When the elevator door opened again, Shen Wang saw a completely different place.

The dim corridor, the red “Operation Room” sign, the dusty plastic chairs, it didn’t look like a proper operation room at all.

Four nurses pushed Shen Wang into the room, and the doctor took off his white coat and started to wear surgical gowns on the spot, which was so informal that it was hard not to complain.

While changing, he said: “Go pick up the other patient and send him up when the time comes.”

Two of the stiff nurses turned around and left the operating room.

Shen Wang watched him change into surgical gowns before speaking, “Doctor, tell me the surgical procedure.”

“Procedure?” The doctor looked at him strangely, “What procedure is there? Just remove your bad eyes and give you the good eyes, and then you’ll be able to see.”

“Don’t worry, our eyes are the best.”

Shen Wang stared at him, “Can I see the eyes that will replace mine?”

“You want to see them? Okay.” The doctor put on gloves and signaled to the remaining nurses, “Show him the eyes that he’ll have.”

A nurse came over with a tray. On the tray was a piece of white paper on which there was a pair of eyes. The eyes were black and looked very fresh. Shen Wang defined them fresh because he saw them moving, they were still alive. The round eyeballs were a bit bloodshot and still moving.

The doctor came over with a scalpel, “Lie down, the operation is about to begin.”

Shen Wang looked at him calmly, “I don’t want to have surgery now.”

“Really?” The doctor stared at Shen Wang with the scalpel raised. He looked at Shen Wang’s eyes and said obsessively, “It’s not up to you to choose!”

“These eyes must be replaced!”

The scalpel was raised and stabbed down hard. Shen Wang dodged the blade and kicked the doctor.

He got down from the mobile bed that he previously despised and said “Don’t you hear me? I said I don’t want to have the surgery.”

The doctor got up from the ground, twisted his body, and with a puff, a crack appeared on his neck, and a fist-sized blood-red eye emerged, staring at Shen Wang.

He held the knife tightly, and eyes emerged from the cracks on his arm too.

“Give me the eyes!”

“Class C.” Shen Wang grabbed the wrist holding the knife, “Pollutants have their own names if they are higher than D level. How about naming you [Stye]¹? It’s a disease that grows around the eyes.”

The eye fell from the doctor’s wrist and hit Shen Wang’s arm. With a puff,  it exploded, and the sticky blood covered Shen Wang’s skin.

The doctor laughed.

He looked at Shen Wang with resentment, “You are now polluted! Soon you will grow a lot of eyes! Soon you will be the same as us!”

“Oh? Really?”

Shen Wang pinched the doctor, “You dare to smear such a dirty thing on me, are you looking for death?”

The doctor laughed wildly, but suddenly he couldn’t laugh anymore because he saw that Shen Wang hadn’t changed at all. He was still himself, and his black eyes were still full of mockery as always.

“No, why?!” The doctor opened his eyes wide, “Why aren’t you distorted!”

“Becoming a class C pollutant did not cause damage to your brain, right?” Shen Wang’s eyes were calm, he said: “Didn’t you realize that I’m not blind at all? I’m not affected at all from pollution! Did you think you could pollute me?”

Puff.

The doctor felt something piercing his chest, he lowered his head in a trance, and saw a bloody thorn. The thorn grew while in his heart, as if breaking out of a cocoon, it tore his chest in just a moment.

When did this happen? !

Shen Wang let go of his hand and the doctor fell to the ground. The thorns quickly took root, and occupied his body. They grew wantonly, trying to devour nutrients and bloom small red flowers.

The stiff nurses next to him stood there and watched stiffly, without any movement, even more robotic than robots.

They are lower level pollutants and completely puppet-like.

Ignoring the two nurses, Shen Wang began to search for things in the operation room.

This operation room was too dark and empty. Unlike the bright corridor outside, there were no paintings hanging here. All that could be seen was a tall, shabby shelf.

Shen Wang saw many dug out eyes and soaked in jars on the shelf. Each pair of eyes was still in its best state, as if they had just been dug out.

These were probably from the ordinary people who were swallowed into the art hall by [Hundred Eyes]. Everyone had their eyes dug out here.

Ding Dong, the elevator door opened again, and this time it was Zhou Xiangzhe who came out.

It was just that as soon as Zhou Xiangzhe walked in, the nurses fell to the ground in the elevator.

As soon as he walked out, Zhou Xiangzhe heard the sound of someone rummaging through boxes and cabinets. He judged that it wasn’t a noise that the doctor could make.

So he asked, “Shen Wang?”

“I’m here.” Shen Wang took the time to answer.

He glanced at Zhou Xiangzhe, and then at the thorns that covered the corpses on the ground. He made sure that Zhou Xiangzhe would not touch them when he came over, and then he said: “I found a room here, let’s go in together.”

Zhou Xiangzhe walked towards Shen Wang “Where is the pollutant doctor?”

“Dead.” Shen Wang answered him, “Since he took us in the operation room, he became useless. He must be killed.”

Zhou Xiangzhe:…

He now has a new understanding of Shen Wang’s methods.

When Zhou Xiangzhe walked over, Shen Wang happened to open the door. With a creak, the smell of rotten wood instantly came into their nose. Zhou Xiangzhe covered his nose and frowned slightly.

“Wooden smell.”

“Of course it’s wooden smell.” Shen Wang looked at Zhou Xiangzhe next to him strangely.

“No, except here, everywhere else smells like paint.” Zhou Xiangzhe pointed out, “Probably because this is a painting, that’s a very obvious smell.”

Shen Wang understood, “Then it seems that this is a very important place.”

Pushing open the door, Shen Wang saw a very depressing scene, so depressing that Shen Wang frowned.

To be honest, Shen Wang had only seen one level A pollutant in his life, which was the Blood Thorn that was killed by him by chance. The already half-wounded Blood Thorn left a very deep impression on Shen Wang. For the first time, he realized that compared to level B pollutants, level A is on a whole different level.

They are powerful, their minds are twisted, and their domains are so terrifying that humans can go crazy with just one look.

Shen Wang exhaled deeply.

He and Zhou Xiangzhe walked in, and he explained to Zhou Xiangzhe what he was seeing.

“There are more than a few hundred portraits in total.” Shen Wang said.

Densely packed portraits covered the walls all around. The people in each portrait were drawn with messy black lines. Everyone had their eyes wide open as if they were staring at Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe standing in the middle of the room. The eyes in each portrait were filled with intense pain.

The lines of their eyes were very strange, as if they were drawn without eyes at the beginning, and the eyes were added only later.

This reminded Shen Wang of the portraits in front of their ward.

No way… it was those portraits.

Shen Wang took two steps forward and took down a painting casually, “There is information on it.”

“What information?” Zhou Xiangzhe asked.

“Zong Yifan, male, 22 years old; eye color: black, eye condition: young but not beautiful enough, as ordinary as water; final evaluation: good.”

This is an evaluation of a person’s eyes.

Zhou Xiangzhe knew what this meant better than Shen Wang. As an S-level mutant, he had been fighting pollutants for nearly ten years. He was still a minor when he first left the city. He had seen many miserable scenes. In his opinion, there was nothing more cruel than pollutants in the world.

Obviously, they were human beings at the beginning, but they became monsters after being polluted.

Shen Wang put the painting back and continued to look down. Then he unexpectedly found a familiar face.

“The doctor’s portrait is also there, as well as the female pollutant we saw at the beginning.”

“Are they also victims?”

“Maybe?” Shen Wang read out the text above, of course skipping the so-called eye evaluation.

“Shi Mingchen, male, 28 years old; Shi Xinlan, female, 25 years old.”

Zhou Xiangzhe was a little surprised, “Is it them?”

“Do you know them?”

“Not really.” Zhou Xiangzhe answered Shen Wang, “Each mutant will be equipped with a positioning device. Once a mutant disappears, the last location where he was will be immediately located and sent back to the anti-pollution center, because the places where mutants can disappear are mostly the domains of pollutants. The Pollution Control Center will put these locations into a main dangerous places manual.”

“Shi Mingchen and Shi Xinlan were siblings, members of the dispatch team of Dust Desert West City. They disappeared around Dust Desert West City a year ago.”

“I didn’t expect them to die here, and even mutate into two Class C pollutants.”

Zhou Xiangzhe frowned slightly, “But this also shows that [Hundred Eyes] is a pollution born originally here. It’s a pollutant that has just moved here.”

“The experimental personnel of the Academy of Sciences shouldn’t be stupid enough to drill into the territory of a Class A pollutant.”

It can only be said that the researchers didn’t know that there was an additional Class A pollutant here, and they ended up here when they were escaping from the other pollutants.

Shen Wang listened to Zhou Xiangzhe’s words and took another look at Shi Xinlan’s portrait. Her portrait was completely out of tune with the surroundings because there were no eyes in her eye sockets.

Of course it was possible that she became a pollutant before undergoing the eye replacement surgery. After becoming a pollutant, she was killed by Shen Wang in the ward.

Shen Wang was thinking about a very unethical question.

Shi Xinlan became a pollutant. Was it because she was polluted by this place, or because her own brother wanted to perform surgery on her to dig out her eyes?

Alas, no matter how you think about it, it is such a tragedy that if written down it will earn a lot of tears.

However, excluding these, Shen Wang found something strange, that is, the background of all the portraits seemed to be the same place. It could be vaguely seen that it was a high-rise building. Shen Wang boldly judged that this was a hospital. The weird thing was that a huge eye was embedded on the floor of this hospital.

Shen Wang had seen this same eye when he opened the window in his ward.

“Let’s go back.” Shen Wang said, “We have seen what we should see.”

Zhou Xiangzhe was silent for a while, then spoke, “So from the beginning the blindness was always to kill people more easily.”

Can’t see anything, can only follow the painting rules, and finally be pushed onto the operating table to dig out eyes and become nutrient for pollutants.

There is no such thing as discovering art through paintings.

“Pollutants are like this, the higher the level, the worse they are. I don’t know if there are pollutants with complete human-like thinking.” Shen Wang said so, and then he remembered something.

No, there is one.

According to Lan: Their father is an SSS-level pollutant, the uncrowned king of the Zero-Pollution Site. He and their mother were attracted to each other and married, and even gave birth to two non-human and non-pollutant monsters that should not exist at all.

So it seems that the higher the level of pollutants, the more human-like they are.

“Let’s go, I found a clue.”

Zhou Xiangzhe was pulled out by him. When he walked out of the room, Shen Wang saw the thorns left on the corpses. Shen Wang’s strong hunger was still affecting them.

They ate the dead doctor’s remains and then pounced on the stiff nurses. Now they were constantly moving around, and even boldly wanted to try tasting Zhou Xiangzhe.

‘I’m so hungry, so hungry! ‘

‘Master, I’m hungry! I want to eat! ‘

‘I’m so hungry! The food next to Master smells so good! Master, take a bite! ‘

‘Oh, oh, oh! Take a bite! ‘

He can’t be bitten. Not to mention that Zhou Xiangzhe is an S-level mutant, would a person like him let Shen Wang bite him? I’m afraid he will kicked directly.

Shen Wang carelessly endured the continuous and subtle hunger. While in this state, he thought constantly about how long he could still endure it.

In the hospital, Shen Wang would be locked up every time he had an attack. Sometimes he was locked in a confinement room, or the control room, and even the compulsory isolation room of the mental hospital.

All of this only because Shen Wang would become very irritable and able to control himself if he couldn’t eat. He would attack others and steal their food, but such behavior would only fill his stomach with a lot of food but could not relieve his hunger, so he had to be locked up.

Shen Wang thought: No one is going to lock me up now, and I can play detective games while hungry.

This world is really crazy.

After opening the elevator, Zhou Xiangzhe still couldn’t see. He took two steps back and then thought of something.

“The nurses seems to be gone.”

Shen Wang glanced at the blood thorns that rolled around still hungry even after eating the nurses, “Oh, maybe they ran away.”

They ate really cleanly.

“Anyway, don’t worry about these things.” Shen Wang changed the subject, “I saw a strange background in the painting. The background is a hospital with an eye hanging on the hospital wall. I’ve seen that eye outside the ward’s window before, but I didn’t pay attention to it at the time. I didn’t think it was strange until I saw it in the paintings.”

Zhou Xiangzhe imagined in his mind what Shen Wang said.

“If in the paintings the hospital is inlaid with a huge eye. This eye is indeed more conspicuous than imagined.”

“Well, anyway, let’s try to get rid of this eye first.”

They returned to the hospital through the elevator. Shen Wang took Zhou Xiangzhe to his ward and tried to completely open the window. Even so, the window could only be opened less than 45 degrees. Shen Wang stared at the huge eye hanging on the wall below.

“It’s here.”

Zhou Xiangzhe couldn’t see anything. He stretched his hand out of the window tentatively, and then Shen Wang grabbed his hand and pointed his fingertips at the huge eye downstairs.

“Although you can’t see it, you are an S-level mutant. Can you get rid of this big eye?”

Zhou Xiangzhe thought about it, put his finger to his lips, and then bit his finger in front of Shen Wang’s puzzled eyes. Blood fell from his fingertips. Shen Wang took a breath of cold air. The moment Zhou Xiangzhe bit his finger, the sandalwood smell in the room became extremely strong.

“Help me aim at its position.” Zhou Xiangzhe said, “My blood is fused with Deer God, and this thing can’t stand it.”

What a waste!

Shen Wang frowned and looked at Zhou Xiangzhe. In the end, he could only reach out and grab Zhou Xiangzhe’s wrist, and then guide Zhou Xiangzhe to stretch his hand just above the eye.

Tick, a drop of bright red blood fell on the eyeball and melted into the body of the eyeball in an instant.

The eyeball turned, and it suddenly stared at Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe. The next drop of blood fell again. It was just a drop of blood, but it seemed to weigh 10,000 tons on this eyeball. Shen Wang saw countless red blood threads coming out of the eyeball at a speed visible to the naked eye. It had no mouth and no eyelids, but Shen Wang still saw it screaming in fear.

The third drop of blood fell, and the eyeball wanted to avoid it, but it was stuck on the wall and couldn’t avoid it at all.

But just when the blood was about to drip, the thorns that had been lying in ambush nearby suddenly jumped out, and they happily snatched the drop of blood.

‘Eat! Eat! ’

‘Master is hungry! Master, eat quickly! ’

‘Hmm, eat, eat! ’

Shen Wang: …

Zhou Xiangzhe still couldn’t see, but he could feel a sudden breeze passing by him. He retracted his hand, and the wound on his fingertips that he had just bitten had healed.

“How is it?” Zhou Xiangzhe asked Shen Wang.

What else could Shen Wang say? He could only say that of course there was no problem.

He let go of Zhou Xiangzhe’s hand and breathed in the fresh air outside the window. He felt that he was on the verge of losing control.

He shouldn’t continue to be near Zhou Xiangzhe, and he shouldn’t stay here. If he lost control, he would be more difficult to deal with. The cabinets in the doctor’s office that he had dismantled into scraps proved this point.

At this moment, with a bang, Zhou Xiangzhe lost his balance and almost fell to the ground.

“Is there an earthquake?”

“No, painting is collapsing.” Shen Wang grabbed the window handle, steadied his body and looked out the window. Sure enough, the huge eye was shaking constantly, melting as it shook, and countless eyes fell out of its melted half, and those bloody eyeballs fell to the ground.

There was another strong tremor, and the whole building seemed to be collapsing. A portrait hanging on the wall fell and hit Zhou Xiangzhe’s arm.

“We have to leave here.”

“It’s too late.” Shen Wang said: “The eyeball melted.”

The eyeball melted completely. Zhou Xiangzhe’s blood was a strong poison, and just two drops were enough to turn the eye into a pool of blood.

The eyeball embedded in the building melted, and the whole building was collapsing. At the last moment, Shen Wang felt that he was protected by Zhou Xiangzhe, and afterwards there was the feeling of weightlessness as his body fell.

But soon they landed on the ground. The cold ground was full of dust, and their black coats were stained with obvious dirt in just a few seconds.

Zhou Xiangzhe blinked, then he sat up and rubbed his eyes. His dull eyes seemed to finally let in light.

He could see.

“Where is this?”

Zhou Xiangzhe got up from the ground, his vision gradually recovered, and in front of him was a long corridor. It wasn’t a hospital, but a shabby exhibition gallery, full of dust and broken picture frames. Zhou Xiangzhe had a good memory, even though he was blind before, he could only see it.

“This is where we first came in.” Zhou Xiangzhe said, “right?”

Shen Wang did not get up, he sat quietly on the ground and silently covered his stomach.

Zhou Xiangzhe did not notice his unnaturalness. The only complete painting hung on the shabby gallery in front of him, and the transparent glass frame was so new that it didn’t fit the surrounding.

The painting has messy lines disrupting the appearance of the hospital. The red hospital sign is like a blurred snow TV. The black sky is extremely depressing. A huge eyeball is embedded on the wall of the hospital. The eyeball looks down at the people coming and going at the hospital entrance. No one cares seems to notice the strangeness fo the scene, as if this eyeball should exist naturally.

If you look closely, you will find that everyone who comes and goes has more than one pair of eyes on their faces. Those eyes are all over their exposed skin, but everyone smiles quite happily.

Grotesque art.

“We should be considered to have completed the first painting, because we found this eye, which was originally impossible to be found, but we found it because you fortunately weren’t blind.” Zhou Xiangzhe looked at the painting and thought, “My eyesight has also recovered. I don’t know if we will enter other paintings later.”

While listening to Zhou Xiangzhe’s reasoning, Shen Wang supported himself on the wall to stand up, and he exhaled hard.

No, the most important thing now is not whether he will enter a new painting, but something more bothersome to deal with.

His onset period is still continuing, and he is almost unable to bear it now.

Shen Wang’s pupils were red. He gritted his teeth and stared at Zhou Xiangzhe who was observing the picture frame in front of him. He stared at Zhou Xiangzhe with strong aggression.

For some reason, Zhou Xiangzhe was not on guard against him. Hedid not even detect such a naked attack.

“Zhou Xiangzhe.” Finally, Shen Wang called him.

Zhou Xiangzhe turned his head and looked at him.

Shen Wang looked at him, and Zhou Xiangzhe saw his slightly red eyes. His eyes were not normal, he seemed uncomfortable.

Because of his onset period, Shen Wang now looks very weak, as if he has the unique fragility of a patient. The tail of his eyes is dyed red, which makes his peach blossom eyes more pitiful. There should be no one in this world who looks more innocent and harmless than him now.

He didn’t smile, but the more innocent he was, the more weird he was.

At this time, he is obviously human, but he gave a weirder feeling than Blood Thorn.

“Shen…”

Shen Wang took action again before he finished speaking. He walked towards Zhou Xiangzhe and interrupted Zhou Xiangzhe.

Zhou Xiangzhe felt Shen Wang fall into his arms because he couldn’t stand steadily. His warm breath hit his neck, as if he was exhausted during the onset period, but he killed a Class C pollutant alone in the operation room. If he were to be evaluated right now, il would show that he reached Level B.

It was at this time that he suddenly thought: Although Shen Wang is one year younger than him,  after so many years he has grown as tall as himself.

He is no longer the child who would smile and sing to him, but a tall and handsome young man, a powerful mutant, an excellent member of the dispatch team. He does not need his protection, and may even be unhappy with such protection.

Zhou Xiangzhe was thinking wildly, and it was the pain on his neck that interrupted him. Zhou Xiangzhe frowned instantly, and his hand subconsciously wanted to push away the person who brought him pain, but his arm did not move.

Because it was Shen Wang who bit him.

The smell of blood oozes out from the wound that was bitten. This is the first time that Zhou Xiangzhe has been bitten in his life.

He was a little confused. He didn’t know why he was bitten. He thought a lot but couldn’t figure out the reason.

He didn’t reveal his identity, nor did he reveal that he knew Shen Wang was Xiao Shiwu. Just now, they even had a pleasant cooperation in the painting.

So why?

“Shen Wang?”

“What are you doing?”

What? Eating…

Shen Wang still couldn’t restrain himself and bit Zhou Xiangzhe. This was also the first time that Shen Wang had bitten someone in his life.

But it doesn’t matter. He is a lunatic anyway. He wants to bite someone. He’ll just bite them. Sick people are unreasonable.

His mouth was filled with a strong smell of blood, mixed with a taste that increased his appetite. Shen Wang knew that this was the S-level pollutant [Deer God] mixed in it. He also knew that he should stop immediately and then use a joke or two to get away with what he’s doing.

But he was too hungry. The strong hunger and thirst made his stomach ache.

“Shen Wang? Shen Wang.” Zhou Xiangzhe was still calling his name.

The sharp stinging sensation spread outwards little by little from the place where he was bitten. This was a very dangerous feeling. People are very sensitive to their own vulnerable points. Zhou Xiangzhe would never expose these places to another person.

But Shen Wang was different. Shen Wang was his little Shiwu, the only friend left from the orphanage.

After swallowing a mouthful of blood, Shen Wang slowly loosened his grip.

Although he had bitten someone, Shen Wang’s tone was a little aggrieved. He muttered softly, “I’m so hungry.”

“… I want to eat something.”

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at him, and after a moment he reached into his pocket. He took out a piece of candy wrapped in a colorful package and gently placed the candy in Shen Wang’s palm.

“Eat this first.”

Shen Wang was stunned for a moment. He didn’t expect Zhou Xiangzhe to not ask about what happened just now, but he even took out a piece of candy from his pocket and gave it to him.

Why did Zhou Xiangzhe bring candy with him when he went out?

“Eat it quickly.”

It was like Zhou Xiangzhe knew that he would be hungry, and he couldn’t eat normal food when he was hungry, so instead of something that made him feel full, he chose some slow-melting candies, which would give him a taste but not make him eat too much.

It was like they were actually very familiar friends, and as if Zhou Xiangzhe has already known him for a long.

1. A stye (or sty) is a painful red bump on the edge of your eyelid ↩︎