In a moment of impulse, Lin Jianyuan promised the Director that he would personally capture [Cocoon].

After ending the call, he gradually calmed down and wanted to slap himself twice.

F**k! Why did I volunteer for overtime again?!

His vacation wasn’t even over yet! How many rounds of overtime was this already?!

But there was nothing he could do. If he left it alone, who knew what kind of idiotic plan those idiot leaders at the Management Bureau would come up with?

So Lin Jianyuan cursed and grumbled, suppressed his irritation, and watched yesterday’s meeting recording at triple speed again.

When he finished, he realized: Sh*t. This thing is really hard to catch.

The main problem was that nobody knew where its original body was.

Victims retained traces of Contamination, but the concentration was too low to form a complete imprint. Lin Jianyuan also suspected that this thing could probably travel through the internet. Just like how Slurping Ribbonfish could swim across any reflective surface, [Cocoon] made its living through the network and could probably escape through it whenever it wanted.

“How the f**k am I supposed to catch this thing?!” Lin Jianyuan irritably scratched his hair.

He started thinking back to how they captured all those little pieces of trash before.

Then it hit him: Sh*t. All the previous pieces of trash delivered themselves straight to my doorstep.

The Eye Vine grew out of Pei Shuo’s eye by itself.

Squishy ran into his livestream on its own.

Little Stone got itself caught by blocking the emergency exit and stopping him from clocking in.

Then there were the eyeball, the mouth...

Even [Remorse] and [Flash Granny] appeared in front of him on their own.

Lin Jianyuan was actually always in a passive state of “accepting” them.

Now that he had to actively go find one specific Aberration, he genuinely had no idea what to do.

But he already made the promise.

More importantly, if he didn’t hurry up and drag this stupid [Cocoon] back, Little Red Book was going to be summoned for rectification!

Rectify my ass! If an Aberration is causing trouble, then go beat up the Aberration! What the fuck are you touching my Little Red Book for?!!!

The moment Lin Jianyuan thought about that, his temper flared right back up. He nearly jumped to his feet and threw two punches at the air.

Still, anger was anger. Once Lin Jianyuan cooled down, he carefully reviewed all the records related to [Cocoon] several more times and finally came up with a tentative idea.

He decided to go fishing for it.

Since [Cocoon] specifically targeted heavy Little Red Book users, he only needed to scroll Little Red Book aggressively for a few days.

Under equal conditions, he should be more attractive to Aberrations than an ordinary person anyway.

He acted immediately, and for the next three days, Lin Jianyuan devoted himself wholeheartedly to scrolling Little Red Book.

...

It turned out that no matter how fun something was, once it turned into work... It stopped being fun!!!

Lin Jianyuan originally thought that the time would fly by while he scrolled Little Red Book, but in reality, only the first two hours passed quickly.

After that, it became as dull and joyless as paying taxes...

By the third day, when he picked up his phone and opened Little Red Book, he actually felt a wave of aversion.

Amazing. Turns out this was what aversion therapy felt like.

“Squish.” Lin Jianyuan cheated without hesitation.

“Got it!” Squishy popped its head out of his pocket with a BANG, but the next second, it hesitated. “But if I skip it for you, you’ll keep doing whatever you’re doing right now the entire time.”

Lin Jianyuan: “.”

Right. He almost forgot.

Squish’s skip ability wasn’t intelligent at all. It was just the most basic kind of skipping.

During the skipped period, Lin Jianyuan could only sit there like an idiot in the exact same position. That was also why he could skip his subway commute to and from work, but couldn’t simply skip his entire shift.

Why the f**k did he have to work every shift himself?!

Just destroy this world!

For the first time in ages, Lin Jianyuan recovered the familiar sensation of being a wage slave.

After all that, [Cocoon] still didn’t appear, and Lin Jianyuan could only gloomily continue scrolling Little Red Book.

So boring.

Seriously so boring.

The algorithm was trying its best to feed him things he liked, but after three or four consecutive days of this, it still got boring.

Lin Jianyuan sat inside Starbucks and felt like every part of the sofa beneath him was somehow uncomfortable.

Nothing on his phone could arouse his interest. Even the delivery rider who stormed through the door looking irritated, grabbed his order, and rushed back out was more interesting to look at than his phone.

He forced himself through another full day of Little Red Book.

Around evening, Shi Shaoning called.

Shi Shaoning: “Any progress?”

Lin Jianyuan: “No. You?”

Shi Shaoning: “Don’t even ask. Halfway through, I got dragged out to capture another B-class. I didn’t even make it back to the Administration Bureau before my manager suddenly told me there was some major fashion show tonight. He finally managed to get me an inside pass, so I had to rush back for styling.”

Lin Jianyuan: “.”

Shi Shaoning: “Fuck. I’m exhausted.”

Lin Jianyuan: “I’m exhausted too.”

Shi Shaoning: “? What are you exhausted from? Didn’t you spend the whole day scrolling Little Red Book?”

Lin Jianyuan snapped, “It’s exhausting too, okay?! It’s like marrying someone you don’t even like...”

Shi Shaoning: “How about we switch? I’m so busy I don’t even have time to drink water, and you’ve been sitting in Starbucks scrolling Little Red Book all day, and somehow you’re tired?”

Lin Jianyuan laughed. “Sure, let’s switch. Tonight I’ll go watch the fashion show for you, and you can stay here scrolling Little Red Book for me. I’m kind of curious what celebrity life is like anyway.”

Shi Shaoning: “...”

Lin Jianyuan: “...”

Shi Shaoning: “Sigh.”

Lin Jianyuan: “Sigh.”

Swapping lives was obviously impossible.

Nothing else to say. They were fellow sufferers.

Back to work.

To be fair, Shi Shaoning couldn’t really be blamed for not understanding him.

If Lin Jianyuan tried to see things from Shi Shaoning’s perspective... No, even the Lin Jianyuan from a few days ago would think that scrolling Little Red Book all day was nothing to get tired of.

Back when work exhausted him half to death, he could still stay up all night scrolling Weibo. At the time, it felt amazing. Only afterward did his hands ache, his eyes feel dry, and he noticed that he was a little tired.

But the moment he thought about having work the next morning, he knew that staying up so late meant he definitely wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning... That subconscious anxiety transformed into a sticky pull between his hand and his phone. Before he knew it, he scrolled later and later.

That was how hands turned into phone stands.

Shi Shaoning’s call actually reminded Lin Jianyuan of something.

“Fuck, my whole approach was wrong from the very beginning!” Lin Jianyuan hung up and suddenly saw the light.

“Hmm? What? What is it?” The little toys all eagerly expressed their willingness to hear more.

Lin Jianyuan pulled the Angel Eyeball out of his pants pocket. “If I dismembered you into eight thousand pieces, could all eight thousand pieces still perform the duties of eight thousand body cameras?”

Angel Eyeball: “???”

What?! What did I do wrong?! Why are you chopping me into eight thousand pieces?!

Your Majesty, I’m innocent! I’ve been behaving lately! I genuinely haven’t done anything!

Of course, dismembering the Angel Eyeball into eight thousand pieces was only a joke.

However, the main reason was that, after thinking it over, Lin Jianyuan realized the mechanism didn’t match what he needed.

Otherwise, dismembering it wouldn't be a joke.

The Angel Eyeball’s recording ability fundamentally worked by stealing memories. Its recordings were delayed, so it couldn’t livestream in real time.

Therefore, it was useless here.

Lin Jianyuan immediately returned to the Administration Bureau and asked the Equipment Department whether they had any small devices capable of both tracking location and detecting a specific Aberration.

He wanted the thinnest and smallest kind possible, ideally no larger than a fingernail.

The answer was yes, but they were expensive.

Lin Jianyuan: “How expensive?”

Equipment Department: “Five figures per unit.”

Lin Jianyuan: “...”

Equipment Department: “How many do you need? If it’s urgent, I can immediately start the expedited request, approval, and filing process...”

Lin Jianyuan hurriedly said, “No, no. Never mind. Can’t afford it.”

He needed a lot of them. That was why he even thought about dismembering the Angel Eyeball into eight thousand pieces.

He might not need eight thousand fingernail-sized trackers, but he would still need one or two thousand. And honestly, even one or two thousand felt too few.

Little Red Book reached 300 million monthly active users in 2024.

Keywords: Monthly. Active. Users.

And that was only 2024 data.

Then, in the first half of 2025, some events occurred that sent an enormous wave of traffic toward Little Red Book.

At Little Red Book’s current scale, even one or two thousand trackers would still be similar to searching for a needle in the ocean.

More importantly, once those trackers were distributed, there was a very high chance that they could never be recovered.

Five figures per piece... Lin Jianyuan got rich overnight, but he still couldn’t waste the Administration Bureau’s assets like that.

So what could he use?

Something cheap and disposable that could track location, sense Aberrations, and exist in huge quantities without feeling wasteful.

Lin Jianyuan opened his pants pocket and began inspecting the little toys he already had.

The little toys trembled in fear, worried that one of them was about to become the lucky winner chosen for dismemberment into eight thousand pieces.

Got it.

Lin Jianyuan thought for two seconds, and a lightbulb practically appeared over his head.

As expected of me!

The corner of Lin Jianyuan’s mouth curled upward.

How many times did I have to say it? I make a living with creativity!

I'm so f**king amazing!

I'm a genius!

A genius!

...

Evening, during rush hour.

Most companies in this office building finished work at 6 PM.

Although everyone technically got off at the same time, people exited in waves, and the reason was simple.

Everyone had to take the elevators.

One elevator could carry roughly twenty people. There were six elevators serving this exit, and based on observation, at most three elevators arrived on the first floor at the same time.

That meant they only needed to extend sixty intestines at once.

Oh. Right. He forgot to mention one thing.

At this exact moment, Lin Jianyuan and his roommate were sitting on the little second-floor terrace of a café across from the office building.

Lin Jianyuan drank coffee while enjoying the magnificent sight of sixty of his roommate’s intestines dancing wildly through the air.

His roommate was extremely nimble. One flick of an intestine. SMACK!

A tiny leaf stuck to the back of a corporate slave hurrying home.

Even if several dozen people stepped out of the elevators at once, there was no problem.

Were sixty intestines enough?

No?

Then just add more.

It was truly a scene where sunset clouds and intestines flew together, while autumn waters merged with the endless sky.

What a pity that only Lin Jianyuan could appreciate such a magnificent scene.

After the Flying Intestine Incident, Lin Jianyuan confirmed one thing: “A complete isolated digestive system” was merely Xie Yu’s basic form.

Whenever necessary, Xie Yu could grow more intestines at will.

A conservative estimate of two hundred was not a problem.

“How many now?” Lin Jianyuan pulled over a section of vine, casually plucked off several leaves, and tossed them into a basket while asking the Angel Eyeball and Socially Anxious Lego, who were responsible for holding it.

“S-seven hundred and eighty... e-eighty-one?” Socially Anxious Lego sounded nervous.

Angel Eyeball said, “Your Majesty, you’ve plucked a total of 781 leaves. The Queen has already distributed 723. Ah, now 724... 27... 32...”

“Baby, you’re so good.” Lin Jianyuan reached out and squeezed his roommate’s gallbladder. “Every time you learn something new, you pick it up so quickly. You’re getting more and more skilled.”

His roommate: “~”

Angel Eyeball: “39, 58, 81... Queen, slow down! We can’t pluck the leaves fast enough!”

The Eye Vine, which was rapidly being stripped bald: “...”

“Speaking of which.” Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered something and nudged the wellness kettle beside his foot with his shoe. “You’re almost A-class now, aren’t you?”

Eye Vine: “..................”

Trembling, the Eye Vine hesitantly nodded one vine.

As expected.

The corner of Lin Jianyuan’s mouth curved upward.

Aberrants could grow.

The Administration Bureau’s classification system for Aberrants considered not only Contamination concentration and hazard level, but one other important metric: degree of anthropomorphism.

For some unknown reason, the higher an Aberrant’s class, the more humanlike it became.

The Eye Vine started out as nothing more than a tiny creeping vine resembling a parasite.

Back then, Lin Jianyuan casually tossed it into a goji-chrysanthemum-cassia tea. Unexpectedly, once the Eye Vine gained nutrients, it began growing wildly.

When Lin Jianyuan encountered the basement tumor, the Eye Vine was already C-class, which leveled up from D-class.

After that, Lin Jianyuan mostly ignored it and treated it like an office plant. When he remembered it again, he discovered that the Eye Vine was already rooted deep inside the tumor mass...

When [Bloodline] escaped, its original body was only as big as a ping-pong ball after being sucked dry by the Eye Vine.

At this point, the Eye Vine grew from C-class to B-class and became an enormous green vine covering the entire office building, lush with branches and leaves and bursting with vitality.

The last time Lin Jianyuan visited the office building, he was stunned.

Fortunately, the Eye Vine was already officially registered. If it weren’t, the Administration Bureau would surely take it away by now.

From B-class onward, Aberrations possessed language ability. They could understand human speech and speak human language.

So Lin Jianyuan wasn’t surprised at all that the Eye Vine could answer him now.

As for the way it trembled while its leaves were being plucked nearly bald, Lin Jianyuan naturally felt not one shred of guilt.

Guilt? What guilt?

Wasn’t this the whole point of raising a plant for a thousand days, so you could use it when needed?

And getting stripped bald wasn’t a big deal either.

Just pour another kilogram of goji berries, chrysanthemum, and cassia seeds into its pot, and the leaves would grow back.

The little toys: “...”

Silently wiping tears.

Following a king like this was truly their blessing.

Still...

Lin Jianyuan rubbed his chin and once again thought about the question that bothered him for a long time.

Why did Aberrations become more humanlike as their class rose?

What was the principle behind that?

Or, from another angle...

If he were the creator of this world, why would he design them that way?

“Captain Lin.” A voice suddenly came through his mobile terminal. “The leaves for the XX University District have all been distributed. Total: 3,415. Just as you requested, we targeted college students who were scrolling their phones even while walking!”

“Captain Lin! Distribution at XX Mall is complete too! We specifically picked the ones who were still scrolling while eating!”

“Captain Lin!”

“Captain Lin!”

“Captain Lin!”

...

One report after another interrupted Lin Jianyuan’s thoughts.

Under the glow of the setting sun, Lin Jianyuan stood up.

From his elevated position, he glanced down at the exit of the office building across the street.

It was already 7:30 PM, and rush hour was basically over.

Lin Jianyuan pressed the communicator. “Dismissed!”

A unified response came from the other end: “Yes!”

Now all that remained was to wait.

There was a reason Lin Jianyuan made a living off creativity.

His plan was actually incredibly simple and crude.

If [Cocoon] affected such a huge population, then why couldn’t the Administration Bureau mass-distribute detectors?

The Eye Vine’s leaves perfectly fulfilled that requirement.

Once plucked, the leaves retained a degree of activity for the next eight hours.

After evolving to B-class, the Eye Vine gained much stronger sensitivity to its own leaves. The moment any leaf detected [Cocoon], it relayed that information back to the original body.

Namely, the wellness kettle sitting beside Lin Jianyuan. And most importantly, the Eye Vine was free.

After eight hours, once the nutrients inside the detached leaves were exhausted, they naturally died off.

Energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Perfect!

There was another even better point. The Eye Vine was an Aberration, so ordinary people couldn’t see it at all!

If they used the Administration Bureau’s miniature tracking detectors and it was discovered by someone, they would waste time handling public relations to explain it.

But the Eye Vine was different.

Not only was it invisible to ordinary people, but sticking one of its leaves to the back of someone’s neck could even nourish the liver and improve eyesight!

In short, Lin Jianyuan used the previous user-profile data to precisely distribute Eye Vine leaves among likely targets.

Eco-friendly, efficient, and no loose ends. Multiple benefits with one move.

Anyone who sees this would call it genius!

Everything was ready, and now, they only needed to wait for [Cocoon] to appear.

And yet, at 9 PM, Lin Jianyuan checked his terminal, but there were no new messages.

Then he turned to look at the wellness kettle.

Squishy bumped the kettle with its snail shell and barked irritably, “His Majesty asked you a question!”

Eye Vine: “...Huh?”

Angel Eyeball: “He’s asking whether anything happened.”

Eye Vine: “Ah... oh... uh, no.”

The Eye Vine only recently advanced from C-class to B-class. It just learned how to speak human language, so it still wasn’t very fluent.

Lin Jianyuan said: “Keep scouting. Report back!”

Eye Vine: “.”

Squishy rammed it with the snail shell again. “Hurry up and say ‘received’!”

The wellness kettle nearly tipped over. The Eye Vine trembled. “R-received?”

Lin Jianyuan rubbed his chin, pulled his roommate over, and habitually rubbed his roommate’s fresh and smooth pale-brown liver. “Why do I feel like I’m forgetting something...?”

His roommate: “What? ...That tickles.”

“Why are you ticklish here now too?” Lin Jianyuan’s interest was immediately piqued. He rolled over, pinned his roommate down, and mischievously tickled him. “How about here? Ticklish here? Where are you most ticklish? Hm?”

“Stop... that tickles... hahaha...” His roommate laughed so hard that his intestines trembled everywhere. But without drawing attention to it, several soft lengths of intestine still rose behind Lin Jianyuan, protecting him.

Just in case he fell off the sofa.

The two of them wrestled and played around until they became a tangled mess on the couch.

The little toys: “...”

The little toys seldom saw His Majesty and the Queen fool around like this anymore.

Sure enough, no matter how many times they saw it, watching His Majesty and the Queen laugh and play together was really... Really...

A match made in heaven!

Night, at 10 PM.

Normally, this was when they took a hot bath and got ready for bed. But Lin Jianyuan still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

“No. I still feel like I missed something...”

For the Nth time, Lin Jianyuan checked his mobile terminal.

The temporary [Cocoon] Containment Group was completely silent. None of the team members sent any messages.

Inside the wellness kettle, the Eye Vine remained perfectly still and quiet, as if it were nothing more than a thoughtless houseplant.

They could rule out the possibility that the Eye Vine was sulking.

First of all, an S-class Aberration was present, so a mere B-class wouldn’t dare act up.

Second, after getting home, Lin Jianyuan moved it into a brand-new wellness kettle. This one was larger, and the recipe was even more luxurious!

Not only did it contain goji berries, chrysanthemum, and cassia seeds... It also contained mulberry leaves, honeysuckle, dandelion, glossy privet fruit, and raspberries.

He even dumped in two boxes of fresh blueberries.

Lin Jianyuan poured in practically everything the internet said was good for eye health.

The Eye Vine was instantly placated. The moment it soaked in the new mixture, several new leaves sprouted at high speed.

“Maybe it's just too soon?” his roommate said. “Didn’t the previous records say people had to scroll for a really, really long time before their hands turned into phone stands?”

“That makes sense, but I still feel like...” Lin Jianyuan rubbed his chin and thought hard.

He raised his phone and checked the time.

The clock changed to 22:10.

Something suddenly clicked in Lin Jianyuan’s mind. He was extremely sensitive to that number.

Why? Because that was the f**king last subway departure time!

“Fuck, I know who I forgot!” Lin Jianyuan hurriedly pulled his roommate up. “I forgot the group who are most likely to stay up late scrolling their phones!”

Those who work overtime...

Who was most likely to stay up all night scrolling on their phone?

Who was exhausted to death, knew perfectly well that they had to work the next day again, and yet still couldn’t put down their phone, and couldn’t bear to close their eyes?

It's those who worked overtime until late at night!

Their bodies were already exhausted, but their minds remained so keyed up that they couldn’t sleep.

They were so busy all day that they only got home late at night. And yet, subconsciously, they still felt hollow, as if they somehow did nothing with their day at all.

Exhaustion, confusion, helplessness, and no future in sight.

That kind of state was the easiest to attract Aberrations.

Or perhaps... That kind of state was the easiest place for Aberrations to breed.

Lin Jianyuan grabbed his roommate and immediately teleported away.

This time, they didn’t go to an office building. They went to a subway station in a district densely packed with office towers.

Rumble...

The final subway train pulled into the station.

Scattered passengers boarded the carriage. Every single one of them looked like someone hollowed out their soul, exhausted like a walking corpse.

There was no light left in their numb eyes. Only the reflected glow from their phone screens remained after they sat down and habitually pulled out their phones.

Hilarious.

It was the last train, and there were empty seats everywhere. There was no need to fight for one.

Lin Jianyuan slowly walked through the carriage with a wellness kettle in his hand.

People getting off work at this hour were simply too exhausted.

They were too tired to feel curious, and too tired to lift their heads and take a second look at the strange man walking through the train with a wellness kettle.

Out of the passengers’ sight, the Eye Vine’s vigorous branches swayed. It obediently detached leaf after leaf, scattering them across the passengers like flowers tossed by a celestial maiden.

The moment each leaf broke free, tiny points of light drifted through the air.

That was vitality that was once stolen away by Bloodline. Now, it returned to human bodies in another form.

Wherever the man passed, the numb-faced people staring down at their phones suddenly paused.

They blinked in confusion.

Huh...?

Their eyes didn’t feel so dry anymore.

Their heads also didn’t feel so heavy.

What's going on?

The exhausted passengers were surprised for only a brief moment, then lowered their heads and continued using their phones.

Something so small barely counted for anything in lives spent constantly running just to keep up.

After all, when they got home, endless trivial problems would still be waiting for them.

And tomorrow, they still had work.

Even so. Even if it was only the smallest chance to breathe, even if their eyes and minds felt clear for only a little while...

It was still nice.

So comfortable.

...

[Cocoon] drifted through the web woven from electromagnetic waves.

It had no fixed shape. It was everywhere and nowhere, like a ghost.

A ghost of the electronic age. Perhaps it was the Aberration best suited to this era.

Its birth, growth, and expansion happened incredibly fast.

Countless versions of itself gathered together into one, and yet that one was simultaneously made up of countless fragments of itself.

Those countless fragments roamed every corner of the world, searching and eating.

This era offered far too much prey, and anyone could become its prey. Any age, and anywhere.

Today was no exception. It happily roamed the web woven from electromagnetic waves and randomly selected its prey.

Stupid prey.

Delicious prey.

An endless supply of prey.

Prey... Everywhere!

Ah. You’ll do.

No particular reason. Congratulations! You’re my lucky prey today!

The electronic ghost admired the girl beyond the screen. She lay curled on her side in bed, utterly exhausted, yet completely unable to sleep.

The light from the phone screen burned against the girl’s retinas.

If this continued, she would probably go blind someday.

It’s okay. It’s okay. That day would never come.

Before then, I’ll eat you. So it’s fine.

[Cocoon] smiled and extended a filament.

A soft, lightlike thread silently wrapped around the girl’s finger.

Then it tightened like steel wire and locked into place.

Suddenly!

Something felt wrong!

Something was very wrong! Something... Something incredibly powerful, incredibly formidable, incredibly dangerous... Something very, very dangerous... was approaching!

It’s here, it’s here, it’s here!!!

[Cocoon] panicked and instinctively tried to retract its filament.

But when it pulled, the filament didn’t retract. Instead, its entire body was violently dragged out!

Its... body?

Its thousands upon thousands of... bodies?

[Cocoon] froze.

Countless filaments converged at a single point, and those lightlike threads narrowed infinitely toward that one place.

From that point of convergence came a mocking voice that could barely suppress its anger.

“Finally showed up, huh?”