Humanity had never once gained the upper hand in the struggle against contaminants.

Ever since the water cut-off, the sound of gunshots at night clearly grew more frequent.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Lu Yan felt his hearing had become significantly sharper.

Consequently, without putting on earplugs, it was very difficult for him to fall asleep at night.

The City Hall arranged for workers to go door-to-door to conduct pollution testing. Contaminated patients would be taken away uniformly.

He heard it was to receive treatment. It was also possible they were going to be cremated.

On the fourth day of the lockdown, Lu Yan discovered that it was no longer possible to transmit messages to the outside world. The signal seemed to be confined within the boundaries of this city.

Lu Yan dialed his colleagues’ numbers, and they could still go through. But when he dialed the department director’s number, there was only ever a prompt saying “please try again later.”

He glanced at his WeChat groups, where discussion on this matter was sparse. He couldn’t tell if it was being suppressed, or if everyone simply hadn’t noticed yet.

Compared to calls not going through, another piece of information inside K City’s various WeChat groups was clearly far more eye-catching.

It was a screenshot of a WeChat Moments post.

“Help! My boyfriend’s behavior and appearance are looking more and more like a frog, what’s going on! I’m about to break down, right now he’s right outside the door! Someone please save me!”

Attached was a photo, taken somewhat hastily, making it rather blurry.

In the picture, a man was crouching on the ground in a frog-like posture. His eyeballs bulged out, looking almost as if they had been squeezed entirely out of their sockets, dangling only by a few blood-red veins from slipping off completely. The man’s epidermis was also covered in a strange film of water.

A bizarre smile hung on his face. His mouth split open, looking as though he was about to shoot out his tongue at any moment.

It made many people’s scalps tingle just looking at it.

Supposedly, this girl could no longer be contacted.

Even across a screen, a layer of goosebumps surfaced on Lu Yan.

Unlike many people who viewed it as a novel horror story, Lu Yan felt that this matter was a real occurrence, nine times out of ten.

[Merely an F-grade contaminant at the bottom of the food chain. It’s no longer human, nothing rare about it.]

[If you get the chance, you could dissect one. This thing grows up ugly, but… its meat is quite delicious.]

[By the way, this ugly toad has one specific trait: it likes to lust after swan meat.]

Lu Yan listened with half-understanding.

He used mineral water to cook a bowl of instant noodles to calm his nerves, casually cracking an egg into it.

Although eggs could be kept in the refrigerator, they couldn’t be left for too long either; it was best to finish them early.

Because of the water cut-off, every morning at 9:00 AM, the property management guy would begin delivering water.

One small box per household, containing 12 bottles. This water was allocated by the City Hall free of charge. The property management would place it directly at the doorway, waiting for the residents to retrieve it themselves.

For a single family to wash rice and flush the toilet, it was technically enough. But anyone wanting to take a shower just had to endure it.

There were a few times Lu Yan didn’t retrieve it in a timely manner. When he opened the door, he discovered that a significant portion of the water belonging to him had been taken by someone else.

However, despite taking the water, the other party left behind a full 1,000 yuan in cash. A bottle of water cost two yuan, so looking at it this way, Lu Yan actually turned a profit.

Even though at a time like this, water was worth more than money.

Lu Yan thought about it and pocketed the cash. The other party buying water at an exorbitant price was likely driven by sheer desperation.

He lived alone, using very little water. Plus, having stockpiled plenty of goods from his previous trip to the supermarket, he wasn’t lacking water to use.

Only… his usual neighborly relations were decent enough; why do things stealthily, it wasn’t as if this matter couldn’t be discussed.

The next day, Lu Yan purposely pulled up a stool, sat by the doorway, and turned on the smart peephole.

In his hands was an animal atlas titled After Human Extinction. He would read for a bit, then look up toward the monitoring screen.

At 9:30 AM, the property management placed the water at the doorway.

Ten minutes later, the door diagonally opposite opened quietly, and a person stealthily poked his head out.

It was a wealthy second-generation kid living opposite Lu Yan.

Lu Yan had a slight impression of him; the rich kid was his school junior, though not in the same major. He also studied chemistry and biology, but his grades weren’t good; when final exams approached, he would frequently bring a pile of idiotic questions to find him.

Even though the heating was clearly running inside the house, the rich kid wore a thick hat.

This hat was arguably a bit too large, nearly pulling down over the bridge of the rich kid’s nose.

Lu Yan propped up his chin, watching the rich kid walk up to his door, frantically scoop up half of the mineral water, and leave behind 1,000 yuan.

The rich kid also lived alone; logically speaking, he shouldn’t be this desperate for water to drink.

Lu Yan paused the monitor, zoomed in, and took a screenshot.

Whether it was his illusion or not, the rich kid’s fingers were excessively slender. Lu Yan extended his own hand to compare; the other party’s webbed fingers were also visibly larger than a normal person’s… and nearly translucent, allowing the blood vessels underneath to be seen.

It seemed that people contaminated and parasitized by the fish eggs also suffered from a severe lack of water.

Logically, Lu Yan ought to make a call to report this now.

But the rich kid’s current appearance was still a far cry from the photo.

And he happened to feel a bit curious about the deformity process of contaminants.

Lu Yan asked the System: “Under normal circumstances, can I handle an F-grade contaminant?”

The System: [It’s a fifty-fifty split. After all, you are also an Awakened at the bottom of the food chain. This kind of contaminant can still be killed using ordinary physical attacks.]

Thus, Lu Yan abandoned the idea of making the call. Furthermore, he pulled out his compound bow from beneath the bed, practicing his archery for the entire afternoon.

The seventh day of the city lockdown isolation.

Night fell.

Lu Yan didn’t have many recreational activities; his usual hobbies were swimming, archery, and reading. Right now he couldn’t swim, and practicing archery at home grew tedious, so he resorted to reading. Fortunately, he had fitted bookcases across all four walls of his bedroom, arranging them neatly into categories, with at least two thousand books. It could last him until the end of time.

Lu Yan closed his book, rubbed the bridge of his aching nose, and went to sleep.

But this time, he did not sleep well.

Because at the doorway, there echoed a very faint… lock-picking sound.

Lu Yan directed his gaze toward the alarm clock on the bedside table.

It was 3:00 AM.

…

…

Deep in the night, K City was dead silent. Ever since the city lockdown order was issued, everyone’s nighttime activity had turned into playing on their phones.

Consequently, that unyielding doorbell ring sounded exceptionally eerie.

He picked up his compound bow, and concealed the military dagger he had acquired earlier beneath his clothes, which finally gave him a bit of reassurance.

The light in the hallway was dim and gloomy, flickering as if suffering from a poor connection.

Lu Yan trod softly to the door, then turned on the peephole monitor.

The display screen illuminated the arrival.

Judging by the clothing, he was the rich kid living diagonally opposite Lu Yan; Lu Yan vaguely recalled his name was Zhou Kevin.

Zhou Kevin’s entire layer of skin looked wrinkled as if soaked in water, and a moss-like green color surfaced on his body.

His gaze was dull, and more than half of his eyeballs were exposed to the open air, looking as if they could drop out of his sockets at any moment.

Zhou Kevin’s slender fingers pressed the doorbell anxiously, a semi-transparent mucus dripping along his webbed fingers.

[Oh wow, the toad has come to eat swan meat.] The System’s tone was teasing.

Lu Yan abandoned any intention of opening the door. This humanoid giant frog was too ugly, making him feel a bit nauseous.

But the giant frog clearly had no intention of letting Lu Yan off.

Zhou Kevin’s nose twitched, and his dull pupils instantly sharpened into a vertical slit.

“Senior, I like you. You know that, right?” Zhou Kevin’s tone carried a hint of不易察覺 (hard-to-detect) excitement, “I know you like me too, you’re just a bit reserved. I’m so rich, it’s only natural to have designs on me. It must be my dad who said something to you that made you keep your distance from me. But now, I’ve thought of a way for us to be together forever.”

In the next second, he whipped out his tongue with extreme agility.

Frogs rely entirely on that tongue to capture prey; it is long, flexible, and forked at the tip.

Now, this tongue whipped through the air into a bizarre arc, then plunged into the lock core.

At that instant, Lu Yan felt a bit of regret for not installing an electrode tube inside the lock. of course, this couldn’t be blamed on him; it was mainly that his life experience limited his imagination.

If someone had told him in the past that a person could use their tongue to pick a lock, he would definitely tell that person to take a right turn out the door to the psychiatry department.

Lu Yan silently raised the bow in his hand.

A few minutes later, with a soft “clack,” the door opened a crack.

The outside light filtered in, and Lu Yan heard his own heartbeat, which wasn’t particularly intense.

Zhou Kevin’s already deformed webbed hand clawed onto the door, asking gently: “Senior, you are clearly at home… why won’t you open the door?”

Lu Yan’s mind entered a state of high tension.

He stood behind a cabinet; this angle would allow him to dodge immediately after firing.

Lu Yan offered no reply; his fingers loosed, and the arrowhead shot with flawless precision toward the intruder’s neck.

If facing a normal person, this sharp arrow was enough to pierce right through them. But when it struck between Zhou Kevin’s neck, it merely sank in shallowly up to the arrowhead.

Foul-smelling blood splattered out. The frogman shuddered violently from the pain, his eyeballs swelling as they spewed streams of yellowish liquid.

The wound caused by the arrowhead wasn’t fatal, but it clearly drove the monster into a greater fury.

It lunged forward with a leap, its head nearly striking the ceiling. Both distance and speed completely exceeded the limits of a human being.

It was too fast.

To the point where when Lu Yan heard the System’s voice, he instinctively chose to obey.

[Roll.]

Lu Yan rolled along the floor, gripping the military dagger in his pocket, but quickly let go of it again.

Not yet. Having tried with the compound bow, ordinary cold weapons would find it difficult to inflict damage that would cause Zhou Kevin to lose his mobility. He could poke the eyes, but because the strength gap between both sides was too massive, Lu Yan would likely only have a single chance to try.

Zhou Kevin landed heavily on the ground, using all four limbs, the saliva flowing out corroding the floor into a layer of foam.

[You should rejoice that it doesn’t possess much of that stomach acid which is comparable to sulfuric acid itself.]

[Its weakness is the belly. When you studied medicine back then, you dissected plenty of frogs; you know what to do, right?]

Lu Yan’s gaze grew sharp.

He wasn’t skilled in combat, but when facing danger, the desire to survive kept him incomparably clear-headed.

[Step back.]

[To the left, reverse stab. Run.]

Lu Yan’s physical stamina was considered quite decent. After all, when the nurses couldn’t make it in time, he would actively step forward to help lift patient stretchers. But before Zhou Kevin, who had already deteriorated into a contaminant, it was entirely insufficient.

He was pinned to the ground.

Zhou Kevin throttled his neck, his expression bewildered: “Why aren’t you afraid?”

Humans who died in terror were the most delicious food to contaminants.

Yet Lu Yan’s expression was exceptionally calm.

However, this didn’t matter.

Zhou Kevin’s hand moved upward, his slender fingers prying open Lu Yan’s eyelids, his smile nearly splitting open to his ears: “Let’s start from the eyes then. Senior, you have no idea how beautiful your eyes are.”

It opened its mouth, spitting out a long, nauseating tongue.

This was exactly what Lu Yan had been waiting for.

A distorted frenzy surfaced on his calm face, yet his hand remained perfectly steady.

The very first time Lu Yan held a scalpel, the mentor guiding him had praised him, saying he was naturally born to enter this profession.

But those with steady hands weren’t limited to doctors; there were also butchers.

Zhou Kevin’s foul tongue tip was a mere inch away from Lu Yan’s eyes.

The map was unrolled, and the dagger was revealed.

The blade plunged deeply into the opponent’s abdomen.

Crimson blood erupted forth, drenching Lu Yan’s entire head.

…

…

The battle concluded. The eviscerated frog had basically lost all mobility; fearing it wasn’t completely dead, Lu Yan stepped forward to deliver several additional stabs.

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, the contaminant lying on the floor had already gone completely cold.

Lu Yan picked up a mop and began to clean the floor. The blood was a bit difficult to wash out, but fortunately, he was well-prepared. With light saltwater paired with a 10% potassium iodide solution, the floor was soon pristine as new.