Strange, strange-it could spread.

So the Jin Family's young master had not become a Polluted because of the trial in the trial room. He seemed to have been extraordinarily unlucky, falling victim to stray corruption and becoming a Polluted.

Although that should have been the conclusion, after some deliberation, the three assistants still said to Yan Pei, the teacher in charge, "Let's close trial room A. Using a C-rank Polluted to test students is still a little too risky. We can close this room and assign the students to the other..."

Before the assistant could finish, Yan Pei interrupted him displeasedly. "Absurd. You think the C-rank Polluted in the trial room turned Jin Hong into a Polluted?"

"That's not it. I just think there's never been a precedent for using a C-rank Polluted to test students. Switching to an F-rank would be safer."

"You still think something happened to Jin Hong during the trial!" Yan Pei said angrily. "You don't have the slightest common sense. The corruption caused by Polluted isn't 'contagious'!"

Yan Pei said, "The Polluted in trial room A was sent by the Jin Family. Would the Jin Family want to harm their own young master? That Polluted was confirmed safe. What happened to Jin Hong was an accident and had absolutely nothing to do with it!"

Yan Pei refused to let anyone link Jin Hong's mutation to the Polluted in trial room A. Although bringing that Polluted to the trial grounds had been the Jin Family's suggestion, he had made the final decision. Admitting a connection meant bearing some responsibility.

"Enough. Not another word." Yan Pei forbade the assistant from continuing. "Instead of wasting time worrying about the students' trials, you should think about how to explain to the Jin Family that their young master has become a Polluted."

"Huh?" The assistant was baffled. "What's there to explain? We can't decide whether someone becomes a Polluted. Just notify them according to the usual procedures."

Blockheads!

Were those useless lumps of dirt sitting on these assistants' necks?

Yan Pei prompted them. "That's the Jin Family's young master."

The assistant did not understand. "Yes."

Yan Pei: "..."

He was furious. "A perfectly fine young master with high potential became a Polluted right under our noses. Don't we owe them an explanation?"

The assistant scratched his head. "Plenty of people become Polluted. Some of them have high potential, too."

There were so many unfortunate people. Who could give whom an explanation?

Yan Pei's face twitched. He could not talk to these people!

In truth, Yan Pei was anxious because he wanted to maintain friendly relations with the Jin Family. The assistants, however, did not have their eyes on the Jin Family, but on the entire suffering world. Naturally, they did not understand his thinking.

Yan Pei swept his sleeve and left to fret alone. The assistants exchanged glances. Unable to understand the teacher in charge, they set the matter aside. Looking at the Polluted's corpse on the ground, a trace of gravity entered their eyes. A newly transformed Polluted appearing at the trial grounds really was... an extremely unlikely event.

In an out-of-the-way assistant's room, Ye Jiang was playing a board game with the Mushroom Man. She placed her pieces as fast as lightning. Even after forming several pairs of hands, the Mushroom Man could hardly compete.

The game ended.

"You lost again," Ye Jiang said.

She gestured to the Mushroom Man. "Hold out your hand."

The Mushroom Man held out its hand and waited to be slapped. This was their wager: the loser had to take a slap on the palm.

The outstretched hand was snowy white, woven from fine mycelial threads. Ye Jiang slapped it, leaving an unknown tree fruit behind when she withdrew her hand.

Ye Jiang stood and headed for the bed. "It's too late. No more games."

With that, she lazily climbed into bed.

The Mushroom Man: "..."

It carefully tucked the fruit inside its body.

There were already many similar fruits inside its body.

An unknown towering tree grew outside this room, bearing unknown, inedible fruits. Every day, the Mushroom Man picked up fallen fruit beneath it.

A human saw it.

One day, that human gave it a fallen fruit.

Chapter 17: Strange, strange-it could spread.

That night, all the students realized something had happened outside. The commotion was so loud that they could not possibly have missed it. Only their adherence to discipline kept their curiosity firmly locked away in their hearts instead of letting them follow their impulses and run outside to investigate. The students did not know what had happened outside, but the following day, they discovered that one

conspicuous presence among them was missing. The Jin Family's young master, Jin Hong, was gone.

"Student Jin Hong has withdrawn from this trial."

That was what the assistant teachers told the students. It was far too vague, but whenever the students asked for specifics, the assistant teachers all clamped their mouths shut and merely told them to focus on their trials. Seeing this reaction, the students each formed their own guesses.

The students had too many distracting thoughts and were in no condition to come into contact with corruption, so the trial grounds decided to give them half a day off and resume the trials that afternoon.

This was the students' first break since entering the mountains, yet not one of the youngsters cheered. They all crowded into the dormitories to chat in secret, discussing last night's commotion and the missing Jin Hong.

"What happened last night had something to do with Jin Hong, right? What exactly happened to him?"

"It definitely did. Actually, I saw Jin Hong go out last night. He looked a little scary. I wanted to call out to him, but I didn't dare..."

"He's been pretty terrifying these past few days, all twitchy and paranoid. Isn't the training in trial room A too harsh?"

At the mention of trial room A, the students could not help looking toward a certain dozen or so classmates among them. At a glance, those classmates were clearly in a different state from the rest: they stood straighter and looked full of vigor.

"..."

All right, it seemed there was nothing wrong with the training in trial room A. Not only was there nothing wrong, its results were exceptionally good. The only one with a problem was Jin Hong.

Someone sidled up to a student from trial room A and asked, "Hey, I heard you're using a C-rank Polluted for your trials. Doesn't it feel awful?"

The student laughed openly. "It does. Sometimes my heart feels as heavy as iron, and my stomach feels awful, like it's stuffed with cotton. But..."

"We have our assistant teacher! Whenever we feel uncomfortable, we go to her to have our foreheads checked and our heads patted. Once she touches us, we're all better!" another student from trial room A answered first, looking smug as they showed off their particularly wonderful assistant teacher.

The other students from trial room A nodded in agreement.

"That's right! Our assistant teacher is wonderful!"

"She's so patient!"

"Her hands feel so nice!"

The students from classes B, C, and D: "..."

These trial room A students were all heaven's favored children, so why were they acting like unweaned lambs, addicted to this sort of soothing meant for infants?

Well, hard to judge.

"Is that assistant teacher really that nice?" one student asked doubtfully. "She looks so unapproachable. I've never seen her smile."

The students from trial room A would not stand for anyone misunderstanding their assistant teacher. They immediately gave a hundred examples to prove how good she was, concluding, "Teacher Turbot just has a frozen face!"

Ming Xia quietly left the dormitory amid her classmates' chatter. After stepping outside, she paused, then headed in the direction of last night's commotion, hoping to find something that would help her reconstruct what had happened. But there was nothing. She walked all the way to the room of the teacher in charge without finding anything. All evidence that could prove something had happened yesterday had been disposed of.

No, not all of it.

A small scrap of bloodstained fabric lay caught among the branches of a decorative shrub. Ming Xia bent closer to examine it and pinched the scrap between her fingers-it was fabric from the clothes Jin Hong had worn yesterday. Jin Hong, he...

A strand of mycelium quietly poked its tip out of the ground. As Ming Xia bent over, her attention entirely focused on the scrap of fabric, it suddenly shot out, turning into a white blur that coiled toward her neck. Acting on instinct alone, Ming Xia rolled aside and dodged the strike. Before she could even see what it was, the white blur attacked her again! She dodged again, relying on her excellent physical abilities to evade several attacks, but that was all she could manage. She did not even know what was attacking her!

As she narrowly dodged once more, a small stone fell from Ming Xia's pocket. So intensely focused on her attacker, she did not notice it falling. At that moment, however, the strand of mycelium intent on wrapping around her neck and suspending her in the air to turn her into a work of art suddenly stopped moving.

Far away in Ye Jiang's room, a trace of bewilderment suddenly appeared on the Mushroom Man's face. The remotely controlled mycelium slipped beneath the ground. Several times, it tried to rush out and strangle the human, only to stop itself under the resistance of some subtle emotion.

Ming Xia realized the thing attacking her had disappeared. She watched her surroundings warily. After a long while without another attack, she seized the opportunity and swiftly withdrew from the area.

Once she was gone, the mycelium slipped out. Rather than pursuing the human, it hesitantly moved toward the small stone and gently touched it. It was an ordinary trilobite fossil.

An immensely complex emotion suddenly surged like the tide. The Mushroom Man fell into a daze. Hazy memories, as though veiled in gauze, suddenly filled its empty brain. Deep within those memories, someone seemed to be calling it something. It could not catch that voice or lift the veil over its memories, leaving it utterly desolate.

In the assistant's room, the Mushroom Man playing opposite her suddenly became distracted. Ye Jiang glanced at it and, in a spirit of good sportsmanship, stopped to wait.

Everyone at the trial grounds had half a day off today. The Mushroom Man had already left Ye Jiang's room that morning, but ran back after learning about the break and settled into its usual spot in her room. Neither of them had much else by way of entertainment. Their sole amusement was playing board games, so naturally, they had opened the board.

Now that her opponent had become distracted in the middle of their game, Ye Jiang did not mind in the slightest. She stood to pour herself a cup of water. The Mushroom Man was familiar with her behavior. Although distracted, it still pulled out a few mycelial threads to pour the water for Ye Jiang, who accepted it naturally.

Bang, bang-

Someone knocked.

Ye Jiang went to open the door with her cup in hand. The dazed Mushroom Man paused and turned its head toward the door.

The person knocking was the student Ming Xia. She was in a sorry state, covered in mud.

The moment the door opened, Ming Xia said quickly, "Something's happened at the trial grounds. Jin Hong may already be dead. Teacher, please be careful..."