“Wait, don’t be afraid!” Shen Wang quickly said. “I’m from the Pollution Control Center.”

The director froze for a moment, then looked Shen Wang up and down. “Pollution Control Center?”

“Hello, I’m Shen Wang from [Polaris]. I’m here on a pollution investigation mission,” Shen Wang said, pointing to the Pollution Control Center emblem on his chest. “I’m really not a child trafficker.”

The director stared at the emblem on Shen Wang’s chest. Although more than a decade had passed, the emblem of the Pollution Control Center remained the same, so he reluctantly believed Shen Wang.

After all, in this era, with the population drastically reduced and survival uncertain, who would spend money to buy a child? And who would come to an orphanage with a weapon to traffic children? It was too absurd.

“Oh no!” The director, now convinced Shen Wang wasn’t a threat, immediately ran out. “Little Seven and Little Fifteen!”

Shen Wang let out a soft sigh. He holstered his gun and glanced at the clock. The clock seemed broken, stuck firmly at 8 AM. The second hand trembled, trying to move, but it was as if some force was holding it in place, forcing it to remain at 8 o’clock.

The window next to the clock was covered by thick curtains. Shen Wang walked over and pulled the curtains open, revealing a pitch-black night outside, devoid of any light.

Inside the orphanage, it was 8 AM, but outside, it was still 9 PM.

Shen Wang frowned slightly, closed the curtains, and walked out of the office.

He saw the brightly lit hallway of the orphanage. A teacher was sweeping up broken glass on the floor. Through the glass, he could see the dark, fog-like night outside, as if something terrifying was watching the orphanage with malicious intent. The teacher, oblivious, muttered to herself about making sure the children didn’t get cut by the glass.

Not far away, the director was discussing something with three other teachers. They quickly split up and ran in four different directions, clearly searching for the missing Little Seven and Little Fifteen.

But how could they find them? In the true history, Little Fifteen was in the hospital receiving treatment, and Little Seven was the sole survivor, pushed out of the window by the director.

Sure enough, after searching for a while, they found nothing. But then the director seemed to remember something.

He hurried back and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Shen Wang still there.

“Sir!” The director gasped for breath as he looked at Shen Wang. “You said you’re from the Pollution Control Center, here to investigate a pollution incident, right?”

Shen Wang nodded.

“Then, are the children’s disappearances related to the pollution?” the director asked anxiously. “Do you know where they are? How could two children just vanish like that?”

“Calm down,” Shen Wang reassured him. “I don’t know if it’s pollution, but I was chasing a pollutant when I ended up here.”

Hearing this, the director’s panic became impossible to hide.

“A pollutant? No, I have to get the children out of here.”

The orphanage director, who had forgotten he was already dead, was stuck repeating the same day, his mind still focused on protecting the children under his care.

“The orphanage doesn’t need to be evacuated,” Shen Wang repeated what he had said during their first meeting. “I need information. Only you can provide me with clues, Director.”

The director paused, looking at Shen Wang. After a long moment, he slowly nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“A child,” Shen Wang said. “I’m not sure if it’s a boy or a girl, but they weren’t orphaned—they were abandoned by their mother at the orphanage. Do we have a child like that here?”

The director thought for a moment, his expression shifting as if he remembered something, though he seemed somewhat incredulous.

“Director?”

“Yes,” the director nodded. “There is such a child in the orphanage, but they’re not here right now.”

Shen Wang was surprised. “If they’re not here, where are they?”

“There’s a detention room in the dormitory area behind the orphanage. It was originally a storage room, but it was converted into a detention room to manage Little Fifteen’s condition,” the director explained. “They’re in the detention room.”

Although it was called a detention room, the director had never actually used it to punish the children. It had essentially become Little Fifteen’s private room, used only when his condition became uncontrollable.

Even now, hearing that another child had been placed there surprised Shen Wang.

“Who is it?”

“Little One.”

The director sighed. “He got into a fight with Little Seven.”

Shen Wang was even more surprised. “Little Seven got into a fight?”

“Because Little One found the candy Little Seven had been saving and threw it all down the drain,” the director shook his head. “I’ve never seen Little Seven get angry before. This was the first time. He didn’t say a word, just started fighting. After we separated them, Little Seven cried and asked me: ‘Will Little Fifteen be sad if he comes back and there’s no candy?’”

“So I put Little One in detention.”

The director looked out the window, even though it was pitch dark outside and nothing was visible.

“Sometimes, when a child makes a mistake, verbal education isn’t enough. This time, it was his fault.”

Little One.

Shen Wang thought back. The director had given the children in the orphanage nicknames based on their age, with Little One being the oldest child in the orphanage.

Despite being the oldest, Little One had little presence—at least in Shen Wang’s memory.

He only remembered that this child, like himself, was an outcast. But while Shen Wang was ostracized because of his illness, Little One seemed more like a loner by nature. He didn’t play with the other children and often sat silently by the door.

He seemed to harbor a subtle resentment toward the orphanage, or perhaps, being the oldest, he understood better than the others what it meant to be in an orphanage.

“Director, can you take me to see him?”

“Alright,” the director hesitated but eventually agreed.

He led Shen Wang through another path. There was a passage in the orphanage that led to the dormitory, but the path was covered in dust, as if no one had walked it in years. 

The director, seemingly oblivious to the dust, pushed the door open, and a cloud of dust fell onto him.

As they walked, the director spoke, “Our Little Fifteen is a special child. He’s sick and needs to go to the hospital for treatment from time to time.”

“Little Seven and Little Fifteen are the closest. They’re always together. Little Seven often saves the candy he’s given and shares it with Little Fifteen. Sometimes, when Little Fifteen isn’t here, I give his share to Little Seven.”

The director rambled on, unconsciously slipping into the soothing tone he used when speaking to the children.

“Many children think Little Seven doesn’t like candy and ask him for it. But how could Little Seven not like candy? He’s just a child too.”

“He just wants to save it for the friend he likes.”

The director fell silent for a few seconds.

This was something everyone in the orphanage knew, which was why he found it hard to understand why Little One would go out of his way to find the candy Little Seven had saved, not to eat it, but to throw it down the drain.

His actions were so malicious that the director felt it necessary to break his own rule and lock him in the detention room.

Shen Wang listened to the director’s rambling without interrupting.

This was a piece of history Shen Wang didn’t know—events that had happened just days before the S-level pollution source erupted. Zhou Xiangzhe had experienced it, but Shen Wang, being in the hospital at the time, had no knowledge of it.

Footprints marked the dusty floor as they walked. The lights in the passageway flickered on one by one, but outside the windows, the darkness remained impenetrable. The swirling darkness seemed to churn with something ominous, and Shen Wang occasionally glanced outside to assess the situation.

“Giggle.”

A sudden sound broke the director’s monologue. The director froze, and in the next moment, Shen Wang stepped in front of him, shielding him.

A tattered doll, wearing a dirty dress and scuffed red shoes, its golden curls tangled like a mess, spun awkwardly due to its misaligned joints.

Yet it continued to spin, stumbling and laughing as it did.

“What is that?!” The director stared at the one-meter-tall, tattered doll in horror.

“A pollutant,” Shen Wang said, drawing his gun. “This is what I was chasing.”

The director had survived the early days of the apocalypse, but most of those who made it through were lucky enough not to encounter high-level pollutants. This was his first time witnessing such a bizarre scene.

After the initial fear, he immediately remembered that this was an orphanage, and there were over thirty children inside. He desperately wanted to turn back, but the path behind them had vanished, replaced by an abyss of darkness. He looked around in panic but couldn’t find the way back to the orphanage classrooms.

“Where’s the path? Where’s the path?!”

“For now, we can only move forward,” Shen Wang reassured him. “Don’t worry. As long as the pollutant is here, it won’t affect the children.”

The director wasn’t comforted, but with no way to go back, he had no choice but to follow Shen Wang.

“Giggle.” 

The doll continued to spin, its mechanical arms swinging. Beneath its golden curls were glass eyes smeared with grease, and its mechanical jaw hung loose, creating an eerie sight.

“Big brother, come dance with me!”

“You’re my only friend now. We should play together forever!”

“Come on!”

Shen Wang fired his gun. The bullet hit the doll, shattering it into pieces. But soon, laughter echoed from elsewhere, and another identical doll appeared further ahead, spinning just like the last.

“Tch,” Shen Wang clicked his tongue. “This thing is like a cockroach. Can’t kill it no matter what.”

He stopped wasting bullets and continued forward. The director walked beside him, his eyes fixed on the constantly reappearing doll.

The director suddenly spoke, “I’ve seen this doll before.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“When Little One was abandoned at the orphanage, the place hadn’t officially opened yet, and the children hadn’t been assigned. That day, I came to inspect the place and found him,” the director said as they walked. “He was holding a doll just like this one. He told me his mom told him to wait here, and she’d come back to get him soon.”

“I checked the surveillance footage and saw that he’d been sitting there for a full day and night. The footage only showed his mother abandoning him and running away in a panic. She never came back.”

“I knew she wouldn’t return.”

Sure enough, Little One’s mother never came back. The director took him in, and once the orphanage stabilized, he gave each child a nickname based on their age. Since Little One was the oldest, he was named Little One.

The first time the director called him Little One, he was furious.

He said his name wasn’t Little One, that he had his own name, and that his mother would come back to take him away.

The director sighed softly, “Can children become pollutants too?”

“Not only can they, but it might happen sooner than you think,” Shen Wang replied.

The night before the S-level pollution source erupted, the director had observed the lighthouse from the orphanage. But perhaps the omen had come even earlier.

It was when Little One maliciously dug out the candy Little Seven had saved and threw it all down the drain.

/

The path behind them was swallowed by darkness, while the path ahead remained illuminated. They followed the light to the dormitory area and arrived at the detention room.

The director kept looking back, hoping to find the way home, but all he saw was an impenetrable darkness. The swirling black fog seemed like a beast made of shadows, and even a glance filled him with dread.

Shen Wang exhaled slowly as he looked at the familiar door, finally feeling a hint of his childhood memories.

Back then, his episodes were unpredictable, so he was often locked in here. Sometimes, he even felt like this was his second room in the orphanage.

Later, when the orphanage’s conditions improved, the director had enough funds to send Shen Wang to the hospital for treatment, so he wasn’t locked in the detention room as often.

Before the director could find the key, Shen Wang had already retrieved the spare key from under a nearby brick. He opened the door under the director’s astonished gaze.

“How did you know there was a spare key here?”

“Most TV dramas hide keys like this,” Shen Wang replied calmly. “I just took a guess.”

The director was puzzled. “But even I didn’t know there was a key hidden here.”

Oh, it was Little Seven who had hidden it.

That child had secretly taken the spare key to the detention room and hidden it under the brick so he could visit Shen Wang even when the director forbade it.

With a creak, the door opened, and light flooded into the detention room. Shen Wang didn’t see the child who was supposed to be locked inside. Instead, he saw a doll hanging from the center of the room.

This doll wasn’t a meter tall. It was the size of an ordinary toy, no more than 20 centimeters. It hung from the ceiling by a rope around its neck, swaying and spinning as the wind from the open door blew in. Its toes pointed toward a child-sized chair placed in the center of the room.

“Come dance with me,” the doll’s mechanical voice echoed.

“Come dance with me.”

“Come dance with me…”

The scene made the director’s mind go blank for a moment. It was too much for anyone to handle.

But Shen Wang didn’t care. He glared at the tattered doll, stared at it for a few seconds, then walked in and yanked it down from the ceiling.

He irritably turned off the doll’s switch and tossed it onto the chair.

“So annoying.”

The director: “…”

What could he say? He now fully believed this man was from the Pollution Control Center.

In such a bizarre and complex environment, to casually yank down a strange doll because it was too noisy—this guy was something else.

He was way too calm.

“At most, it’s a B-level pollutant,” Shen Wang glanced at the director. “Not enough to scare me.”

The director fell silent again.

Having worked at the Pollution Control Center, he knew more about pollutant levels than the average person. A C-level pollutant was enough to destroy an ordinary town, yet this young man said a B-level pollutant wasn’t enough to scare him?

What kind of team was this [Polaris]? Why had he never heard of it?

As the director pondered, the darkness suddenly solidified into a thick black fog, pressing in from the doorway. Shen Wang turned to look at the door. With a loud bang, the door slammed shut as if something outside had locked it, leaving only silence.

This kind of hollow, deathly silence could drive any normal person insane.

But Shen Wang wasn’t normal, and the director wasn’t human.

They wouldn’t die, and they wouldn’t go mad.

“What happened?” the director asked.

“Someone locked the door from the outside,” Shen Wang said. “Probably Little One, the one we’re looking for.”

“Little One is just a child. He wouldn’t—”

Before the director could finish, a crisp sound interrupted him. The doll Shen Wang had thrown onto the chair fell to the ground.

Click. The switch Shen Wang had turned off flipped back on.

“Why did you all abandon me?” a voice, neither male nor female, came from the doll.

“Mom left me. She didn’t come back for me. She threw me here and left.”

“No one plays with me. They’re all bad kids. Why won’t anyone play with me?!”

“Finally, a child like me came. I thought I could finally have a friend. We were the same. But why did he find a friend too?!”

“Little Fifteen! You abandoned me too!”

Shen Wang tilted his head, realizing the doll was accusing him.

“Such a beautiful child, so likable, and best of all, he was sick. No one cared about him, no one wanted to play with him. Only I did! Only I was willing!”

“We should have been the best of friends. He should have hated everyone in this orphanage like I did.”

“But why did he find a friend?! Why did he mix with those people?!”

“You abandoned me!”

The doll’s voice grew hoarse and grating, filled with resentment and despair.

Shen Wang couldn’t help but laugh. He wasn’t angry—he just found it funny.

In the orphanage, he hadn’t had much of an impression of Little One, only knowing he was very reclusive. But he hadn’t realized Little One had harbored such thoughts, believing Little Fifteen had come to be his companion, that they should have been the best of friends.

But Shen Wang thought: On my first day at the orphanage, Little One didn’t even greet me.

Only Little Seven had come to ask his name, his eyes shining as he wanted to be friends. 

Even when Shen Wang had his episodes, Little Seven never changed his mind.

“Why does Little Fifteen get more candy than me?! Why does Little Seven have his own umbrella?! Why does the director only lock me up?!”

“Everyone abandoned me! Everyone hates me!”

“I’ll get my revenge! I’ll make everyone pay!”

A one-meter-tall doll burst out of the darkness, lunging at Shen Wang. But just as its fingers were half a meter away, it froze.

Thorns sprouted from the ground, wrapping around the doll and slamming it to the floor.

Shen Wang wasn’t a good person—in fact, he could be quite malicious. If he could find ways to tease Zhou Xiangzhe, why should he hold back against a pollutant?

He stepped on the doll’s body, pressing the gun to its forehead, a confident smile on his face.

“You ask why? Because Little Seven likes me and is willing to give me his candy.”

“It’s been over a decade, and you’re still this pathetic. No wonder no one likes you.”

“You think I should have been your friend? You’re too full of yourself. I wouldn’t have chosen you. What do you have that’s better than Little Seven?”

The doll writhed violently, screaming, but it couldn’t break free from the thorns. Finally, the thorns pierced and snapped it, leaving it motionless.

But this still wasn’t the pollutant’s true form.

Shen Wang stood up, pressing his fingers to his temples as he tried to figure out where the real pollutant was hiding.

It was now clear that [The Dancing Doll] was Little One from the orphanage. When the S-level pollution source had swallowed the orphanage, he had been locked in the detention room. The orphanage was endlessly repeating the day it was swallowed, frozen at 8 AM, with the [Ghost Phenomenon] manifesting.

“Are you Little Fifteen?”

Shen Wang turned to the director.

The director stared at Shen Wang, his reddened eyes showing his confusion. He didn’t know what to do, his hands reaching out and then pulling back.

It was as if he wanted to touch Shen Wang’s cheek like he had when Shen Wang was a child, but then remembered Shen Wang was now an adult.

Shen Wang sighed softly. He walked over and took the director’s hand, the warmth of his touch spreading to the director’s cold palm.

“Remember now?” Shen Wang asked.

When Shen Wang noticed the orphanage’s clock was stuck, he had a theory: perhaps there wasn’t just one pollutant in the orphanage.

Pollutants had a competitive nature. Two pollutants were fighting for control of the orphanage.

One controlled the orphanage during the day, desperately maintaining its normal operations, making it seem as if nothing had changed. The other wanted revenge, drowning the orphanage in endless darkness.

That’s why the clock was stuck at 8 AM, why everyone in the orphanage felt fear, and why they wanted to send Shen Wang, who had wandered in, back to safety.

As for who the other pollutant was, Shen Wang didn’t even need to guess.

“Why did you come back? This isn’t a good place,” the director said, finally regaining his memories from the endless darkness.

“Child, leave here quickly!”

Shen Wang sighed. “If I hadn’t come, how long were you planning to hold on?”

His tone was steady, not accusatory, even gentler than usual, but it made the director feel more guilty than any accusation could.

“You’re not as strong as before, are you? Maintaining the entire orphanage has drained you. Your memories are incomplete. Soon, you’ll really be devoured, and the orphanage will become its territory.”

The director: “…”

The man who had wanted to scold the child silently closed his mouth.

Little Fifteen was much fiercer than Little Seven.

“Only you could raise someone like Zhou Xiangzhe. That thing repays kindness with hatred, and you just let it hate you?”

*he’s talking about Little One

Shen Wang didn’t care that this was his childhood director. He said whatever he wanted.

The director listened quietly. When Shen Wang finished, he finally spoke. “Little One is also my child.”

“That day, I locked him in the detention room. When things happened, I only thought about throwing the children near me to safety. I forgot about him, locked in there. When I realized, I heard him crying inside, banging on the door, so scared.”

“I was the one who locked him in. It’s my fault.”

Endless regret and guilt were what had turned the director into a pollutant. He barely maintained the orphanage’s normalcy while resisting Little One’s madness. He always felt it was his fault that Little One had become such a terrifying pollutant, that he was the one who should bear the sin.

If he hadn’t locked Little One in the detention room that day, if he had stayed with him, would things have turned out differently?

For over a decade, he had thought about it, repeating that day over and over, his obsession growing stronger, until it became too much to bear.

Perhaps soon, he would really lose his mind and disappear, letting the orphanage fall completely under Little One’s control, letting the darkness consume it.

But what could he do? He was just the orphanage director, now a mutated pollutant.

“Alright, I understand.”

Shen Wang said, “Now tell me where it is.”

How to find the other pollutant’s location? The one who knows you best is your enemy. In this struggle, the director was the one most likely to know where the pollutant’s true form was.

Asking him was more useful than asking anyone else.

“Little Fifteen?”

“You feel guilty, so you can’t bring yourself to act. After all, you were like father and son. I’ll help you this time.”

The director was stunned. “But…”

“Don’t say anything else. I just don’t want Zhou Xiangzhe to have to face this. That guy is way more sentimental than I am.”

Shen Wang switched to an official tone. “Hello, I’m Shen Wang from the Pollution Control Center, here to handle a pollution incident. [The Dancing Doll] has already contaminated thousands of people, so my mission is to eliminate this pollutant and prevent further contamination.”

“The director, please support my work.”

The director looked at Shen Wang, and after a few seconds, he sighed softly and looked away.

He nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell you.”

Little One said he had abandoned him. The director thought: Perhaps it’s true.

Between Little One and Little Fifteen, he had always chosen Little Fifteen. Because Little Fifteen, after spending time with Little Seven, would give Little Seven an umbrella. He would refuse everyone else and only stay with Little Seven. When the director scolded Little Seven, Little Fifteen would plead for him, saying he would never lose control again.

Two small children were always willing to change for each other.

Not like Little One, who always believed the orphanage was the reason his mother had abandoned him.

After giving so much emotional effort and receiving no return, even he felt exhausted and pained.