Pollution Source Itself

Under normal circumstances, to resolve a Mental Pollution incident, they naturally had to find its logic and the core key.

As members of the Special Pollution Cleanup Department, everyone was very familiar with this process.

But it seemed that sometimes, this process was not absolute?

With this thought in mind, the investigation team members and the City Patrol Army soldiers standing guard nearby all stared blankly at the lake, somewhat at a loss as they watched the battle between Lu Xin and that Mental Monster—a battle that had gone beyond reason.

The most shocked was Qin Ran. He had been hiding by the shore, foolishly staring at the strange scene in the lake.

Looking at the twisted and terrifying Human-shaped Fruit Tree beneath the Crimson Moon, he felt both frightened and bewildered. He pounded his head hard.

"What exactly is that?"

Then he looked at Lu Xin, who was tearing the Human-shaped Fruit Tree apart bit by bit, and felt inexplicably terrified. "And what is that?"

Even though it was difficult for the others to gain any intuitive understanding of such a crazy and twisted battle, they could still tell what was happening.

At this moment, Lu Xin had already gained the upper hand.

The "human figures" growing at the tips of the vines kept clawing with their limbs, desperately trying to grab him. But under Lu Xin's agile and unpredictable movements, they missed again and again. Instead, Lu Xin seized every opportunity to tear them apart, ripping them into pieces. The shadows growing at the tips of its vines then vanished one after another.

Before long, many of the vines were reduced to bare stalks, swaying feebly in the air.

As for Lu Xin, he grew more excited the longer he fought. His eyes shone with delight. Tearing apart the "human-shaped vines" growing at the tips of the vines was not enough for him; he simply began tearing at the vines themselves.

In Lu Xin's eyes, meanwhile, Sister was becoming happier and happier. She simply leaped onto the vines.

Grabbing a vine with both hands, she opened her mouth and bit down with a loud "crunch."

The vine trembled in pain.

Lu Xin was frightened out of his wits as well. "Don't eat random things..."

"No, I'm going to eat it!"

Sister ignored him and forcefully tore off another bite. Her teeth looked sharp and sturdy at that moment.

"Swish, swish, swish..."

Finally, under Sister's savage assault, the vine began trembling violently to the naked eye, as if it were shivering.

Tearing its "fruits" apart earlier had only made it more frenzied.

But now, as Sister devoured parts of its body, it began to feel fear.

Suddenly, all the vines violently contracted and withdrew toward the puddle. Since Sister was straining to hold on to one of them, the thing in the puddle seemed somewhat helpless. It simply abandoned that vine, while the other vines vanished without a trace in an instant, like an exploding video played backward.

"What..."

Lu Xin, completely unprepared, suddenly saw this scene and froze.

He asked instinctively, "What happened?"

"Hmph!"

Sister's dissatisfied voice came from the side. She quickly ate the abandoned vine, then leaped beside the puddle and craned her head to look inside. When nothing happened for a long while, she angrily grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in.

Then she turned and said to Lu Xin, "It chickened out!"

"It chickened out?"

Lu Xin felt both baffled and absurd.

Could this Mental Monster actually chicken out?

He walked over to Sister and looked at the tiny puddle. It was impossible to tell how deep it was; it seemed to be a depression in the lakebed. Although they had clearly seen the tree-like Mental Monster grow out of this puddle just now, when they looked down now, there was nothing there. Under the dim red moonlight, they could only faintly see their own reflections...

"Is it over?"

Everyone around them was staring at the suddenly tranquil lakebed, finding it difficult to accept.

In the channel, Chen Jing reacted the fastest and was the first to make a decision. "Clean it up while we have the chance!"

"Mr. Lu Xin, that Pollution Source..."

After receiving the order, the three members of the investigation team approached bravely.

After what had happened just now, they were clearly frightened, but they still forced themselves to remain calm and carry out the order.

"It's right beneath here!"

Lu Xin, who had just gone through such an intense battle, looked unusually calm at this moment.

He merely looked at the small puddle and said, "But there probably won't be any further abnormalities for the time being..."

The three investigation team members exchanged glances, unable to understand how Lu Xin had switched to such a calm state so quickly.

He looked as though the battle just now had had nothing to do with him...

"Excavate the Pollution Source itself. Lu Xin will stand guard."

Chen Jing's voice came through Lu Xin's earpiece, so he relayed the order to the three investigation team members.

"Yes!"

The three investigation team members immediately answered loudly. Then they ran to the lakeshore to get shovels. Lu Xin noticed that the support team members in the distance had first placed the shovels somewhere near the lakeshore, after which the investigation team went to retrieve them. The two sides had no direct contact at any point. It seemed their discipline in this regard was extremely strict.

Once they had the shovels, the three investigation team members immediately began digging.

Lu Xin stood guard seriously at the side, in case any other mutation appeared during the excavation.

His palm rested beside him, ready to take Sister's hand at any moment.

However, perhaps the Mental Monster beneath them had truly chickened out, just as Sister had said. Nothing unusual happened throughout the excavation. After they dug open an outlet and drained the water inside, they continued digging down bit by bit. When they had reached a depth of roughly one and a half meters, one of the investigation team members whispered, "Found it."

As the wet soil was slowly cleared away, they saw a black, human-shaped object below, resembling a corpse.

Everyone felt slightly relieved at the same time.

The incident had begun because Qin Ran killed Cui Wang, so they had suspected from the start that the Pollution Source was connected to Cui Wang's corpse. Yet they had not found Cui Wang's body at the place where Qin Ran had dumped it earlier, only some fragments of flesh. They could guess that the rest might have been eaten by wild dogs, but that clearly could not explain all their doubts.

Now that they had found a corpse, many questions could be explained.

"I'll do it."

Lu Xin took the rope and climbed down himself, tying a knot around the corpse.

Then, with all three investigation team members pulling together, they finally dragged the corpse up and placed it on the mud nearby.

It was indeed a corpse, and it did not appear abnormal in the slightest.

But the three investigation team members were all tense as they pulled over a water hose and washed the mud from the corpse.

Lu Xin noticed that Sister was tilting her head and studying the corpse, as if she were somewhat curious.

Gradually, the mud on the corpse's face and body was washed clean, revealing the clothes he wore. It was a set of faded, tattered camouflage fatigues, with a belt tied around his waist. Although no one knew how long he had been buried beneath the lake, the corpse was completely intact and had not even swollen from being soaked. Once the mud had been washed from his face, they could even make out what he had looked like originally.

"This is..."

Lu Xin looked at the face and frowned slightly. It seemed somewhat familiar.

"Can you confirm the identity of the corpse?"

Chen Jing's question came through the channel.

But as Lu Xin studied the face carefully, he gradually felt a chill creep up his back.

The part of his mind that had relaxed slightly after defeating the Mental Monster head-on suddenly tensed again.

After carefully examining the corpse, one of the three investigation team members suddenly cried out.

His cry contained no specific words, nor did it convey any definite meaning.

It was simply a scream produced instinctively from excessive shock—or perhaps fear.

"Report immediately!"

Chen Jing's voice rang out in the channel. "Is that corpse Cui Wang?"

Amid her repeated urging, Lu Xin came to his senses. He calmed himself and answered in a low voice, "No!"

Then he looked at the corpse on the ground and slowly replied, "It's Qin Ran!"

"How is that possible?"

Chen Jing's voice suddenly contained shock and confusion as well.

Yes...

How was that possible?

Lu Xin slowly thought it over as he examined the corpse carefully.

The corpse could be identified without a doubt. It was Qin Ran.

Its facial features and height—even the clothes it wore—were exactly the same as Qin Ran's.

Or rather, this was Qin Ran.

But if the source of the Pollution Source that had caused such a huge disturbance beneath the lake was Qin Ran...

Then who was the person on the shore who had been investigating and testing alongside them the entire time?