Since The Red Moon Appeared

Clatter…

When Lu Xin escaped from the high-speed rail station, he saw that the surrounding area was in chaos.

The desolated neighborhood was suddenly filled with countless black jeeps and many people in uniform as if they suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They were loaded with guns and approached the neighborhood with their heavy military boots. Meanwhile, they quickly set up roadblocks and sealed all the roads.

The sound of chasing, capturing, and shooting could faintly be heard. Lu Xin was slightly shocked and did not dare to move slowly. He quickly jumped, moved in the corner near the walls, and escaped after climbing over an apartment wall that had broken windows.

Fortunately, no one seemed to think that someone would escape from the wall. Moreover, he was fast and did not attract the attention of the bystanders.

Lu Xin used both his hands and feet and was like a flexible spider. He managed to climb to a dozen-story building located a few hundred meters away. He squatted on the edge of the building and turned his head to look in the direction of the high-speed rail station. Every road was filled with people, including the cafe and the high-speed rail station. The whole area was packed with people.

This caused him to feel slightly scared.

"Brother, how are you going to thank me?"

His sister's voice was heard. She was holding a teddy bear and squatting near Lu Xin.

Her messy hair was down, and her eyes were lit up slightly, a sign of unusual satisfaction.

"Thank you?"

Lu Xin was frustrated. "I would hit you…"

However, when the words reached his mouth, he thought about the danger earlier on and couldn't help but let down his fierceness and say, "Thank you…"

"You're my elder brother, I'm your sister, why are you thanking me?"

His sister smiled, and her hair covered most of her face. She looked eerily cute.

Lu Xin was about to praise her when she suddenly looked up expectantly. "You'd better give me toys!"

"You want toys again?"

Lu Xin looked at the bear in her arms and said helplessly, "Don't you already have one?"

"The bear is very cute!"

His sister hugged the bear tightly and said, "However, the bear doesn't know how to speak!"

Slightly excited, she described it in detail. "I want one that can speak…"

Lu Xin said perfunctorily, "I will buy one with electronic sounds for you."

"Those aren't fun…" 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝗹．𝐨𝗿𝗴

His sister's smile was a little weird. "I don't only want it to speak, I want the kind that can scream. The more tragic the screams, the better…"

Lu Xin said, "Have you heard about the screaming rubber chicken?"

She seemed stuck at this question. She kept silent for a moment before suddenly saying, "I don't want to play with you anymore."

"Sigh, you…"

Lu Xin was just about to speak when he saw his sister suddenly jump up. Her small figure made her look like a flexible kitten which jumped down directly from the building. When he hastily reached out to see, he saw her landing on a horizontal wire outside the building. The wind blew, and she gently swayed with the wires, shook her head, and laughed at him. "Brother, you have to be careful, someone is watching you…"

Lu Xin was cautious. "Who?"

"I won't tell you…"

His sister smiled cheekily and climbed along the wire to the opposite side, quickly disappearing into a broken window.

"This girl…"

Lu Xin looked down from the tall building and felt dizzy. "How should I go down now that you are gone?"

…

Still alert, Lu Xin jumped from this apartment building to the building opposite. Then, he followed the dilapidated building and went down floor by floor. When he was about to reach the bottom, he intentionally rounded a few more bends and followed the crooked poles and dilapidated buildings before walking out sneakily onto a street a few hundred meters away.

He deliberately tidied his clothes and tucked his hands in his pockets, ready to blend into the crowd.

"Hop on, I'll treat you to coffee!"

However, he had merely taken a step when someone called out.

Lu Xin was shocked. He instantly turned around and saw a woman leaning against a jeep.

It was a short-haired woman wearing a casual suit and a large pair of teal sunglasses. She was lean and athletic with a wild temperament. Under this temperament, even her high heels seemed sharper. Even the dark jeep behind her looked like an iron monster, tough and fierce.

Drink coffee?

Lu Xin was shocked and immediately recalled what his sister said. He was already 23, but no woman had ever asked him out for a date. The woman in front of him was definitely not someone who would like him. So she's one of those people who surrounded the subway station earlier on? Maybe she's been eyeing me for a long time? Asking me out for coffee, she doesn't seem to be hostile…

Although it didn't seem normal to run into a woman asking him out for coffee, Lu Xin didn't dare to refuse.

Therefore, he replied softly, "Can we change to something else? I don't feel like drinking coffee now."

The short-haired woman seemed surprised by Lu Xin's calmness. However, she had met many people like him.

Thinking about what happened to him earlier on, she smiled. "Alright, let's go to the bar!"

Then, she opened the car door for him.

Lu Xin sat on the passenger seat. Although he didn't take many car rides before, he didn't fiddle around in the car. He sat quietly on the passenger seat and did not even peek at the woman.

The woman also did not speak and instead focused on driving.

They drove for about twenty minutes before going into a sparsely populated street. The woman stopped the car, led Lu Xin through a dark underground passage, and reached a bar with iron bars in front of the door.

The bar hadn't opened, so it was dim and quiet.

After the sleepy-eyed waiter opened the door, he immediately put a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table without asking a word. Then, he went back to sleep. The large bar was only left with Lu Xin and the woman.

"My name is Chen Jing. I don't have any ill intentions, but I will admit, everything you encountered today was planned by me."

The short-haired woman said frankly, placing a green leather document in front of him. Lu Xin took a look and learned that she came from the main city of Qingcheng and was the highest-ranking officer of the Qingcheng Inspection Department. He couldn't help but look up at her. The people of the main city were beyond the imagination of the satellite city residents. Especially for someone with such a high status like her, it was strange for her to invite him for a drink.

Thinking of the documents the director asked him to send and the strange object he encountered in the cafe, Lu Xin knew everything was odd. He was suddenly being plotted against and had encountered such a horrible thing. It seemed infuriating, but Lu Xin saw a bulge at the woman's waist and knew that it was a gun. Nevertheless, he still lowered his head and said, "Why?"

"Let me explain first."

Chen Jing didn't elaborate on this issue. She bit off the wine stopper and poured two glasses.

"I belong to a department that deals with abnormal affairs, specializing in managing corruption incidents within High Wall City."

Lu Xin blinked and didn't know how to react.

Chen Jing placed a glass of wine in front of him and said, "You can view us as the officials."

Lu Xin immediately figured it out.

Chen Jing continued, "Ever since the Red Moon event, the reorganization of the main cities and satellite cities, the handling and hanging of the madmen outside the city, the resistance of the Wilderness Knights and the psyche sects, as well as the construction of the high walls and the usual repairs, were all handled by our people.

"Yet now, what we are mainly dealing with is the corruption incidents in the main city and the five satellite cities!"

"Strange incidents?"

Lu Xin looked up at her.

"Yes, strange incidents that are beyond one's imaginations. For example, the situation you encountered in the cafe."

Chen Jing nodded and took out a document. She pushed it in front of him and said, "You can take a look."

Lu Xin looked at the title. It was printed with the word "confidential".

He slowly opened it and saw the printed words on the first page as well as many statistics.

Target number: Class D Special Corruption Source—036

Target level: First Class

Corruption level: Low (contact corruption/corruption rate 90%/deep corruption rate 70%)

Growth potential: High

Danger level: Low

Target Characteristics: The target is a Level 1 Psyche Monster that can corrupt any lifeform that it has come into close contact with. Does not have airborne corruption ability. It can be eliminated by eliminating the psyche monster parasite. The parasite remains in the normal human category and can be harmed by physical attacks. According to current observations, the corrupted source does not possess higher intelligence and will only repeat everything it did before being corrupted and simply communicate.

Special cleansing means: None

…

…

While Lu Xin was looking at the document, Chen Jing slowly lit a cigarette.

She slowly spoke. "The Red Moon event caused more than 70% of the people in this world to turn crazy. We survived, but we can only live in the high wall protection of the main city and satellite cities. However, even if we survived, we aren't necessarily all normal. Many are born mentally unsound and affect the people or things around them.

"We term this corruption!"

"Corruption?"

Lu Xin lifted his head as he listened to this familiar, but at the same time, unfamiliar word.

After the Red Moon event, due to the collapse of civilization, the fracture of order, the destruction of countless chemical plants, power stations, and so on, the leakage of waste, caused this world, especially the area outside High Wall City, to have traces of corruption. Even after thirty years, many places had not improved. The residents of High Wall City were certainly not unfamiliar with corruption, but the corruptionthat this woman was talking about did not seem to be quite the same.

"Indeed, corruption."

Chen Jing nodded. "Just like a source of corruption in the ordinary sense, it will radiate and affect the people around, making them also have the same symptoms, similar to the plague. However, this kind of corruption is much more mysterious and terrible.

"The cafe you entered today is one of them. Before today, it had already corrupted 52 people!"

"…"

"If…"

Lu Xin was a little shocked by this number. He tried to digest Chen Jing's words and gestured with his hand.

"What would happen if one gets corrupted?"

"The person would get the disease!"

Chen Jing answered very simply as if she had already answered the question too many times, seeming somewhat robotic.

"Ordinary corruption would make one physically sick, but psyche corruption would make one mentally ill!

"The consequences of getting ill vary.

"Some will cause severe depression and cause people to commit suicide after not being able to take it!

"Some will cause people to lose their minds and attack those around them!

"Some will make people lose the ability to communicate with everything around them…

"There are also some that will cause a person to develop a strong intention to hurt themselves…"

"…"

"To put it simply, the corruption will result in a psyche disease that can be transmitted!"