Chapter 7: I'm Here Anyway—I Can Save Them!

In the end, that round of "purification" ended with Jiang Chen fleeing in disarray.

Xi Yan lounged back against the sofa, legs crossed, while Bubble bounced up and down before him.

[95627, good performance. You took the initiative to close the distance with your mission target. Your mission evaluation score will look better, and the number of rehabilitation rounds required will drop accordingly. Keep it up~]

The more Bubble replayed it, the more pleased it grew. Cooperative rehabilitation participants were a rare breed these days. If only everyone were this low-maintenance and this motivated!

"You're overthinking it. I wasn't trying to kiss Jiang Chen."

[Then why did you say that?]

"Because he'd never do it. Every time we hold hands his ears go red enough to bleed, and even then he won't let go. If I kissed him, I was afraid he'd outright explode."

A smile rippled across Xi Yan's lips. "Whoever invented virtual worlds was a genius, though. Even the people feel real."

Real people rarely came this interesting. Xi Yan was starting to see why so few people opposed virtual worlds.

[Naturally. This one was custom-built for the likes of 95627—past marriageable age, unmarried, and not paying the tax.]

"...I told you, that was an accident."

Xi Yan toyed with the identity card, tossing it up and catching it, catching it and tossing it again.

Between one toss and the next catch, he was in the purification chamber. Unlike the white space from his assessment, it wasn't sealed—rather a hall of smaller spaces divided off by glass doors.

Right now it was pure chaos, everyone dashing off and scurrying back.

"Hey, you! Stop fooling around—Number Three's lost control! There's a red panel on your left; press it and the emergency passage behind you opens. Get out and warn the others! Hurry! There's no time!!"

Number Three's contamination was contagious, which was why at a mere 89% he had already been placed on the danger list and forcibly confined.

Xi Yan had volunteered to purify Number Three the moment he arrived. No one believed him.

Even knowing he'd been personally received by the Commander, they didn't believe it. They wouldn't let him work—someone had even fetched him a chair, as if he should just sit and watch.

"Bubble, the two purifiers inside Number Three's containment chamber—are they dying?"

Chaos though it was, everyone else was evacuating in good order. Only those two—inside since before Xi Yan arrived—were still in there, even now that Number Three had broken loose.

[Yes. Those two have purified the most times and suffered the worst backlash. The purification stones no longer work on them.]

Xi Yan pocketed the identity card and rose, heading for the containment chamber. His hand was rising to press the switch when someone yanked him back.

"What are you doing? It's dangerous—why are you still here! Move!!" Fang Xia, director of the Purification Division, seized Xi Yan and made for the exit.

"I can save them. If I go in now there's still hope. Once Number Three is fully assimilated, it'll be too late forever."

"I know you can save them..." Fang Xia's eyes, fixed on the two purifiers inside, were rimmed red. Word of the new purifier's extraordinary gift had reached her long ago.

But she couldn't gamble. Someone like this should be out saving more of the awakened—not despairing toward death, backlash eating him alive from too many purifications.

The two inside had joined the Purification Division in the same cohort as her. No one wanted to save them more. But wanting changed nothing.

Fang Xia tore her eyes away. "What you need to do right now is follow orders. Move!"

"I'm here anyway. And besides, I don't get backlash." Xi Yan twisted free of her grip and, before she could react, hit the door and slipped inside.

The containment chamber's glass door wasn't like the one from his assessment. This one didn't vanish; the switch was merely a signal granting entry, and the moment anyone stepped through, it locked.

The two purifiers inside were long past their limit, holding on by a thread just to buy the evacuation more time. Sensing Xi Yan enter, one broke down on the spot. "Why did you come in? I can't hold on much longer."

The people inside were frantic; the people outside more so. No one had seen when Xi Yan slipped in—by the time they registered it, he was already within.

They had never seen what he could do, never seen him work a purification. All they saw was a man standing utterly still, as if nailed to the spot.

Fang Xia, nearest to the door, was drenched in sweat. She could hear nothing from within—and couldn't risk barging in.

"Look!"

Someone cried out.

When Fang Xia looked up again, the containment chamber was wrapped in a layer of blue light. The shrieking instruments steadied; even the identity cards the two purifiers had left in her keeping stopped burning hot, their surfaces fading from crimson back to their original color.

"It—it worked! The contamination's dropping! It's dropping!"

"Zero. It's really zero. He actually did it!"

The chamber was so soundproof that when Xi Yan stepped out, the last thing he expected was a crowd huddled together, crying and laughing all at once.

He asked Bubble, "What's going on? Did the myriad races attack?"

The myriad races had not attacked.

"You. No more reckless stunts like that." Fang Xia swept the detector over Xi Yan three times before she finally exhaled. "No sign of backlash. But don't get careless. Go rest—we'll take it from here."

Xi Yan was herded off to the break room—and dosed with several vials of backlash-prevention serum on the way.

He couldn't sit still. With nothing better to do, he exchanged every last one of his points for purification stones and handed them out, two apiece, to everyone in the chamber.

"Xi Yan. Someone's here for you."

He had exactly two stones left when Fang Xia's voice came from behind him. He turned—and with her stood a man he'd crossed paths with once at the hospital.

The man held up his own identity card. "I'm the healer in charge of Jiang Chen. My surname is Wan—you can call me Wan Qi."

Xi Yan pressed his last two stones into Fang Xia's hands and turned to Wan Qi. "Something's happened to Jiang Chen?"

"A minor injury. Already handled. But his contamination rose by 10%—and I suspect that of everyone, he'd most like to be purified by you."

"Lead the way."

The Healing Division wasn't far from the Purification Division—a few streets, no more. But both kept relocating, and Xi Yan had no hope of memorizing coordinates.

At a fork in the passage, he was deliberating which way to go when he realized Wan Qi hadn't followed. He glanced back: Wan Qi and Fang Xia were staring at each other across the distance, their looks competitive yet threaded with something harder to name.

Xi Yan coughed lightly. Wan Qi caught up at once. "Sorry."

Unlike the Purification Division, the Healing Division was all awakened—most looking perfectly normal, with no visible trace of their wounds.

When Xi Yan pushed the door open, Jiang Chen was already dressed in his combat base layer.

The slim black fabric traced his frame, lean and long, every line of muscle hinted rather than shown; the jacket draped over one arm made him look every inch the gentleman.

Xi Yan paused a beat. "I'm here to purify your contamination."

"All right." He felt nothing amiss, yet he sat obediently in the chair and waited to be purified.

Now Jiang Chen was sitting and Xi Yan standing.

Putting his hand on the man's chest again would be verging on misconduct. So after much deliberation, Xi Yan picked a better spot.

He cradled Jiang Chen's head, fingers sliding up into his hair. "The color of your hair seems a little off."

When they'd first met, Jiang Chen's hair had been silver-white. A few days on, patches of it had faded to pale gray.

"Bubble, what's going on here?"

[That's part of the design. Contamination shows most clearly in appearance, varying by person. Some people's eyes or hair change color; some shoot up in height; some grow... extra things.]

[His contamination is lower now, so the externally visible signs will fade—though after so long contaminated, his hair can never fully return to its original color.]

[These design layers unlock gradually as a rehabilitation participant spends more time in the virtual world—to keep participants from balking at missions under information overload.]

"..."

Xi Yan couldn't help thinking of Cheng Du's striking red hair. He'd assumed the man was just an eccentric old fellow.

He was still mulling it over when his wrist was caught. "Enough," Jiang Chen said. "That's it for today."

Purification drains mental energy.

Holding steady at 60% was already a hard-won achievement. Now even his hair was changing—a sign of how deeply Xi Yan had poured himself into the purification, and how much more dangerous it made things for the purifier.

Xi Yan was about to seize the opening to argue his case when he noticed Jiang Chen's gaze had suddenly shifted past him.

He followed it—and through the gap in the door, glimpsed several shifting figures.